The Far Side of the Sun (15 page)

‘Did you?’

‘No, of course not. Someone set fire to my house.’

His head jerked up and he scrutinised her. ‘Deliberately?’

‘Maybe.’

‘Or accidentally? A couple of guys fooling around with too many beers inside them?’

Dodie kept her thoughts to herself. First she had to work out whether Flynn Hudson was just making idle conversation or whether there was something more behind his questions. He stood up and brought her the potatoes. She held out her sack and he tipped them in, as pleased as if he’d grown them himself.

‘And your shack? Are you ready to clear up that too?’

‘I can’t bring myself to look at it.’

‘I’ll dig a pit,’ he offered.

He took the spade and did the heavy work, digging a large pit in the sandy soil up behind the trees, while she raked together the last blackened fragments of her life and shovelled them in. He covered it up, and she stamped the earth down on top of it so hard that it felt like a war dance. Then he buried the remaining scorched scar on the beach under a deep layer of sand, and when he’d finished it was as though her life here had never existed. Scavenging seagulls strutted over it in the hope of finding spoils.

‘It’s better this way,’ he told her, ‘better to bury it fast, to rid yourself of the bad memories.’

‘Come on,’ she said. ‘Let’s clean up.’

She headed down to the water, glad to move away from the spot where her house had been, and kicked off her sandals. She breathed in the heat of the day and sensed the weight of Flynn Hudson’s gaze behind her. It seemed to touch the naked skin of her arms and rummage in the loose fall of her hair after she snatched away the string that bound it. Her feet were filthy and her hands caked with earth and ash. She felt she was a mess of dirt and damage inside and out and she wanted to rid herself of it. She plunged into the waves.

They walked the length of the beach. Their bare feet glistened in the sand and Flynn Hudson carried the sack of vegetables over his shoulder, smudging even more dirt onto his clean shirt. She noticed the long tendons in each of his feet and the bloodless colour of them, as though they had never seen the light of day before. The bottoms of his trousers were wet from the waves, though he’d gone in no further than his ankles to rinse his hands in the salt water while she swam out in her dress, losing herself in the clear sparkling ocean. She dripped as she walked.

‘My name is Dodie Wyatt.’

‘Well, Miss Wyatt, where does this Mama Keel of yours keep herself?’

‘Inland a way, behind the trees. She was there at the fire last night.’

‘Lots of people were at the fire last night.’

She could feel an undercurrent in his voice but she didn’t know what it meant or what to make of it. She cast a glance up at his profile, his high forehead hidden behind the tangle of thick brown hair, the hollow of his cheek in shadow under his deep-set eyes. A dusting of sand etched on one eyebrow.

‘Mr Hudson.’

He swung round to look at her. Maybe he heard some undercurrent in her voice too.

‘Tell me where you come from.’

‘From the United States.’ He said without the usual pride in the statement that most Americans seemed to take in it. ‘From Chicago.’

‘It must be cold there in winter.’

‘Cold enough to freeze the thoughts in your head.’

‘And are you on holiday here?’

He laughed, a loose easy sound. She liked his laugh. It was the only time he let control slip through his fingers.

‘Hell no! Do I look like a guy who comes on vacation to the Bahamas? I’m not in the forces, if you’re wondering, because I had tuberculosis as a child and one of my lungs is a mess. No, I’m here working.’

Nothing more. No explanation.
What kind of work
? But she didn’t ask. She was aware of barriers within him and she didn’t push against them. She knew only too well that barriers were what held a person together, the scaffolding of daily life.

‘Are you thinking of staying long?’

He looked out at the vast world of blue that was the sea and the sky all rolled into one, and drew a breath through his teeth as if to taste the scent of it.

‘I would like to stay longer,’ he said. ‘Even if it’s just to make sure you’re all right after this disaster. You’ll need to find another house.’

He kept walking, as though his words were slight unimportant things, but Dodie felt the pull of them, like gravity, drawing her to him.

‘Don’t stay,’ she said.

He stopped to look at her and wrapped a fist into the cotton of her sodden dress, holding on to her. ‘Why not?’

‘Because I’m bad luck. Two nights ago I helped a man who was wounded. He died and the next day my house burned down. I think I’m in trouble. I’m warning you that it could be dangerous to be around me, Mr Hudson.’

His eyes locked on hers and the hairs rose on her forearms.

‘Call me Flynn,’ he said, and then added with a smile, ‘I’ll stay.’

A pulse started up in her throat.

They ate potato and squash fritters fried outdoors by Mama Keel under a darkening star-studded sky, along with strips of fresh conch fished out of a rocky cove further along the coast.

‘It won’t bite you none,’ Mama Keel chuckled at Flynn as he regarded the rubbery conch flesh on his plate with caution.

Around them on a scrubby stretch of dirt, children of all colours, shapes and sizes tumbled like puppies. One small girl called Rosa picked up a garlicky strip of conch from his plate and dropped it into her own wide-open mouth. ‘See? It’s real good.’

Flynn regarded the child as if he seriously expected her to drop down dead and when she didn’t, he fed the rest of his shellfish to the thin-ribbed hound that skulked under the house. The way his hand ran soothingly along the animal’s flank told Dodie he’d spent more time around dogs than around children.

‘You done good, I hear, Mr Hudson. Clearing up our Dodie’s shack like that,’ Mama Keel commented.

He lit one of his rolled cigarettes and nodded respectfully to the tall black woman. He tipped back his head and stared up at the night sky as if he’d never seen anything like it before. It soared over them, tar-black and embedded with what looked like a million chips of glass. Moths and other winged insects were blundering in close, drawn by the light of the fire, and somewhere off in the trees a shrill hissing scream made Flynn jump.

Mama Keel chuckled. ‘That there’s just a bitty old barn owl.’

‘Is that a fact? We don’t get none too many of those round the backstreets of Chicago.’ He drew on his cigarette, spat out a shred of tobacco and said, ‘I hear you done good yourself, Mama Keel, in caring for that wounded man Dodie found.’

‘I didn’t do nothin’. Just gave her some ointments to ease his pain. She done the carin’ herself, but got herself in bad with the police over it.’

He switched his gaze to Dodie. ‘How bad?’

‘Nothing much.’

‘Sure?’

‘Yes.’ Dodie jumped to her feet. ‘I’ll put the children to bed, Mama.’

She hurried out of reach of the conversation. But with one infant on her hip and the little Rosa clinging to her skirt, she paused in the doorway when she heard Mama Keel stretch out in her creaky rocking chair under the stars and say, ‘How about you hand me one of them smokes of yours, Mr Hudson, and tell me what in the good Lord’s name you doin’ in these parts?’

‘I was hired to do a job.’

‘What kinda job?’

‘Can’t tell you straight out, Mama, but it’s a job that means I have to poke my nose in places where people don’t want it poked.’

Dodie heard Mama exhale smoke from her cigarette and the whine of mosquitoes grew louder.

‘You know, Mr Hudson,’ the black woman said, ‘when I meet a smart man like you whose head is just buzzin’ with thoughts, sometimes I wonder what they are, but most of the time I just want to smack them out of his head before he does harm with them.’

Dodie heard Flynn’s chuckle of amusement as the evening’s darkness settled around them as warmly as a blanket.

‘What house? She don’t need no house. She can stay here.’

‘Mama, she’s not a child. She needs a place of her own.’

‘Don’t talk about me as if I’m not here,’ Dodie told them. ‘Whose house is it?’

‘It belongs to a man who has gone to work in Miami for a spell,’ Flynn said. They were sitting around the table, the three of them. ‘I heard of it when I was looking for somewhere for myself.’

‘So where you livin’?’ Mama Keel asked.

‘I’m lodging in a room over on the other side of town.’

‘So it’s a shack,’ Dodie said, ‘this place you’re talking about.’

‘Yep. It’s not much. But it’s empty and it’s free. You could take a look at it now, if you want.’

‘Why now?’ Mama demanded. ‘It’s dark outside. Tomorrow is time enough.’

‘Today is my day off, Mama,’ Dodie pointed out. ‘I’m working tomorrow.’ She turned to Flynn. ‘Where is it?’

‘In Bain Town.’

Dodie and Mama Keel looked at each other.

‘That’s a black district,’ Mama said, shaking her head. ‘She don’t belong in no black district.’

‘I figured,’ Flynn turned towards Dodie, ‘if you’re in trouble, no one is going to come looking for you there.’

‘Trouble?’ Mama Keel snatched her clay pipe from her mouth. ‘What trouble?’

The shack had a tin roof and was tiny. But it boasted a lock on the door, curtains over the windows and the roof looked sound. It was empty except for a stained mattress on the floor and a faded ruby-red armchair whose grey horsehair stuffing was emerging through its skin like an old man’s whiskers. The room was spotlessly clean and in one corner stood a brand-new galvanised bucket, both of which she realised must be the work of Flynn.

Why are you doing this for me?

But the words didn’t reach her lips. Whatever his answer might be, she didn’t want to hear it. His kindness warmed cold places inside her where shadows fretted against each other and she didn’t want to lose that warmth. Whatever his answer, it would change things. She wanted to believe it was just a coincidence that he happened to be passing last night and saw the flames. Nothing more than chance that brought Flynn Hudson into her life.

She knew she would have to ask him questions, of course she did. About his life. About why he was on the island. Maybe even about whether he knew Morrell. She would ask them, she promised herself that. But not yet.

She said simply, ‘Thank you, Flynn.’

In the flickering light of the candle the contours of his face seemed to shift, unwilling to be pinned down, and as if he could read what was in her mind he kept his eyes well guarded. Their expression was polite and warm, but that was as far as it went. Yet when he lifted her hand and placed a heavy old-fashioned iron key on her palm, his fingers lingered against hers, as though reluctant to give back her hand. He inclined his head so close she could smell the sea salt in his hair.

‘Sleep well, Miss Wyatt,’ he said and left.

From Mama Keel Dodie had brought a pair of clean though threadbare sheets, two candles and her freshly laundered waitressing uniform. But when she lay down on the mattress she could hear the night’s silence breathing within the room and the words
Sleep well
humming inside her head. Without the sound of waves she couldn’t sleep.

Dodie opened her eyes. The edge of dawn was nudging its way around the thin curtains and curling up on the floor like a ginger tom cat. For a while she lay there, listening to the unfamiliar noises in the street outside – the creak of a cart, the insolent bray of a donkey, the swish of a broom and a woman’s voice quietly crooning a hymn. Life in Bain Town started early. Most of its residents worked as servants in the city, so had to get their own chores done at the crack of dawn before heading into downtown Nassau to spend their days doing white man’s chores.

Quickly she dressed in her uniform and unlocked the door. A standpipe further down the street had a group of women already gathered around it, but they all stopped and inspected Dodie with round surprised eyes. She smiled at them and raised a hand in greeting but no one responded except a child.

She had to be at work at eleven o’clock for a twelve-hour shift, but first she had something to do. As she hurried down the dusty road, a cockerel crowed to announce that the sun had stopped dragging its feet and had painted the sky blood red.

‘Jesus Christ! What the hell are you doing here?’ Sir Harry Oakes demanded. ‘I thought you’d cleared off and left the island.’

‘No,’ Flynn answered softly. ‘I’m still here.’

Flynn remained in deep shadow while the early morning sun came slinking around the side of the villa. By day it was a cheerful place of red tiles, latticework, flawless lawns and a long balcony draped in the fragrance of bougainvillea, but at this hour, veiled in semi darkness, it exuded a different smell that was masked by the flowers when they opened up. It was the stink of money. Money and secrets. Flynn knew that smell like he knew the smell of his own breath.

Beyond the luxury property’s perimeter the green swathes of Cable Beach country club and golf course had yet to wake up, but the broad-chested man in front of Flynn had already descended the outside staircase of his sprawling white-shuttered home and inhaled the new day with relish. Even in his work boots and khaki shorts, Sir Harry Oakes cut an impressive figure. Heavy featured and well-muscled, he had the look of a man who had wrenched gold from the land with his bare hands and thought nothing of it. He was about to set off on a stroll of inspection of his Westbourne estate before the staff arrived.