Chapter 3: Blackmail PDF

# Chapter 3: Blackmail While my Old Man cooked Sunday dinner of rice-and-peas and roast beef and gravy, I wandered on the farm, getting acquainted with the place in general and with the animals and the river that sliced through. I pulled deep lungsfull of country air into my system. This farm, wh...

# Chapter 3: Blackmail While my Old Man cooked Sunday dinner of rice-and-peas and roast beef and gravy, I wandered on the farm, getting acquainted with the place in general and with the animals and the river that sliced through. I pulled deep lungsfull of country air into my system. This farm, which he called the house farm, was about one-third of his holdings. He had another farm of sugarcane elsewhere, some forty acres large, but this one was mixed, with bananas and yams and farm animals. The part of the land which sloped up from the river was shared seventy, thirty by bananas and yams, but the flat stretch which was damper than the rest, was the pasture. It was dotted with thinned guava trees and the occasional breadfruit. It grazed six cows and calves altogether and Boysie, the horse. Five goats and some poultry made up the rest of the animal population. The river looped through the land with various water plants and bamboo trees keeping it company. The bed was very rocky in parts but tracts of sand formed the concave sides of the loops. Rounded river stones of various colours and sizes were strewn along the course everywhere. I looked forward to bathing in the best of them but since there was hardly any fun in doing this alone I thought I should wait until I had made me at least one friend. Tall coconut trees, scattered on the farm, swayed gently. At the same time that I browsed about I thought of Mr Belmont's daughter. Already we had clashed - and in church so I expected more of the same and quite worse, because our clashes would be of a more secular nature from then on. Yet I found myself thinking of her in a nice way - if you get what I mean - wishing that instead of being what she was, she would be kind, well-disposed to me and talking to and taking up for me in my troubles with others. If there were going to be troubles. After all we were neighbours and from where I walked now I could see her home, the roof anyway. What nonsense that the adults were quarrelling. We shouldn't have to do the same. I lived alone with the Old Man and she alone with her mum, what better thing than for us to live neighbourly? Although I made no conscious effort I found that I remembered her face clearly: the clean profile and the ivory of her teeth and the baby-clean white of her bright burning eyes. There was a mole on her upper lip that helped to make her pretty, by george. And that pony tail of hers was cute. Ah, well, we would see what we would see. Tomorrow would be school and we would at least meet, if not in the same class, then during the recess period when all the school was one. For some reason, as I walked along or leaned against the barbed wire fence, I began to think of Teppy. He didn't live far from us. I could see wisps of smoke. Maybe I should run up to his house, I thought, and saunter about and see if he wouldn't have more to say about those Belmonts. They intrigued me. And the more you know of an enemy the better you are able to fight him. Hopping over the fence, I crossed the river teetering atop a single log that lay sprawled by some windstorm, and dashed through the banana trees up the grade and into his yard. The place was desolate. The lawn was overgrown with grass and runners and the fence had rotted in places. There was an outdoor building, the kitchen. The only worthy-looking thing in that entire yard turned out to be a large spreading mango tree. Its branches bore a heavy burden of dozens, maybe hundreds upon hundreds of green mangoes. To me they seemed like mangoes of distinction. I'd give them another week or two and they'd start ripening. I had better make friends with Teppy, so that I'd receive gifts of mangoes. The walls of the house were in a bad state, too. Made of board, they had rotted in parts and been patched over with oil drums which had been cut open and pressed flat into sheets. The roof was of zinc sheets of different sizes, colours and shapes. The rust-coloured zinc were the old ones. A vine-like plant swarmed up the verandah rails to the roof. If trimmed it would have enhanced the place but it was just as neglected as everything else. I wondered what Teppy did with his time, why he had allowed his property to run down like this. What a difference it made with my Old Man's spick-and-span place. Ah well... I mounted the sagging steps to the verandah. 'Who's that?' he barked from inside the house. His mouth seemed full. 'Me,' I said. 'Who the ram goat is me?' 'Me, Beppo.' 'Oh you. What you want, boy?' Not very warm. 'Just visiting,' I said. 'Never 'ear of a boy visitin' a fifty-year-ol' man,' he said again with a full mouth, 'but come in.' I walked in and was appalled. He was eating all right but it was not that that appalled me. He was eating from a single vessel, but what a vessel. It was what was called a pudding pan, about eight inches deep, made of tin and cylindrical in shape but widening at the top. It was the sort of thing most women took to the market on their heads and returned with full of this and that but mainly of slabs of beef and layers of fish. It wasn't an eating vessel but a carrying one and enormous. It must have been carrying a cubic foot in volume, and it was just about full of food which was in a state of mush. The house was stuffy and old and badly kept. The floor was sagging and dirty, with dust swept under the table which was rickety, and the paper of the walls had peeled in many places. A glass pane of one window had been replaced by cardboard. Rats could be heard scudding across the race track of the ceiling, kicking up their dung which had hardened to sound like gravel. 'You're eating,' I said by way of opening a conversation. 'An' so I is,' he said, eating with a fork which had seen many a dining. So battered was it that it had lost a prong and the handle was twisted out of shape. Good manners demanded that he offer me something to eat though I was sure that my stomach was not strong enough to accept the kind of food he was eating. Anyway he held up a piece of meat on his fork and he said, 'Would you like a piece o' snake meat, boy?' I made a face. 'Snake meat?' 'That's right, boy,' he said, setting the meat into his mouth and pulling it off the fork. He chewed it only twice before he swallowed it. As it slowed in his throat he made an effort to swallow harder and send it on its way down. 'It's good, boy, this snake meat. If you only want a piece let me know an' I'll be mighty glad to dish you up some.' 'Boy,' I said. But he held up yet another piece of meat. 'Look at this fine piece o' alligator jowls,' he said. 'Care to try it?' By this time I was ready to vomit. I had also figured his was a kind of diplomacy to discourage me from accepting any of his food. The rat, I thought, and to think that the Old Man had fed him so royally only that morning. 'No, Teppy,' I said, 'I don't want to try it. I'm not hungry.' 'Oh.' His face suddenly brightened. 'What brings you a-visitin'?' 'Nothing.' 'Now, that's an answer to beat all answers,' he said, crushing a hunk of yam with a single chewing motion and, balling it with his cow-like tongue, swallowed it. 'What brings you I ask an' you say nothin'. Now I'm not that bright, sholy, but if I go visitin' you can bet me gran'mother's necklace that I go visitin' for somethin'.' 'Well, I'm just looking around.' He didn't answer me but continued to eat at an alarming pace. I said, 'Jeez, Teppy, you have a fine mango tree outside!' 'An' so I 'ave, boy. Start savin' your money 'cause I'll soon be 'avin' mangoes to sell you an' all the res'. They's the bes' mangoes this side o' the Atlantic Ocean. Save your money. A thro pence will buy you twelve.' 'Twelve for three pence! But that's expensive!' 'They're expensive mangoes,' he said. 'Is that why you come visitin'?' 'No. I told you. I'm only looking around. I hope you don't mind.' 'God forbids, boy. But I always think that boys fin' more int'restin' subjec's than ol' bachelors. Take that Beltshazzar wench...' 'Why do you call her wench?' 'You rather I call her gal?' 'No, no. What's wrong with girl?' His rate of eating was hardly affected by our conversation. 'What's wrong wit' girl?' he asked. 'It's plum' jaw-breakin' sayin' girl, tha's what, when they's easier words such as gal an' wench.' 'Well, use her name, I said, hoping he'd let out the secret of her name. 'You could say instead, Hilda. Or Esmeralda...' 'Hilda!' he shot. 'Esm'ralda! Why you think that poor littl' wench's called by mule names, boy?' Why I had selected those names out of the blue I knew not. But Teppy went on: 'Why Hilda an' the confounded Esm'ralda an' not Daphne?' 'Is that her name?' I said, stepping forward. Daphne was a cute name. 'Huh!' he snapped as though I had said something offensive. 'Is her name Daphne?' He burst out laughing, coughing on some snake meat or alligator jowls or perhaps lizard gizzards. 'So that's it!' 'That's what?' I asked, withering. 'That's what you come visitin' to fin' out! That wench's name! Well, I'll be doggone,' he said, cocking his head to one side then the other and even suspending his military operations in the pudding pan. 'You're a fast worker, boy. You beat me col'. When I was young an' in me prime an' bent on courtin', I couldn' 'a' work faster. Wait till I tell Tate 'bout your fas' foot works.' 'Tell Dad?' 'Why not?' he said, returning to his battle against the food. 'You wouldn't.' 'I aim to, boy.' 'But why? I didn't come for that, Teppy. Honest.' 'You tellin' a man 'is business, boy?' 'I came visiting. I told you.' 'Visitin' me backfoot! I know why you come all right.' 'Please don't tell,' I said. 'All right, boy. But 'ow much you willin' t'pay?' 'Pay?' He was not the lovable rascal I had thought him to be. He was more like a robber. 'You catch fish?' he asked me. 'No.' 'Shoot birds?' 'No, sir.' I was frightened out of my wits by the prospect that I was being prepared for some sort of blackmail. 'So you don't fish an' you don't shoot birds! Too bad,' he said, 'for it so 'appens that I like the taste o' crayfish, boy, an' every littl' boy 'ere if 'e be ever so littl', every boy 'as a catapult an' I can't see why not you. Unless, of course, you want me to tell Tate 'bout your spoonin'.' 'I'm not spooning,' I protested. 'But you aim to, eh? Now I'm not so sure that Tate will like to know that you's sidin' up to that Beltshazzar wench. I believe 'e'll feel betrayed an' undercut by you, boy. 'Ere 'e is kickin' up a fuss that Mrs Beltshazzar hates the daylights out o' 'im an' you comes along an' start t'be bosom frien's o' the dauter. 'E'll be furious all right. 'E'll be like the king o' bad eggs. Every jack man an' woman'll fault 'im for bein' the enemy. Poor Tate, they'll all say that 'e's the one respon-s'ble for keepin' the feud goin' all this time. I tell you, boy, 'e's likely to sen' you packin'. You like it 'ere, don't you?' 'Yes.' 'An you like Tate, too, eh?' 'Of course I do. You know that.' 'Well, don' let 'im sen' you away. You couldn' 'a' foun' a better man to take you in.' 'But I didn't come here to find out the girl's name.' 'Aunha. Aunha,' he said, nodding his head but not believing a word I was saying. I guessed I was licked. 'What do you want?' I asked. 'Now you talkin' sense, Beppo or Leppo or whatever they call you. What I want? Two crayfish every week. The giant ones like lobsters. We call 'em mountains. Two mark you. An' as for birds. 'Ow 'bout two per week, too? I like pigeons, baldpates an' lapwings bes'.' 'But...' 'I knows you don't own a fish pot, boy. But Tate'll 'ave one made for you. Go on home an' express an int'rest in the fishin' industry an' 'e'll get you one. Tate'll bend over backwards for you. I know the man. E loves you like I love crayfish an' bird's meat.' 'And you aim to capitalize on that, eh?' 'Boy, don' give me any o' that sassy talk now! Or else?' I walked out of his stuffy old house and out on to the porch where the air was remarkably fresh and cool. I felt like a rag. Indeed worse than a rag. My interest in the girl had really got me in deep all right. Teppy had caught me. Why had I come? Why? I was trapped. Two mountain crayfish per week and two birds. Rats. A catapult I could manage on my own but it meant that I would be forced to broach the subject of a fishpot to the Old Man and God knew I had no mind, as yet, to bother him with requests. It wasn't good policy. Not decent. He had taken me in and given me a good home and plenty to eat and was treating me as he would his own son. He called me son and I styled him Dad, when speaking to him. What better could a boy expect from a man who, but a few days ago, was a total stranger? Boy, I was mad. Part of my anger stemmed from the fact that I had thought Teppy an innocent type of man. Lovable, if you get what I mean. He had come to our house and eaten of our breakfast and made out that he was such a friend of the Old Man's. But now I knew better. He was the most unkind, cruel, greedy and anti-boy man I had ever run into. Just because he didn't wish to share with me his mush of a dinner - which wasn't even good for decent pigs anyway - he had made up a story that he had been eating snake meat and alligator jowls. He wasn't a friend of the Old Man's at all, or would he blackmail the son? And yet I dared not approach the Old Man about what I had discovered in Teppy. At least not just yet. It would suit me to play this blackmail game. For a while anyway. Until I gathered some clear thoughts. The jam in which I suddenly found myself had raised my temperature double-quick for although I was standing in the cool, river-freshened air, I was sweating like mad. Boy, boy, boy! That rat. Just then the Old Man's voice split the Sunday quiet with, 'Beppo!' Meaning dinner was ready. I ran down Teppy's decaying steps and made towards the house at a fast clip.