The Polished Hoe (53 page)

“That is what I would like somebody to do to Mr. Bellfeels, and make my life easier, from having to write down a lotta evidence in a Statement I have to take from you; and hand-in to the Commissioner, first thing tomorrow, Monday morning . . .”

“And you haven’t taken down one word, Percy. Not a word.”

“I am derelick in my duties.”

“And I always wondered how you and other policemen go about questioning a suspect . . .”

“There ain’t no suspects, Mary-G. Excepting you, of course! But they ain’t no fecking suspects, to talk plain to you. They’s
all
crooks, and criminals. And guilty as shite! There aren’t no suspects. At least, not in my books. In all my years policing, I haven’t come-cross none. Not one man who, as a suspect, was not also consequently guilty.”

“But I always wondered how you could question a suspect, for hours and hours, in a room, with the door lock; and listen to the suspect’s evidence, and retain all this evidence in your little policeman notebook that have a elastic band round it, word-for-word, and without a knowledge of Pitman’s shorthand.”

“What I don’t remember I invents. Between me and you.”

“With a man’s life at stake?”

“We are train to have good memories.”

“Without Pitman’s Shorthand?”

“My brain is like a machine. Like a big piece o’ blotting paper, sucking up every word and phrase and sentence that a criminal utter when I ’vestigating him, with the door lock, and I stanning in front the door. And I don’t even worry no more, not at my age, to warn him ’bout his rights and all that shite ’bout what he say will be taken down, and used in evidence against him, and further bullshit like that, when the time comes. I don’t make no difference between a suspect,
if they exist at all
, and a criminal. One and one is two!”

“You did-ever learn Pitman’s Shorthand, at school? Or in Police Training School?” she says, sitting on the trash. “Sit-down here, with me. And talk.”

“Have I ever been in this field before, you asked me earlier?”

“I wanted to learn Pitman’s Shorthand, so bad, when I was a girl. But Ma, poor soul, couldn’t afford the sixpence-a-month for tuition. In those days, I wanted so bad to be a secretary. A private secretary. I read about a private secretary in a
London Illustrated.
To be a private secretary, dress in a grey woollen suit, with grey stockings, with a seam in the middle of the back of my two legs, and high-heel shoes, that black. And spectacles. A private secretary have to have-on spectacles; tortoiseshell spectacles. And to a person like the Solicitor-General. To keep his business private; and confidential. Not that I know what a private secretary have to do; further-less, what a Solicitor-General does-do. Even to be a secretary to a Plantation manager, then. It is just that the name sounds so good. Private Secretary!

“To sit at the desk in front my boss, and take down the most serious and confidential things; personal things, too, in letters he dictates. In my Pitman’s Shorthand. Circle-s, and hooks, and dots! I saw this in a book,
Learning Pitman’s Shorthand, the Fast Way.
Matters of serious business. Plantation business; mortgages; deeds; and rental of tenantries on the Plantation. Matters of importance. Matters of Law. I always had a weakness for the Law, for Wilberforce; and for my son that dead. Wilberforce couldn’t make up his mind between Law and Tropical Medicines. Law is the greatest thing, particular if you have a deep strong voice, like some of the English barsters-at-Law I see in the movies at the Empire Theatre, like in
Witness for the Prosecution
, starring James Mason. Something like a strict discipline, to remind you of your rightful place in this Island. The Law. But, nevertheless . . .

“I could see myself taking a letter, like this:

“Dear Mr. Bellfeels, The letter herewith addressed to you, Sir, in confidence, and without prejudice, is to inform you that we have been investigating certain instances relative to you, and sundry behaviours of yours, over the years . . .

“‘
Over the years’
? Or should we put a figure to the number of years and state how many years, in question?”

“State the number of years in question, and aforementioned . . .”

“. . . for the past several years, namely and to-wit, twenty-five years, and in your capacity as Manager of the Plantation that have the nomenclature of Flagstaff, to-wit, Flagstaff Plantation, it is my honour, Sir, and my duty in representing my clients, Sir, to inform you that Miss Mary Gertrude Mathilda Paul, also known under the alias of Miss Mary Gertrude Mathilda Bellfeels, and hereinafter referred to as Miss Paul, herewith and by these tidings wishes to inform you that the said Miss Paul, of the Parish of Sin-Michael, in the Tenantry of Flagstaff, an area of habitation butting and bounding . . . butting and bounding . . .

“Should we tell him what we are suing him for? Or let him find out when he is hauled into the Court of Grand Sessions?”

“Disclosures, Mary-Mathilda. The fundamental thing about English Law, which is not found to the same extent in Amurcan Law, is disclosures. Disclosures, Mary-G. It mean that yuh can’t blindfold a defendant’s defence, meaning, in other words, that the man himself that is charged, even though you catch him red-handed in the act, or with his pants down, in regards to being caught in the act of committing the act, to-wit, the crime . . . Even if um is murder, and in the first degree, and he tell you that he going kill she, therefore admitting premeditation, disclosures still have to be disclose to the defence.”

“Thanks.

‘We regret to inform you, Sir, that Miss Paul has taken actions against you, your person and persona, and your properties and your chattels, servants, maids, cooks and sundries, to-wit, she has evidence through disclosures, that you have committed the following unlawful acts and deeds . . .

“What acts and deeds we should charge him with?”

“Murder.”

“Murder?”

“
Murder!”

“But he has to murder somebody first . . .”

“. . . figure out that later. And in the first degree! And ravishing, in the second degrees. Carnal Knowledge, in the third degrees. His misdeeds remind me of a story in the Latin textbook,
The Rape of the Sabine Women
.”

“But he didn’t commit . . .”

“Murder? And rape? We still going-charge him with murder, in the first degree; and ravishing, in the second degrees. Carnal Knowledge, in the third. If one fail, we got him on the next. We have to tighten the noose tight. He is a’ important man, a man with powerful contacts in this Island and overseas; a man of influence; and he could easily, through his friends like the Solicitor-General, like the Vicar, like the two leading barristers-at-Law in the Island, like the Dean, and like the Headmaster of Harrison College, he might— as easy as my snapping my fingers—wriggle-out from justice, by means of the privilege of those friends, and plea’ not guilty to murder in the first degree, and rape in the second degrees; and, consequently, cop a plea of guilty to a more lesser degree. Like insanity. Or unfit to stand trial, by virtue of. So, if we hit him in the first degree, with murder, and with rapinage, in the second degrees, and with Carnal Knowledge, with these three degrees, seeing that all we have in mind, regarding motive, and want, is to lock up the son-of-a-bitch—pardon my French, Miss Mary-Mathilda! If we can’t heng him!—Well, you understand? Or I have to state the obvious?”

“But it isn’t Mr. Bellfeels who has committed the murder!” she says.

“Who, then? You? You telling me that a season detective like me, a Crown-Sargeant in the Royal Constabulary of Bimshire, who passed out with the Baton of Honour, and who take special ’vestigative techniques and police strategy in questioning witnesses, plus a’ intensive course in the Island of Trinidad and Tobago, in the district of Toonapoona, you telling a big man like me that a lil woman like you—not referring to your natural self, real size or avoirdupois— but lil in the ways of influence, compared to Mr. Bellfeels, you telling me that a lil woman like you could commit this big crime, namely murder? And in the first degree? Jesus Christ, Mary-Mathilda, be serious with me now! I beseeching you. Who in this Village going-believe that a woman like you, could ever commit murder? And all jokes aside. Concerning you wanting to be a private secretary . . .

“There ain’t nothing you could say about your act, alleged; nor nothing that I could write-down in my report as your Statement, that will make anybody in this n’ighbourhood blame you, Miss Mary Gertrude Mathilda, for carrying out such a’ act, allegedly . . . You’s a saint in the eyes of the people, even if your act, allegedly, is a’ act that break a Commandment. You know what a Commandment is, in terms of this matter? Lemme tell you, then. A Commandment is more important than the Law; a law in Comma-Law, or a statue passed in the Legislative Council of Bimshire that is then turn-into a Law?
‘Thou shalt not kill . . .’”

She piles some trash high, to make a pillow for her back.

“Let’s lay-down here.”

“You could tell me your side o’ things,” he says, “and I could write it up in a certain way, advantageous to you, that will . . .”

“Sit down, Percy, and face me. Face me, and talk to me.”

She rearranges some more trash to make a thick, fluffy mattress; and then she lies on it, on her side; and then she moves her body in it, like a cat or a dog searching for the most comfortable, enticing trough in which to lie, in the spread of cloth on a floor in a corner of a room.

She has found her trough of comfort. He just lies on the trash.

Above them, the stars are blinking. Some are out; and are bright, like statements, like accusations.

“Do you know anything about the stars?”

“A little,” he says, making a trough for himself on the trash, which, on his side, is spread thinner. He is so much closer to the bare earth. He can smell the rich, pungent smell of mould. Of soil. The fragrance of dirt soaked by rainwater, and drying out slowly. And he can smell the smell of the things that are growing in this field.

He makes up his bed, and he thinks he feels an object, a stick or something, a discarded handle from a tool, a wooden handle, beneath him. But it could be a piece of sugar cane. He does not get his side of the bed of trash fluffed as thickly as she has done her side; but he is content.

He unbuckles the heavy, thick, brown leather belt from round his waist, and he places it on his chest, after unbuttoning the five silver buttons of his tunic. She cannot see the grey undershirt that he wears.

If there was a moon, she thinks, lying beside him—the first time in a long while that she has lain beside a man—if there was a moon, this closeness could have been so soft and tender, touching and bathed in the goldenness of the moonlight; and she would be impelled, seduced—not seduced . . .
inspired
—to tell him stories, like the story of the Greeks who were in battle with the Romans . . . Was it the Romans? . . . in battle with the Romans; and the Romans retired behind their city walls; and their walls were about twenty feet high, and as thick as a man’s arms outstretched; and the Greeks could not break down the gates to the city, further-less scale the wall; they were never good at high jumping or pole-vaulting; and the Romans would spend the nights, which were all moonlight nights, looking through holes they had bored into the wall to see these Greeks working hard, building a toy horse for Roman children to play with; but the toy was too big even for the biggest child of noble Roman birth; and the Romans laughed, and were convinced now, for the second time, with proof, that they were superior to the Greeks, not only in their knowledge of Latin, and building ruins and monuments and statues of naked men and naked women, and fountains and aquariums, but that they were also superior to the Greeks in their knowledge of philosophy, the philosophy of War and Warfare; and the manufacture of wooden horses, and equestrian toys; and they laughed and laughed and had parties and orgies and drank wine and chewed grapes and olives and spat the seeds into fountains and pools of water, while the Greeks continued, outside the city walls, moonlight night after moonlight night, to build the toy to be given to the children of Rome, but which they must have known was much too gigantic for any child to play with; and one moonlight night led to another, and the Romans forgot that they were at war with the Greeks. And then, certain that the Greeks were stupid, the Romans opened the gates to the city, just to see what the Greeks were doing; and with the help of real, live horses, the Romans hauled the stupid, oversized child’s toy, the Greeks’ gift of a wooden horse, into the city gates. And the Romans drove the iron bars back into their sockets, and closed the gates. With the toy horse inside the gates. And the Romans drank some more wine; and made love to the women at the orgies. It was a night of the full moon.

“The rest is history,” she says.

“I remember reading this story at Sin-Davids Elementary School, in private tuition from Mr. Edwards who was preparing me for the Secondary-to-Second-Grade. He said that he read the same story in the original Latin, in a book written by Julius Caesar, called
Caesar’s Gallic Wars.
I remember the story, but I can’t remember the moral Mr. Edwards tell me was in the story, nor whether it was the Greeks versus the Romans. Or the Greeks versus the Trojans. Is a Trojan a Roman?”

“Or I could tell you the story of Bathsheba.”

“Bathsheba? The resort area on the East Coast of this Island?” he asks her. “The place where Miss Enid Ma.Well does-cook for a fellar by the name of George Lamming, only ’pon a Sunday, after twelve?
That
Bathsheba? I didn’t know there was a history to Bathsheba, and Miss Ma..Well, and Mr. Lamming.”