When the Singing Stops (21 page)

S
hining in the moonlight, the Land Rovers passed a small thatched hut and came to a log fence which marked the yard of the guesthouse. A squat simple building loomed in the silvery light. All was dark.

‘Well, we were expected at sunset and it's now past midnight,' said Ann. ‘No wonder the caretaker is in bed.'

‘Door's locked,' said Sharee in a tired voice.

‘Find a window,' directed Ann.

Sharee pulled the old flyscreen off an open window and climbed inside to open the door. Lanterns revealed basic accommodation: three rooms with bunks, a kitchen, a screened verandah with a long wooden table and chairs.

‘The fridge is broken and there's no oil for
the stove,' reported John.

‘And the water tank is leaking and empty,' finished Connor, who'd longed to wash the dust from his face and hands.

‘This place is way below anyone's minimum standards,' declared Viti.

More lanterns were lit and a cooler was carried in with fresh fruit and beer chilling in the melted ice. Dust was thick, roaches scurried and the mustiness was choking. They flung open windows, even though some weren't screened. Madi peered down the hill from the verandah. ‘What's down there?'

‘The river, but I wouldn't swim, there are quite a few piranha. Better fill up some buckets for washing,' said John.

Sharee, Madi and Connor volunteered to bring back the water.

At the river's edge they tied a rope to the bucket handle, threw it out and hauled the water in. Madi took one look and, in the darkness, pulled off her shirt and tipped the bucket over herself. ‘Ah, that's better,' she laughed. Connor didn't bother taking off his shirt and simply dumped the water over his head. Sharee modestly splashed herself and they each carried water back to the house where Ann and Viti had assembled a hasty supper of fruit salad, cheese and breadrolls. John downed a beer, did a U-turn and fell onto the nearest bunk.

The bunks were unmade, just old horsehair mattresses, but after the jolting of the past twenty hours, Madi welcomed anything that was motion free. She lay in the darkness, hearing the light breathing of Viti in the bunk above her, grateful for the cotton sari Sharee had loaned her as a sheet.

Wrapped in her colourful cocoon Madi tried to sleep but she was overtired, and the scrabblings and scratchings of what sounded like small feet bothered her. Turning on the torch she spotted a mouse but couldn't locate the crunchy noises. She closed her eyes. Hearing a thump and muttered curse from the next room and then noises on the verandah, Madi crept out to find Connor throwing a pillow onto the dining table.

‘I'm sleeping here. That mattress is harbouring life.' He lay on his back and put his hands under his head on the pillow, crossed his ankles and shut his eyes.

Madi crept back to her room, eyeing her bed. She turned on the torch and flung back her old mattress. She couldn't help the small shriek that made Viti sit up in alarm.

The underside was a crawling, crunching, seething sea of cockroaches, inches thick as they oozed over each other's metallic bodies in a heaving black wave. Madi ran for the verandah and, after checking the cushions, curled up in an old armchair. Viti also fled and found refuge on a sagging lounge at the other end of the verandah.
Connor snored peacefully on the dining table, oblivious to the arrival of his extra roommates.

In the morning some order was restored and the caretaker appeared. He was a vague old man who found oil for the stove, but scratched his head over the water situation.

‘We need to conserve our drinking water, so just use it for cooking and drinking, river water for washing,' said Ann.

As the group had decided to stay until the following morning, Madi, Sharee and Connor unpacked the hammocks, wishing they'd taken the time to do it the night before. John, Ann and Viti drove the few kilometres into a nearby town to visit the young district commissioner who issued permits to travel into Amerindian protected country. They came back with the required documents and a bag of grapefruit from the commissioner's tree.

John checked the trailers and with Connor moved them down to the river for gear to be loaded into the boat the following morning.

That night the boat captain, who was to take them up the Potaro River, arrived with a crate of cold beer from the rum shop he owned ‘down the track'. Throwing off wet sacks covering the bottles he quickly named the local beer price. Connor raised his eyebrows at the near double cost of beer here compared to Georgetown. ‘Freight and availability,' explained John.

‘So how's it looking for tomorrow?' asked Connor of the slightly bowed, white-haired older man who had introduced himself as Captain Winston Blaise.

The captain rubbed his snowy white hair. ‘She's low but we'll pass. We'll have to leave early, mind.'

After a dawn breakfast of porridge, Connor made two trips down to the river with the gear then walked back down the incline with Madi and the last load. ‘Your brother's boss would approve of our boat,' he said.

‘You mean it's not the
El Presidente Good Time?'

‘It's certainly not pretentious,' he grinned.

Madi's jaw dropped, then she burst out laughing at the ancient wooden longboat. Open and unlined, revealing its skeleton hull, it had a series of simple wooden planks serving as seats. The captain directed the stowing of the gear and then the passengers clambered in, sitting where he directed them to evenly distribute their weight.

‘Dis boy assist me.' He pointed to the childish thirteen-year-old Amerindian who gave a shy smile then skipped to the bow and perched in its nose. Another man stepped forward, a tall strong African wearing a battered Panama hat with its sides rolled up cowboy style, a clean shirt and trousers cut off at mid-calf. The captain introduced him as Royston.

‘We give him a lift upriver a little bit.'

They had no sooner set out with the outboard motor sputtering than water began to ooze steadily into the bottom of the boat.

‘Water's coming in!' cried Sharee.

At the stern, tiller against his thigh, Captain Blaise glanced down. ‘She do leak a bit,' he remarked laconically. ‘Been outta de water. Soon seal up.' He pointed to the empty powdered milk tins. They got the message and started bailing.

Within an hour the seams appeared to have expanded and the steady trickle of water slowed to an imperceptible seepage.

Royston moved from where he'd been squatting and bailing and sat next to Madi, lifting his hat in greeting. ‘What are you doing upriver, Royston?' she asked.

‘I'm a pork-knocker.' He pulled a slip of paper from his top pocket and handed it to her.

She read his full name, birthplace in Guyana and age, forty-four. This slip of paper, it stated, gave him the right to mine for minerals for one year from the above date.

‘When I'm not up the river I run a nightspot round D'Urban Street in Georgetown. But there's good money to be made if yo is lucky' He pointed to the sides of the river banks where the earth, softened from rain, had partially collapsed. ‘Some fellows dug twelve thousand dollars worth of
gold outta there three weeks back. I've nearly saved enough for my own dredge so dis gold an' diamarns be jes waitin' fer me.'

‘Do you work alone?'

‘I got two partners and a fellow to cook.'

Madi smiled and nodded. The stories of pork-knockers in Gwen's book and what Lester had recounted came flooding back. They were a strange breed of men, locked in a battle with themselves and a desire to find the wealth they believed would set them free. Small, even large strikes were often squandered, waiting for ‘de big one'.

It was peaceful with the breeze in their faces. As they chugged along they were all wrapped in their own thoughts. The river was more than a kilometre across and smooth and apart from a flash of wings dashing across the water from the jungle on one side to the jungle on the other, they saw little sign of life.

Then up ahead the dark shape of a dredge loomed midstream. Royston pointed and the captain nodded, turning the tiller towards it.

Alongside, Royston heaved his hammock and his haversack with a packet of Foam washing powder protruding from it onto the mining dredge which would be his home for the coming months.

‘Good luck, Royston,' called Madi.

‘And to you,' he answered and lifted his hat
as they moved away. They soon passed other dredges, flat barge affairs with equipment, generators, small cabin-style houses and plastic roofs to shade them. The plastic reflected and refracted in the sunlight on the water. Some of the dredges were moored in the shadows of the banks and all looked deserted.

‘Where is everyone? Are they diving or ashore?' wondered Madi out loud. One had some tattered washing strung out to dry beneath a tarpaulin roof but it still looked abandoned.

‘Down in Georgetown for the cricket,' said Captain Blaise. ‘When de West Indies play, ever'ting stop.'

Madi glanced at the young Amerindian boy, who was now keeping a wary eye on the water.

‘What's he looking for?' asked Connor.

‘Tacubas, partly submerged logs, or sharp rocks just below the surface,' replied Ann.

John pointed at the stream of foamy white bubbles that began to appear on the surface of the river. ‘Rapids ahead.'

‘How far ahead?' asked Sharee, sounding worried.

‘Time to turn ourselves into mules and packhorses,' grinned John.

They nosed into shore and unloaded everything including the engine. Connor helped Madi on with her backpack. ‘You okay with this? John said it's about a kilometre.'

‘Give me the other bag and my hammock, I'm fine.'

‘Atta girl.'

The trek around the rapids, which were obscured by trees, was steep with a shaky log bridge to be crossed. Madi could hear the crashing rush of water over rocks and wished she could see the tumbling rapids.

At the end of the trek, everything was loaded into a second canoe which was waiting for them. Then they sat on flat rocks at the edge of the river and ate lunch.

Connor, beside Madi, watched the Amerindian boy throw a fishing line into the swirling water. ‘I wouldn't want to fall in there.'

‘Gwen had some close calls in the rapids. In those days they had to paddle all the way up the river,' said Madi, who was finding the heroine of her travels coming more and more into her mind as they travelled further towards Kaieteur Falls.

‘Have you seen the canoe? The boats are getting smaller.'

‘You mean we're all going in that one! I thought there must be two canoes. How are we going to fit?' exclaimed Madi.

‘Snugly,' said Connor leaning against her and putting his arm around her shoulder to give her a hug.

Madi grinned at him. ‘This is fun. Aren't you glad you came?'

‘Bailing a leaky canoe, dragging gear up hill and down dale, wondering what danger and drama waits around the next bend?'

‘Exactly,' laughed Madi.

Captain Blaise pushed the canoe into the rushing water, jumped in and yanked at the outboard, but nothing happened. The captain yanked again at the cord of the outboard, getting only a rheumatic gurgle in response. The boy pulled out a paddle and began to work it furiously. John, closest to him, took the paddle from his small arms and dug strongly into the water. The captain tried to nose back towards the bank or find a rock to anchor against. But the overloaded canoe drifted backwards with the current as the captain struggled with the engine and John paddled fruitlessly.

Madi reached for Connor's hand. ‘I might get my wish to see these rapids. When do we bail out?'

‘Now, now! Gwen would ride the rapids. Ever been whitewater rafting? It's fun.'

Madi shook her head, but at that moment the outboard roared to life and they surged forward to everyone's relief.

When Captain Blaise finally berthed upriver, they were all glad to see a somewhat larger and sturdier longboat waiting to take them on the final leg. Now they headed steadily upstream in the stillness of the early afternoon. For Madi, the scenes Gwen had described were coming vividly to life.

Viti passed homemade guava juice and lemonade and they chatted idly as the afternoon
melted slowly into the river and forest on either side of the broad smooth water.

Captain Blaise spoke quietly. ‘Soon be able to see him.'

‘Who? You mean the falls?' asked Madi, excitement welling in her.

‘Are we that close?' added Connor.

‘Long way off,' grinned the captain, ‘but from this next bend in the river you look up dat way, you see Kaieteur.'

Everyone in the boat craned to where he pointed. ‘No matter how often you see it, the thrill never fades,' said Ann quietly. In silence they all looked upwards at the steep green hills as the boat moved up the middle of the river.

‘There's water, is that it?' cried Sharee. ‘To the right.'

‘No, that be Grandmother's Armchair. They little falls,' said Captain Blaise.