First Blast of the Trumpet Against the Monstrous Regiment of Women (12 page)

Lizzie told me she and my mother were the only children of a railway stationmaster in the City, who’d done all he could for them by giving them a good education. She seemed surprised my mother had told me nothing about any of these things.

The idea that I actually had grandparents excited me.

“Do you think I’ll be able to see them some time, Aunt Lizzie?” I said.

She shook her head and looked ready to weep again.

“You poor boy,” she said. “No, they’re all dead, long ago. Otherwise I’m sure your mother would never have sent you here. No. They’re all dead. There’s only me, more’s the pity.”

She didn’t mention Uncle Norman.

The rest of that morning I spent in my own room. I thought about everything my aunt had told me. But mainly I lay on my bed and wondered what would become of me on this island. I watched a little black lizard that lived and hunted among the ceiling beams of my room, devouring any mosquito that flew too near its long tongue. I’d noticed that if I came into my room suddenly and frightened it, it would puff itself up into a ball and try to frighten me too. But at this moment, neither of us was afraid of the other. It was
looking back down at me with its beady eye, maybe wondering if I was puffed up, too, and might somehow shrink and become small enough to swallow.

At one point, I got up and looked outside. Under my window was a garden pond covered in a green slime. Tiny lizards darted round the rocky edges in pursuit of things no human eye could see; in mid-stride, they would slowly come to a stop, and stay frozen in position like wind-up toys run down. Further back in the garden, motionless, my Uncle Norman was bent over his plants. Behind him, looming over everything, was the impenetrable black wall of the mountain.

O
CCASIONALLY
, I’
D CATCH
that hard look on Aunt Lizzie’s face that should have frightened me; but I tried not to think what might be the cause of it. As for Uncle Norman’s quirks—after a while I took them for granted as the foibles of an adult. Children don’t expect the world to be a rational place.

In other words, I began to believe everything was going to turn out all right for me, in spite of my mother’s death.

I couldn’t have been more wrong. Aunt Lizzie was about to do something awful.

On my third Monday morning on St Jude (I was to begin school the following week), all three of us, Lizzie, my Uncle Norman and I, were at breakfast in the kitchen. The morning was a typical St Jude morning—hot, windless,
with insects buzzing. My uncle was reading
The Potato in Southern Climes
, propped against the china teapot on the table in front of him. We ate silently (“No talking at table when I’m reading” was one of his rules). Lizzie sipped her tea, her face blank. I was picking at my food (“Everything on the plate must be eaten,” he always said). Fried bacon had always smelt so good on cold Stroven mornings; here, in the heat of St Jude, the smell seemed to coat my tongue with grease. The Darjeeling tea made my shirt stick clammily to my skin.

After a while, Uncle Norman closed his book and rose from the table. He put the book back in its place with the others on the mantel. They were safe enough there; the fireplace was an ornament: the weather was never cold enough to need a fire. He went to the back door, slipped his feet into his old work boots, jammed on his old coolie hat, then went outside to begin his garden rituals of the morning: the plucking of weeds, the removal of insects.

Lizzie watched him leave. She lowered her teacup slowly into its saucer. She turned to me.

“Go to your room. Immediately.” She hissed the words in a way I’d never heard her speak before. I got up right away and made to take my plate over to the sink.

“Leave it. Just go.” Her eyes were so cold they might have belonged to a snake.

The change in her was so awful, I was almost afraid to breathe for fear of sobbing. I went quickly into my room and shut the door. Through the window, I could see my uncle at work on his potatoes near the back of the garden.

As I watched, Lizzie appeared, still in her apron, walking slowly towards him. He was bent over, jabbing at the ground with a hand fork. He’d no doubt found one of those tough weeds that conspired during the night to strangle his plants.

Lizzie had arrived behind him now. She looked down at him for a while, then she turned and looked straight at the window. She saw me and gave me a smile—a great friendly smile. She kissed her hand and blew it towards me.

A great weight was lifted from me. I was able to breathe again. I smiled back at her and waved. I could have shouted with delight.

She turned back towards my uncle as though she were going to say something to him. But she didn’t. Instead, she stooped and picked up one of the jagged lumps of lava that bordered the pathway. She used both hands to lift it, for the rock was the size of the teapot.

My first thought was that I’d never seen Lizzie working in the back garden before.

She held the rock against her body with her left hand, and with her right, she brushed off the soil that clung to it. Then she stepped towards him and raised the rock over his bent head.

I knew then what she was going to do. I could have shouted a warning to my Uncle Norman, but I didn’t. He must have caught a glimpse of her white apron out of the corner of his eye, for he turned towards her, still on his knees. Too late. The rock clumped against the side of his head. It was quite a loud sound in the stillness of the morning. His coolie hat toppled off, but he stayed upright on his knees for a moment, then he fell forward across his potato drills, slowly, carefully, as though he wanted to damage them as little as possible. His fall scattered some flies that were among the plants. They quickly overcame their panic and organized themselves again, this time around his body.

Lizzie stood over him. He didn’t move and she dropped the rock to one side. She smoothed her apron, the palms of her hands caressing her upper thighs. She must have known I was still standing at the window.

“Andrew,” she called.

I didn’t answer.

“Andrew,” she called again.

“Yes?” I croaked out the word.

“Go for the Doctor.” She wasn’t looking at me, but I could have sworn her voice sounded cheerful. “Go down to the town and bring him back with you. Tell him your uncle’s had an accident.” She called this out in the same tone she used to let us know that dinner was ready.

So it was that I saw the assault on my uncle, and might have warned him, but didn’t. Now, I obeyed Lizzie. I began running down the long, hot path to the town. I ran fast, for I was in a neck-and-neck race with the image of what I’d just seen in the garden. At times I’d get ahead of it, at other times it would nose in front and terrify me. I tried not to contemplate its implications: that the only person on this black, remote island who seemed to care for me was a monster. I had a sickening feeling that once again my life was about to be shattered.

W
HEN
I
REACHED
the town, prostrate in the heat, I ran through the battlements gate. The main street was empty and there was no sound except for the occasional jangle of the rigging of some of the low-masted fishing boats beached along the shore.

I went straight to Doctor Hebblethwaite’s house at the end of a cul-de-sac. The house was actually a stubby tower
called The Motte, for it had once been attached to the garrison, and was only a few steps from the battlements. I knocked at the heavy wooden door. A thin, fair-haired girl my own age opened it, letting out a medicinal smell into the morning air. She went back to fetch the Doctor. He appeared a moment later holding a piece of toast in one hand and a cigarette in the other.

“Yes?” He was a slight man with brown skin wrinkled by the sun, and blue eyes that seemed too young for his face.

“My Aunt Lizzie would like you to come up to the cottage. My uncle’s had an accident.” I used Lizzie’s exact words.

He asked no questions, but went back inside, leaving me standing at the open door. The fair-haired girl watched me curiously from the lobby. He soon came back, wearing a white linen coat and carrying a doctor’s bag.

“Lead on,” he said.

At that moment, a tall thin woman with wire-rimmed glasses appeared in the lobby behind him.

She spoke to the doctor, ignoring me completely.

“Don’t spend all day up there. Lunch will be at twelve, prompt.”

“Yes, dear,” he said.

“And you, Maria,” she said to the girl. “Go and clear the table.”

We went along the main street, through the gate and began the long walk up the path to the cottage. Doctor Hebblethwaite was a leisurely walker, smoking constantly, wheezing or coughing outright from time to time.

I was afraid he’d ask for details about the accident, and was trying to think of something to say that wouldn’t incriminate Lizzie. But he didn’t ask any questions; he just wheezed along behind me. Now and then, he’d stop for a breather. The first time, we’d only gone about a quarter of a mile. He looked back down towards the town.

“Well, young chap. How do you like the island?” He had a high-pitched voice with a musical lilt to it.

“Fine,” I said.

“I come this way so infrequently,” Doctor Hebblethwaite said. “What an enchanting view.” His language seemed very refined.

He sat down on a rock, lit another cigarette and began to talk about the island. I was in no hurry to get back to the scene of the crime, so I was the perfect listener, nodding politely, not rushing him in any way.

“St Jude was formerly a women’s penal colony,” he said. “The doctor’s main function in that era was to preside over punishments and executions. To ensure that they were performed humanely, if such a word may be used in such a context. A number of my predecessors left notebooks in which they talk about their responsibilities. It appears punishments were doled out for any kind of minor misbehaviour. Executions were reserved solely for the leaders of riots.

“When an official punishment was to be inflicted, all of the prisoners were assembled below the battlements and the guilty parties were brought out. About nine in the morning: just about this time of day.” He looked around. The sky was a killing blue, gulls were wheeling distantly over the harbour in the slight wind, and the insects were busily going about their tasks.

“Punishments were mainly by the lash. The women were stripped of their clothing and spread-eagled on an iron frame in the sun. After the lashing, the sufferers were left on the frame all day.

“In the case of executions, the heads of the guilty women were cut off with an axe. Sometimes more than one blow was required. The heads were impaled on poles, and displayed on the battlements as a warning to the others.” He
threw away his half-smoked cigarette. “Reading between the lines of these notebooks,” he said, “one has a distinct impression that the lashings could be minimized, or the executions made more efficient if the condemned women were willing to do certain … favours for their jailors.” He may have glanced at me as he said this, but I made sure I was watching the smoke rising from the cigarette thrown among the rocks.

We began walking again. Doctor Hebblethwaite wheezed along behind me for another quarter-mile or so, till we came to another smooth boulder.

“Let’s stop here for a while,” he said. He sat on the rock, lit up another cigarette, and continued his history lesson.

“Those were dreadfully uncivilized times, of course,” he said. “The idea of penal colonies for women went out of style. It would make an interesting topic for a monograph, don’t you think?”

I didn’t know what a monograph was. He flicked the ash off his cigarette against the black lava, and the red sparks scattered.

“The island was eventually converted to a garrison and naval base,” he said. “The doctors were barber surgeons, and they had quite a task. In naval battles at that time, it was considered quite unsporting for ships to dodge each other. So the main tactic was simply to line up alongside your enemy in a gentlemanly way and fire broadsides. They’d blast away at each other from close range with cannonballs till the wooden hulls were smashed to pieces. Naturally, flying splinters of wood were the major cause of wounds, and gangrene was the result. Amputation was the only hope in most cases. Operations were performed without anaesthetic or disinfectant. The surgeons did what they could, but it must have been quite ghastly. The patient might gain
a few more painful hours of life in exchange for a limb or two. Not much of a bargain.”

He drew deeply on his cigarette as though he were taking his last breath. He pointed down towards the town. I could see he had more to tell me, and I looked at him encouragingly—anything to keep him from asking what had happened at the cottage.

“Those battlements aren’t quite as flimsy as you might think,” he said. “Rather large lava rocks have been piled up under the plywood structure. I believe they’d be quite effective against guns. I used to wonder why they’d been built on the inland side. I discovered it was out of fear the enemy might land further down the coast and come at the town from behind.” He tapped the ash from his cigarette. “Of course, there is no enemy any longer, but the gate’s still barred every night. An island tradition. There’s a superstition that someone from outside the walls might still bring some kind of disaster to the island. Foolish, of course. The islanders know it; but they still like to have the gate shut at night.” He stubbed out the cigarette and looked at me. “Whatever it is they’re afraid of, walls and gates won’t keep it out.”

I nodded and tried to look wise.

Doctor Hebblethwaite got up from the rock and we began walking the last stretch to the cottage. As we walked, he told me a little about himself. He was a career Medical Officer and had been trained in the best medical schools. He’d been posted to St Jude twelve years ago, just before the birth of his daughter. In the course of time, he expected—and, by the way he said it, his wife hoped—to be sent elsewhere. He’d thought his work on the island would be more demanding, but it had turned out to be quite dull.