"Crawl under the dock," Lora whispers.
"For heaven's sake," says Rennie, who doesn't like the idea of crabs and snails.
"Do it," Lora says; it's almost a hiss. This, apparently, is serious.
The dock is built on a foundation of split rocks that have not yet been smoothed by the sea; the space between the rocks and the wooden slats of the dock is only two feet high. They crouch together, doubled over. Rennie's still clutching her bags and her purse. She doesn't know who they're supposed to be hiding from.
The moon comes up, it's almost full; the grey-white light comes through the slats of the dock, throwing bars of shadow. Rennie thinks how nice it would be to have a warm bath and something to eat. She thinks about having lunch with someone, Jocasta maybe, and telling this story. But it's not even that good a story, it's about on the level of being stopped at customs, since nothing more than inconvenience has happened to her.
At last they can hear a motor, turning over, starting up, moving towards them.
"That's him," says Lora, and they back out from under the dock.
Marsdon is sitting in one of the wooden chairs up on the patio, one leg bent, the ankle resting on his knee to show off his boots. He's got his machine gun pointed right at them. Two men stand silently behind him.
"Where you think you goin'?" he says.
The St. Antoine police motor launch is tied at the end of the Lime Tree pier, where it bobs gently up and down in the swell. Paul sits at the round wooden table facing Marsdon. He's soaking wet, from swimming out to the launch. Between them there's a bottle of rum. Each of them has a glass, each of them has a machine gun; the machine guns are on the ground under the table, but within reach. The two other men are over at the bar. There's a woman with them, very drunk, she's lying on the patio near them, in the broken glass, humming to herself, her skirt up over her thighs, opening and closing her legs. Rennie and Lora sit in the other two chairs.
Paul and Marsdon are arguing about them. Paul wants to take Rennie to St. Antoine, Marsdon doesn't want him to. Marsdon doesn't want anyone leaving the island. Also, Marsdon wants more guns. Paul promised him more, says Marsdon, they've been paid for; now he should deliver. He's the connection.
"I told you about the problem," Paul said. "You should have waited. Next week I have some coming."
"How can we wait?" Marsdon says impatiently. "When they hear on St. Antoine that Minnow is shot, they goin' to blame us anyway." Slyly, he offers to trade Paul's own machine gun for a safe exit. Slyly Paul refuses.
Rennie can see what she is now: she's an object of negotiation. The truth about knights comes suddenly clear: the maidens were only an excuse. The dragon was the real business. So much for vacation romances, she thinks. A kiss is just a kiss, Jocasta would say, and you're lucky if you don't get trenchmouth.
She listens, trying to follow. She feels like a hostage, and, like a hostage, strangely uninvolved in her own fate. Other people are deciding that for her. Would it be so bad if she stayed here? She could hole up in the Lime Tree, call herself a foreign correspondent, send out dispatches, whatever those are. But maybe Paul just wants to leave, get out; maybe she's just the occasion.
"You think I'm more important than I am," she says to Marsdon.
"Don't bug him," Lora says in a low voice. Marsdon looks at Rennie, seeing her this time. His movements are slow enough, outwardly calm, but he's excited, his eyes gleam in the moonlight. Fragmentation, dismemberment, this is what he sees when he looks at her. Then he's ignoring her once more.
"You bring the guns, you can take her," he says.
"No deal," says Paul.
There are more men now, coming along the beach from the town; several carry torches. One of them comes over to the table and puts his hand on Marsdon's shoulder.
"I am ready to make the broadcast now," he says, and Rennie realizes that this must be Prince. She's never seen him before. His face is in shadow, but the voice is young, younger than she thought, he sounds about nineteen.
"I wouldn't do that yet," says Paul, "if I were you."
Prince's head turns towards him in the shadows. "Why?" he says.
"Have you any idea of what's going to happen next?" Paul says.
"We have won the revolution," says Prince, with the placid confidence of a child reciting a lesson. "Grenada has recognized us. They are sending men and guns, in the morning."
"Where did you hear that?" says Paul.
The outline of Prince's head turns towards Marsdon.
"The radio," Marsdon says.
"Did you hear it yourself?" Paul says to Prince.
Marsdon pushes his chair back. "You calling me a liar," he says. There are more men now, a circle; tension draws them in.
"Take a boat to Grenada," Paul says to Prince. "Anything you can get. Right now, before morning. If you're lucky they'll let you stay there."
"You an enemy of the revolution," says Marsdon.
"Bullshit," says Paul. "You just want an excuse to blow my head off the way you blew off Minnow's."
"What you tellin' me?" says Prince.
"Put it together," says Paul. "He's the new agent. You've been set up, right from the beginning."
There's a pause. Rennie closes her eyes. Something with enormous weight comes down on them, she can hardly breathe. She hears the night sounds, the musical waterdrip, the waves, going on as usual. Then everything starts to move.
Oh God, thinks Rennie. Somebody change the channel.
Rennie walks along the pier at St. Antoine. She's safe. It's almost dawn. The power plant here isn't on the fritz and there's a string of feeble bulbs to see by. She feels dizzy and nauseated, an hour and a half in the launch, not rolling with the waves but smashing into them, a collision, a sickening lurch downwards, then up like a roller coaster, thud, crunch of her bones, backbone against backbone, stomach lurching inside her with its own motion. She'd hung on, trying to think of something serene, keeping her head up, eyes on the moon, on the next wave, the water glowed when it moved, phosphorescent, sweating all over her body despite the wind, wondering when she was going to throw up, trying not to. After all she was being rescued.
Can't you slow down? she called to Paul.
It's worse that way, he called back, grinning at her. Even now he found her funny.
At the dock he idled the motor and practically threw her onto the shore, her and her luggage, before backing the boat out and turning towards the sea. No goodbye kiss and just as well, she didn't want anything against her mouth just now. They touched hands for a moment, that was all. What bothers her is that she forgot to thank him.
He's not going back to Ste. Agathe, he's heading south. He'll meet one of his boats, he says. There are other harbours.
What about Lora? said Rennie.
She had the chance, said Paul. She wanted to stay with Prince. I can't fight off the entire St. Antoine police force just for Lora. She can take care of herself.
Rennie doesn't understand anything. All she knows is that she's here and there's a plane at six and she wants to be on it, and she can't keep walking. She sits down on the pier with her head between her knees, hoping that the rolling under her feet will stop.
She can hear the sound of the motor launch, receding, no more significant than the drone of a summer insect. Then there's another sound, too loud, like a television set with a cop show on it heard through a hotel room wall. Rennie puts her hands over her ears. In a minute, when she's feeling better, she'll go to the Sunset Inn and pick up her passport and see if she can get a cup of coffee, though there's not much chance of that. Then she'll take a taxi to the airport and then she'll be gone.
She sits there until she's ready, ready enough; then she starts walking again. There are a few people about, men; only one of them tries to stop her, a simple request for fornication, and he's pleasant enough when she says no. There's no war on here, possibly they haven't heard anything about it yet, everything seems normal. Then there are more men, running past her toward
s the end of the pier.
It's light; close by there are roosters. After what seems a very long time she reaches the Sunset Inn and goes in through the archway. She climbs the stairs; now she will have to sign her name for all the time she hasn't spent here, all the meals she hasn't eaten. She won't even argue, she'll put it on her charge card. Enjoy now, pay later.
The Englishwoman is up and dressed, in an avocado-green shirtwaist, behind the counter as usual. Possibly she never sleeps.
"I'd like to check out," says Rennie, "and I'd like my passport, please, it's in the safe. And I'd like to call a taxi."
The Englishwoman looks at her with the gloating, almost possessive stare of one who enjoys giving unwelcome news. "Are you thinking of taking that morning plane?" she says.
Rennie says yes.
"It's been cancelled," says the Englishwoman. "All the planes have been cancelled. The airport's been shut down."
"Really?" says Rennie, cold within.
"We're in a state of emergency," says the Englishwoman proudly. "There's been an uprising on Ste. Agathe. But you must know all about that. Didn't you just come from there?"
Rennie lies on her bed. At least it's a bed. She's fallen on it without even taking off her clothes but she's too exhausted to sleep. Now she will have to stay here, at the Sunset Inn, home of beige gravy, until they start the planes again. She feels marooned.
Then it's full of daylight and the door, which was shut and locked, is open. Two policemen are standing in the doorway. Grins, drawn guns. Behind them is the Englishwoman, her arms folded across her chest. Rennie sits up. "What?" she says.
"We arrestin' you," says one of the policemen, the pinkish one.
"What for?" says Rennie. She feels she ought to act like an outraged tourist.
"Suspicion," says the other policeman.
"Suspicion of what?" says Rennie, who is still half asleep. "I haven't done anything." It can't be the box with the gun, they haven't mentioned it. "I'm writing a travel piece. You can phone the magazine and check," she adds. "In Toronto, when they're open. It's called Visor." This sounds improbable even to her. Does Toronto exist? They won't be the first to wonder. She thinks of her blank notebook, no validation there.
The two policemen come forward. The Englishwoman looks at her, a look Rennie remembers from somewhere, from a long time ago, from a bad dream. It's a look of pure enjoyment. Malignant.
VI
"I thought it was dumb," says Lora. "I always thought it was dumb. Anyone who'd die for their country is a double turkey as far as I'm concerned. I mean any country, but this one, well, that would make you a triple one. Shit, it's only three miles long. I thought they were all nuts, but what can you tell them, eh?
"You may think Ellis is an old drunk, I told Prince, you may think he's harmless because nobody's seen him for twenty years, but if you think he's just going to let you take over without a squeak, you're out of your mind. But then Marsdon would start talking about sacrifice for the good of all, and that stuff would get to Prince every time. He's a sweet guy, he's soft-hearted, it appealed to him, and though I wouldn't want to be part of a country Marsdon was the leader of, he's no dummy, he knew he was making me look like a selfish white bitch who didn't care and only wanted Prince to screw around with.
"Maybe I should of left, but the truth is I thought they were just having a good time, sneaking around at night, having secrets, sort of like the Shriners, you know? I never thought they'd do anything.
"Change the system, Marsdon used to say. Why would I want to do that? I said. It's working just fine for me. Stuff politics, I'd tell him. As far as I'm concerned the world would be a lot better off if you took the politicians, any kind at all, and put them in the loony bin where they belong. You can tell that junk to Prince if you want to but don't tell it to me, because I know what you really want. You want to shoot people and feel really good about it and have everyone tell you you're doing the right thing. You'd get a kick out of that. You make me sick.
"I always knew Marsdon would shove a knife in me as soon as look at me if he got the chance, or in anyone else for that matter, he's a mean bugger but I guess if you want to start a war you have to have someone who doesn't give that much of a piss about killing people, you can't make an omelette without breaking eggs.
"There just weren't enough of them and they weren't ready. They wouldn't of been ready in a month of Sundays. Paul used to tell Marsdon he just wanted to be Castro without putting in the time, and it would get to him because that was about the size of it. They wouldn't of even had any guns if Paul hadn't brought some in for them. That was Marsdon's idea too, the guns. Paul didn't know he was an agent. I don't think he knew, not until Minnow got shot.
"If you're thinking of hiding out in the hills, forget it, Paul said. Two helicopters and that's it, this is a dry island, you know there's no cover up there, it's just scrub. But they seemed to think it was enough for them to be right. Getting rid of Ellis, that was the point. Nobody's denying it would of been nice, but there's real life, you know? I mean, I used to think I'd like to fly like a bird but I never jumped off any roofs. I once heard of a man who blew himself up in the toilet because he was sitting on the can and he lit a cigarette and he threw the match in, except his wife had just dumped some paint remover into it. I mean, that's what it was like. Though once in a while I thought, well, they might just do it. You know why? They're crazy enough. Sometimes crazy people can do things other people can't. Maybe because they believe it."
Rennie wonders where her passport is. She feels naked without it, she can't prove she is who she says she is. But she believes that other people believe in order, and in the morning, once they find out she's in here, once they realize who she is, they'll let her out.
Lora slaps at herself. "Fucking bugs," she says. "They like some people and not others. You think you'd get used to them, but you never do. Anyway, we've got a roof over our head. There's lots worse things."
Rennie decides not to think about what these may be.
"There was a little shooting at the police station," says Lora, "but not that much, and the power plant was empty. The police did a sweep of the island, it's not that hard because it's not that big, and they picked up anyone they found hiding or running or even walking on the road. They had the names of the main ones and they wanted everyone related to them too but that would of been everyone on the island, everyone's related to everyone else around here.
"They tied the men up with ropes, those yellow nylon ropes they use a lot around here for boats and stuff, they tied them together in bundles of three or four and threw them on top of each other in the ship, down in the hold, like they were cargo. The women they just tied their hands together, behind their backs, two together, they let them stand up. When we got over to St. Antoine there was a big crowd at the dock already, the radio had been full of it all morning, communists and all that, they hauled the bundles of men off the boat and the people in the street were screaming Hang them! Kill them! It was like wrestling.
"The police took us to the main station, down in the cellar where there's a cement floor, and they tied the men together in a long line, there must've been fifty or sixty people, and they beat them up, sticks and boots, the works. The women they beat up some too but not as much. I wasn't there for that part of it, they had me in another room, they were asking me questions about Prince. They've got him in here somewhere.
"Then they threw buckets of cold water over them and locked them up, they were wet and cold, nowhere to piss, nothing to eat, and then they brought them here. They didn't lay any charges because they hadn't figured out what charges to lay. The Justice Minister went on the radio and said there hadn't been any violence, the people got the cuts and bruises from falling down when they were running away. And then they declared a state of emergency, which made everything legal. They can take anything of yours they want to, your car, anything, and there's a curfew too. Nobody knows for how long.
"They said Minnow was shot
by the rebels, they said Prince killed him. People believe what they hear on the news and who's going to tell them any different? They'll believe Ellis because it's easier to believe Ellis.
"It's perfect for Ellis: now he's got an excuse to do it to everybody he doesn't like, plus nobody's going to say anything against him, for years. And think of all the foreign aid he'll get now. The hurricane was all right but this is a lot better.
"We're lucky. The others are all seven or eight to a cell. Some of these people have no idea why they're here, all of a sudden these police with guns just bashed into their houses and grabbed them. They didn't know what was happening, they don't have a clue, they were just in the way."
The room they're in is about five feet by seven feet, with a high ceiling. The walls are damp and cool, the stone slick to the touch as if something's growing on it, some form of mildew. The back of Rennie's shirt is damp, from the wall. This is the first time she's been cold since coming down here.
The floor is stone too and wet, except for the corner they've been sitting in. There's a barred metal door fitted into the end wall and opening onto the corridor, which is lighted; the light shines in on them through the bars. Someone has written on the walls: DOWN WITH BABYLON. LOVE TO ALL. In the wall opposite the door, higher up, there's a small window with a grating. Through this window they can see the moon. There's nothing in the room with them except a bucket, red plastic, new, empty. Its use is obvious but neither of them has used it yet.
"How long do you think they'll keep us in here?" says Rennie.
Lora laughs. "You in any hurry?" she says. "If you are, don't tell them. Anyway it's not how long you're in, it's what they do to you." She inhales, then blows the smoke out. "Well, this is it," she says. "Tropical paradise."
Rennie wonders why they've left Lora her cigarettes and especially the matches. Not that there's anything here that could burn down, it's all stone.
Rennie wishes they had a deck of cards or a book, any book at all. It's almost bright enough to read. She can smell the smoke from Lora's cigarette and beneath that a faint after-smell, stale perfume, underarm deodorant wearing off; it's from both of them. She's starting to get a headache. She'd give anything for a Holiday Inn. She longs for late-night television, she's had enough reality for the time being. Popcorn is what she needs.