And De Fun Don't Done (58 page)

It looked much the same as the photo in the book, the massively built three-storey building with the sandstone balustrades and steps underneath, only now that Les was here he could see the entire property. He drove the car down a little further, pulled over to the left and got out. Rose Hill stood majestically in about five acres of well- kept fields and gardens that edged off into the surrounding trees and hills. The road stopped about fifty yards before the front steps, then circled around, evidently to allow coaches and tourists direct access. The area was dotted with trees, four men sat in the shade beneath a cluster to Norton's left and behind, and to his left was thick bush and a pathway that seemed to lead to a clearing about three hundred yards away. Les had a good view of the great house and could see a sign near the bottom step saying TOP HALF CLOSED TO RENA- VAITION. NO ENTRANCE WAY. That's nice, thought Les. Looks like I'll only get to see the bottom half of the joint anyway, and a bit of the backyard. Mmmhh. Terrific.

The four blokes under the tree seemed to notice Les and he was about to walk over when there was a rumbling, crunching and revving of motors, along with the sound of squealing brakes, and two tour buses came down the driveway. They were both forty-seaters and rolled noisily past Les to pull up in front of the Great House with more squealing of brakes and tyres crunching on the gravel. About two minutes later the doors on both buses hissed open and out poured at least sixty fat-arsed American tourists in mu-mus and shorts of equally revolting colours. Probably getting in for their last tourist bit before they flew back to Skunk Flats, Utah, or wherever they came from. Ahh shit! cursed Les. Isn't this
going to be nice? I got one lousy floor to look at and I have to do it with eight million cigar smoking, blathering seppos. The blokes under the tree rose slowly to their feet with the arrival of the two buses so Les walked over.

There was a security guard in a brown uniform with a holstered gun on his belt, two young blokes in overalls and old hats, who looked like gardeners, and an older, dapper little bloke in a straw hat and sunglasses, wearing a yellow Bonds type T-shirt with ‘Rose Hill' across the chest pocket in red and a pair of white trousers. He was the only one looking at Les and seemed as if he might be some kind of figure of authority, if not actually in charge, so Les thought he'd front him; just as another idea formed in his mind.

‘Excuse me, mate,' said Les. ‘Are you in charge?'

The little bloke poked his chest out slightly and looked at Les from behind his sunglasses. ‘Ire, mon. I'm deh head groundsman,' he said, extending his hand. ‘Deh name's Joshua.'

The two gardeners shuffled off, probably to look as if they were doing something. And the guard shuffled off, probably to make sure no Arab terrorists shot the American tourists; or anybody else repulsed enough by their accents and clothes. Les could feel Joshua preening a little; he shook his hand warmly then pointed a finger at him as if in recognition.

‘I thought that's who you might have been,' he smiled. ‘My name's Les. Les Norton. I'm a friend of Millwood Downie's. He said if I was up this way I should introduce myself to you.'

‘Millwood Downie deh teacher?'

‘That's right.'

‘Yu friend of Millwood's?'

‘Yup. I'm also a relative of the people who built the great house. The Nortons.' Les opened his wallet and showed Joshua his driver's licence. ‘I'm out here from Australia.'

Joshua looked at the photo and name on the licence and touched the front of his straw hat. ‘Ire mon. Norton. Respec mon. Respec.'

‘Thank you very much, Joshua. Millwood said you were a good man.'

Joshua seemed to take to Les as the big Queenslander went into a spiel about knowing Millwood from Australia and he was out here looking up his family tree. He knew all about Spring Water Primary, his family had donated some money and he was having dinner with Mr Downie tonight before he flew back to Australia tomorrow. Joshua was suitably impressed.

‘The thing is, Joshua,' said Norton, giving the little groundsman a bit of an Arthur Daley arm around the shoulders, ‘I don't particularly want to see the great house with all those punishing yank tourists. What I'd really like to see is Sweet Ginger Hill. Where Elizabeth and Eduardo Norton grew up.'

Joshua shook his head sadly. ‘Sorry, mon, but dat place private property. No one goes deh.'

Les nodded sagely. ‘Millwood explained all that to me, Joshua,' he said, extracting an American fifty dollar bill from his wallet, folding it and placing it between his fingers. ‘But if I get to see Sweet Ginger Hill that's yours. And if I get back okay there's another one in it for you. What do you say, Joshua? Old mate?'

The little groundsman looked at the fifty like it was a snake hypnotising him. Les was also a good friend of Millwood's and a Norton. Respec mon. ‘Les,' he said, ‘I have to take care of de Chucky Bwoys for tirty minutes, mebbe till dem gaan. I meet yu back here at yu car. Den I take yu up Sweet Ginger Hill.'

‘Thank you, Joshua. I appreciate it.' Les handed him the fifty, which disappeared in a blink.

‘While yu waiting, Les, why yu don go visit yu family graves?' Joshua pointed behind Les to the trail leading into the bush. ‘No far tru deh.'

‘Okay,' nodded Les. ‘I'll do that.'

‘I see yu back here at deh car, Les. Soon time.' The little groundsman adjusted his straw hat and walked off towards the babbling Chucky Bwoys and their horrible fat wives.

Well how about that? beamed Norton. I get to see Sweet Ginger Hill after all. See, I give that little bloke a bit of respec mon. And he gave me some. Of course the lazy fifty helped, I'd reckon. But maybe these Jams have got something deh mon. Anyway, now I've got thirty minutes to kill. Which would be closer to an hour, Jam time. And what better way to do it than going through all the old graves. Fancy Joshua tipping me into that. I was hoping to get a look at them. But I was buggered if I knew where they were. Didn't that little French priest in that other book find the buried loot by deciphering old graves? Les rubbed his hands together gleefully. Only one way to find out. Les locked the car, put some fresh film in his camera and with his backpack slung over his shoulder walked across to the thick bush. The old sun-bleached sign pointed up the trail and simply said NORTON BURIAL GROUND.

The trail was barely a metre of dry, dusty sand pushing through the shrubbery about fifteen feet overhead. It was dead still and almost crushingly hot and Les was glad he'd wrapped a thick sweatband round his head. The trail veered slightly then ran alongside a small sandstone watercourse full of cool, clear water a couple of feet deep. Les remembered from the book that these must be the canals they built in the sixteenth century to bring rain and springwater down from the mountains to irrigate the sugar plantations. Bubbling slowly past in the heat it looked good enough to bottle as Evian. Les wasn't too sure about drinking any, but he knelt down, splashed some over his face then soaked his sweatband in it and slopped more water over his neck and down his back. How good's this? thought Les, splashing more water over his face and in his hair. He gave one of the sandstone blocks a push with his foot; it felt solid and heavy and even after sitting there for three hundred years didn't even look like budging. Though I don't think I'd have fancied being one of the poor bastards putting the things in. Especially in this heat. They weigh a bloody ton. And especially not for the pay my loving relations were paying
them back then. Les rung his sweatband out, wrapped it back round his head and continued along the trail.

The trail meandered on, sometimes it would run alongside a canal, other times cross over one then nothing but scrub. Les was sweating again when the pathway came out onto a level green something like a golf course. About a hundred yards across the green a few stumpy trees were dotted round a sandstone wall about five feet high, fifty yards long and twenty-five wide. There were one or two gaps in the wall and at the right hand end was a splintery, white picket fence and an old wrought-iron gate. Behind the far wall the hill sloped away again and Les could see the ocean horizon and further to the right the high-rise of some resort. He walked across the level green to the picket fence and looked through the open gate. Inside were rows and rows of old tombstones and vaults. Les stopped where he was and took off his cap and despite his earlier flippancy shook his head slowly almost in a state of reverent wonder. He'd found a lost Norton graveyard going back to the 17th Century. And that was definitely something you didn't do every day.

‘Respec mon. Respec,' he whispered. ‘Respec.' After a second or two Les put his cap back on and stepped through the gate.

The only comparison Les could make was those old Count Yorga films on latenight TV and he was glad it was daytime. There was row after row of ancient graves and tombstones. Granite ones, marble ones, black ones, white ones, grey ones. Most were built up on sandstone blocks, others had rusting, wrought-iron fencing round them, a lot of it starting to fall down. There was no shortage of Nortons and it appeared that when they went, they went out in style. Some of the graves had rows of a metre- square sandstone blocks stepped up six feet before you got to the marble cross or angel. Scattered here and there were crypts with great slabs of marble or blackened granite that had broken away from the sides lying crumbled and smashed around the bases and pathways. Weeds and shrubs were growing around the graves and
along the paths, among the dead leaves and small branches that had fallen down from the few surrounding trees. It was all in an advancing state of deterioration and neglect. Though after three hundred years of wind, rain, blazing sun and salt air blowing straight in off the Caribbean there wasn't much else to expect. But the Norton graveyard was starting to crumble. It was an eerie feeling for Les, walking around the old graves and seeing his surname on each one. It was also a strange feeling of belonging, as if he was entitled to be there. It was one of the weirdest feelings Les had ever experienced and although he wasn't really expecting apparitions or spirits to appear in crinoline dresses or three-corner hats, he was still glad it was daytime. Les wandered around a bit more then after drinking one of the cartons of fruit juice he'd brought with him got his camera out and started taking photos.

All the graves had inscriptions carved on them, most of them illegible from where the stone had been blackened or stained after centuries of exposure to the weather. One was a massive granite slab sitting up on four beautifully carved, marble legs. There were two squares carved into one end of the slab. Inside one was chiselled, ‘Life How Short'. In the other it had, ‘Eternity How Long'. Les peered into the dirt-caked inscription at the other end. Josephine Clementina Norton, June 1730-September 1816. Josephine didn't have a bad run, thought Les, taking a photo. I wonder who she was? Sarah Goodin Johanna Norton, 1707-1769. There were dozens more names and dates and rambling religious inscriptions across the stone, but the caked-in dirt made them too difficult to decipher. Les figured if you cleaned them up you'd be able to read them a lot better… but you'd be there a month. And almost that long if you wanted to write them all down. Isobelle Cordelia Norton Plummer, 1788-1861. Brigadier General Edward Wescott Moulton Norton, 1803-1883. As you were, General. Les took a photo and snapped off a quick salute. There were heaps of graves and old tombstones. Literally. Piled side by
side, tumbling into each other. Les roamed up and down, clicking away, and although it might have been a little odd, perverse even, he was again having the time of his life.

Les climbed up the steps of some graves, walked across the slabs of others, shook some of the wrought-iron fencing to see how solid it was. A stiff breeze whipping in from the ocean blew across the sweat on his face and arms, taking the edge off the humidity and making things a little cooler. But after searching all over the tombstones and vaults Les was flat out finding anything he could decipher let alone make something out of. He did discover one thing — the oldest, but not necessarily the biggest, graves seemed to be in one corner of the graveyard closest to the ocean. Les knew he wouldn't find Elizabeth's grave, she died in Scotland. And Eduardo the priest disappeared. But among the oldest graves Les did find two other Eduardos. One was solid marble and granite built up on massive sandstone blocks. Over the years it had copped the full blast of the sun and ocean and although the script across the blackened slab was beautifully engraved, Les could just make out the words: ‘Blessed Are the Dead … Belief and Hope Through Jesus… Rest From Their Labours and Their Works Will Follow.' The words on the top of the slab were a bit bigger. Stanley Moulton Eduardo Norton of Sweet Ginger Hill, 1641-1727. Les stepped back and took a photo. Stanley Norton of Sweet Ginger Hill, thought Les. That'd be Eduardo and Elizabeth's father. There was another crypt alongside. Les could make out the name Kathleen Loudivine Elinor Norton. I wonder if that was his wife, thought Les. He couldn't make out the dates. The one right in the corner was built up with a granite cover over the top, almost like a roof. The engraving this time was down the side, away from the ocean. It must have been the original Norton who started the dynasty. Moulton Eduardo Darius Norton of Rose Hill Great House, 1605-1692. The first inscription read, ‘To the Memory of M.E.D. Norton. Whose remains rest beneath
until the sound of the last trumpet when this corruptible must put on incorruption and this mortal must put on immortality.' There were hearts and angels then the second inscription read, ‘Sacred to the Memory of M.E.D. Norton. He represented the borough of Ferule- shire for two successive parliaments in the British Senate and was a member of the council of this island when he died. He was benevolent to the poor, kind and generous to his servant — and attached and attaching to his friends. He died through the grace of God in the faith of Him. Who is the resurrection and the life.' Well, there you go, smiled Les, stepping back to take another photo. Benevolent to the poor. That's me since I've been here. I guess I'm just a chip off the old block Moulton. Les looked at the oldest grave for a few moments more, took another photo and the film started to automatically rewind so he reloaded the camera and wandered quietly around, taking more photos. Then a thought struck Les and his original elation began turning into melancholy. In a few days' time he'd be standing around another grave in Queensland, halfway across the world, among other Nortons. And there would somehow be this weird link back to this old graveyard in Jamaica that overlooked the ocean. The wind suddenly seemed to get cooler. Yes, it was weird alright. Weirder than Les had previously thought.