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‘Skip verse four,’ his father said. ‘Jump to five and six.’
‘“Thou hypocrite,”’ Pynter continued, ‘“first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother’s eye. Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn again and rend you.”’
‘Good.’ Manuel Forsyth smacked his lips. ‘You see my boy can read and with feeling besides.’
Mister Bostin pulled out his handkerchief and sopped his forehead. He gave Pynter a hard sideways glance. ‘You numerate?’
‘Yes, he kin count,’ Manuel Forsyth said.
Mister Bostin turned the back of his right hand towards his face and examined his fingers. The nails were cut very low, except the little finger, which sprouted a long and curving outgrowth that he was clearly proud of.
‘Well, I’m reasonably satisfied that he’s doing something. I must refer the matter, though. A daily diet of the Bible may be just the, er, thing – morally, that is – but to school the boy must go. That’s what my job dictate.’
‘You mean, I waste all this time arguing with you?’
The man got up. For the first time he smiled. Pynter was surprised at the brightness of it. ‘That’s for you to decide, sir.’
‘I’ll fight every one o’ you in court.’
‘You’ll hear from me, Mister Forsyth. Follow me, boy.’
‘Half-edicated jackass.’
Pynter looked quickly at the man and then back at his father. His lips were moving angrily. Bostin paused as if he were about to say something. He thought better of it and tiptoed out of the bedroom.
The man turned to face Pynter on the steps. His voice was almost a whisper. ‘Talk the truth now, lil fella, you really want to go on like that? The truth!’
‘For now.’
‘You sure?’
‘Yup.’
‘How come?’
‘Iz all he got right now.’
The man nodded. ‘How old you say you is?’
‘I didn say how old I is. I almos’ ten.’
‘Ten?’
‘Almos’.’
‘Ten, you say?’
‘Yup, ten. Almos’.’
‘Look, son, it have a lot more, er, there is much more to school than reading books and counting fingers. You got to go to school, y’unnerstan?’
‘Pa say I don’t have to.’
‘What you going to do when he gone?’
‘He not going nowhere.’
‘Everybody got to go somewhere. He ought to be preparing you for that.’
‘Don’ unnerstan.’
‘S’all right. Tell me, where’s your modder?’
‘Home.’
‘Home where?’
‘Where she live.’
He pulled a page out of his notebook and wrote quickly.
‘Give this to her. It got my name, place of employ and the name of the person – Miss Lucas, the headmistress in Saint Divine Catholic School. Come September, I want her to take you to that school and give this paper to her. It got to be September. Or you’ll miss your chance.’
‘What chance?’
‘The one I would have given my eye teeth for. Promise me you going give her.’
‘Okay.’
‘Come September, I’ll be checking up on you pussnally.’
‘Who call you to come here – Miss Maddie?’
Mister Bostin rested puzzled eyes on him. ‘S’far as I could tell, ’twasn’t a woman. He say that you his uncle.’
Department of EducationDivision of the Ministry of Internal and Related AffairsSan Andrews12th July 1965
Mr. Manuel Forsyth
Upper Old Hope
Parish of Old Hope San Andrews
Dear Sir,This is to confirm our conversation at your residence onMay 15th of this year in which you stated your decision tokeep your son and minor …
‘Pa, what minor mean?’
‘Go on, read the letter.’
… your son and minor Pynter Bender from school. Aftermuch deliberation I have decided …
‘He decide! Who he think he is?’
I have decided that it is not in the best interest of the child in question to be exposed solely to the literature available at your residence.
‘He goin to burn in hell fo’ that. Condemning God word!’
In view of the above observation and consistent with thepowers vested in me, Jonathan Uriah Bostin, Schools Inspector, San Andrews Division of the Associated State and its environs …
‘If fancy title was money, he would be a rich man. Read that part again fo’ me!’
‘It long!’
‘Read it, boy!’
In view of the above observation …
‘Pure wind! Fart – that’s what it is. Read de rest fo’ me.’
… I have agreed with the relevant authority to enrol the minor, Pynter Bender …
‘Pa, what’s a minor?’
‘You.’
‘What it mean?’
‘A lil boy.’
‘And how you call a lil girl?’
‘A minor. Finish de letter, child!’
… to enrol the minor, Pynter Bender, in the Saint Divine Catholic …
‘And he claim to be a man o’ God!’
… Catholic School from first September. Failing which and without valid reasons, said authority reserves the right to proceed legally against you .
‘You mus’ never learn to write like that man, y’hear me?’
‘Why?’
‘S’not natural.’
‘Why?’
‘Say what you have to say and finish it. Always.’
‘Why?’
‘It help to keep life simple.’
‘How?’
‘Stop bothering me, boy.’
8 (#u28d22412-8e31-55e2-b13f-1fa9a7d51d72)
THE NEXT MORNING he got up and told his father he dreamt of screaming people.
‘You wasn’ dreaming,’ his father muttered, ‘I hear them too last night – Harris and Marlo.’ The old man’s face was thoughtful. ‘Only Harris I was hearing, though. And Harris the one you never hear at all.’
Harris and Marlo lived in a two-roomed house at the bottom of his father’s hill.
Fridays especially, nights in Upper Old Hope were reduced to a small room and Marlo was the hurricane inside it. Pynter had quickly grown accustomed to these weekly brawls, although the first time he’d heard Marlo he couldn’t bring himself to sleep. No reply ever came from Harris. And if, as his father told him that first time, it was a case of one man warring with himself, he used to wonder at the sense of it.
A few times, after a particularly violent night, he woke early, crept out of the house and sneaked down to the road.
Harris eventually came out, saw him standing there and, without breaking stride, waved his hat at him, ‘Hello, young fellow. How’s the Old Bull?’
‘Not bad,’ he answered as he watched the tall man’s body follow his feet up the road till he disappeared around the corner.
Pynter wished he would grow tall enough to be able to step out of his own little house like that, stretch out his long legs like Harris and sway, not from side to side, but in a kind of roundabout way, as if the rest of his body were fighting to keep up with his feet.
Harris was the tallest man he’d ever seen – the highest in the world. Always in the same loose khaki trousers and shirt that had been so bleached by wear and washing they were almost white. He wore his felt hat slanted down over his greying eyebrows, though it was never low enough to throw a shadow on his smile.
Harris was one of those men who’d travelled to the oil refineries in Aruba and returned a couple of weeks later to tell Old Hope how he’d taken a fall and got tangled up among the vast spiderweb of steaming pipes there. He would have died, had actually died in fact, when a pair of hands to which he had never been able to put a face had reached through the steel and dragged him out. That night he cut through the high fences that locked in the thousands of working island men, ‘borrowed’ a rowing boat and, without water, food or sleep, spent months ploughing a passage through all kinds of high dark seas and hurricanes to his little house in Old Hope.
‘Look at the height of the man,’ Manuel Forsyth laughed. ‘What you expect from Harris – not tall tales?’
But these stories only made Harris taller in Pynter’s eyes, so that sometimes on mornings, just when the night chill lifted itself off the valley floor and seeped like drizzle through his thin blue shirt, he would creep out of his father’s house and tiptoe down the hill to receive that special early-morning greeting.
For this – just the sight of Harris, the rolling head, the long windmilling arms, the big yellow grin, the pale felt hat bobbing like a wind-rushed flame above the tops of the rhododendrons at the roadside – for all this, the early-morning coldness nibbling at the skin of his back and arms was more than worth it. Even standing in the rain.
It was raining the morning the slight quiver in his chest was replaced by something else – a smell and something more. A sensation on his skin.
Coming out of the house, he saw something squeezing itself through the doorway. It took a while before he realised it was a man. He did not move, not even when the great boxlike head lifted with some effort and swivelled towards him. Not even when the small red eyes fell on him and narrowed, and the man’s lips – purple-dark and thin – seemed to curl themselves around a curse.
The heavy hands drifted to the dirty leather scabbard at his side. Just then Pynter caught the scent of the man. He began backing up the hill.
Marlo’s eyes did not release him until he reached the top of his father’s road. He lowered himself on the steps, struggling with his breathing and the sudden urge to cry.
‘Dat’s Butcherman Marlo.’ Manuel Forsyth pulled his lips in slowly. ‘Don’t go near ’im, y’hear me?’
From then on, those mornings became a gamble. Pynter did not know who would come out first and it didn’t occur to him to wait for Harris after Marlo. In fact, he never saw Harris come out after Marlo, so that sometimes he imagined it was the same man that the night had transformed into something else.
If it were Marlo, he would hold his ground for as long as his thumping heart allowed him. He would keep his breath in while the dark, knuckle-curled head lifted and skewed itself around. Then his legs would propel him up the hill to the safety of his father’s steps.
