The Pink House at Appleton (13 page)

On the evening of Mama's dinner party, it was not intellectual stimulation that absorbed Papa, although he was stimulated beyond belief. It made his heart pop and his senses tingle and, Christ; it was a wonderful thing for a man. But he hadn't gone out of his way to seek it. All of a sudden it had come upon him, snared him, made him feel young and vigorous and dangerous all over again. It could not be denied. He knew it, absolutely. What manner of man would walk away from such a prospect? The tension drove him too; it was what he thrived on. He would confound the risks and manage them as he managed his life.

The first of the guests to arrive was Mr Samms, all spit and polish, wearing his recently trimmed Clark Gable moustache. In the early night light, the tight black waves of his hair glistened. He sat with Papa smoking and tossing cigarette butts into the hedge circling the verandah, the very hedge Vincent had laboured to trim and tidy up that day, including removing a hundred cigarette butts, lollipop wrappers and dead leaves.

Miss Hutchinson arrived next, wearing a black dress that showed off her slender honey-brown arms, smooth shoulders and firm, ripe bosom.

‘Get to your room, all of you,' Papa commanded the children when she arrived, assuming they would be up to mischief during dinner and making sure to put a stop to it before it started. But she came to them with her double string of pearls and her effervescence.

‘
Tropic of Cancer
,' Boyd whispered in her ear as she bent down to kiss him. Intoxicated with her woman's scent, he wanted to touch and snuggle up but held back.

‘It's for big boys,' Miss Hutchinson whispered mischiev-ously, stroking his chin. But she smiled encouragingly. ‘Soon, very soon.'

On the verandah the Dowdings arrived to a gentle, relaxed reception. Then Boyd was conscious of much activity, of an unfamiliar but elegant bouquet sweeping into the house. Ann Mitchison had arrived. He crept down the hall in the dark, wanting to hear the swish of skirts, the unmistakable sound of pearls and other jewellery, the constant murmur of voices, the clink of glasses. Most of the action was taking place on the verandah where Miss Hutchinson's stylish laugh could be heard. But then there was a lull in the flurry of sound and Boyd heard footsteps trooping into the dining room. He shrank back out of sight, catching the first thrilling wave of new woman scent, more ravishing than Patricia Moodie's.

As he watched from the darkness, the seated diners seemed like a grand painting in their rich colours and deep shadows. There was Ann Mitchison, the mother of Susan Mitchison, sitting next to Papa, light-brown hair like polished horse's mane, cheeks like the pink of a ripened mango, teeth straight and white and even. Her eyes were grey-blue like Mama's crockery, but the part of her that held his attention was her lips. They were Mama's red lips but not firm and round like hers. Ann Mitchison's lips were luscious, with fleshy lines, heavy from end to end; they moved with every word she uttered, parted and poised, quivering, sensual and alive. And the burnished red of the lipstick gave her lips drama and romance in the light of the dining room. They were film stars' lips.

Boyd remembered little else but those lips; not the powder-blue linen dress that the owner of the lips wore, not even the striking baroque earrings of pearl and light-gold mounted on black enamel. There was little memory of Mr Mitchison, whose yellow-gold wristwatch flashed in the light, but whose face had been obscured by the vibrant head of Miss Hutchinson. Papa's eyes had been hooded, his own lips eagerly smiling, jousting and parrying, unable to get away from the relentlessly seeking lips of his guest. He had seemed cornered. And Boyd remembered one more thing – the name of Mr Ramsook, the coolie pig-killer, of all people, spoken by Ann Mitchison, bringing a knowing nod from Papa.

‘They are good people,' Ann Mitchison said. ‘Mr Ramsook only wants a chance. He's willing to work and there's work that needs doing.'

Papa just kept nodding.

Boyd imagined that he had been at the pictures, seeing Ann Mitchison's fleshy wine-red lips filling the screen, dripping in Technicolor, mouthing adult words, waiting for the embrace, waiting for the passion and the kiss music. The memory only made him more excited about his ecstatic designs upon Susan.
That night in bed, the windows wide open, the curtains streaming, he climbed in through her bedroom window. And they licked pink lollipops, threw the crispy wrapping paper on the floor and touched. And Susan's scent was strawberry.

They met up at the coolie settlement in the afternoon heat, two Land Rovers parked in the red dirt of the estate road under the trees at the gate. Papa got there before her and, hands on hips, was speaking to Mr Ramsook, who was dressed in a soiled, sleeveless vest and washed-out dungarees pushed deep into black waterboots. Two other men with him showed their respect by looking down at their shadows, black hair falling over their eyes.

Ann Mitchison approached, looking out of place, Papa thought, in such desperate surroundings. Her creamy hand held onto the straw hat on her head. A flowery blue and white cotton handkerchief hung about her neck and the sleeves of her pink striped cotton shirt were rolled up at the elbows. All the coolie women came out to look. Never before had the wife of any manager visited the barracks. Papa turned from Mr Ramsook to confer with his companion, who, under the full sun and in such a rude open space, seemed extraordinarily young and vulnerable, in spite of her self-confidence. When it was over, Papa settled with Mr Ramsook, who bowed first to Papa and then in the direction of his benefactor. The other men kept on bowing as Papa walked away.

Under the trees in the dust at the gate between the parked Land Rovers, Ann Mitchison smiled with gratitude and drew near to Papa. Her faint perfume reached his nostrils and, in the heat, evoked outrageous juvenile lust.

‘Thank you so much, Harold,' she said. ‘Will you stop by this evening for tea? There's so much to discuss.'

Papa seemed to hesitate for just a moment.

‘Close any loopholes,' Ann added.

‘Yes, of course,' Papa assured her. And he heard himself say words that were not calculated. ‘Far better than going up to the club.' But he'd hesitated because he knew that Tim Mitchison was in Kingston and that he would be alone with Ann if he took up her invitation.

Ann gave a girlish laugh. ‘How nice,' she said, smiling self-consciously, the kind that told of growing intimate knowledge. Papa's smile said the same. It was not the first time they had met up under the Appleton sun in some undistinguished place in the twelve thousand acres of the estate.

* * *

That hot August night, Mama sat with Mavis in the pantry, the coolest room in the house, going over the grocery list. Barrington was demonstrating his fast-draw action, in the manner of the Rawhide Kid, to Yvonne and Vincent out on the porch between the kitchen and the laundry room. But Vincent's eye rested only on Mavis and his heart overflowed with deep desires.

Boyd's heart overflowed with desires too as he stole away in the pretty darkness to the periwinkle fence. Glancing back at the house, he saw the yellow light from the opened windows gushing onto the lawn. He heard the Mullard radio:
All day all night, Marianne, down by the seaside sifting sand, even
little children loved Marianne, down by the seaside sifting sand.
In the darkness no one could see him. It was the best time to do it, in the dark. The pictures in his head, as he came upon Susan, were romping voluptuous, like the pictures in the encyclopaedia.

Creeping stealthily towards the fence, he barely got through it before he heard, just barely, a vehicle approaching. Surprisingly, the headlights were switched off. The vehicle came in sight, a lumbering dark shape. Boyd peered out from the darkness expecting to see Mr Mitchison, but it was a familiar Land Rover passing slowly, surreptitiously.

His quest aborted, Boyd returned to the verandah, heart pounding, breathing hard. He wondered why Papa had been driving without headlights towards the Mitchisons and looking around so suspiciously. And he instinctively thought of the unsuspecting Mama in the kitchen, deligently preparing the family's grocery list with Mavis.

Later that night, among the crotons, Boyd sniffed the streaming
Essen
from Mavis's room and heard her music,
Day-ho, day-ho, day dey light and me want go home
. If only he could go to Susan as he went to Mavis. If only it was so easy. He saw Mavis pacing about in her panties and brassiere, saw the sensuous shadows in her room, heard the knock at the door and saw Mavis turn to open it. Vincent stood there blinking.

‘What you want, big head?' Mavis seemed extraordinarily casual.

‘Is who singing?' Vincent stammered, staring.

‘Is Shirley Bassey, from foreign.'

‘Harry Belafonte sing
Day-ho
. Who Shirley Bassey?'

‘You deaf or something? Ah told you is Shirley Bassey from foreign.'

‘So, Harry Belafonte don't sing it no more?'

‘You ask too many damn fool questions. Is what you want?'

‘Where you get radio from?'

‘Don't be fresh. You going to stand there staring at me all night?'

‘If you say so,' Vincent returned, his witty reply shocking him.

‘No, ah don't say so. Ah don't say so at all. If is woman you looking for, go and get your own. You not going to find any around here.'

‘Ah don't have no woman,' Vincent confessed, looking up, sensing opportunity.

Mavis laughed in his face, kept on laughing and had to hold on to her sides. When she stopped laughing, she gave him a pitiful look, wiping the tears from her eyes.

Vincent hung his head like a scolded child. He had never lived next door to an attractive young woman, never felt the kind of unruly sensations that coursed through his body at that moment. ‘You can get Fats Domino on it?'

Mavis fixed him with a vile stare. ‘Ah get Fats Domino, Chuck Berry, Professor Longhair, The Coasters, everybody.'

Vincent looked at the floor. ‘You going out?' he asked her in a cowed voice.

‘Is none of your business,' Mavis told him. ‘And stop knocking at me door, you lickle fool. Go and get a woman. Clear off!'

Boyd, hearing Vincent's cruel dismissal, cleared off too, running back to the periwinkle fence, hoping to see Papa returning from the Mitchison's. But back at the fence, no Land Rover appeared, only the winking lights of the
peeny-waalies
meandering through the night. But he waited.

When Mavis pulled the door shut and returned to her dresser, shaking her head, she did not see Vincent's smile. It was impossible for her to know that he had experienced dizzying heights of sexual delight during their little encounter. Vincent thanked his employers. He thanked his good fortune. He thanked God. Mavis had not, as he had feared she would, slammed the door in his face. No. She had engaged with him. She had let him watch her in a state of undress. No other woman would have allowed that. No woman in his whole life experience had let him come even close; just one look at his dripping eye had turned them away. Vincent believed that for all Mavis's bluster she had feelings for him. He'd heard that women were like that, saying no when they meant yes. Why else would she have allowed him so much latitude?

And so, in the extremes of his delusion, Vincent returned to Mavis's room a little later. He knocked gingerly at the half-opened door and made as if to turn away when there was no answer. But he knew she was there because he could hear music, the words of a song that, in his dreams, came from his own lips:
Since I met you baby, my whole life has changed.
Brushing his fear aside, he pushed the door wide open. Mavis had discarded her brassiere and now wore only panties, lying on her bed, looking out the window at the yellow moon. She turned, smiling, but seeing who it was, scowled horribly, sprang up and pointed a malevolent finger.

‘You again! Get out! You idiot. Get out!'

‘But,' Vincent started, remembering the moment when so much seemed possible.

‘Get out, you Cyclops! Get out, before ah call Mrs B.'

‘But, but.' Vincent was confused.
She had let him watch her half-naked
. The encouragement, the hidden show of feelings for him, those little looks, meant nothing?

He got his answer as Mavis slammed the door more violently than ever, shaking the rafters, sending him slinking back to his lonely room. Hurt and dejected, he barely made out, from the corner of his eye, the form of a man approaching Mavis's room. Vincent stopped in his tracks. He saw the strange man lean his bicycle against the side of the building in the dark, enter Mavis's room unhindered and close the door quickly behind him.

When Boyd finally left the darkness at the periwinkle fence, instead of returning to the house, he turned again towards Mavis's room. Mavis was going to a dance. She had spoken about it when she served dinner.

‘Just you watch out for the hooligans,' Papa had advised her.

‘They never bother me, Mr Brookes,' Mavis replied.

As he carried on to Mavis's room, Boyd heard Poppy's growls of alarm and saw the dim light of a bicycle lamp. A man was approaching up the back path. They breathed the scent of a bold cigarette, Four Aces probably, and vulgar cologne. They saw the man enter Mavis's room. Boyd bounded away on light toes and took up his position by the frangipani bush further down the path. Soon the dim light of the bicycle appeared. Mavis sat cross-legged on the crossbar, the man hunched above her, his gold teeth flashing, talking low. He was not wearing bicycle clips and his turn-ups were big and awkward as he pedalled. They seemed very happy, Mavis giggling, eyes flashing, her
Essen
pervading the night. She had never spoken about this stranger.

Vincent saw it all. He'd seen them earlier together in the room in an encounter that outraged him. He'd seen them from his latest discovery that night of a hole in the wall between his room and Mavis's. He felt forsaken, and there was a scene in the dark drama unfolding in his head, in which he put up two vicious fingers at the bicycle rider. He knew he would see the man again later that night when Mavis was danced out, when they would roll about on her single bed. The man was no good. There were dozens like him in the parish, wanting only one thing. If only he could make Mavis see that. As the drama in his head grew darker, he fought to keep out the inhuman acts that should strike down the stranger, acts that he knew he was capable of.