month before the O-level exams began, one of the Jesuit masters at the college – one whom all the students respected – had several sessions with them of what, at a later period, would be called ‘counselling’. He sat them down, spoke to them as adults and reasoned with them. He listened carefully to all the recriminations and made them see that their main problem was a sense of entrapment – their fear that they did not seem to have the freedom to be separate and authentic persons, but must always in some way, feed on each other in order to survive and to achieve.
The priest told them it was indeed a serious situation but their bitterness towards each other was a natural reaction as they grew towards the self-assertion of adulthood. He told them that the problem was that they did not know how to deal with their dilemma and with each other, but if they promised him to try, he would help them devise strategies to either extricate themselves from, or survive, the suffocating relationship in which they had been for so long.
O-levels were thus written under a truce and in the sixth form, with the help of the Jesuit father, their relationship steadily improved. Alison Cossou and two other girls from the convent joined them in the sixth form since the subjects that they wanted to do were not available at their school. The girls had a calming effect on the class, especially on the two Basils, who outdid each other in being courteous and pleasant. In the sixth form too, the Basils discovered parties and dancing and it didn’t take long for everyone to observe with wonder that there was no equality of achievement between the boys in that sphere. Basil Raatgever was a natural dancer – he was self-confident and stylish on the floor and could improvise wonderfully in order to flatter the abilities of all the girls.
The girls were enchanted by him – especially Alison Cossou, who declared one day: ‘The man that will marry me must be able to dance up a storm, because I love to dance.’
Basil Ross heard this with dismay but he admitted defeat to himself and considered that Raatgever had won her – for now. It was not that Basil Ross couldn’t dance – he made all the correct movements and had a fair sense of rhythm, but he did not attract attention as a dancer the way his friend did, and even he loved to watch the sinuous perfection of his friend Raatgever on the dance floor.
No one will ever know how the relationship might have developed after school, for, just after writing A-levels, there occurred a shocking and mysterious event which is still unexplained and which claimed the life of one of the boys and altered irreparably that of the other.
* * *
The priest who taught Religious Knowledge and Latin to the sixth forms, Father De Montfort – the same priest who had counselled the two Basils earlier – accompanied the entire final-year sixth on a trip to Bartica to unwind after the A-level exams. The year was 1957, the third consecutive year that such a trip was arranged, the previous two having been very successful and much talked about at the college. No one guessed that this year’s trip would be the last. There were eight boys, the three convent girls and Father De Montfort himself and they stayed in the presbytery next to the little St. Anthony parish church in Front Street. The girls shared a room upstairs and the boys slept rough on the floor in the large front room downstairs, stowing away their bedding before Mass each morning so that the place could revert to its regular daytime uses.
On their second night in Bartica it was full moon and the young people from Georgetown went walking along Front Street, past the police station and the stelling, around the curve at the top of the street, ending up at the Bernard’s Croft Hotel overlooking the confluence of the rivers. There they ordered soft drinks and bottles of the still new Banks beer from the bar and chatted loudly, imagining that they were behaving like adults. They fed the jukebox near the bar and it wasn’t long before dancing started. Basil Ross, who had enjoyed the trip so far, began to feel uncomfortable; he knew that soon everyone would be admiring and applauding Basil Raatgever as he glided across the floor with one or other of the girls. He told himself it was silly to be jealous, especially now, when, on this trip, he and Raatgever were on good terms again and everyone was in high spirits , after the long slog of preparing for A-levels. Ross told the others he was feeling hot and would take a walk along the river wall to get some air; if he didn’t see them when he returned, he would make his own way back to the presbytery.
The moonlight was brilliant and quite beautiful on the water. Basil Ross walked slowly along the wall, breathing deeply and remembering places in the interior where he had lived and gone to school as a child, and where he had later spent his school holidays with his parents. He sat on the wall not far from the little Public Works jetty and looked at the river and willed himself to be happy. He thought how good it was to have got through the exams feeling confident of his results and slowly his irritation eased. He was happy to be at that spot, pleased that his troubled relationship with Raatgever was resolved. While Ratty might be in love with dancing and the girls, he, Ross, was in love with the whole world, especially the part of it in front of him, touched magically by the silvery moonlight. He sat on the wall for a long time, deciding to say his night prayers and his rosary right there. Then he got up and headed back to the hotel. The jukebox still played, at lower volume, and there were a few men at the bar, but no sign of any of his classmates, so he made his way back to the presbytery. There people were unfolding bedding and getting ready to sleep, so he did the same. Then he noticed that Raatgever was not there. ‘He and Alison went off walking somewhere with a couple of Bartica fellows we met at the hotel,’ someone told him, and he began to feel uneasy again.
The others had gone to sleep but he was still awake, waiting. Some time around two o’clock Basil Raatgever and Alison Cossou came in. They seemed to Basil Ross so mature and self-confident; he felt a pang as they moved carefully about in the almost-dark room. At the foot of the stairs he heard Raatgever whisper: ‘See you tomorrow.’ Alison tiptoed upstairs, but Ross could not help noticing, despite the dim light, that Raatgever had given her a gentle tap on her bottom as she ascended. Ross felt another pang.
When Raatgever was settled in his sleeping bag next to him, Ross pretended to wake up and asked where they had been. Raatgever told him that there had been a dance somewhere in Fourth Avenue and they were invited by two local fellows. The music was good, and Alison wanted to dance, which they did for a while, but most of the men seemed intent on getting drunk and the women looked fed up and uninteresting, so he and Alison had left, walked back to the hotel, sat on the wall and chatted for over an hour in the moonlight. Raatgever did not ask how Ross how he had spent the evening.
* * *
The next day they left early by boat to visit a small waterfall in the lower Mazaruni, where they would bathe and picnic for the day. The boat pulled into a section of riverbank near a small, forested island where the students noticed the beginning of an overgrown trail. It opened out a bit as they got further into it but, although quite distinct, it had evidently not been cleared for some time. The trail crossed a swift-flowing creek by means of a half-submerged log and they began to hear the sound of the waterfall.
When they emerged into a small clearing, Father De Montfort announced: ‘This is it, Baracara Falls’. There the creek cascaded over a stone ledge about twenty feet above their heads and tumbled, foaming and splashing over a heap of large boulders and into a pool whose edges were covered in cream-coloured foam. The boys thought the waterfall was small, but quite impressive, and the water looked cool and refreshing. While their classmates put down baskets and haversacks and prepared to strip and stand or sit on the boulders and let the falling water cool them down after their brief hike, the two Basils, already in swimming trunks, were climbing the falls, one on either side.
Father De Montfort shook his head and smiled and one of the others remarked: ‘Look at Ratty-and-Ross climbing the fall – trust them to make a contest out of it.’ It was not difficult to climb, despite the volume of descending water, as there were many ledges and handholds among the boulders. It seemed as though Ross reached the top first, but soon both boys were standing on the ledge looking down on the others, the water curving high about
