Small Island by Andrea Levy
Miss Ma was on her feet shouting, ‘Michael, that is enough.’
Mr Philip’s voice broke like overhead thunder: ‘Are you questioning the Lord thy God? Are you presuming to question the teachings of the Almighty, the King of Kings, the Lord of Lords, thy Maker?’
‘No, Papa,’ Michael said, with a calm that is usually placed before a storm. ‘I am asking you about a subject on which my teachers saw fit to enlighten me. It is, I believe, a popular scientific opinion that man is descended—’
I jumped a full foot in my chair when Mr Philip cried, ‘Enough!’ His chair fell behind him – a terrifying clatter. ‘I will not have blasphemy in this house. I will not have blasphemy at my table.’ Mr Philip prepared to strike Michael, his hand rising in the air ready to fall and crack around Michael’s head, when a loud laugh came from me – not with mirth but the strangeness of the circumstance. Michael stood out of the blow’s way as I felt the full force of Miss Ma’s hand strike against my own ear. Her pleading, ‘Please behave, both of you.’ But Michael, standing tall above his father, looked to all the world as if he was about to lash him. Mr Philip at his table was no longer a mountain only a man, stunted and fat and incapable of instilling fear. Was it the ringing in my ear that made my head throb so? Or the exhilaration of Michael staring on his father’s face, saying, ‘I would like for us to discuss this, Papa.’ And Mr Philip – silent – taking up his Holy Bible and leading Miss Ma from the room.
With love it is small signs you have to look to. When Romeo scaled a wall I have no doubt that Juliet swooned with the certainty of what she then knew. Even Miss Jewel had a suitor who wooed her by sleeping overnight at the base of a tree so as to be near her early the next morning. (Although she misunderstood – thinking him just drunk and incapable of movement.) Declarations of love are for American films or books that are not read by educated people. Michael refused to accompany me to the Shirley Temple film. As I praised the sweetness of her voice and the bounce of her curls, he looked on me deep and steady. ‘Shirley Temple is a little girl and I prefer women, Hortense.’ All the world knows teasing is a sign. And he liked to tease me with his learning, urging me to test him on all the capital cities of the world. Australia, New Zealand, Canada. He knew them all. ‘Ask me something harder. Surely you can ask me something harder than that?’
‘For what is the city of Sheffield famous?’
‘No. Test me on my understanding of geography, not this childishness. Ask me of ox-bow lakes and sedimentary plains or the fishing-grounds of the continental shelf. Come, test me on my knowledge. Ask me of the League of Nations or beg me explain the Irish question.’
He knew I knew nothing of these, but boasting to impress had been used since Adam first looked upon Eve. There was a time when I would have punched him for his conceit and told him little boys are made of moss and snails and puppy dogs’ tails. But when he patted my head all sensible thought was gone. I feared he could hear my heart beating when he came close; on days when I walked by his side in the shade, leaping to take the same length steps as he; or the moment when, looking into clear water, our faces rippled together as one.
But I could not play the game of love all day. Miss Ma insisted I return to my work. ‘But,’ I asked, ‘what will Michael do?’
‘Michael can get along without you,’ she said. ‘You are not children – he is a man not a boy. He will help his father.’ Mr Philip’s face had set like a stone since his son’s return. Carved into an expression of ‘too much to bear’. I had not heard him utter one word that was not the Lord’s since he had yelled, ‘Enough’, at the food table. He looked so pained that I dreamed of taking his hands and making him dance.
‘Could I not assist here at the house, Miss Ma?’ I asked.
‘What, you think you are a white woman now – a lady of leisure?’ she said. There was no choice for me.
But would the morning sun rise if I could not look on Michael’s face? Could it set if I had not heard him call my name? I need not have fretted, for as I stepped on to the veranda that first dark, silent morning Michael was standing at the foot of the stairs; dressed in his finest ready to escort me to the schoolhouse. ‘Michael Roberts,’ I said, ‘I hope you are not neglecting your duties for my sake.’
Despite the absence for his education Michael was as well loved and respected in the town as his father. He knew everyone. Hello, good day, good morning accompanied every step we took. He was even acquainted with Mrs Ryder.
‘Was it not at church that we met, Michael?’ Mrs Ryder said, when I asked of their first encounter.
Michael put both hands in the air and shook his head. I knew he would not remember. So I said, ‘No, you must be mistaken as Michael does not attend the same church as you and Mr Ryder.’
‘Oh, in a grocery store, then,’ Mrs Ryder said hastily. She was embarrassed – her white cheeks flushing.
And that mischievous Michael made it worse by laughing at my employer saying, ‘Was it in a grocery store?’ which made her glow like a lantern.
Mr Ryder shook his head when I enquired if he knew Michael. ‘I don’t believe I have met Mr Roberts’s son since his return. Although I have heard people speak of him.’ But then, without a word, he turned back to stamping books when I remarked that Mrs Ryder thought she had met Michael at church.
‘Oh, Hortense! What does it matter where I first met the woman?’ Michael was vexed when we walked home. ‘It is no concern of yours. Just hush now.’
Michael frequently chaperoned me along the dirt road from town. He always made some feeble excuse to be there with me – on a little business or an errand. Sometimes he held out his gentleman’s elbow for me to slip my arm through and we would catch the stares of people who thought we looked a fine young couple. At other times I would find him hiding – pretending he had not come to see me at all. He would feign surprise when I tapped his shoulder or waved at him from a distance. And I played along by giggling gracefully at the joke.
A hurricane can make cows fly. It can tear trees from the ground, toss them in the air and snap them like twigs. A house can be picked up, its four walls parted, its roof twisted, and everything scattered in a divine game of hide-and-seek. This savage wind could make even the ‘rock of ages’ take to the air and float off as light as a bird’s wing.
But a hurricane does not come without warning. News of the gathering storm would sweep the island as swiftly as any breeze, scattering rumours of its speed, the position of its eye, the measure of its breath. I was too far from home to return safely on the day of the hurricane and Mrs Ryder needed my assistance. Luckily no children had yet arrived for the school term but the building had to be prepared for the onslaught to come. And her husband was nowhere to be found. ‘He’ll be somewhere safe – I know it,’ Mrs Ryder told me, without concern. ‘This will be my first hurricane and I don’t mind telling you, Hortense, I find it quite exciting.’ She skipped like a giddy girl, bolting the shutters with a delighted laugh. She hummed a song as we stowed chairs and desks and locked cupboards. She looked in the mirror, combing her hair, before we secured the doors. And turning to me she said, ‘Wouldn’t it be something to stand in a hurricane, to feel the full force of God’s power in all its might?’ But I was saying a prayer that the schoolhouse roof would stand firm and did not bother to answer such a ridiculous notion.
It was no surprise to me when Michael knocked at the door of the schoolhouse. For how could he stay at home during a hurricane? After leading the agitated goats and chickens, flapping and straining, into the safety of the barn; after securing the shutters, shaking them as ferociously as a man could, then checking them again – twice, three times; after leading Miss Jewel and Miss Ma to gather up lamps, chocolate and water, he would have to sit confined in the windowless room at the centre of the house with Mr Philip. And the rage inside would have blown as fierce as the tempest outside. So Michael ran two miles to be with me on the day of the hurricane. Two miles through an eerie birdless silence that scared as muc
Was his shirt wet from the rain or the exertion of running? It cleaved to the muscles of his body, transparent in patches, revealing his smooth brown skin underneath. His chest was rising and bulging with every lungful of panted breath. Sweat dripped from his forehead, down his cheek and over his full lips. ‘Michael Roberts,’ I told him at the door, ‘I am capable of looking after myself. You do not have to come all the time to protect me.’ Looking in my eye without a word he pulled the clinging shirt from his body, flapping at it gently. He wiped his hand across his neck, over his forehead and let his chest fall.
But then, catching sight of Mrs Ryder over my shoulder, he looked suddenly alarmed. And pushing me, not gently, to one side he went straight to her. He flew so fast towards her I feared he was going to embrace her. He called her Stella – a familiar name that even Mr Ryder would not use in my company. ‘Stella,’ he said, ‘I saw your husband in his car and I thought you might be . . .’ he hesitated, looking over to me before saying ‘. . . alone.’
The three of us sat tender as bugs caught in the grasp of a small boy as rain pelted the walls. Fear gradually began to appear in the eyes of Mrs Ryder. Her girlish enthusiasm for the hurricane evaporated every time the roof bounced like a flimsy skin. At times the wind would just knock at the door, no more frightening than an impatient caller. At other times it would shriek like a dreadful choir of the tortured. And the bumping, the thumping, the crashing, the banging, no matter how distant, all made Mrs Ryder wail, ‘Oh, Michael, thank God you are here.’
And all the time I wondered, How did Michael know her given name was Stella?
A shutter flew open. A gust exhaled into the room. Suddenly everything – books, papers, chairs, clothes – took on life and danced in the unseen torrent. And a shoe soared in through the opening, hurtling to a stop against the blackboard. Michael struggled to secure the shutter while Mrs Ryder looked on the dead cloth shoe and screamed. Michael forced the shutter closed until the room breathed a sort of calm. But Mrs Ryder was sobbing. Her blonde hair a little ruffled but her cheeks still white, her skin still delicate with a fine blue tracery of veins and her voice, when she said, ‘Oh, Michael, I’m scared,’ still sounded like a movie star’s. He had no hesitation when he went to her to place his arm round her shoulders.
‘Hortense, light another lamp,’ was all he could say to me. The lights threw our shadows on to the wall. On what hour of what day did this married woman tell Michael to call her Stella? Stella, he spoke softly to her. Stella, he calmed her with. Stella, he caressed. In what grocery store did Mrs Ryder give Michael the freedom to speak as familiar as her husband?
‘Mrs Ryder,’ I said softly, ‘are you thinking where your husband might be?’ She looked tearful eyes on me but made no reply. Michael put his hand over Mrs Ryder’s, slipping his fingers delicately through hers. She cast her bewitching blue eyes at him and squeezed his fingers tight.
With a hurricane, when you think you can take no more it grows stronger. It should have been I that was in need of a chaperone – a single young woman caught in a darkened room alone with a handsome man for who knows how long. It should have been I who feared for the talk that would fall from the mouths of busybodies. A married woman like Mrs Ryder should have looked out for my good name. But every sound made them hug up closer. Every gesture drew them together. Until the shadow of their heads took the shape of a heart on the wall. At that moment I wanted to burst from the room, to blow through the windows, to blast through the walls, and escape into the embrace of the dependable hurricane.
No living person should ever see the underside of a tree. The roots – that gnarled, tangled mess of prongs that plummet unruly into the earth in search of sustenance. As I fled from the schoolhouse after the hurricane had passed, the world was upside-down. The fields to my left, to my right, undulated with this black and wretched chaos. Trees ripped from land that had held them fast for years. Branches that should have been seeking light snuffled now in the dirt – their fruit splattered about like gunshot. Tin roofs were on the ground while the squeaking wheels of carts rotated high in the air, disordered and topsy-turvy. I stumbled through this estranged landscape alarmed as a blind man who can now see.
At first I only saw four people huddled around an upright tree, pointing and shaking their heads. Then others came – five, six, seven. Some running from across the field. Some shouting at others to come. All stopping to stare when they reached the old tree. Then, round the legs of a tall man, over the heads of two small children and past the white handkerchief of a woman who dabbed at tears in her eyes, I saw the body of Mr Ryder.
He was dead. Wrapped around the base of the tree like a piece of cloth. His spine twisted and broken in so many places it bent him backwards. He was naked, his clothes torn from him by the storm with only one ragged shirt sleeve still in place. His mouth was open wide – was it a smile or a scream? And around him his butchered insides leaked like a posy of crimson flowers into a daylight they should never have seen.
I believe I might have screamed. I think I screamed, ‘He is a jealous God.’ I might have held my head and yelled, ‘Thou shalt not commit adultery. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s wife.’ For the small crowd looked on me for a brief moment, frowning, before they resumed their yapping: ‘Where is Mrs Ryder? . . . Mrs Ryder should be informed . . . Someone must bring Mrs Ryder.’ I cannot be sure whether the howling that I heard was only in my head. But I am sure of what I said next. I am certain of what I said, out loud for all to hear. I can clearly recall what I said, in my strong and steady voice – for I said it until all were staring on me.
‘Mrs Ryder is alone in the schoolhouse with Michael Roberts.’
There was confusion when I finally reached home. Was it the same crowd of people who had been looking on the broken body of Mr Ryder who were now crowding the veranda of our house? Was it the same woman dabbing at her eyes with a white handkerchief? Was it the same tall man? Or were they different people who now jostled around a grave and sombre Mr Philip, waiting to hear what he could do about the fuss in the neighbourhood? And was Miss Jewel sobbing at the death of Mr Ryder? Or did her tears flow because the crowd was whispering, ‘Michael Roberts – have you heard about Michael Roberts?’
Miss Ma grabbed my wrist to pull me past the crowd and into the house. As she closed the door on an empty room she slapped my face so hard I fell to the floor. ‘Did you know what my son was doing with that woman? Did you know my son was committing a mortal sin with Mrs Ryder – a married woman?’ I tried to run from the room but she held me back with the strength of fury.
‘Why are you treating me like this?’ I asked.
‘My son with that woman.’ She had lost her senses. She hit me again, this time her hand rounded as a fist. ‘My son was found in an ungodly embrace with that woman,’ she screamed.
Suddenly her strength left her. She collapsed, falling on to a chair as her body returned to that of a frail old woman. I looked on her and gently placed my hand on her shoulder. As fast as a snake she puffed herself up again. Her eyes fixed on mine, her hand raising to strike me. But I escaped from the room. I ran to the henhouse and squeezed my adult body in with the bewildered hens. There I sat a quiet vigil, looking out on the turmoil through the hole in the wood that was once used to spy on me.
I went to the town to stay awhile in the now empty schoolhouse. I had to make sure the school was safely closed up. And to turn back the children who might arrive for their school term. I pinned a notice to the door concerning the tragic accident. Mr Ryder was not yet in the ground. Mrs Ryder was abiding with the preacher from the evangelical church, waiting on the day when her sister would arrive to carry her far away from this island. But all around the town rumours flew on the breeze. How had Mr Ryder died? Was he trying to feel the power of the hurricane? Was he caught where he should not have been? Some said that Mr Ryder’s death was not an accident. Gossip appeared in the newspaper – a picture of Mrs Ryder’s grieving
It was three days before I finally returned home from the schoolhouse. The man who came and sat at the dinner table was Mr Philip. Still short, still with a round belly plump from plantain and his beloved dumplings. But he had no Bible. His empty hands shook as they hung above his knife and fork. His water glass wobbled and spilt its contents, the liquid dribbling down his chin, which remained unwiped. Miss Ma sat down and placed her napkin neatly in her lap. But there was no grace spoken even though we looked on Mr Philip to start the prayer. There was no thanking of the Lord. And there was no Michael. No Michael staring on me from across the table. No Michael attempting to catch my eye.
As usual Miss Jewel came in the room with a bowl steaming with rice. But after she had placed it on the table she laid her two hands on my shoulders and held them there for all to see before returning to her work. I could still feel the warmth of her touch long after Miss Ma had stopped staring her open-mouthed surprise at the two of us. It was then that, for the first time in my living days, I dared speak at that table. ‘Where is Michael?’ I asked. Mr Philip raised two weary eyes to look on me before lifting himself from his chair. Leaving his plate of food untouched he withdrew from the room.
Miss Ma did not look in my eye when she said, ‘Michael has gone.’
‘Gone?’ I said.
‘Yes, Michael has gone.’
‘Gone?’ I shouted.
‘Hush, child, this is still the table.’
‘Gone? Gone where?’ I had no reason to talk calmly.
‘England,’ Miss Ma said, casually lifting an empty fork to her mouth.
‘England!’ I rose from the table. ‘England?’ I screamed.
‘Child, hush yourself or you will feel my hand. Sit. Sit and eat.’