The Daughters of Eden Trilogy: The Shadow Catcher, Fever Hill & the Serpent's Tooth (33 page)

He felt a pang of concern. Over the past few weeks her face had regained the invalid sallowness which he had hoped was gone for good. But how was he, an old fellow of seventy-three, to draw her out? A girl of eleven? What did he know about such a being?

Madeleine had told him that Sophie was passionate about nature, so he tried to think of something to say about alligators. In vain. Then he remembered that question about the Cockpits.

‘I wonder if you know’, he said, looking straight ahead, ‘why the sanatorium on the other side of town is called Burntwood?’

Out of the corner of his eye he saw her turn and look up at him. ‘Um. Because it got burnt in the Christmas Rebellion?’

‘Precisely. Well done.’

She sucked in her lips.

A guessing game, thought Jocelyn. Yes, good show. Capital. ‘What about Alice Grove?’ he asked.

She frowned, looking suddenly very like her sister. Then shook her head.

He told her it was named for his mother, who had been sweet and kind but also extremely determined, and had made her husband build a schoolhouse for the helpers’ children.

A little more colour returned to her cheeks, and Jocelyn felt an absurd sense of triumph. ‘What about Fever Hill?’ he said, giving the reins a jaunty flick. ‘How d’you think that got its name?’

‘I don’t know,’ she answered promptly, ‘but I’ve been wanting to find out for ages.’

Jocelyn told her how the estate had originally been called Monroe’s Pen, after old Benneit Monroe, but after the great hurricane of 1712 a fever had swept the Northside – and at that point Jocelyn realized with horror that this was the last story he should be telling. But Sophie was waiting, so he floundered on. ‘And I’m rather sorry to say’, he said with a wince, ‘that old Benneit’s youngest daughter, er, perished. Of the fever. So he decided to change the name in her memory.’

Sophie took that in silence. Then she asked, ‘What was the daughter’s name?’

‘I believe it was Catrion,’ he muttered.

‘How old was she?’

‘D’you know, I couldn’t say.’ The child had been eleven.

He threw her a worried glance, and wondered what she was thinking. There had been times during the drive when she had looked as if she were puzzling something out: something awful, and far too big for her to manage. And once, she had asked him a question which clearly mattered enormously. But she had framed it in that bewildering way that children have of asking something which gives no clue as to why they need to know.

‘Will the policemen come about Victory?’ she had asked, and Jocelyn had said no, for it had been an accident, and since he himself was a magistrate he could sort things out on his own.

He wondered whether his answer had laid to rest whatever childish anxieties were secretly plaguing her. He doubted he’d ever find out. With Sophie he felt the same baffled helplessness he used to experience with his son.

And for the tenth time he wished that he didn’t have to go to Kingston the following day. Of all the times to be needed at the Assembly. This dreadful affair of the pickney, and now this child beside him, clearly in need of help.

She was gazing solemnly ahead of her, thinking heaven knew what disquieting thoughts. In desperation he asked the title of the book on her lap.

‘The Gods of Ancient Greece
,’ she said. She explained that she was returning it to Mrs Herapath, from whom it had been borrowed.

Now he really did feel bad. Thousands of volumes at Fever Hill, and she was compelled to borrow one from Olivia Herapath. It wouldn’t do. How could he in all conscience persist in keeping the library out of bounds?

Although of course if he did let her in, it would mean putting Catullus and Fielding out of reach. And de Quincy and Ovid. And those Brontë girls. In fact it would require a wholesale reorganization.

To his surprise, he found that he could contemplate the prospect without too much displeasure. Hang it all, it was about time the old place was sorted out.

They reached the village of Salt Wash, and the press of traffic became so great that they slowed to a walk. Higglers dragged handcarts piled with mangoes and paw-paws and yams. A group of women in strident print gowns strode past with trays of hard-dough and cassava pone on their heads. A sugar wain turned off for the quay, and as it passed, Jocelyn noticed that the sacks bore the Eden mark.

Damn and blast it to
hell
. Since that confounded ball at Parnassus he’d been coming across reminders of the boy wherever he went. Well well, he told himself. Nothing to be done about it now. All water under the bridge.

He was relieved when they left the quays and turned inland for the market square, but as soon as he saw it his heart sank. Usually he enjoyed market day, but this morning all he could see were the pickneys: dodging in and out of the traffic, hitching rides on tailgates, pestering their mothers for quattie dolls and chocho pie, and that sickly scarlet syrup they all adored.

He saw Sophie gazing at them, and silently cursed.

‘Uncle Jocelyn?’ she said in a small voice.

‘Yes?’

‘How will they stop Victory becoming a duppy?’

Good Lord. What could he say to that? Dismiss the whole notion of duppies as balderdash? The trouble was, after seventy-three years on the Northside, he knew that it wasn’t. Or rather, that if enough people believe in a thing, it acquires a reality of its own.

‘They can’t,’ he said. ‘The trick is to stop the duppy walking. Stop him, er, bothering people. D’you see?’

‘How do they do that?’

He blew out a long breath. ‘Well. They put slices of lime on the, er, eyes. Rub the body with lime juice and nutmeg. Sew up the pockets.’ He glanced at her, hoping he’d said enough. But she was waiting for him to go on.

He cleared his throat. ‘They fill the pillow with parched peas and corn, and put it in the coffin along with all sorts of other things to keep the duppy quiet. Salt. Madam Fate. And something called “compellance powder”. No idea what that is.’

She nodded.

‘Rum on the grave,’ he went on, ‘and more corn and salt. And often they plant pigeon peas nearby. And then, nine days after the, er, passing, they hold something called a nine-night. That’s like a wake, when they do all sorts of things to send the duppy to sleep. Sing songs. Tell stories. Have a decent supper. Can be rather jolly, I believe.’

But Sophie was not to be deflected by jollity. ‘Does it work
every
time? Does the duppy always go to sleep?’

He paused. The answer was no, or why would there be duppy stories? But he was dashed if he was going to tell her that. ‘It does when Grace McFarlane has anything to do with it,’ he said. ‘Very powerful woman, Grace. Extraordinarily good at nine-nights. Never been known to fail.’

He wondered if he had laid it on a bit thick, but to his relief some of the tension left the small face.

They pulled up outside Olivia’s studio. More pickneys. More gleaming ivory smiles and plump, shiny black limbs.

Lord help us, he thought. That poor little boy. What a ghastly, lonely death.

And it was your fault, Jocelyn Monroe. All you had to do was have that confounded ruin made safe. But no. You were so wrapped up in your own affairs that you allowed a death-trap to remain on your land.

Well dammit, man, you’d better do something to prevent it happening again. When you get back, you’re going to have words with that manager of yours, and order a thorough review of the entire property. Hang it all, children are curious. It’s no good telling the little tykes to stay out of trouble. It’s in their nature to get
into
it.

A thorough review. Yes, that’s the ticket.

He glanced at the solemn little girl beside him and thought, God help me, what if it had been her?

Chapter Twenty-Two

There’s something about markets that gives Ben the hump. Maybe it’s all them darkies laughing and chattering and calling each other ‘sistah’ and ‘breddah’ and ‘muddah’, like they’re one big sodding family. Or maybe it’s all that sodding fruit.

Ben
hates
fruit; and it’s everywhere in this country. Hills, gardens, side of the road. Whole bloody country never stops growing. Right now, on the main road to Falmouth – the one they call the Fever Hill road – there’s these three fat darkie women up ahead with great big piles of fruit on their heads. Mangoes, bananas, jackfruit, shaddock; guavas and paw-paws and coolie plums.

Robbie would of loved it. He would of been in clover. Ben don’t know exactly what clover is, except that it’s something topper that everybody likes, and Robbie would of been in it.

So what with the fruit and the darkies and that, Ben could do without this sodding market.

He’s hot and dizzy on account of being off his feed, and his chest is all tight after that dream. Last night he was kipping out on this beach past Salt Wash – it’s nice there, peaceful, with just the little waves for company – and that’s when he had that sodding dream.

Him and Robbie are having larks on the beach. The sea’s like blue glass in the sun, and the sand’s so bright you can’t hardly look. And him and Robbie are all clean, not a louse between them, and they’re running along grabbing sea-grapes and chucking them at each other. Laugh! Do they laugh!

When Ben wakes up he’s making these little jerky moans like he wants to cry. He
hates
that. When Robbie got killed he never cried once, not once. And he’s not going to start now.

He’s coming into Falmouth, and the streets are looking all right, with their fancy pink and blue houses and the trees with the yellow flowers hanging down. Couple of john crows prossing about on a fence, and he thinks about chucking a stone at them. Decides not to bother. They’re outsiders, like him. Raggedy black wings and ugly red heads, and that ruff round their long skinny necks, like a dirty ha’penny collar. And like him, they’re getting ready to work the market, and see what they can click.

Streets are filling up with darkies and coloureds and Chinks and that. Not many whites about, but Ben don’t mind, cos he knows he blends in all right. He’s got his dungarees and his calico shirt and his tatty straw hat, and them rope-soled shoes that round here they call bulldogs. So to the darkies he’s just another walkfoot buckra what can’t afford a jack-mule. He learnt some of the darkie talk from this cook on the boat coming out, and that helps with the blending in, and all.

He’s in Duke Street now, and as he goes past the church he spits it a good one, but through his fist, so that nobody sees. These days he always spits at churches; cos churches mean preachers, and preachers mean the parson what killed Robbie.

When he thinks of the parson he gets this cold feeling in his belly, like he’s swallowed a stone. He’s only seen the parson once since he got here, just a flash as the carriage rattled past, but it was enough. Parson sitting inside so upright and proper in his chimney-pot hat, with his hands on his cane and his little red screwed-up mouth. Soft as shit and twice as nasty.

Ben goes hot and cold just thinking about him. And about that gun, too. He’s left it tucked up safe in that tree out on the Eden road – but even now, when he’s miles away, he can feel it watching him. It’s like it owns him or something. And he’s only had it a week.

He was padding the hoof a few miles to the south when he come upon this village, and seen this pony-trap stopped under a tree. Nobody about; must be a doctor on his rounds or something. And he wanders closer, and there’s this little handgun poking out from under a cushion, just asking to be clicked. He can’t hardly believe his luck. So over he goes, and stuffs it down his front in a brace of shakes, and cuts the lucky out of there. And when he’s well into the bush, he gets it out for a look.

He’s never held a gun before in his natural, and his heart’s thumping so loud he can hear it. He’s never killed nothing before, neither. Never got the chance. But now he points the gun at this john crow in a tree and pulls the trigger. And gets nothing but an empty click. Bloody gun’s got no bloody
bullets
, has it? That doctor must of kept it just for show. Bloody marvellous. No bloody bullets in your gun.

So now it’s off to the sodding market for Ben Kelly, and maybe this time he can click a
loaded
gun, thank you very much – or at least a few sodding bullets.

He passes a couple of darkie women sitting under a bean tree. Bright cotton headkerchiefs like all the darkie women wear, and green and red print dresses hitched to the knees, and their stuff all spread out on the ground around them. Big stacks of hard-dough, and necklaces of black-eyed seeds, and paper twists of wangla nut brittle that he can smell from here.

‘Eh, bwoy!’ the big one calls out to him. ‘Buckra bwoy! You too
meagre
, bwoy! Need feedin up! Come buy likkle candy from Cecilia, nuh! Come buy likkle hard-dough, bwoy!’

Ben don’t say nothing. Just shoots them a look.

The other one waggles her finger at him; great big grin on her face. ‘You mind Cecilia, nuh! You eat plenty hard-dough, an drink good cerasee tea – an no time at all, bwoy, you grow big and muscle-strong. An then, mm-
mm
,’ she smacks her lips, ‘you be handsome-to-pieces!’ They slap their thighs and roar with laughter.

Ben still don’t say nothing. He just walks on, and leaves them laughing. He’s decided he don’t much like these Jamaican darkies. Back in Shelton Street he never paid darkies no mind. They had a bad time of it in London, and all. But out here they’re so happy and polite.
Tank you, me breddah, tank you; me bery well, tank you, sistah!
What they got to be so happy about? They’re just as poor as the ones in Shelton Street.

He’s thinking on that as he reaches the square, and the market crashes over him like a wave. Spicy dust-smells and horse-shit and sweat; cocoanut milk and pickled mangoes and greasy saltfish fritters. And all them people yelling and joking and haggling: darkies and Chinamen and Syrians; coloureds looking down their noses at everybody; and coolie girls in bangles and brilliant floaty prints.

Robbie would of loved all them colours. Yellow and green and red, purple and blue and orange. He wouldn’t of known the
names
for half of them, but he’d of loved them just the same.