herd down the river to drink. The animals sucked eagerly at the clear flowing water, which was so clean that the family would drink it straight from their cupped hands, and swim in it too on a scorching day.
While Pupatee and Carl had been away, Mama and Pops had cut some bamboo stems in the forest, and they were now working them into fish pots and spear sticks. The cattle were safely back in their pasture, so the boys joined in. They cut more lengths of bamboo at their joints, which formed a kind of cup. They pierced holes in the cups, poured paraffin through the holes into the lengths of bamboo below and rammed bits of crocos-bag material in after it.
When they were ready, Pops lit the boys’ torches and they walked in silence back down to the river. The night air was cool. Mama walked straight into the water with a fish basket which she held, gently moving, under the river banks. Suddenly she snatched it out and when the water had escaped there was a whole pile of fish flapping about at the bottom of the basket. Mama was tall and God-fearing, with a smile that never failed to make Pupatee quiver with happiness.
The fish were passed up to the boys, who gutted and cleaned them and put them in a bag container. Then they ran after Mama and Pops to see what they had caught next.
If fish were sleeping, Pops, and sometimes Carl, speared them or chopped them with cutlasses. While Pupatee watched, Pops and Carl turned over rocks in the water and almost every time found a long fat juicy eel lying there. After putting down the rock carefully so as not to wake the eel, Pops aimed for the head and chopped fast and clean.
Mama said, ‘Inu ush little.’ They all froze.
‘Ah wha?’ Pops whispered.
‘A whole eap ah sand fish sleeping next to each other. Me ah go try scrape some up in de basket ca dem so slippery you lucky to catch one otherwise.’
Mama bent down and moved in with the basket, catching four big sand fish, which was quite a rare piece of luck. As they all celebrated, Pupatee stumbled on a group of big red crayfish, their snappers sharp and ready to clip predatory fingers. He called his brother and when he was near enough Pupatee plunged both hands into the shallow water, grabbed two large crayfish, and flung them out of the water on to the land. Carl also dived in and caught one, and laughed because it was the biggest and fattest of the lot.
The night deepened, but none of them cared. Pops was chopping more fishes, while Mama and Carl were catching them with their bare hands under the bank. Pupatee was frightened of putting his hands into that gloomy water below the bank where they might touch something like a water snake or an angry eel, but when Mama and Carl and Pops put their hands in they usually came up with plenty of fish, or at worst grass and muddy rubbish.
Making their way down the river, they came to a large rock in the water with two entrances into the space beneath it. ‘Bet a large eel live under here,’ Pops said. Carl covered one entrance with his sharp pointed cutlass while Pops took care of the other. They checked with each other and thrust deep into the entrances at the same time; both smiled as they felt their weapons go into something soft. They put them down and picked up the rock, and there lay two large eels, each speared right through, floundering helplessly.
After three hours Pops said they should call it a night. They had collected so many fish that they had to leave some there in shallow water to stay fresh until they could return to carry a second load. Then they staggered home. They had plenty of different lovely fish. Although it was still the middle of the night, Mama started straight away seasoning the fish and salting the eels, putting on a big pot to boil up soup as well as a pan to deep-fry small fishes which they would eat whole, bones, eyes and all.
By sun-up, people from nearby were starting to come past to see if any fish were for sale. When Mama showed them the rare sand fish and the crayfish and eels, the buyers started bidding the highest prices.
Word soon got around, and before long young women and girls started arriving to help Mama sort out and cook all the fish. Pops was drinking rum with his friends, and Carl and Pupatee and some of the other boys went to collect coconuts full of milk for them to chase it with. (Sometimes Pops would make ‘Manhood punch’ with rum, eggs, condensed milk and oats – he said they would never have any trouble with the ladies while they drank it.) The morning ended with a huge feast of fried and steamed fish, fish soup with bread and crackers, all kinds of vegetables – pumpkin, breadfruit, plantain, gungo beans, callaloo and corn – and plenty of sugar-cane for those who weren’t keen on fish. The night’s successes were shared, and no one went away unsatisfied.
The restless lowing of cattle woke Pupatee and his brother from their midday rest. They picked up their soap and towels and led the herd to the river, where they washed and splashed about to cool off while the cows drank thirstily. After a while the boys realised how tired they were – they hadn’t slept a wink all night – so they got out and began to drive the cows quickly away from the river. One of Pops’s strictest rules was not to rush the herd, especially if any of them were carrying calves. But being tired and eager to get home, Carl pushed Pops’s cows too hard, and one panicked and fell into a big ditch.
They went for Pops and when he realised what had happened, he started fuming because it was his best cow, which was in calf. ‘Ah sorry fe de two ah you backside later,’ he shouted. They dragged the injured cow nearer home to keep an eye on it.
Back at the house, he turned and stared at the boys. ‘Carl, a you de one rush de cow mek she brek her back in de hole?’
‘No, ah no me!’ Carl protested.
‘Pupatee, ah must be you den!’
‘Ah no me, Pops,’ Pupatee cried.
‘Was it Carl?’ he demanded, and Pupatee was so confused and frightened of Pops that he forgot that he should have said no, and he nodded his head and said, ‘Yes.’
‘Me know it was you!’ Pops shouted at Carl. ‘Me ah go give you backside a good beating fe dat. You wait and see, Mister Carl.’ Carl looked at his younger brother, and Pupatee wanted the world to open up and swallow him for what he had said. All that day, Carl didn’t talk to Pupatee once or laugh or play with him. He wouldn’t even let Pupatee walk next to him. That night after dinner Pops caught Carl and gave him a bad beating, and afterwards Carl cursed both Pops and Pupatee.
The next day was Sunday. Hoping that he would be left behind on his own, Pupatee told Mama he was sick and couldn’t go to church. To his horror, Mama told Carl to stay behind too, to look after him. While she was at church, and Pops at his sugar-cane meeting, Gamper, one of their older sons, who lived with his women near by, between Gurver Ground and Cross Hill, turned up. He said he was going swimming with some friends, and invited Carl and Pupatee to go along. All the men and boys ended up down at the river by Mathew’s Deep Hole, named after a man who had drowned there. When the water was calm no one would believe it could run so deep. Soon Gamper and his friends James and Puttie were diving and swimming happily at one end, while Edward and Esau, the youngest, were playing in the shallows.
‘Come on Pupatee, follow me,’ said Carl. Pupatee laughed and followed him, excited that his brother was talking to him again. ‘Follow me, follow me,’ Carl kept saying as he swam backwards into the river. Pupatee followed, only to find himself in the deep hole with the current pulling him down, and Carl backing away.
A panic suddenly gripped Pupatee, and he began to splash about, trying to shout for help. He could see Gamper and his friends not far from where he was, but every time he opened his mouth to shout, water poured in and muffled his cry. He looked around for Carl, but by now he realised that his brother, his best friend, had left him to die.
Years
