Sion Crossing (22 page)

Lucy made a face at him. “But in his own time … But never mind, Oliver. I’ll have him drive you—he’s going to town anyway … So he can show you where to go, and then he can wait for you on his way back.”

But a slave Kingston certainly wasn’t, thought Latimer. That baffling manner of his, by turns argumentative and then deferential, sometimes that of a mocking—and self-mocking—inferior, and then more like a well-informed and well-educated equal … there was no pinning the man down at all, except to be sure that he was more than he pretended to be.

And that was another thing the new Deputy-Director would have to zero in on: they must recruit coloured personnel now.

“Kingston! We’re waiting, darn it! Where—”

“An’ ah’s a comin’—” Kingston barged through the swing-door from the kitchen, with his accustomed grin on his lips and an automatic pistol in one hand “—you want something to eat, huh?” He pointed the pistol at Latimer.

“No. Oliver wants to see Sion Crossing. So you can take him in when you go, in Fat Albert … And, for heaven’s sake, do stop playing with that wretched thing before you shoot someone with it!” Lucy gestured irritably. “Is it loaded?”

The negro returned Latimer’s expression of horror with one of mischievous delight. “Hell no, Miz Lucy!” He opened his other hand to reveal an oily rag and commenced to polish the pistol. “I wouldn’t clean a loaded gun now, would I? That’s the way accidents happen.” Almost impossibly, his grin widened. “I just can’t bear a dirty gun—like my Ma couldn’t bear a dirty kitchen … She just couldn’t stand for anything to be dirty, an’ that’s the truth—always polishing and cleaning, she was, you know, Oliver.”

Latimer took a grip on the anger which had swiftly succeeded fear inside him. The man had seemed to behave with abominable carelessness, but he couldn’t be sure of that—or at least not sure enough to risk humiliation by expressing outrage. For David Audley had caught him in the past with just such deliberately simulated excesses, albeit never with anything so crude as firearms, for which they both shared an aversion.

He frowned as he thought of David Audley. Why was he continually thinking of that wretched fellow? Perhaps it was because it should have been Audley standing here now? Or was it because—however aggravating the conclusion might be—Audley might have known better how to handle this black man?

“Don’t you fret! I wouldn’t have shot you, Oliver.” Kingston misread the frown. “Not unless I’d wanted to.”

Two of a kind,
thought Latimer suddenly. One black and one white, and utterly different.
But two of a kind, nevertheless!

“I wasn’t thinking of that.” The identification relaxed him. “I was thinking … do you always carry a gun? Is that an American custom still—like in the cowboy films?” That was much better; it even had possibilities. “Were there any black cowboys—historically, I mean?”

Historically
was nice, too: after all, he was here—and David Audley should have been here—as a historian.

“Not my gun.” The smile didn’t disappear, but it wasn’t quite so wide. ”This is one of Professor Booth’s equalizers—”

“Where did you find it?” Lucy cut in.

“In the g’rage.” Kingston stuck the pistol into the waistband of his jeans and produced a ring of keys from his pocket. “In the locked drawer in the work-bench.” He jingled the keys. “That’s four he’s got, so far … One in the bedroom—one in the drawer over there—” He pointed towards a low table beside the fireplace “—an’ the squirrel-rifle in the cupboard … an’ this little ol’ piece.” He tapped the pistol. “Like the Professor’s ready for uninvited guests, wherever he may be when they come visiting.”

“Good God!” exclaimed Latimer. Somehow, the idea of a professor armed to the teeth was more shocking than the armoury itself.

“There may be more.” Kingston brightened. “You see, you’re quite right, Oliver—it
is
an old American custom. You can get yourself shot here a whole lot easier than most places … It’s written down in the Constitution—the Right to Get Shot … though they call it the Right to Bear Arms.” The brightness increased. “You being a historian would know that—it dates from when there was open season on British redcoats … and then red Indians and buffalo. And when all of them were shot, that just left us to shoot up each other. But it’s all properly divided up.”

Latimer couldn’t help himself. “Divided up?”

“Sure. If you got a badge, then it’s law enforcement. If you haven’t, all you need is a sharp lawyer an’ some extenuating circumstances. Or …” Kingston pointed at the window “… if there’s a lot of trees around, an’ some poor four-legged animals too—
an’
it’s the right time of year—that’s a hunting accident, and you won’t do any time at all. You just got to get it right, that’s all.”

“Kingston!” Lucy bridled at this litany of death. “It isn’t like that at all! Don’t listen to him, Oliver—”

“Honeychile—it is!” Kingston shook his head. “’Cause, a few years back, if you wuz a nigger here’bouts—you wuz just in the wrong place at the wrong time … It ain’t so
now,
in that partic’lar sub-division, I grant you—if Oliver was to shoot
me
they’d probably throw the book at him … less’n there’s a good sheriff round here—and there
are
some good sheriffs in the South now, I grant you that, too … Okay?”

Lucy frowned. “He
is
good—”

“Sheriff Rinehart?” The negro cocked his head at her. “He’s smart—that’s for sure!” The sidelong look came to Latimer. “Keeps his eye on strangers, is what she means … Knows who Miz Lucy Cookridge is, if you’re a betting man you could make money on
that,
if I was willing to give you odds—okay?” He grinned. “All you gotta remember with guns, Oliver, is that it’s
concealed
weapons that are bad medicine.”

A different world, thought Latimer. The same, but different—and all the more different for its sameness. But then a thought struck him. “Why does … the Professor—Professor Booth … why does he have all these weapons?”

Kingston raised a hand. “Self-protection.”

“From what?”

“From whatever—from whoever.” Self-protection appeared to be self-evident to Kingston. “Man’s got a right to protect himself—a stranger comes round the back, an’ doesn’t knock at the door, he better have his hands empty, that’s all.”

It was a different world, thought Latimer. Of course, the negro was trying to frighten him with exaggeration, no doubt to see how he reacted. But it
was
a different world nevertheless—and all the more menacing because of its obvious similarities.

“You’d shoot him, would you?” All the more reason to keep his cool.

“No he wouldn’t!” snapped Lucy.

Kingston grinned. “Not if he was running away, maybe. But if he was trying to get in … you bet your ass I would.”

“Even if he had no weapons?”

“I wouldn’t wait to find out … An’ after that … if he hadn’t—I guess I’d just go round to the wood-shed an’ get me the little axe. An’ I’d put it in his hand.” Kingston nodded. “An’ I’d say ‘Hell, Sheriff—when he come at me with that deadly weapon, ah wuz real scairt, an’ ah feared for mah life!’”

A different world. But the truly horrible thing was that there were beginning to be dangerous places even in England now, where the jungle was encroaching all the time.

He shook his head. “I see … Yes, well … guns don’t particularly interest me at this moment, Mr Kingston, as I don’t intend to break into anyone’s property. All I want to do is go for a walk along the ridge above the river, from near the bridge and the church to where the old plantation house used to be. Would that be possible?”

The negro studied him. “Sion Crossing, you mean?”

“If that’s what it’s called—yes.”

“Uh-huh … all that land … Sion Crossing—old Sion land … Sure, there’re paths all along the top, ’bove the stream.” The negro nodded. “No problem—no problem ’cept it’ll be a mite warm for a cold-blooded Englishman just now.” He estimated Latimer critically. “Might melt you down some—might be more than you could take.”

The memory of yesterday’s oven temperature, thus crudely recalled, still radiated uncomfortable heat. But after that challenge to his ability to withstand it Latimer could not have backed down even if he’d wanted to.

“You underestimate us.” He couldn’t look down on the man physically, but he had a historical advantage. “We’re quite accustomed to ridiculous temperatures. One of my ancestors fought on Delhi Ridge for four months in the Indian Mutiny, a few years before your Civil War—120 degrees, and no cover, before the rains … and cholera after that. I should think he’d regard your ridge at Sion Crossing a good place for a picnic, Mr Kingston.”

Kingston’s mouth opened for an instant, then rearranged itself in its almost-habitual grin. “Is that a fact? Hell—but of course it is!” He looked at Lucy. “It’s like in that song—

—you abs’lutely raht, Miz Lucy—it doan bother him none!”

Latimer, in his turn, looked at Lucy. “What?”

Lucy looked daggers at Kingston. “I didn’t say anything—”

“Yes, you did—you once said other countries has a climate, but the English Limeys … they just got
weather
, an’ they don’t do nothing about it ’cept complain, an’ they take everythin’ else for granted, whether it’s good or bad, ’cause it’s
foreign
, an’ there’s no point in trustin’ it, or worryin’ about it—they just ignores it, like it wasn’t there—is what you said, Miz Lucy.”

“I said no such thing.” Lucy looked at her watch. “And, in any case, are you going to Smithsville or not? Because if you aren’t, then I’ll have to take Oliver to Sion Crossing … Well?”

Kingston rolled a glance at Latimer. “You don’t want nothing to eat? ’Cause I was fixing to make you something really Southern—” The glance lowered offensively to Latimer’s stomach.

“Oliver wants to see Sion Crossing,” said Lucy acidly. “He can wait for his dinner until supper.”

Latimer looked from one to the other, if anything even more confused by their relationship. It seemed to him that in some ways Kingston was the family retainer—a competent chauffeur and a meticulous man-about-the-house … meticulous even to the point of unlocking locked drawers, and cleaning the pistols he discovered therein, as well as calmly battening down and securing everything last night. But he was also more than that …

But this was a different world, he had to remember that now … So okay—not only as a chauffeur and a man-about-the-house—but also as a cook—as a cook, Kingston’s performance last night, with that okra dish, as well as this morning, with that extraordinary breakfast, was enough above average to make him wish that he’d swallowed his pride just now, and settled for dinner (which was presumably lunch), instead of supper (which was presumably dinner, in a civilized world)—

But it was too late now.

The garage of the Professor’s house was enormous, and filled with all the equipment of American husbandry and do-it-yourself technology … and, along the back wall, on the other side of which lay the enticing blue lagoon of the swimming pool, a work-bench with drawers; in one of which drawers there had been an automatic pistol—he had to remember that, in order not to compare all this too unfavourably with the less sophisticated hardware of any equivalent British upper middle-class establishment, where burglars could not be shot down in their tracks.

And two cars—yesterday’s Volvo, and a curious vehicle which looked as though it had been slightly over-inflated from a sleeker design to distort the angularity of modern European drawing boards, so that it was almost bulbous in outline.

Kingston slapped the roof of the curious vehicle, flashing that eternal grin. “Okay, Oliver?”

Some sort of reply was required to that—some sort of reply was always required when Kingston addressed him. “This is Tat Albert’, is it?”

“This Fat Albert—” Kingston massaged the unmasculine curve of Fat Albert’s roof “—this
Missus
Professor Booth’s mode-of-transport … We go to Smithsville, we always use Fat Albert—the Professor, he drive the Volvo to Columbia, ’cause that’s his car, an’ they know that there … But, Smithsville—they know Fat Albert better here’bouts, so we drive Fat Albert here—okay?”

“Oh?” That dichotomy of the Volvo and Fat Albert, and of Professor and Mrs Booth, baffled Latimer; was the Professor a more dangerous driver than his wife—or a better one? “Yes?”

Kingston bobbed his head. “Maybe I oughta take you there first, only Miz Lucy sez no … They got a big parade there, this weekend, all dressed up like you never saw … But mebbe we can do that this evening, huh?”

“A parade?” But, of course, Americans were always parading: they had pretty girls in short skirts who marched at the head of bands, tossing batons and flags into the air above them: that was why American parades were so much more successful than British ones.

“Uh-uh.” Kingston shook his head. “You oughta see the war memorials they got in the square, Oliver—that’s what you oughta see—you bein’ a Civil War man, you see.”

“Oh?” The identification momentarily threw Latimer. He had just started to admonish himself for being unjust to his own country: the British did some parades better than anyone—the stiffly formal ones, like the Trooping of the Colour, and the Royal occasions … But it still had to be admitted that the Americans were far superior on more popular occasions—and although they must have their riots, he could never recall having read of
American
football hooligans—

But Kingston was looking at him curiously across Fat Albert’s roof—

“Oh … yes?” What had the man said? Not parades—but war memorials … ‘
you being a Civil War man
’, of course! But what was really disorientating him was this unaccustomed need to play a rôle: it had been years since he had had to do anything like this, pretending that he was something that he was not. And that uncomfortable conclusion pricked another discomfort, of which he had been aware the moment he had stepped into the garage, but which he had tried to ignore.

“What’s the matter?” Doubt succeeded curiosity on the negro’s face. And when he wasn’t grinning, or at least smiling, it revealed itself as a face not architect-designed for laughter: somewhere far back in that bloodline, maybe before some enslaved ancestor in the Americas, there had been an original Kingston whose mouth had been cruel and whose eyes had been watchful—whose sneer of cold command had put the fear of dark unknown gods up his Dahomeyan or Ashanti subjects.