The Pink House at Appleton (37 page)

Boyd didn't know why he could hear the diesel train so clearly as it sailed up the tracks through the valley, making smooth metallic sounds like a butcher sharpening his knives. But it was because everyone on the verandah stood transfixed, unable to speak, in silence. He saw Miss Hutchinson rush towards Mama in a slow blur, her scarf, bought on the streets of Paris, flowing as if in a sudden wind. She fell to the ground at Mama's side and there was a flurry of hands and scarf and hair. Mr Moodie went up to Papa to try to pacify him but was pushed stiffly away. Yvonne, at the door suddenly, started to cry and wet herself. Mavis's untainted shadow appeared and bent down to tend to Mama and the battered Barrington, who was bleeding from the mouth.

Boyd stood still in the dark and did not know where he stopped and where the earth began. He didn't know how to get from the lawn to Mama lying on the floor in a heap, trying to get to her feet, weeping, sagging on her haunches like the cows in the meadow. But he knew that Papa and they, the Brookeses, were
those people
now. Papa had punched Mama to the ground in the brutal manner of labouring people. He'd turned the entire family into
those people
overnight, shattered their sun-lit,
Essen
-filled, music-from-the-radio lives.

Boyd was cold, the earth moving under his feet, and he was tumbling down, down, down. Someone took him by the hand. It was Mavis. Her hand was warm and steady and good. He embraced it. Then Papa, appearing like a short little man in khakis and brown brogues, was leaving. The car keys were in his hand and he was walking fast across the verandah and down the steps. They saw Mr Moodie remonstrating with the little man in khakis, caught in the headlights of the car. Boyd heard the tyres scatter the pebbles in the driveway as the car sped away. Then they were alone, breathing their own fear, scared of what the little man in khakis and brogues might do next.

That night the music went away. Almost everything that was Appleton died, the crimson feelings and the tranquility, the warmth and the certainty and the living.

Everyone went away. Aunt Enid arrived in the Vauxhall Velox, Mr Fenton Fitz-Henley at the wheel, and took them away while Papa was at work. The Vauxhall Velox was accompanied by a Bedford truck with a growling engine and driven by a man who was the dead stamp of Mr Samms who had gone away.

They went to live with Aunt Enid in her big house on Waterloo Avenue in Kingston. From there, in 1958, Aunt Enid left for London with Fenton Fitz-Henley, to his empty house in South Kensington. And Boyd went too. Aunt Enid begged Mama for three days, saying firmly, ‘I will look after him, Vicky, as my own child.' And Mama wept but let Boyd go. She knew he would be safe with his Aunt Enid, who had seen the world and was very capable. Mama remained at the Waterloo Avenue house with the other children. There the bougainvillea was electric-purple and the sprinklers were on the lawn all morning under a champagne sun. Ice cream men on white bicycle carts stopped by the gate every other day at about eleven o'clock, during
Housewives' Choice
, ringing their silver bells, and the children rushed out in the sparkling sun with their pennies and thruppences and ate ice cream with little wooden spoons.

* * *

Papa came home late in the evening to the pink house to find it empty, swallows shrieking on the electricity poles and dark clouds on the horizon. Mavis served him his supper and then she too went away. She went away with her radio and her
Essen
and her
Cutex,
and some very nice clothes Mama had left for her. And she placed the note containing Mama's new address in her bosom. When she got home to Taunton, she locked herself in her room. She recalled Boyd in the room with her and wept as if her heart would break because all the good memories flooded back. When she was all cried out, she looked at the address again. She folded the note carefully into her purse while her little radio wailed irreverently,
Whole
Lotta Shakin' Goin' On.
A month to that day she would take the diesel train into Kingston and meet up with Mama again, and learn how to run a Kingston house. For her it was like taking the BOAC to England.

Papa, feeling the cold emptiness of the house, hurried over to Ann Mitchison in the quickening night, wondering whether, in spite of everything, there might be some hope. Ann needed solace. But Ann Mitchison wasn't there. Evadne, on her way out, her heart heavy, her future blighted, met him at the door.

‘Dr Cadien come to the house to see her, sah,' Evadne said. ‘He take her to the clinic and now she gone, sah.' And Papa knew it was hopeless. He was on his own.

Ann Mitchison had left that morning, packing as much as she could into the Land Rover. Dr Cadien's diagnosis had come like a bolt out of the blue. But she was a strong woman and knew how to cope. She went away to Monymusk sugar estate to be with friends and from there, early in the New Year, travelled to England by BOAC.

That same night, Papa drove to the club and met up with Moodie. It was a sombre place. They got blind drunk and created quite a spectacle. Someone mentioned that Edgar had been located, in a Mandeville hospital, beaten half to death by the husband of his latest conquest. But no one wanted to talk about the latest tragedy – grown men did not have the heart. Ralston served more drinks that night than at any time in all the years he'd worked at the club.

When, at last, the dew heavy on the grass, the tennis courts dark and empty, it was time to go, Papa started to cry. He didn't want to go home to an empty house. He didn't want to go home to a house where no one would hear his footsteps on the floorboards, where Poppy would never bark again as he drove up like an estate lion in the dead of night, to the house where all his dreams had died, to the house that
could be the manager's house
. Regrets lay heavy in his heart, on his head, in every step that he took. He was just another one of those innumerable Jamaican men who couldn't manage it; full of talk and plans, full of bluster, but not possessing the steel to see it through. He was like the rest of them:
lacking
. And for the first time in his life, he did not feel in control.

But that night he was not alone. Someone, returning home to the only place he knew, breathed Papa's sugary scent and saw his broken figure slumped on the darkened verandah. He entered the house through the silent kitchen, machete in hand. Papa did not see the muscular shape rising up from the dark of the drawing room behind him, his scent alien and rank, and might have confused flashing steel, in that split-second before it struck him, with the gentle flash of Appleton moonlight.

* * *

That last morning, Boyd ran to the periwinkle fence, silent voices calling him out, events making him forgetful of Papa's warning. Poppy joined him, nervous at first, one leg off the ground. Boyd patted him, softly, tenderly. Wispy blue smoke still drifted up from Miss Chatterjee's house across the valley. Susan, lips full and red, waited for them at the fence, tingling with shock and news.

But Papa said they shouldn't play.

They went deep into the orchard, into the forest, summoned by voices that they could not disobey. Saplings lashed at them as they ran but they didn't care. Boyd wanted to run hard, run far, run and not come back. They came to an open space where the sun shafted down on a soft carpet of lime-green. It was the place of the pink women. They lay down on the grass and orange blossoms fell from Susan's hair. There were a hundred things on their lips that they wanted to talk about. But they knew and so did not say.

‘There was a big fire,' Boyd finally gasped.

‘Mummy knew the person in it,' Susan replied, breathing hard.

‘Miss Chatterjee. The firemen rescued her with all her tennis things. My Papa was there, putting the hose on the fire.'

‘She died,' Susan said, in a small, hesitant voice.

Boyd didn't answer. It was nice sitting next to Susan among the green leaves under the sun in the quiet, inhaling the trembling scent of her. But it was difficult to sit still. They had not seen one another since the heat and the pink in the grass, not since Boyd's painful episode with Papa in the drawing room, not since Poppy's hurt, not since their frantic waving, not since the music stopped. He didn't want it to end.

Papa said they couldn't play.

They wanted to run wild in the meadow, race down the slope and throw themselves in the grass. They wanted to roll about and wrestle in the fallen blossoms, faces turned to the sky, and cry out. They wanted that day to be like the first day in the grass under the trees. And their hearts beat as if they were in the heat of the midday sun; the faint scent of boiling sugar in the air, the warm wind soft against their cheeks. They didn't want it to end.

‘We're leaving,' Susan said. ‘Daddy's meeting us at Monymusk.'

Boyd's heart leaped but he said nothing even then, although words were piling up behind his tongue; words that could not be spoken at another time.

Poppy nipped at Susan's feet and sniffed at her dress. She shrieked and Poppy ran off, tongue loose, eyes mischevious, tail lashing, his limp noticeable. Susan ran off into the green after him, the sun at her back. Boyd went after her, glad, mad, terrified, the sweet heat smell at his nose. He caught her beneath a navel orange tree, drunk with the scent of her. But she had stopped running by then and wanted to be caught. And they touched again in Technicolor, and felt hot and boisterious, shot through with anxieties and pricking little joys and yearnings, and did not understand it at all. Then they burst through the trees, racing towards the meadow, Poppy at their heels. And Boyd felt something warm and wonderful bursting from him, something that could not be contained any longer.

‘You're the girl at Miss Havisham's,' he cried out at last, his voice cracking as he ran. ‘Estella! The girl at Miss Havisham's.'

‘The girl at Miss Havisham's?'

‘In
Great Expectations
. Estella.'

‘Oh,' Susan said, giving him a coy look.

‘You are the pretty girl,' Boyd said, looking into her eyes. ‘Estella.'

‘And, are you Pip?' Susan ran hard against him and away from him. They laughed raucously and ran more wildly, their eyes sparkling.

Now that the words were finally out, Boyd felt a glorious freedom. He couldn't prevent the hot tears of joy. The note of thirteen words was no longer necessary:
You are Estella, the pretty girl at Miss Havisham's, and I am Pip.
He laughed, he cried; they were breathless and happy, in the very heart of the music. It couldn't end.

Poppy was ahead of them now, along the river road, stumbling, without his usual rhythm. Susan was ahead of Boyd. They couldn't stop. It was impossible. They ran very fast and came to a quiet place hidden from the road. Once again, Boyd caught Susan, quivering and hot, not wanting to let go. Panting noises came from them. Susan's eyelids fluttered and kiss was like a crimson lollipop on Boyd's tongue. But they knew they would have to get back. Papa could arrive at any moment and end it all. Boyd could hear Mavis calling out and Susan could hear Evadne. But she didn't want to end it.

‘I have something to tell you too,' Susan said, breathing fast, facing him. But she didn't say it and broke away for one last frenzied run. ‘Chase me into the forest,' she cried.

‘What is it?' Boyd asked. But he'd seen the look in her eyes, seen deep down into the secret pinkness where the music came from. That was enough for him.

‘Chase me!'

Boyd heard,
Kiss me
!

And they gave chase, Poppy and Boyd, running with madness and abandon. They came quickly to the grassy bank of the river, saw the fast-flowing waters at their feet and stopped abruptly, teetering on the soles of their feet. But Poppy, rushing madly ahead and unable to stop, fell in. Eyes wild, searching for Boyd, his paws paddled furiously. He barked once, a half gurgle, and went under. Instantly, Susan went in after him, hair flashing in the sun, arms and legs flailing. Boyd, seeing Susan flounder, hearing her cry out his name, seeing everything in slow motion, went in after her. And there was much splashing and thrashing about. This went on for about half a minute and Boyd saw Susan sink beneath the water. Through blurred vision, he saw her on the surface, like
Ophelia,
floating stiffly away, her arms stretched out. Then, after what seemed like hours, he found himself alone, clutching fast to the root of a tree. He struggled and rolled over exhausted on his back on the riverbank. He couldn't understand the silence.

It was Mrs Dowding who last saw them, watching from her window.

‘It's those children again!' She shot up from her chair, gesticulating to Mr Dowding. ‘My God!'

‘What is it?'

‘The Mitchison girl and Boyd Brookes.' She grabbed him by the arm, positioning him so that he had a clear view of the running children. ‘They're heading for the river.'

‘Let them play, for Christ's sake,' Mr Dowding said irritably.

She turned on him. ‘Are you out of your mind? After everything, let them play!'

When she returned to the window, the children had already snaked under the fence by the poinciana trees and were now running frantically along the river road, their cries shocking, scarlet poinciana blossoms falling off them. This time Poppy led the way, bounding without balance. Boyd chased Susan hard, both hands outstretched. Mrs Dowding saw them vanish down the road amidst the green leaves of the canes and her middle-aged, cynical face furrowed. She didn't leave the window but stood there flexing and unflexing her fingers. And she didn't wait long. Moments later, a small figure, dripping wet, came stumbling back up the road as if the devil was in pursuit. She waited, expecting to see the other child and the little dog close behind. But it was just the boy, and now she could hear his muffled cries as he flew past the house. After that it became very quiet in the room.