So, then, what?
Not every building in this country (not so much forgotten by the rest of the world as to it unknown), not every one afflicted by hurricanes, tempest-torn, had been rebuilt, even ashore. Limekiller passed one such each day in King Town, squashed almost into a parallelogram, but still inhabited. Others. Plenty of others. So no big sweat that old Major Deak (and why “old’? He could be a major and yet young, na true?) had not gotten around to — Flaps of wallpaper flapped and dangled and flew about in the breeze, the hot, dry, cold, sticky breeze. Suddenly, no breeze here, though. Was. But not now. Over there.
Wallpaper? Out on the Cayes? Not very damned likely. curtains, yes, rags of curtains — part of a window frame with parts of the curtains still dangling -
“I bet that’s Alex,” she said, very suddenly. He held the glass. He squinted. Maybe those were, yes of course those were. People. But — “You’ve got better eyes than I, I guess, I can’t make out Alex.”
“Oh,” she said, easily, “neither can I. Make him out. But the one on the end, I mean, somehow he just seems like Alex.”
Their eyes met. Instantly he knew that if he said a single word about Alex, she would say at least a single word about May. And wouldn’t that be silly? What a day this had turned out to be.
Water flowing over mangrove bark.
The traps we dig for ourselves.
“It looks,” she said, as though judiciously, and as though judiciously changing the subject, “it looks as there must be another house on that cave, with the second story sort of ruined, you know what I mean? And from this distance, at a certain angle, it’s sort of as though the top of that one is sort of superimposed onto the other one. The yellow one. If you see what I mean.
“I do see. Yes.”
But later, once they’d gone ashore, and thought to ask, they were told, no such thing. Nothing like that. One cave. One house.
The caye. Mangrove bluffs. Shallows. Looking down, in some places, so clear, almost one could lean over and touch the negro-head coral, and the garfish. The insufferable wind. When there was wind. And yet, now, smoke coiling from cigarettes and scarcely rising. Much wind, coming out. but now, here at last, the air was dull above the mangrove bluff and reclaimed land, the sky was now slate-colored; even, half-turning, the color of the sea had changed, too.
“It seems somehow dead here,” she murmured, low-voiced, as they put ashore. It did. Haunted. Oppressive.
But now there was little time for such thought.
They were no longer alone.
Loud good cheer.
“What took you so long?”
“Had to make many tacks.”
“Thought you’d never get here! Well! Have a drink!”
“Why didn’t you come in the launch?” (Limekiller to himself: Because it’s Alex Brant’s launch. Is why. And was shocked to find he’d thought so.)
“ Glad to see you! Glad to see you!”
“Here’s a bottle of beer for each of you, then” — this was Neville (English Neville. There was not, really, any Norwegian Neville) producing the beer with an air of innocent sinfulness possible only to someone raised by a Baptist grandparent. Neville had a thin blond body and a thin blond beard.
“Felix! Gyel! Me wait-wait-wait fah you! Fret-fret-fret, may-be you hahv frock nice-ah dan mine! And what I see? Nutting like dot! Dun-gah-ree! What! Nicholine?” — This was Adah, Noddy’s lady. Nicholine was Neville’s girlfriend. Nicholine’s comment, couched in the form of a proverb, and said, in a low-quick mutter, was “Piggy play dead fih cotch corby live.” Nicholine was short and squat, and Nicholine was jealous. Adah threw back her head, laughed her friend’s comment into the air, and so, away: then she passed her hands over her lime-green-nylon-covered hips. Winked at Felix. Atjack. They did not wink at each other. Alex strolled up, casual and easy. “Come on over to the house and meet the official host. Well, we are paying him for the use of the place for the day. But he is our host. Adds class. - Some of us were worried, you being so long getting here. I told them, no sweat. Not to worry.” A smile for Felix.
Noddy said, “Yes, come along. You’ve got quite a lot of good drinking to catch up on.” Noddy was portly and ginger-moustached and learned and cheerful. except when you were trying to crash his party. Which was not now. There were others who had come strolling out to meet them, to help with the tying up. To bring drinks. Just In Case. The Honourable Somerset Summerville, Secretary to Government, and a not-bad-poet in his own right and on his own time, was there. So was his wife. (“Yes,” the Honourable was now and then heard to say, “I was the typical Colored Colonial student in London, and so, typically, I married my landlady’s daughter. well. actually. granddaughter.!” And, actually, he had; the Dowager Lady Blenkinson did not of course let lodgings: she owned the whole street. And the next one. And the next one. and, as my wife already was an Honourable, why, I had no choice but to become one, too!” His wife showed neither amusement nor annoyance; she was wearing khakies, and was the authority on the orchids of the Hidalgo Littoral.). Also present was Ethelred Edwards, a master adzeman at Nahum’s boatyard, and his wife — he and the Hon. Mrs. Summerville were the only wives at the party (or picnic)… or, at any rate, the only women who had been “married in church” to the men with whom thev were currently affiliated. British Hidalgo was strong on being married in church. Divorce, however, was something else altogether. It was difficult. It was expensive. And it was, finally, irrelevant.
It was unlikely that people from classes as diverse as Nicholine and Adah, the Summervilles, and the Edwardses would ever, in King Town, be at the same social gizmadoo. But foreigners, somehow, or, anyway certainly some of them, were outside the peripheries of caste. And could act as a catalyst. Or whatever.
They walked to the yellow house along a sort of boardwalk. “What do you think of the looks of the land?” asked Alex. Bothjack and Felix said, almost together, that it “looked funny.” Brant nodded. ‘Just step on it,” he suggested. “After they cut down the mangrove, they burned it off, and — well, just step on it. Go ahead. Won’t bite you.” Somewhat gingerly, the newcomers did. The signs of the burning-off were still visible, and it felt soggy beneath their feet. It, in fact, quivered. The effect was somewhat unsettling; Jack and Felix were glad to step back onto the boards.
“It will dry out, eventually. and then, to help it out, they’ll fill it with sand and with pipeshank. Those vertical planks you see will be helping it drain. It was dryer, once, the men have found signs that people had lived here before. old nails. old pieces of timber. old bones…” he rolled his eyes toward Felix, Felix shuddered, Alex laughed. “Old turtle bones. Rare and protected now, when I’m not catching them. they used to be common as fish.”