The Wedding Party (20 page)

The rest-house sat like a long bamboo crate floating in a swamp of tropical creeper. Hot rain poured down with unlimited frenzy, in a molten grey mist that hid the runways, the wide plantations of sugar cane beyond them, and then still farther away the great red-green mountains.

‘I'm in charge here,' Mrs. Meredith said. The neat freshness of her clothes extended to a constantly neat and pleasant smile. ‘If there's anything you want, just ask me. Make yourself at home. You have three hours at least. Probably more.'

‘I would very much like to have seen something of the island,' I said. ‘Would that be possible?'

‘I should hardly think so. More than half the roads are flooded,' she said. ‘And those that aren't flooded are blocked by landslide. That's the way here since the earthquake. The whole crust is cracked. One night's rain and it all comes crumbling down.'

‘A pity,' I said. ‘Perhaps we could have some tea?'

‘Anything you like,' she said, ‘from tea to phenobarbitone. A bed if you wish. Just ask. If you want anything and we can't provide it I'll take it as a piece of rank mismanagement on my part.'

During tea she moved with remarkable alertness, among fifty waiting travellers, each tired and sweating under a roof of thundering rain.

Half an hour later I ran head-long into a perfect stranger coming out of a door by the wash-room.

‘I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry,' I said.

It was Mrs. Meredith; dressed now in a silk frock of neat emerald and purple design that admirably matched her dark well-set hair.

‘I'm afraid I didn't recognise you in that dress,' I said. ‘You look rather different—'

‘The secret in this climate,' she said, ‘is to have 1000 dresses.'

Suddenly, as if a tap had been turned off, the rain stopped its flood. She looked sharply upwards and then down again at her watch.

‘That's probably the end of it,' she said. ‘It stops and starts like that. You've still got three hours. If you'd like to walk along as far as my house my husband would perhaps show you a little bit of the island. Or one of the boys will take you in the car. I'd take you myself except that there's another airplane due in at five.'

I decided to walk alone. With her customary efficiency she came out into the steaming sunlight to give me directions.

‘Just half a mile down the road. A brown wooden house with a framework shed at the back. You can't miss it. I'll ring to say you're coming.'

After rain the green land swam in a batter of ochre mud. A repeated forest of sugarcane rustled in a light after-breeze of storm, the fronds still glistening with water. Alongside the sugarcane ran a railway track of narrow gauge, now a little blood-red river showing, here and there, what seemed to be two parallel strips of half-drowned rusty wire.

At the house the garden of which looked like a hen run except for a few clumps of purple orchid, I knocked on the screen door twice without an answer. At the second knock I heard voices inside. Then as I raised my hand to give a third knock a big tousle-headed man in soiled drill shorts and an open sweaty khaki shirt came and peered through the screen.

‘Been knocking long?' he said. ‘Sorry. Couldn't hear you for the radio.'

There was no sound of radio. The man shook my hand several times with bluff cordiality. His arms, chest and legs were a mat of gingerish hair.

‘Come in, come in,' he said. ‘Glad to see you. Nice of you to come up. Sit down. Have some lunch? We were just going to have lunch. Always a bit late on Sundays.'

It was now five o'clock.

‘Sit down. Sit down. Find yourself a chair,' he said. ‘What'll you drink? Gin? Whiskey? Have a beer?'

I had the impression of sitting in the middle of a junk sale. Half a dozen broken wicker chairs, two of them long, filled the outer part of the room. Two bamboo tables, each dusty, one littered with papers and glasses, the other with a woman's hand-bag on it, stood in the centre. Overhead and down the walls went several tangled skeins of ancient electric wire, sprouting here and there a lamp, a switch or a dusty naked bulb.

‘Wife said you wanted to see the island,' he said. ‘Tonic? Say when.' He poured my drink and then took deep swigs at his own, wiping his mouth on a forearm of ginger bristles. ‘No can do I'm afraid. No Go. All the roads are flooded. Wouldn't get a mile. Excuse me.'

He went out suddenly, into what I thought must be the kitchen. For the second time I heard two voices, a woman's and then his own. He came back carrying a wooden dish of potato chips, sprinkling salt on them.

‘Have a chip?' The chips were flabby. He threw several on the floor. A few crumbs from them stuck to his lips. ‘Never been here before then? Pity. If you'd come at the right season we could have shown you round a bit. Given you a ride on the sugar train.'

I then remembered the narrow gauge track, half-submerged in its red-ochre river.

‘Only free railway in the world.' He said. ‘Takes 2,000,000 tons of sugar in the season.'

I asked him if he worked in sugar. He started blowing his nose on a dirty handkerchief. ‘Not now,' he said. ‘Used to. How's the drink? Ready for a re-fill?'

I was not quite ready. He was.

‘Much to do here?' I said.

‘Damn-all in a way,' he said. ‘Depends.'

He seemed not to want to talk about that. The conversation dragged for a moment or two. Then something, I hardly know what, made me remember the orchids. The one piece of colour in the flooded hen-run outside.

‘Orchids?' he said. ‘Class that lot as a weed. Interested in orchids? Like to see some? Something worthwhile?'

From out of the frowsty sitting room, with its ancient grass mats now strewn with the crumbs of potato chips he had thrown down, he presently led me outside.

There at the back of the house, stood the framework shed about which the neat, impeccable Mrs. Meredith had spoken. It too stood in a swamp, like the skeleton of a derelict ship turned upside down.

‘Get a bit of fun out of this,' he said.

His voice, I thought, lost some of its bluffness. It grew, in that moment, unexpectedly tender.

The high framework house was a creeping, drooping forest of orchid bloom. Purple mouths, soft yellow and chocolate trumpets, dark cocoa butterflies, pure cream sprays of moth-bloom sprouted and sprayed from pots, pans, a few sawn-down oil drums, several home-made wooden baskets, and occasional biscuit tins.

‘Wonderful,' I said. ‘Very lovely.'

‘Well, keeps me out of mischief,' he said.

He picked up a pan in which, from among what seemed to be damp, fine-crushed tree-bark, tiny shoots were sprouting.

‘That's how I like them,' he said. ‘The little ones. The ones that need nursing.'

Back in the house he insisted on a final drink. He slapped me several times with hairy heartiness on the shoulders.

‘Man after my own heart,' he said several times. ‘Coming back this way? Let's know if you come back. Might see the sugar harvest. Have some fun. Give you a ride on the sugar train.'

As I set down my glass for the last time I noticed that, from one of the dusty tables, the woman's hand-bag had been removed.

‘Glad to give you an orchid to take home,' he said. ‘Think it would travel? Something to remember the island by.'

‘Thanks. Perhaps if we come back this way.'

He clattered clumsily at the frame-door, opened it and followed me outside. In the sunlight he staggered in the ochre mud of the yard.

‘Any message for your wife?' I said.

‘No, no,' he said. ‘No thanks. She can get me on the blower, if she wants me.'

I paused by a clump of orchids in the yard.

‘Mind if I take one of your weeds?' I said.

‘Take one. Take one,' he said. His flushed, groping face lit up. His voice was tender. ‘Nip one off. Take one. Glad you like orchids. My one passion. Passion with me.'

‘Just something,' I said, ‘to remember you by.'

Back at the airport, four hours later, Mrs. Meredith, with her fresh, cool, impeccable high-charged efficiency, saw us to the airplane. Already, in that interval, she had changed her clothes again.

Now she was looking more composed, more assured and more efficient than ever in a dress of dark blue silk, with small white spots, white belt and a neat white collar.

‘If you come back this way,' she said, ‘you must let us know what you'd like to do. Anything I can do for you I'll do it gladly. Anything at all.'

For a moment I thought back on the orchid-house, on Mr. Meredith and on Mr Meredith's passion.

‘There's just one thing I'd like to do,' I said.

‘What is it?' she said. ‘Just tell me. If it can be done I'll do it. You only have to say.'

‘Just for fun,' I said, ‘I'd like to ride the sugar train.'

H. E. Bates was born in 1905 in the shoe-making town of Rushden, Northamptonshire, and educated at Kettering Grammar School. After leaving school, he worked as a reporter and as a clerk in a leather warehouse.

Many of his stories depict life in the rural Midlands, particularly his native Northamptonshire, where he spent many hours wandering the countryside.

His first novel,
The Two Sisters
(1926) was published by Jonathan Cape when he was just twenty. Many critically acclaimed novels and collections of short stories followed.

During WWII he was commissioned into the RAF solely to write short stories, which were published under the pseudonym “Flying Officer X”. His first financial success was
Fair Stood the Wind for France
(1944), followed by two novels about Burma,
The Purple Plain
(1947) and
The Jacaranda Tree
(1949) and one set in India,
The Scarlet Sword
(1950). Other well-known novels include
Love for Lydia
(1952) and
The Feast of July
(1954).

His most popular creation was the Larkin family which featured in five novels beginning with
The Darling Buds of May
in 1958. The later television adaptation was a huge success.

Many other stories were adapted for the screen, the most renowned being
The Purple Plain
(1947) starring Gregory Peck, and
The Triple Echo
(1970) with Glenda Jackson and Oliver Reed.

H. E. Bates married in 1931, had four children and lived most of his life in a converted granary near Charing in Kent. He was awarded the CBE in 1973, shortly before his death in 1974.

Discover other books by H. E. Bates published by Bloomsbury Reader at
www.bloomsbury.com/HEBates
.

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For copyright reasons, any images not belonging to the original author have been removed from this book. The text has not been changed, and may still contain references to missing images.

First published in Great Britain in 1965 by Michael Joseph Ltd

This electronic edition published in 2015 by Bloomsbury Reader

Copyright © 1965 Evensford Productions Limited

The moral right of the author is asserted.

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eISBN: 9781448215270

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