"Bloody b'y just raggedy-ahss about wid him, an so Rojo win by just a nose. Son of a beach!" said one of the men, evidently the trainer of the beauty horse, a big bay.
"—otherwise he beat any harse in British Hidalgo!"
"Oh, yes! Oh, yes, Mr. Ruy!—dot he would!"
Ruy, his dark face enflamed by the memory of the loss, grew darker as he watched, cried, "Goddammit, oh Laard Jesus Christ, b'y! Lead him by de head till he in de wahter, den lead him by rope! When you goin to learn?—an watch out for boulder!—you know what one bloody fool mon want me to do? Want me to run harse dis marnin—not even just canter, he want run him!—No, no, b'y, just let him swim about be de best ting for him—
"Dis one harse no common harse—dis one harse foal by Garobo, from Mr. Pike stud! Just let him swim about, I say!"
The boy in the water continued, perhaps wisely, to say nothing, but another man now said, "Oh, yes. An blow aht de cold aht of he's head, too."
Mr. Ruy grunted, then, surveying the larger scene and the graceful sweep of it, he said, gesturing, "I cotch plenty fish in dis river—catfish, twenty-pound tarpon, too. I got nylon line, but three week now, becahs of race, I have no time for cotch fish." And his face, which had gradually smoothed, now grew rough and fierce again. "Bloody dom fool jockey b'y purely raggeddy-ahss around wid harse!" he cried. The other men sighed, shook their heads. Jack left them to their sorrow.
Here the river rolled through rolling pasture lands, green, with trees, some living and draped with vines, some dead and gaunt but still beautiful. The river passed a paddock of Brahma cattle like statues of weathered grey stone, beautiful us the trees they took the shade beneath, cattle with ears like leaf-shaped spearheads, with wattles and humps. Then came an even lovelier sight: black cattle in a green field with snow-white birds close by among them. Fat hogs, Barbados sheep, water meadows, sweet soft air.
He could see the higher roofs on the hills of the town, but the road seemed to go nowhere near there. Then along came a man who, despite his clearly having no nylon line, had—equally clearly—ample time to fish, carried his catch on a stick. "De toewn, sir? Straight acrahs de savannah, sir," he gestured, "is de road to toewn." And, giving his own interpretation to the text, I will not let thee go unless thou bless me, detained Limekiller with blessings of unsolicited information, mostly dealing with the former grandeur of St. Michael's Town, and concluding, "Yes, sir, in dose days hahv t'ree dahnce hahll. Twen-ty bar and club! Torkish Cat'edral w'open every day, sah—every day!—ahn. . ." he groped for further evidences of the glorious days of the past, "ahn ah fot fowl, sah, cahst two, t'ree shilling!"
Sic transit gloria mundi.
The room at the hotel was large and bare, and contained a dresser with a clouded mirror, a chair, and a bed with a broad mattress covered in red "brocade"; the sheet, however, would not encompass it. This was standard: the sheet never would, except in the highest of high class hotels. And as one went down the scale of classes and the size of the beds diminished so, proportionately, did the sheets: they were always too narrow and too short. Curious, the way this was always so. (In the famous, or infamous, Hotel Pelican in King Town, sheets were issued on application only, at an extra charge, for the beds were largely pro forma. The British soldiers of the Right Royal Regiment, who constituted the chief patrons, preferred to ignore the bed and used the wall, would you believe it, for their erotic revels. If that was quite the right word.)
There was a large mahogany wardrobe, called a "press" in the best Dickensian tradition, but there were no hangers in it. There was a large bathroom off the hall but no towels and no soap, and the urinal was definitely out of order, for it was tied up with brown paper and string and looked like a twelve-pound turkey ready for the oven.
But all these shortcomings were made up for by one thing which the Grand Hotel Arawack did have: out on the second-story verandah was a wide wooden-slatted swing of antique and heroic mold, the kind one used to see only at Auntie Mary's, deep in the interior of Prince Edward Island or other islands in time.—Did the Hiltons have wide wooden swings on their verandahs? Did the Hiltons have verandahs, for that matter?
Limekiller took his seat with rare pleasure: it was not every damned day that he could enjoy a nostalgia trip whilst at the same time rejoicing in an actual physical trip which was, really, giving him as much pleasure. For a moment he stayed immobile. (Surely, Great-uncle Leicester was just barely out of sight, reading the Charlottetown newspaper, and damning the Dirty Grits?) Then he gave his long legs a push and was off.
Up! and the mountains displayed their slopes and foothills. Down! and the flowery lanes of town came into sight again. And, at the end of the lanes was the open square where stood the flagpole with the Union Jack and the National Ensign flapping in the scented breeze . . . and, also, in sight, and well in sight (Limekiller had chosen well) was the concrete bench in front of which the bus from King Town had to disembogue its passengers. If they came by bus, and come by bus they must (he reasoned), being certainly tourists and not likely to try hitching. Also, the cost of a taxi for fifty miles was out of the reach of anyone but a land speculator. No, by bus, and there was where the bus would stop.
"Let me help you with your bags," he heard himself saying, ready to slip shillings into the hands of any boys brash enough to make the same offer.
There was only one fly in the ointment of his pleasure.
Swing as he would and as long as he would, no bus came.
"Bus? Bus, sir? No, sir. Bus ahlready come orlier today. Goin bock in evening. Come ahgain tomorrow."
With just a taste of bitterness, Limekiller said, "Mañana."
"¡Ah, Vd, si puede hablar en espanol, señor, Sí, señor. Mañna viene el bus, otra vez.—Con el favor de Dios." An the creek don't rise, thought Limekiller.
Suddenly he was hungry. There was a restaurant in plain sight, with a bill of fare five feet tall painted on its outer walclass="underline" such menus were only there for, so to speak, authenticity. To prove that the place was indeed a restaurant. And not a cinema. Certainly no one would ever be able to order and obtain anything which was not painted on them.—Besides, the place was closed.
"Be open tonight, sir," said a passerby, observing him observing.
Jack grunted. "Think they'll have that tonight?" he asked, pointing at random to Rost Muttons and to Beef Stakes.
An emphatic shake of the head. "No-sir. Rice and beans."
Somewhere nearby someone was cooking something besides rice and beans. The passerby, noticing the stranger's blunt and sunburned nose twitch, with truly Christian kindness said, "But Tía Sani be open now."
"Tía Sani?"
"Yes-sir. Miss Sanita. Aunt Sue. Directly down de lane."
Tía Sani had no sign, no giant menu. However, Tía Sani was open.
Outside, the famous Swift Sunset of the Tropics dallied and dallied. There was no sense of urgency in Hidalgo, be it British or Spanish. There was the throb of the light-plant generator, getting ready for the night. Watchman, what of the night?—what put that into his mind? He swung the screen door, went in.