Jemima Shore at the Sunny Grave (2 page)

The Archer Tomb, the existence of which had in a sense brought Jemima across the Atlantic, belonged to the period of the second—and final—British settlement. Here was buried the most celebrated governor in Bow Island’s history, Sir Valentine Archer. Even its name commemorated his long reign: Bow Island had originally been called by the name of a saint, and while it was true the island was vaguely formed in the shape of a bow, it was Governor Archer who had made the change: to signify ritually that this particular archer was in command of this particular bow.

Jemima knew that the monument, splendidly carved, would show Sir Valentine Archer himself with Isabella his wife beside him. This stone double bier was capped with a white wood structure reminiscent of a small church; it was either done to give the whole monument additional importance—although it must always have dominated the small churchyard by its sheer size—or to protect it from the
weather. But Jemima had read that there were no Archer children inscribed on the tomb, contrary to seventeenth-century practice. This was because, as a local historian delicately put it, Governor Archer had been as a parent to the entire island … Or in the words of another purely local calypso:

In short, no one monument could comprise the progeny of a man popularly supposed to have sired over a hundred children, legitimate and illegitimate. The legitimate line was, however, now on the point of dying out. It was to see Miss Isabella Archer, officially at least the last of her race, that Jemima Shore had come to the Caribbean. She hoped to make a programme about the old lady and her home, Archer Plantation House, alleged to be untouched in its decoration these fifty years. She wanted also to interview her generally about the changes Miss Archer had seen in her lifetime in this part of the world.

“Greg Harrison,” said the man standing in Jemima’s path suddenly. “And this is my sister Coralie.” A girl who had been standing unnoticed by Jemima in the shade of the arched church porch stepped rather shyly forward. She was very brown, like her brother, and her blonde hair, whitened almost to flax by the sun, was pulled back into a ponytail. His sister: was there a resemblance? Coralie Harrison was wearing a similar orange T-shirt, but otherwise she was not much like her brother. She was quite short, for one thing, her features being appealing rather than beautiful; and—perhaps fortunately—she lacked her brother’s commanding nose.

“Welcome to Bow Island, Miss Shore—” Coralie began. But her brother interrupted her. Ignoring his sister, he put out a hand, large, muscular and burnt to nut colour by the sun.

“I know why you’re here and I don’t like it,” said Greg Harrison. “Stirring up forgotten things. Why don’t you leave Miss Izzy to die in peace?” The contrast of the apparently friendly handshake and the hostile—if calmly spoken—words was disconcerting.

“I’m Jemima Shore.” Obviously he knew that, but she did not, under the circumstances, add the word “Investigator.” It was only how she was billed in her television series, after all, but might here give the wrong impression of a detective (as it sometimes did to the public at large). “Am I going to be allowed to inspect the Archer Tomb? Or is it to be across your dead body?” Jemima smiled again with sweetness; once more, experienced viewers might have recognized the expression as ominous.

“
My
dead body!” Greg Harrison smiled back in his turn. The effect, however, was not particularly warming. “Have you come armed to the teeth then?” Before she could answer, he began to hum the famous calypso again. Jemima imagined the words: “This is your graveyard in the sun.” Then he added, “Might not be such a bad idea that, when you start to dig up things that should be buried.” He gestured loosely round to the other lesser graves; but she doubted whether he had that kind of vandalism in mind.

Jemima decided it was time for vigorous action. Neatly side-stepping Greg Harrison, she marched firmly towards the Archer Tomb. There lay the carved couple. She read: “Sacred to the memory of Sir Valentine Archer, first Governor of this island, and his only wife Isabella, daughter of Randal Oxford, gentleman.” She was reminded briefly of her favourite Philip Larkin poem about the Arundel Monument
beginning “The Earl and Countess lie in stone …” and ending “All that remains of us is love.”

But that couple lay a thousand miles away in the cloistered cool of Chichester Cathedral. Here the hot tropical sun burnt down on her naked head (she found she had taken off her large straw hat as a token of respect and quickly clapped it back on again). Here too there were palm trees among the graves instead of yews, their slender trunks bending like giraffes’ necks in the breeze; in contrast to the very English-looking stone church with pointed Gothic windows beyond. She had once romantically laid white roses on the Arundel Monument; it was as the memory of the gesture returned to her that she spied the heap of bright pink and orange hibiscus blossoms lying on the stone before her. A shadow fell across it.

“Tina puts them there.” Greg Harrison had followed her. “Every day she can manage it. Most days. Then she tells Miss Izzy what she’s done. Touching, isn’t it?” But he did not make it sound as if he found it especially touching. In fact there was so much bitterness, even malevolence, in his voice that for a moment, standing as she was in the sunny graveyard, Jemima felt quite chilled. “Or is it revolting?” he added; now the malevolence was quite naked.

“Greg,” murmured Coralie Harrison faintly, as if in protest.

“Tina? That’s Miss Archer’s—Miss Izzy’s—companion. We’ve corresponded. For the moment I can’t remember her other name.” She might as well see what was to be derived, of possible use in the programme, from this odd encounter.

“She’s known as Tina Archer these days, I think you’ll find. When she wrote to you, she probably signed the letter Tina Harrison.” Greg Harrison looked at Jemima sardonically but she had genuinely forgotten the surname of the companion; it was after all not a particularly uncommon one.

“Greg! Darling.” This time Coralie Harrison’s voice was only just audible.

They were interrupted by a loud hail from the road: Jemima saw a young black man at the wheel of one of the convenient roofless Minis everyone seemed to drive around Bow Island. He stood up and started to shout something.

“Greg! Cora, you coming on to—” She missed the rest of it. Something about a boat and a fish. Coralie Harrison looked suddenly radiant, and for a moment even Greg Harrison actually looked properly pleased; he waved back.

“Hey, Joseph. Come and say hello to Miss Jemima Shore of BBC Television—”

“Megalith Television,” Jemima interrupted, but in vain. Harrison continued. “You heard, Joseph. She’s making a programme about Miss Izzy.”

The man leapt gracefully out of the car and approached up the palm-lined path. Jemima saw that he too was extremely tall, like Greg Harrison. And like the vast majority of the Bo’landers she had so far met, he had the air of being a natural athlete. Whatever the genetic mix in the past of Carib and African and other things that had produced them, the Bo’landers were certainly wonderful looking. He kissed Coralie on both cheeks and patted her brother on the back.

“Miss Shore, meet Joseph—” But even before Greg Harrison had pronounced the surname, the mischievous expression had warned Jemima what it was likely to be. “Meet Joseph, Joseph Archer. Undoubtedly one of the ten thousand descendants of the philoprogenitive old gentleman at whose tomb you are so raptly gazing.” All that remains of us is love, indeed, thought Jemima irreverently, as she shook Joseph Archer’s hand;
pace
Larkin, it seemed that a good deal more remained of Sir Valentine than that …

“Oh, you’ll find we’re all called Archer round here,” murmured Joseph pleasantly; unlike Greg Harrison he appeared to be genuinely welcoming. “As for Sir Val-entine,” he pronounced it syllable by syllable like the calypso. “Don’t pay too much attention to the stories. Otherwise how come we’re not all living in that fine old Archer Plantation House?”

“Instead of merely my ex-wife. No, Coralie, don’t protest. I could kill her for what she’s doing.” Jemima felt quite chilled by the extent of the violence in Greg Harrison’s voice: he did not altogether sound as if he was joking on the subject of killing the former Mrs. Harrison. “Come, Joseph, we’ll see about that fish of yours. Come on, Coralie.” He strode off, unsmiling, accompanied by Joseph (who did smile). Coralie however tagged behind. She asked Jemima if there was anything she could do for her. Her manner was still shy but in her brother’s absence a great deal more positively friendly. Jemima also had the impression quite strongly that Coralie Harrison wanted to communicate something to her, something she did not necessarily want her brother to hear.

“I could perhaps interpret, explain—” Coralie stopped. Jemima said nothing. “Certain things,” went on Coralie with emphasis. “There are so many layers in a place like this. Just because it’s small … An outsider doesn’t always understand—”

“And I’m the outsider? Of course I am.” Jemima had started to sketch the tomb for future reference, something for which she had a minor but useful talent. She forbore to observe truthfully if platitudinously that an outsider could also sometimes see local matters rather more clearly than those involved; she wanted to know what else Coralie Harrison had to say. Would she explain for example Greg’s quite blatant dislike of his former wife?

But an impatient cry from her brother now in the car beside Joseph meant that Coralie for the time being had nothing more to add. She fled down the path. Jemima was left to ponder with renewed interest on her forthcoming visit to Miss Isabella Archer of Archer Plantation House. It was a visit which would include, she took it, a meeting with Miss Archer’s companion who, like her employer, was currently dwelling in comfort there.

Comfort! Even from a distance, later that day, the square, low-built mansion had a comfortable air. More than that, it conveyed an impression of gracious and old-fashioned tranquillity. As Jemima drove her own rented sawn-off Mini up the long avenue of palm trees—much taller than those in the churchyard—she could fancy she was driving back in time to the days of Governor Archer, his copious banquets, parties and balk, all served by black slaves. For a moment the appearance of a young woman on the steps, with coffee-coloured skin and short black curly hair, did not disillusion her. However, unlike the maids in Jemima’s own hotel who wore a pastiche of bygone servants’ costumes at dinner—brightly coloured dresses to the ankle, white muslin aprons and turbans—this girl was wearing an up-to-the-minute scarlet halter top and cutaway shorts revealing most of her smooth brown legs. Old Sir Valentine, in public at any rate, would definitely not have approved.

Tina Archer: for so she introduced herself. It did not surprise Jemima Shore one bit to discover that Tina Archer—formerly Harrison—was easy to get on with. Anyone who abandoned the hostile and graceless Greg Harrison was already ahead in Jemima’s book. But with Tina Archer chatting away at her side, so chic, even trendy in her appearance, the revelation of the interior of the house was in fact far more of a shock to her than it would otherwise have been. There was nothing, nothing at all of
the slightest modernity about it. Dust and cobwebs were not literally there, perhaps, but in every other way, in its gloom (so different from her own brightly painted hotel!), its heavy wooden furniture (where were the light cane chairs so suitable to the climate?), above all in its desolation, Archer Plantation House reminded her of poor Miss Havisham’s time-warp home in
Great Expectations
.

And still worse, there was an atmosphere of sadness hanging over the whole interior. Or perhaps it was mere loneliness, a kind of sombre sterile grandeur which you felt must stretch back centuries. All this was in violent contrast to the sunshine still brilliant in the late afternoon, the bushes of rioting brightly coloured tropical flowers outside. None of this had Jemima expected. Information garnered in London had led her to form quite a different picture of Archer Plantation House, something far more like her original impression of antique mellow grace, as she drove down the avenue of palm trees.

It was just as Jemima was adapting to this surprise that she discovered the figure of Miss Archer herself to be equally astonishing. That is to say, having adjusted rapidly from free and easy Tina to the mouldering sombre house, she now had to adjust with equal rapidity all over again. For on first inspection, the old lady—known by Jemima to be at least 80—quickly banished all thoughts of Miss Havisham. Here was no aged abandoned bride, forlorn in the decaying wedding-dress of fifty years before.

Miss Izzy Archer was wearing a coolie straw hat, rather similar to Jemima’s own, but apparently tied under her chin with a duster, a white loose man’s shirt and faded blue jeans cut off at the knee. On her feet were a pair of what looked like a child’s brown sandals. From the look of her she had either just taken a shower wearing all this or had been swimming. For Miss Izzy was dripping wet, making large
pools on the rich carpet and dark polished boards of the formal drawing-room, all dark red brocade and swagged fringed curtains, where she had received Jemima. It was possible to see this even in the filtered light seeping through the heavy brown shutters which shut out the view of the sea.

“Oh, don’t fuss so, Tina dear,” exclaimed Miss Izzy impatiently (although Tina had in fact said nothing). “What do a few drops of water matter? Stains? What stains?” (Tina still had not spoken.) “Let the government put it right when the time comes.” Although Tina Archer continued to be silent, gazing amiably, even cheerfully, at her employer, nevertheless in some way she stiffened, froze in her polite listening attitude. Instinctively Jemima knew that she was in some way put out or upset.

“Now, don’t be silly, Tina, don’t take on, dear,” rattled on the old lady, now shaking herself free of water like a small but stout dog. “You know what I mean. If you don’t, who does, since half the time I don’t know what I mean, let alone what I say? You can put it all right one day; is that better? After all, you’ll have plenty of money to do it. You can afford a few new covers and carpets.” So saying, Miss Izzy, taking Jemima by the hand and attended by the still silent Tina, led the way to the furthest dark red sofa. Looking remarkably wet from top to toe, she sat down firmly right in the middle of it.