The Pink House at Appleton (24 page)

That September morning, Boyd was dressed in new khaki shorts and royal-blue shirt. He wore brown boots, so new that the leather squeaked even when he stood still. His eight-year-old body washed and brushed, he felt as excited and anxious as Poppy, tail up, nipping at his ankles. Poppy bothered Yvonne too, climbing up her polka-dotted dress. Hearing her shriek, he nipped back to safe ground at Boyd's feet, feigning innocence. The morning sun was up too and the scent of blue dahlias drifted through the open windows, bringing the sound of Vincent's lawnmower put-putting away in dewy grass. Birds were darting about in the trees and butterflies already sucking at the jacaranda. From the kitchen, Mavis belittled Vincent. This was a new day for Mavis too. For the first time, Boyd would be away from her. She was especially fierce with Vincent.

The Land Rover was waiting by the garage. Papa was in the bathroom brushing his teeth and Boyd could smell his lime-green Limacol cologne. Boyd's new brown satchel, with its new leather smell, lay on the table in the pantry where Mama stood pretending to be busy with Yvonne's hair and giving vague instructions to an agitated Mavis.

Boyd wanted to run to Mama, take off his new clothes and watch the sun's rays creep across the bedclothes. The trembling started and the panic. He wanted to run back to yesterday where everything was known and in its place. He wanted to cuddle up to Mavis in her room with her nipple in his mouth, or listen all morning to Vincent's lawnmower and breathe the scent of freshly cut grass. He wanted to sit on the verandah and see Susan coming across the lawn like Pepsi, hair shiny under the sun.

But Papa dashed from the bathroom and they were off, Boyd plucked from Mama in a wicked moment. Down into the blue valley, the air sharp, across the dark bridge, dust billowing behind them, and through the green fields of canes they went. Swiftly and smoothly they sped, along the asphalt road, past the empty railway station where porters with black caps and red flags gazed into air. Up the winding slopes they went, sometimes parallel with the black piston-punching train, seeing people looking out from the gold and brown carriages. Then Papa, engaging the gears, laboured up the winding hill, passing little box houses on stilts clinging to the slopes, with proud cocks crowing with gusto at every gate. Finally the Land Rover approached the Balaclava road, raced down it for about half a mile and turned into the large cut-stone gate, coming to rest outside the aged white building with its redbrick facade. Dew sparkled on the grass surrounding the building. Big trees were everywhere, their leaves a rich green, bathed in morning sun like honey from heaven. One tree stood on its own, heavily laden with apples as bright red as fresh lipstick. It faced the building where the murmur of children's voices played like music from a harmonica. This was the Balaclava Academy.

Two nuns, in blue habit, waited at the door. They wore very wide and very white bibs. Boyd stared and turned to Papa. Papa got out. The green door of the Land Rover clicked that metallic Land Rover click. The nuns were smiling. Boyd had difficulty getting down from the Land Rover and Papa said, ‘Here we go,' and lifted him down. They stood staring at Sister Margaret Mary and Sister Catherine, who seemed familiar to Boyd. He had seen them before in the pictures in the encyclopaedia, pious nuns with naked pink babies. Sister Margaret Mary went off to one side to talk with Papa, her creamy face businesslike. Papa seemed benign and polished. His brown brogues reflected the sun. His knee-length socks accentuated his firm calves and short khaki trousers showed off his sculptured thighs. Papa was erect, his skin deep-brown and smooth, smelling of his green cologne, smelling of home. Papa knew what he was about; he would make it all right, make the fear and the anxiety go away, make the school do his bidding.

Mama's doctor, Dr Cadien, arrived with his two girls in his cream Jaguar. He let them out, waved to Sister Margaret Mary and Papa and drove off, leaving behind a pleasant smell of leather, petrol and Colgate Palmolive toothpaste. The Cadien girls went straight into the redbrick building, sunlight catching their light-blonde hair, their brown satchels and creamy legs and arms. Images of Susan rushed in upon Boyd but the Balaclava Academy and Sister Margaret Mary shut them out.

‘He'll be fine,' Boyd heard Sister Margaret Mary say to Papa. Her head was inclined, eyeing him severely, and he noted the wrinkled white flesh of her upper lip.

Sister Catherine was smooth and creamy like the Cadien girls and very young. She put her arms around Boyd as he stood in his creased new clothes, with creased back of thighs, creased forehead and creased calves. She smelled like the bedclothes in Mama's room and he instinctively nuzzled up to her. But Sister Margaret Mary had other plans. At her instruction, Miss Robb, an efficient teacher who lived in one of the box houses down the hill, arrived very quickly on the spot. Her purple-black skin, like a sumptuous aubergine, full and tight and perfect, gleamed. Her arms were robust (all the better to manage children in classes), her dark, hobble skirt shining, her bottom rounded and firm. And she whisked him away like a great spider. Boyd heard the Land Rover gurgle into life and saw, over his shoulder, the familiar shape move away to the gate. Down in the valley was Siloah, blue with distance. Beyond the blue lay Appleton, a lone silver chimney finger spouting steam, winking in the sun. It seemed very far away.

He stumbled pell-mell after Miss Robb. Sister Margaret Mary came up behind him rapidly, skirts sweeping the ground, rosaries whispering noisily. Sister Bernadette, another young nun, as coy and as pious as Sister Catherine, with a smooth, dark face, joined them. Boyd stumbled along in his new clothes and new shoes in this new place with the new smells. Sister Bernadette put her thin, tiny arm round him. The new smells were pink, young garden lily smells, the tender pink of nervousness in a new place. And feelings like mountains overwhelmed him. How he wanted to see Mavis's milky-blue smoke curling from the chimney and hear Mama's familiar voice calling his name. Now he wished he could answer and go to her. But it was too late. She was not there and there was no sound of Poppy. At least Susan would be in the classroom and the agony would become ecstasy. Already the scent of her presence came to him.

* * *

At home in the afternoon, Boyd could not get the words out as he tried to tell Mama
everything
that happened on that eventful day at the Balaclava Academy. He spoke about the pretty Chinese girls, Ann-Marie and Dawn; Robert Jureidini, the boy who sat next to him; Adrian Lees, the boy with the milky-white skin whose sister, Carol, also with milky-white skin, ate sugar and butter sandwiches. He spoke excitedly about Diana Delfosse who sang “Don't be Cruel
”
by Elvis Presley in the school bus; his teachers, Miss Casserly and Miss Robb, the two young nuns, Sister Catherine and Sister Bernadette. And Sister Margaret Mary. She really was the holy mother of God. Sister Margaret Mary was all the parents moulded into one. Her word was final, her powers absolute. And everyone knew the Holy Ghost was with her. She was Alpha and Omega, and only the Pope, Pope John the 23
^rd
himself, represented more power and authority at the academy. But Boyd could not speak about the most important person who was missing that day, whose absence felt like a stake through his heart.

‘You'll have Susan for company next week when she returns from Mandeville,' Mama said encouragingly, noticing Boyd's disquiet. It had been the same at Worthy Park Prep, the reluctance to leave her each morning, the difficulty in making friends.

Boyd could not speak, hearing the news.

At lunch that day, Yvonne had said to Papa, ‘Susan won't be at school with Boyd.'

‘Where did you hear that?'

‘Mavis told Mama today.'

‘She's a delicate child,' Papa said. ‘I hear they're keeping her in Mandeville for a week. It's cooler up there and good for her.'

‘What's the matter with her?' Mama had asked.

‘I don't know,' Papa replied, shrugging.

Boyd said nothing at dinner that night, thinking that any comment he made about Susan would immediately expose his secret. He wanted to tell them what he knew about Susan, knowledge that would fill an encyclopaedia. Her very thoughts!

‘At least she won't be a stranger,' Mama told him, noting his reticence. ‘Not like the other children.'

‘And Boyd could play with her, Mama,' Yvonne remarked joyfully. ‘And she could play with Boyd!'

In bed that night, as his eyes closed, the commanding scent of the day was of new exercise books, new leather satchels, sharpened pencils and the ubiquitous girl smell, like jacaranda in the sun. There was the lunch room scent of packed lunches: cheese and currant bun, brown bread and bologna sausage,
animal biscuits
, guava jelly and ripe bananas in wicker baskets. And there were the Chinese girls with batting eyelids, all coy and pretty and virgin. But overshadowing everything was the constant fear, deep in his marrow, of this new place full of new people. Fear of Miss Robb with her smooth skin and her sharp ruler, Sister Margaret Mary with the rosaries and severe manner. And there was the nervous smell of the classroom but most of all the weepy sadness of absence.

* * *

Sister Margaret Mary ran a healthy regime. Every morning, Miss Casserly, the prettiest of the young teachers, assembled everyone in a semi-circle as the sun came up through the trees, as the dew sparkled on the grass, as they breathed the scent of apple blossoms. Miss Casserly, skin like honey, hair shiny and curly, was very good at callisthenics and never slapped anyone with a ruler. She appreciated every effort as one's best.
Stretch and pull. Point and pull. Up and down. Waddle like a duck! Feet out. Feet in. Up and down. Arms out. Arms up. Down. Up. Down. Up. Down. Waddle like a duck!
The children liked it so much and Miss Casserly was so entertaining that they did not want it to stop. But it was meant to be short and sweet, to get the blood into their cheeks and their brains alert. Sister always stopped it with the ringing of the big brass bell. And they all trooped back into the classrooms – some still waddling like ducks – to sit behind little desks (at the right hand of God the Father). Boys in royal-blue shirts, khaki trousers, brown socks and shoes, and girls in royal blue tunics, Daz-white blouses, white socks and brown shoes, all eager, all small, all glowing, as they made their way into the school building to learn new words and other things to wonder at.

Many of the words came from the lips of Sister Margaret Mary but some also came from Sister Catherine and from the green catechism book and from other places. The days were full of
Magnificat, Nunc Dimittis
,
the Apostles' Creed
and
the
Beatitudes
(
Blessed are
the meek, for they shall inherit the earth
). The days whispered
Born of the Virgin Mary
,
suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died and
was buried.
Even the creamy, pretty, painted statues in the corners of the classrooms proclaimed
Holy Eucharist, Sacred Heart,
Immaculate Conception
. Every day Angels' voices said
Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord
is with thee. Blessed art thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.
And always, somewhere, voices murmured
Thy will be done now and forever amen
. Boyd wanted very much to be at the right hand of God the Father and to say the wonderful words. He already knew that Susan was the Virgin Mary with her pink lips and knowing look, waiting with goodness and mercy, waiting for the moment.

* * *

Beyond the low walls of the school, the people of Balaclava thought it was a great blessing to have such decent, well-behaved children attending that fine establishment in their midst. Mr Tecumseh Burton, the local tailor, he of the black Chevrolet and American accent, yards of gabardine across his knees and pins in his mouth, certainly thought so.

He and the nice people of Balaclava looked forward to the school's garden parties, fêtes, concerts, maypole dances and fundraising activities. Sister Margaret Mary and her staff excelled in the organising of these events. The Balaclava people knew that, even with the Harvest Festival that Pastor Nind at the Anglican Church managed so well; there were pitifully few social occasions in the town when they could dress up in their best frocks, single pearls and flannels, drink light rum-punch, eat homemade cakes and ice cream, stand in rapt attention at infant theatre performances and, as the string lights came on in the evening, sit in awe before a little string quartet atop the wooden stage on the lawn, long after the Jaguar and Prefect-driving families had left, knowing that they had been properly entertained.

At the beginning of term, the Balaclava people and the parents received the usual notice. It was typed on an Olympia typewriter with the symbol @ in a pretty border round it and run off in the dozens by the school's Gestetner machine. The notice proclaimed that the staff and boys and girls of the Balaclava Academy would be presenting
H.M.S Pinafore
(
or
,
The Lass That Loved a Sailor
), a Gilbert and Sullivan operetta. Recipients of the notice were beside themselves.

Mr Burton learned his trade in Harlem, New York, and knew what an operetta was, even though he had never been to one. He saw the possibilities immediately. An operatic production meant clothes, costumes and design. He was the master of all three, even if he did say so himself. It was also an opportunity for him to introduce his nephew, Edgar, whose education at a fourth rate private school in Kingston qualified him for nothing. Who knew what could come out of a meeting with Sister Margaret Mary? He believed in creating opportunities. He was teaching the boy how to cut cloth and manage the bookkeeping but his heart was not in it. Like every young man in the town, Edgar fancied a job at Appleton Estate. But he was at the back of a very long queue. Mr Burton did not know socially any of the senior people at the factory who could pull a few strings for him. It didn't help that Edgar spent most of his time loitering at the club with questionable young women and generally giving himself a bad name. The moment he got a job, Edgar would be asked to pack his bags. Mr Burton had already made up his mind about that.