Away with the Fishes (13 page)

Dagmore studied feverishly, every day of the week. He would gobble his lunch and instead of napping afterward would devote
his afternoons to maps and astronomical charts. Soon he could name every star and constellation, and draw the outline of all the lands he never even knew existed. After his evening tea with the captain, he would retire to his bunk, where he memorized poems about the sea, from a slim blue volume that Enoch had given to him.

Dagmore’s transformation didn’t go unnoticed on the ship. How could it? Every man on board had his own explanation for it, though these told more about the men themselves than they did about Dagmore. Enoch’s hairy chest grew puffier, as he attributed the boy’s enthusiasm to the masterful inspiration of his teacher. The deckhands, with whom Dagmore rarely ever played cards anymore, decided that the Captain was behind all this activity, torturing the poor lad to study day and night. Only the Captain, who prided himself on his discerning taste, knew the truth: he had seen through Quick’s ragamuffin exterior and had adopted himself a real prodigy!

In fact, the Captain admired his son almost as much as his son admired
him
. Thomson couldn’t wait to get home and show off his boy, take him to a tailor for some suits
à la mode
, and to a restaurant, and the theater! He would take him to a physician, too. Have him checked out, though he appeared to be of plenty-robust stock.

So it was that the Bowles gentlemen, Dagmore and Thomson, toiled at cross-purposes. The one worked and studied and wrote and memorized and flaunted the fruits of his labor in front of his sea-faring father. He predicted the weather by watching the moon and navigated the ship by the wind and the stars. He even gained dominion over the other men’s tempers, for they felt both pity and pride in his presence, and were reduced to good behavior whenever he was around. The other planned and prepared and laid the
ground for a proper city upbringing. He noted the best schools and devised a budget to pay for them. He made a list of all the prominent men he knew. Every night he wrote a letter to a different one, expressing his desire to introduce his son to society and his hope that each man would champion the boy’s admittance to the tightest circles. The letters would be delivered first thing when they reached home.

That’s right. Dagmore had no idea of it, but he was headed home. Or to what would be his home for a while. He would need his skills of observation, alright, but not to impress his father on any expedition. He would need them to survive in a strange, new world, where there were no such things as manchineel trees or waterfalls. Where the seaman he had taught himself to be, would have to roll up his wanderlust and tuck it away, like a sail in need of mending.

Oh, but when it unfurled! What winds would await! What fortune, beneath the glittering, glassy surface of the wretched sea!

17

H
ad you been a firefly on Oh, navigating the moon-bathed night that would culminate the next morning in Bruce’s inflammatory front-page report—the one about the murderous Madison—you would have lit up quite an array of characters, in various shades of optimism. Raoul, gratified, asleep in the arms of Ms. Lila and biding the hours till morn. Madison, hopeful and alone in his room, discerning in the shadows on the ceiling Rena’s returning silhouette. Bruce, chipper at his typewriter, an icy tumbler of pineapple juice dripping onto his desk. And Officers Tullsey and Smart at a rum shop, downing congratulatory shots. Their search warrant had come through and would be executed at dawn. Only May would you have found turning in her bed, tossed by a sea of bad dreams, if none so immediate as the one splashed across the headlines that morning when she awoke.

May found the
Morning Crier
curled up at her doorstep. (Bruce offered home delivery for a fee.) With foreboding and a cup of tea, she sat in her kitchen and unfolded it. She was quite prepared for some embarrassing, even worrisome, mention of her brother on Page 5 or Page 6. The accusation that screamed at her from the
front page—
Murder
—well, for this she was
not
prepared, and her tea cup crashed to the floor.

May gripped the newspaper and read on. Her shock turned to fright, paused at despair, and stopped finally at rage.

“‘Efforts by this paper to ascertain the identity of the individual who anonymously placed the lonely hearts ad of which Mr. Fuller is accused have so far proven unproductive’? How dare he?” May shrieked. “That weasel Bruce would have the whole island believe he doesn’t know who wrote the ad? What does he take us for?” May stomped her foot, nearly impaling her pinky toe on a shard of wet porcelain.

As her temper cooled and she cleaned up the broken bits, May realized that Bruce had unwittingly slipped her the key. The ad was the answer! If she could figure out who placed it, then half of the wholly circumstantial evidence against Madison would crumble like May’s china cup. But how could she go about that?

May paced her little kitchen, back and forth and back and forth, but found she was getting nowhere.

Bruce knows who wrote it, he simply
must
, she reasoned. Why won’t he say? Surely he would not be so stupid, so self-serving, as to jeopardize a man’s freedom to protect some love-sick fool? Surely not just to sell papers?

Pace though she might, May could come to no better answer. A murder suspect as unsuspecting as Madison made for hefty profits.

“I’ve got to get to Bruce,” she said and sat down again.

May looked around the kitchen, as if further instructions might present themselves on a breadbox or a shiny pot. When they didn’t, she got up and paced some more. Back and forth and back again, until a thought crossed her mind: how had Madison fared with
Trevor? she wondered. With the shock of the morning news, she had almost forgotten having sent him to seek advice. (His return from the bakery the night before had found her already fast in a fitful sleep.) Anxious though she was, she couldn’t bring herself to wake him, not with the morning paper that awaited.

“He’ll be up soon enough, I suppose,” she said to the empty room, and poured herself a fresh cup of tea.

May stepped out onto the verandah and into the morning air, pure and almost heartening. The sun hadn’t long begun its climb, and together with the flowers, she turned her face to watch it. Her eyes were locked on the burning orb for so long that they began to hurt, until finally with a jerk she forced herself to look away. Angry from the spots that taunted her vision, she grew uneasy again and stormed back inside.

Seated at her kitchen table, May sipped and reflected. She prayed, too, that Madison would have good news to relay about his tête-à-tête with Trevor. If anyone could help them solve a problem like this, Trevor would be it. Trevor was wise and kind and respected. He knew everything about everyone, was always willing to help a friend in need, always eager to solve a riddle, and he was friends with everyone, wasn’t he? With the police, all the islanders, and...of course! With Bruce!

May relaxed, if tentatively, for the first time since the day before, and heaved a sigh of relief. She saw in Trevor’s friendship with Bruce her brother’s exoneration. Chances are they wouldn’t have made the charges stick, she told herself, seeing how Madison is innocent. But on Oh you just never know, do you? A baker in the hand would be worth more than two bumbling policemen snooping in the bush. She sighed again, more confident now that hers and Madison’s was a battle that could be won, and her mind drifted to Trevor. It drifted
to his shop and his bakery crowd, to Bruce, Randolph, even to the Officers Arnold and Joshua who she knew spent time there.

Then it drifted to Trevor’s best pal, Dr. Branson Bowles.

Perhaps I should tell you more about May and my Branson while Madison sleeps. We’ll have to go back some twenty years, but that’s to be expected. New stories often have old beginnings, fresh plots rooted deeply in the past. Especially where lonely hearts are concerned.

At the age of fifteen, May fell in love with Branson, on a Sunday morning when he rescued her lazy black-and-white pup from a petty thief named Melvin Jones. Melvin had swiped the furry bundle from under the feathery tamarind tree in May’s yard, and Madison chased him through town, past the post office, the middle school, and the Staircase to Beauty salon, tackling him finally (flailing pup still in hand) at the church where May and her family worshipped, just as the congregation was pouring out. When May realized what Branson had done for her, she was smitten, and she flirted in the only way she knew how: with fish broth, corn chowder, and cashew nut ice cream.

Branson, who was sixteen and boasted a burgeoning appetite, couldn’t but capitulate to May’s steamy sauces and spicy sweets, and before long he was quite in love himself. In fact, practically from the day that Branson saved May’s stolen puppy, the three were never apart. Branson walked May and her puppy to school; in the evening May and her puppy brought Branson his supper. Branson so adored May’s cooking—the pleasure her dishes gave him was so deep and true—that May went to great lengths to expand her
culinary repertoire. She borrowed books from the local library and listened to cooking shows on her battery-powered radio, studied spices and herbs and consulted her elders, and experimented with marinades and dough.

While May cooked, Branson studied. He wanted nothing more than to make a fine future for himself and for May and to make her his bride. He would finish school first, then go to the island’s teaching college. He would get a job and a loan and build her a house, and they would live happily and heartily ever after off his teacher’s stipend and May’s saltfish souse.

Branson told May about his plans on a day so sunny it made the sea look silver and gold. May had prepared for them an abundant lunch of fish, breadfruit, cabbage salad, and cake, and packed it in a hamper woven of palm leaves. From a quiet bay, they rowed off in a small fishing boat, a boat that had once been my own. It was a sturdy little craft, nicked and dinged from years of use and wear, but seaworthy (within reason) and clean, and painted a bright shade of yellow. It was Branson’s pride and joy as a young man, for it gave him a sense of freedom and authority that no other aspect of his young existence afforded him. In it he could command the direction that his life should take, and at what speed; this was a great satisfaction, a salve for the terrible patience that growing up required.

They reached a secluded cove and went ashore, Branson dragging the heavy boat onto the sand, May balancing the heavy lunch in her dainty arms. Not far away they spread a blanket and May laid out the meal. The anticipation of May’s cooking was as exciting to Branson as the sight of her setting up their picnic. She had beautiful hands that danced around pots and utensils and gourds and cutlets with a fluidity as smooth and graceful as the gentle tide
that lapped against the rocks at the cove’s outer edges. At home, too, Branson enjoyed watching May prepare a meal, as much as he enjoyed eating it. Her recipes and movements were nothing short of magic.

Which was fitting, for a magical day ensued. They ate and talked and dreamed and made plans, laughing and touching in between. When the sun began to set, they stood arm in arm and watched it gently bend toward the horizon. Then they gathered their things quickly and May jumped into the boat, while Branson pushed it off into the water. Aboard, they sat opposite each other, and Branson softly rowed them home. Had you seen it, you would have said that their black silhouette against the sun’s golden flare looked just like a frame from a movie. The proverbial happy and sunsetted ending, that no storm would dare to mar.

In her kitchen, May finally heard Madison stir. She had just enough time to wonder if Branson still had that old fishing boat of his before the memory of it, and her unanticipated smile, dissipated in favor of more pressing matters.

“Madison, are you up?” she hollered. “Come out here. I need to talk to you about Trevor. Did he have anything helpful to say last night?”

Madison yelled back from the bathroom, but between the door’s thick wood and the sink’s splashing water, May couldn’t make out his words.