Pynter Bender by Jacob Ross Read Free Book Online Page B

valleys of Old Hope, over the Déli Morne River, past the stony wastelands of Salt Fields, where they said the bamboo rose so high their branches swept the sky.
    For a long time Pynter had tried to put a face to that voice.
    The hands that lifted him onto the back of the donkey were big like Birdie’s. A face turned back at him – brown and smooth and hairless, the eyes resting on him almost as a hand would. And then a voice, ‘Is quiet where we going; you sure you want to come?’
    He nodded. He liked the smell of the man.
    His father’s house stood on a ridge that looked down on Old Hope. From there he could see the deep green scoop of the valley winding towards the Kalivini swamps where his grandfather disappeared, and the purple-dark hills that seemed to hold back the sea from spilling over onto the canes and the people who worked in them. His father’s house was smaller than his mother’s and had no yard to speak of, just the lawn he was not allowed to walk on, which belonged to Miss Maddie – a greying woman whom he’d only caught a glimpse of, and who his father called his daughter.
    A window with six glass panes let light into the bedroom. It was the only room with a door that was open to the day.
    His father pointed at the back room first – a lightless doorway that stood gaping like a toothless mouth, and from which came a warm and unexpected breath – the odour of musty, nameless things. ‘Don’t go in there,’ he said, without offering a reason. ‘And leave this place alone,’ he added, turning to the living room.
    He’d said ‘this place’ as if the living room did not belong to the house. It had been abandoned to spiders and dust mites. A mahogany table, on whose surface he drew finger faces and curlicues, stood in the middle of it. The matching chairs were arranged around it strangely, as if the people who had been sitting there had suddenly got up and, without looking back, had left the room for good. Two brownish photographs hung in the gloomiest corner of the room. The smaller one was just the head of a young man, his hair cropped short, staring directly out at them. In the other, a man sat on a beautiful chair with a gaze that was direct and grave. A still-faced woman rested a gloved hand on his arm. Four children, a boy and three girls, were arranged around them like flowers in a vase.
    His father gave him their names the moment he stepped through the doorway: Maddie, a sour-faced child, knock-kneed and resentful even then. To the left of her, Eileen – beautiful and dreamy. His father’s voice had gone dreamy too. Eileen left the island soon’z she was old enough to travel. Never look back. Pearly was the youngest – too young then to know that she had to sit still to get a proper picture, which was why her face was no more than a smudge.
    He left Gideon for last. Gideon was the only boy. ‘Apart from y’all, of course. Gideon build bridges for the government.
    â€˜Gideon fifty next year. Pearly forty-seven. Eileen,’ he smiled, ‘she thirty-five next month.’
    For a while Pynter felt that the man had forgotten he was there. The bag he’d taken off the donkey was still hanging from his shoulder. His eyes were on the photograph. A stillness had come over his face.
    â€˜Time pass. Time pass too fast, son. Time does pass too fast.’ His voice had grown thick and slow. There was a sadness there that made Pynter turn his eyes up at the heavy shape against the backlight of the doorway.
    Once, this shape had been no more than a sound. A voice. It used to stop his hands from whatever they were doing. His father’s voice – different from the voices of all the men he’d ever heard. And now that he could see him, it was the only voice that fitted the face to which it belonged. A large face, brown like burnt ginger, not smiling, not strict, not young, not old. A face that shifted