Pynter Bender. Jacob Ross
in tunnels that ran like intestines in the belly of the earth. It was down there in one of those mines that he’d walked into a metal rod and damaged his left eye, had lived with that injury most of his life – a small white scar like a tiny worm against the black of his left eye that had suddenly come alive.
The questions his father asked him now were always the same. What was it like before Miss Santay gave him back his eyes? How did he manage when he needed something and no one was there to help him? How would he have felt if he had had to live his whole life with nothing out there to see? And so Pynter taught the old man not to fear the coming darkness. He told him about his own time of darkness, when, for him, the world was just a roar at first, how he’d come to use the sounds around him, how he’d learnt to recognise the things that touched his skin.
It was the other way around for him, his father said, for while he was heading into darkness with a clear picture of the world inside his head, Pynter, having just emerged from it, had only light and colour to look forward to.
‘Not all of it goin to be pretty,’ his father said. ‘But it can’t have pretty without ugly. It can’t have bright without dark.’
He was silent for a long time and so still it was as if he’d gone to sleep. When he spoke again, it was with an emotion that Pynter did not recognise.
‘One thing I’ll carry in my head to the end of my days is the first time y’all mother bring y’all to me. I didn know she was comin. I was weeding corn. I lift my head and see her walkin through my garden with two bundle in she hand, one on eider side. When she reach, she didn say a word, she just hand y’all over to me. She didn have to say nothin, you see? Was the way she do it. Like she was sayin, “Look, I givin you what’s yours.”’
He passed his hand across his face.
‘Gideon – as far as he concern, my funeral done happm and now is time to hand everyting over to him. Like y’all don’t count. Like y’all come from nowhere. Like somebody pick y’all off a tree. But when the time right, I got a nasty shock for him. Let’s hope that he kin take it.’
PYNTER COULDN’T FIGURE out how a person’s clothes could remain so smooth and perfectly pleated. It was as if the khaki shirt and trousers of the little man had just been taken still steaming from a hot iron and gently placed on him. He wasn’t walking up the hill – not as normal people did – he tiptoed as if he hated the idea of touching the ground with the soles of his glistening leather shoes. Pynter caught glimpses of his white socks as he lifted his shoes and carefully set them down on the patches of grass that dotted the concrete road. The man carried a little brown case under his arm. It matched his jacket and trousers exactly. In the other hand he swung a beautiful stick with a curved silver top. Despite the heat, he was not sweating.
‘Is there a Mister Manuel Forsyth living here?’
‘What you want my father for?’
‘That’s his place?’ A fat little finger shot out before him.
Pynter didn’t answer at first, but then asked the man to follow him.
The man walked across Miss Maddie’s yard and straight into his father’s house. He entered the bedroom as if he visited every day. His father sensed the stranger’s presence as soon as he stepped in.
‘Who’s it?’ he grumbled.
‘Mister Manuel Forsyth?’
‘I is he. Who you and what you want?’
‘My name is Jonathan, Mister J. Uriah Bostin, Schools Inspector for the parish of San Andrews – urban and suburban, that is – as well as the, er, outer peripheries.’
‘A what?’
‘Schools Inspector, Jonathan U. Bostin.’
The old man’s body relaxed, his face became vacant. ‘I name Manuel. Shake my hand.’
The man seemed to be thinking over the invitation. He stepped forward quickly and stretched out his right hand. Pynter’s father felt the air and got hold of it, his hand almost swallowing the man’s. He seemed to be examining the man’s wrist with his fingers. The stranger didn’t like it. He made an attempt to get his hand back, his large eyes bulging.
‘You short!’ Manuel Forsyth said, letting go. ‘You short-breed people. What you say you name was?’
‘J. U. Bostin.’
‘Those Bostins from Saint Divine – you one of dem?’
‘There is a connection there, I think. I’m here to see you about the boy.’
‘What happen, you not sure?’
‘Well, er, my father is from there – Saint Divine, I mean.’
‘And you?’
‘Well, I was born there, er, if you don’t mind, Mister Forsyth, I am very pressed by the matter at hand. This boy here, your, er, er…’ He frowned at the sheet of paper he’d slid out of the case. ‘It says here that he is your son. Sorry, a typing mishap, I should think.’
‘You shouldn think. He my son. What he done?’
‘Turned truant, I believe, aided and abetted by yourself.’
‘Pynter, get a chair for ’im.’
Bostin placed the brown case on the seat of the chair and the stick beside it. Pynter could see that the silver handle on the stick was the head of a lion. Bostin reached into his right pocket and pulled out a white handkerchief. He wiped not just the seat of the chair but also the back. Finally, with a smooth and curious sideways movement, he took up his things and slid onto the chair.
‘Well, er, yes. It has been brought to my attention that in relation to the education of this boy, and you might be quite unaware of it, you are contravening the law.’
‘Which law?’ His father seemed almost pleased with the man.
Bostin creased his forehead. ‘The law of the land, Mister, er, Forsyth. The one that bequeaths me the powers to bring this matter to your attention and to take the necessary action if my recommendations are not adhered to by yourself and …’
‘Which law you talkin ’bout, passed when, by who, under which sub-section of which article of which Act?’
‘Well, er, we don’t have an Education Act, per se, but …’
‘Then we don’t have no law which kin force me to send my child to school. That is why you come – not so?’
‘You kin say so.’
‘Is so or is not so?’
‘Depends on how you interpret the matter.’ The man lifted his case and placed it on his lap.
‘You a very frustratin fella, y’know dat?’ Manuel Forsyth had pushed himself forward in the chair. ‘You come here to tell me I breakin a law dat don’t exist an’ threaten me in my own house. I have a mind to report you to the head pusson in your place an’ make you lose your job!’
‘I am the head person, Mister Forsyth. You’ll have to, er, report my misdemeanours to me!’
‘Good. I’ll make you fire yourself then. You finish your business with me?’
‘No, sir.’ The man slipped his hand into his case and eased out a green notebook. He studied it for a moment. ‘Truancy is a punishable offence in, er, the, er,’ the notebook moved closer to his face, ‘in the case where parents have been informed and they persist in, er, withholding the subject of the enquiry from going to school.’
His father laughed. ‘Tell me, Bostin, what is de definition of truancy?’
‘Pardon me?’ Bostin wiped his brow.
‘Define