The Clearing Page 8

  The boys kept laughing as they extracted one another from the heap, and finally Tristan and Richard hopped down and began unloading the duffel bags. Nate and Pip stood transfixed in the back of the Land Rover, staring up at the old structure that stared hollowly back at them.

  “Hey, Dad,” said Tristan, pointing at the two boys.

  Vincent smiled and nodded. “She’s got you now, boys. She’s laid her eyes on you. Be on your best behavior; she won’t stand for any nonsense.” Then he laughed and hoisted a crate of soft drinks onto his shoulder. “Come on lads. The quicker we get this stuff unloaded the quicker you can all go have some fun.”

  Nate and Pip stood for a moment longer, unwilling, or perhaps unable to pull their eyes from the dark, empty windows above them. The house looked abandoned, uncared for, left for the forest to reclaim. Only the entry way seemed tended to. At the front of the house sat a flower bed that seemed to have at least some order to it, but even that had gotten out of control and grown well past its boundaries. Everything else about the place seemed to be in a gathering state of decay.

  The whole house was set on top of a large gray concrete foundation made from a series of arches. Each arch spanned about six feet wide and stood seven feet tall at their apex, and the structures ran around the entire base of the house. The wooden building itself sat atop the gray arches, and was at one time painted white with red trim. But that had been some time ago, and now it was all faded and chipped, and some of the siding was swollen and spongy with rot. The tin roof, also once red, was now bleached by the unyielding sun to a rose color and dashed with rusty streaks of brown. The roof was raised into seven steeples set evenly around the building, each with a shuttered window at the peak, hinting at the presence of an upper floor, or perhaps an attic. Below that a series of large bay windows looked out over the yards, with the sill of each window still a good ten feet from the ground. The result was a structure that looked down on new arrivals, and Nate and Pip both felt its heavy gaze.

  Centered in the front of the house was a large entryway where a pair of double doors once stood. Now only one remained, and it hung open at an odd angle like a kicked-in tooth. The doorway was accessed by a large concrete stairway spanning a gap between the landing and the yard, allowing enough room for a man to walk along the arches and under the front steps uncontested. To the sides of the front door, and continuing on at the two sides of the house, were verandas with traditional white railings made of continuous ‘X’s joined together. At some time in the past the house would have been a magnificent example of island architecture, but now it looked as if the island was doing its best to tear it down.

  Nate stepped down from the Land Rover. His gaze was drawn to the small window at the top of the steeple directly above the front door. It was partly open, the shutter pushed outward slightly, and through the sliver of space Nate could see only blackness.

  There was nothing there, just the dark inside of some upper room, but to Nate it felt like someone, something was watching. Tristan followed his line of sight up to the small window. When he saw where Nate was looking he smiled. “See something?” he asked in a conspiratorial tone.

  “Should I?”

  Tristan laughed and turned to the house with a box of tinned food. “Nope. You can’t.”

  12

  “Nate, you must hol’ still, man. Very still,” pled Smiley. “I understand it be painful, but you must hol’ still.”

  Nate lay on the table with a light shining brightly in his face. Smiley’s older brother was bent over him, a curved needle with a blue filament tail in his hand, and lines of frustration gathering in his brow.

  “Jesus, that fucking hurts!” Nate cursed, and Smiley’s brother stepped back—for the third time—and let his arms fall to his sides. He shook his head gently. Nate apologized immediately. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry—it just really hurts. You sure you have nothing to numb it?”

  Smiley’s brother, who looked nothing at all like Smiley, shook his head sympathetically. “I can give you something for later, but I have nothing here that can stop the pain for now. We almost done—two or three more and we finish for sure. Can I go on?”

  Nate clutched both sides of the narrow kitchen table, nodded and clenched his teeth. He swore again as the needle hooked into the flesh at the sides of the wound on his cheek, and groaned at the sensation of the thread being pulled through. It tugged at his skin and drew the crimson smile below his eye closed. Another two loops and it was done, and Smiley’s brother tied it off and taped a fresh pad of gauze in place. “There,” he said, wiping his hands in satisfaction. “You gone be fine now, but you will leave de island wit some new character in your face.” He smiled and finally Nate saw the resemblance to Smiley.

  “You okay now,” said Smiley. It was a statement, not a question. He turned to his brother, put one of his meaty paws on the man’s shoulder and spoke in Creole, melodic and warm. Nate sat up and thanked him as well.

  “No problem, no problem at all,” he said, straightening up the small kitchen. “But tell me, what you two going to do now? And what about this thing tonight. You clearly can’t rely on the police for help—or for answers.”

  Smiley agreed. “Ah, don’t worry ’bout us. We just needed to get dat cut sorted out, and we’ll be on our way. I’ll take care of our Mr. Mason.” He smiled and shook his brother’s hand.

  Nate wondered where they would go, but Smiley seemed to have a plan. It was his island, his town, his people, and Nate could feel the effects of the evening catching up with him. He’d slept for a mere two hours at best, been attacked, arrested, threatened, poked, and needled, and now he was temporarily homeless. There were just too many swirling unknowns.

  But there was Smiley, and so Nate was content to let Smiley call the shots. He was just plain exhausted, and while there were questions—burning ones—at the moment, a few hours of undisturbed, safe sleep was all he wanted.

  They left Smiley’s brother and drove out of town and into the countryside. It was almost dawn now, and the glow of first light was silhouetting the island against a sky that was already a promising shade of blue. They stopped at a small village, a cluster of modest houses really, where chickens were already scratching at the yard in search of their breakfast. Smiley led him into a small building made of breeze blocks and wood with a sloped tin roof, and pointed to a cot in the corner. “You’ll be fine here. Lie down and get a few hours’ sleep. When you wake, we’ll talk ’bout last night, and ’bout what to do next.”

  With a reassuring hand on the shoulder Smiley left, and Nate sat on the cot. There was a small wooden table surrounded by six mismatched chairs, a single window with a brown curtain drawn across it, and a white plastic sink in the opposite corner. It had a faucet connected to a garden hose that ran through a hole in the wall. On the table was a rack of colorful poker chips, several decks of playing cards, and three empty beer bottles. The door had a lock, the cot was soft and the sheets smelled clean. Nate lay down and in the darkness his mind went back, as it always did in the quiet of the night, to Cody. He missed him terribly, but drew courage from the fact that it was in part Cody who had made coming back possible. And soon he slept.

  His dreams were sharp, uncomfortable and as palpable as any he had ever had. He dreamt of arches; long spans of worn gray concrete that stretched out one after the other in a perfect line. Behind them, through the archways was a dead blackness; an impenetrable, inky pool of darkness that stank of menace. He found himself walking slowly, parallel with the arches, filled with the utter conviction that someone or something was watching from deep within its shadowy recesses. He wanted to turn and walk away from the arches, but he couldn’t. And so he walked, and it watched.

  He woke just after eleven in the morning with the sound of Smiley at the door. Either the lock didn’t work or Smiley had the key, and he came in with two steaming mugs of sweet tea and a brown bag that smelled of pastry and warm honey. They sat at the table, sipping the tea and licking the hon
ey from their fingers. “Jeez, these are good,” said Nate, fishing another of the freshly deep-fried treats from the bag. “I didn’t realize how hungry I was.”

  Smiley smiled and helped himself to another. “So, you ready to talk some?”

  Nate nodded while he chewed.

  “Aright. Dis fellow in you room, last night. Tell me ’bout him.”

  “Man, where to begin…” Nate wiped his mouth with a napkin.

  “Did you recognize de fellow? De fellow who dun attack you?”

  “No, I was fast asleep. I woke up and he was just, well, there. Scared the shit out of me. Next thing I’m jumping around the room and he’s swinging some damn sword at me, and I’m throwing everything I can put my hands on at him. He eventually knocks me down and has me there on the floor, and I thought I was a dead man. He could have just hacked me into little pieces right there, but he didn’t.”

  The pause went on too long. “Well?” prompted Smiley.

  “Well, I was lying there, and I open my eyes expecting to see this sword, cutlass thing, but instead this guy is standing over me holding a goddamn cow’s foot! At least I think it was a cow’s foot—and the thing is pissing blood all over my face and the floor. Can you believe that?”

  Smiley’s face went slack and his mouth fell open, his half chewed pastry there for anyone to see. “A cow’s foot? A hoof?” Smiley hissed in a whisper as if speaking only to himself. “Bondie! My God!” He staggered up from the chair like a man who had just seen a ghost.

  Smiley paced nervously about the small room, and Nate watched with growing alarm. “What is it?” Nate asked anxiously. “What does it mean?”

  “A cow’s foot? Are you sure?”

  “Yes—no. I think it was…fuck, I don’t know. I think it was!”

  “La jah blesse! Bondie!”

  “La ja what? What are you talking about?” Nate was now standing, too.

  Smiley made a conscious effort to rein himself in. “I’m sorry—sorry. It’s just something that I was not expecting. It might be nothing…”

  “Might be noth—Christ, Smiley, what are you saying?”

  “It’s okay. It’s okay…” He paced another lap of the room with his hand pressed into his forehead, then: “I have to go talk to someone—jus’ a minute. Wait here and I’ll soon come, okay? I’ll soon come.”

  Nate was in no mood to be left behind now. “Screw that, I’m coming with you.” He followed Smiley through the door, and for the first time since arriving in the early hours, it occurred to him that he had no idea where he was. He followed Smiley around to the side of the house and it all suddenly gelled. He recognized the small hut, the road where they had parked, and the table they had sat at. It was Bozu, the little roadside bar from the night before.

  “Nate, just wait here, man. Seriously, just wait for me. I’ll be quick; you wait—sit at de table,” he said, pointing to the spot where they had sat the night before.

  Nate could feel the nervous energy coming off Smiley, but he wasn’t sure if it was because of what Nate had told him, or because of the person he now needed to speak to. A second later the answer swung through the open door of the shebeen.

  Ma Joop’s eyes fell first on Smiley, and for a moment she didn’t see Nate at the table. Her reaction was swift, going from smile to concern in the single beat it took to drink in Smiley’s face. A second later she glanced over at Nate—a purely intuitive reaction—and it was enough to change her again. This time her face went from concern to outright horror. She squealed in Creole and threw her hands up to her face, and then backpedalled through the door she had just come through. Smiley followed her with hands outstretched as if to catch her, and Nate was left alone with a sense of dread pooling in his gut.

  Inside, he could hear Ma Joop and Smiley. Ma Joop was near hysterics, and her voice was ratcheted up and held many octaves higher than what he had heard from her the night before. Nate couldn’t understand a word, but the tone spoke clearly. He could hear her slowly winding down, then occasionally regrouping into the full blown timbre of panic, then gradually working down again toward something akin to calm.

  He listened as Ma Joop and Smiley went back and forth. Smiley’s voice was sometimes cast in appeasing tones, sometimes forceful and finite, but all the while helping Ma Joop down like an outstretched hand over a steep and rocky path. Finally there was quiet, and for many minutes there was no sound at all. Nate stood halfway up from his spot at the table, caught firmly between two minds: Should he go in and see if everything was okay? Or should he sit tight and wait to see what it all meant? The longer the silence in the little shack persisted the more he was convinced that something awful was about to happen, that someone with another machete would come barrelling out of the doorway and finish the job started the night before.

  Eventually, with none of the fanfare of a sword-wielding madman, Smiley came through the doorway. He walked slowly with one hand on top of his head and a tangled look on his face, and Nate knew without question he was coming with bad news.

  “What? What is it?” he asked.

  Smiley blew out a lungful of air through puffed cheeks. “Ma Joop,” he began. “Ma Joop has seen somethin’ on you. Somethin’ dat took her by surprise, dat’s all.”

  Nate sat and blinked. “I don’t even know where to start asking what you mean by that.”

  Smiley tugged at his chin. “Ma Joop, she…she is a very special person to me, to many of us. She need some time. We have to…you have to go away for a little bit.”

  “What do you mean, Smiley? What do you mean I have to go away?”

  “She jus’ need a little time, man, dat is all.”

  “Are you saying I need to leave, that you’re ditching me?” This was starting to feel like last night all over again, and Nate instinctively glanced around, half expecting to see his two favorite constables and their shiny new handcuffs.

  “No, no, nuttin’ like dat, man. But me need to help her. Me need to be here for a while. I want you to take my car,” he said reaching into his pocket and retrieving the keys. “I want you to take a drive, man. See de island, see de places from when you were a lightee here.”

  Lightee. Nate hadn’t heard that expression in more than thirty years, and for a blissful moment he remembered the older kids scorning him and Richard and the others: Stay away from the drink table—you lightees are not even supposed to be at this party. Stick to the lime juice. It was a warm and inclusive memory; he was part of a clan, the little kids, the lightees. It was a piece of island slang that drew him instantly back to that perfect thirteen-year-old state of being. But almost as soon as the memory formed, it was gone.

  “Nate, take the keys, man.” He pressed them into Nate’s palm and looked him straight in the eye. “Stay away from downtown Castries, and from de Police. Come back ’ere tomorrow afternoon, ’round five. We’ll sort everything out.”

  “What about tonight?”

  “Jus’ find a small inn, there’s many. But pay cash and use another name, jus’ to be safe.”

  Nate suddenly became aware of how ludicrous this all seemed. “Smiley,” he said in a forced half-laugh, “what the fuck is going on?”

  “Tomorrow at five. Here in Gros Islet. Everything will be fine. You have to trus’ me, man.”

  “Can’t I just stay here in the back room?”

  “No, no. Dat won’t do. We need some time. Jus’ find a place—there’s many up near Reduit Beach. You remember dat area?”

  Nate nodded. He knew the name. There was a yacht club up there—at least there was in 1976 when he was a kid—where all the boys would sail Mirror Dinghies in Sunday races.

  “Good, good. Get a room, stay inside and jus’ lock you-self in for tonight.”

  Nate was bewildered. Something inside him was teetering between fear and ridicule, but he wasn’t quite sure which way it would all go. “You know this all sounds way out there, right?”

  Smiley shook his head in mild agitation, but Nate was well past worryi
ng how other people felt. “Nate, jus’ do as I ask. You have a car for de day, some free time, jus’ enjoy de island. Please.”

  Nate raised his hands in surrender. “What choice do I have?” Another boot was set to drop; he could smell the damn leather.

  “One more thing, Nate,” Smiley began uncomfortably. “If you begin to feel not so well later, not to worry, it’s de tea and de sticky buns. Dey can be hard on you system if you not used to local spices. You might feel a little sick, you know, maybe have some bad dreams or something.” He smiled but there was no warmth in it.

  And then, with one hand outstretched as if to parry any advance Nate might make, Smiley walked slowly backwards and through the door to Ma Joop.

  13

  For Nate, Ti Fenwe lived up to his every expectation.

  The older kids, the ones who had all been there before and who told stories about the Estate, about huge spaces to run through, about a jungle riddled with mysterious pathways and secret hiding spots, about trails to tear along on the little mini-bikes belching blue smoke, those kids—they were bang on.

  Once the supplies were loaded into the kitchen, the boys poured out of the house, down the front steps, and plunged into the forest. Tristan lead them through a maze of pathways, ducking under vines, through tunnels formed by dense, overhanging tree limbs, and over rocks worn smooth by generations of scramblers. He took them to the clearing, a natural circular opening deep in the bush about the size of a generous living room. The green walls of the jungle rose up on all sides like a dome, almost touching at the top and leaving a thin veil of leaves and creepers for the light to stream through.

  Over the years, kids had dragged old bits of furniture into the clearing, and now the area was dotted with a ragtag collection of cast-offs: four plastic chairs, a camping cot, two wooden stools and the remains of what was once a couch. At one side of the clearing there was a dusting of tiny white polystyrene beads; they littered the ground and clung to trunks, leaves, and roots with static fanaticism. Above them in the tree branches themselves were several pieces of thick polystyrene blocks—the kind used for packing materials—and although they were largely intact, their odd, product-specific shapes were smashed through with holes, and chunks were missing along the edges.