Sully

I landed on Pitcairn in a barrel, and never left alive, except swim around the whole island for sport. That one good swim. All my life I was climbing up the Hill of Difficulty and the other steep places of the fenua maitai, wet hair drying on our backs as the hot sun scanned the empty horizon looking for something to burn.

I remember the boat sinking. I’se just a little sullen then, when they built that boat. Was Jenny’s idea, she was allus wanting to leave. Everyone was bailing, the water was sparkling all around us, I was never afeared of the sea. The boat rolled over and vanished from under our feet. Cocknuts floated, chickens sank. I’se swimming in the women’s arms. See the big surf smashing up white on the rocks from far away, all around the sea glittering alive and I like one fish in it. The women were laughing and calling to one another as they swam, and holding up the babies, taking turns.

At the landing place our fathers were waiting, all four of them. All them laughing too. Jenny was angriest. ‘That’s my whole house sunk!’ she say.

‘Crazy women!’ they say.

Some things stay burned on the memory. It’s like a tattoo in there, always see the same picture.

See the same picture of Wim McCoy. Got stringy hair, eyes all reddy, and he’s offering me the rum cup, and I’se taking it from him.

See that one over again. Stringy hair and eyes all reddy, holding out the cup.

I knowed him all my life, Uncle Wim. He and my mother Teio came to the fenua maitai together, Dan McCoy’s my brother. So I just take one fiery sip afirst, just to please him, make him happy, be kind to me. Make him laugh, talk about his home place, bonnie Scotland. Ae, bonnie Scotland, he’d be saying, and he’d tell me all about his ma and his wee brothers. ‘I wonder where they are now, ae do they ever think aboot their William, wonder if I’m enjoyin’ a fine life on a South Sea island. Wish I were aback there now, ae, wi’ a dram o’ best malt by my side. Will ye no take another wee sip lassie? It’s a fine dram if I say so mysel’.’

So I’m taking another just to please him, and he’s telling me all bout Scotland which is all paved in stone and tis so cold their feet stick to the ground, but their bellies are full of fire. Sometimes he sing one or two songs with his head tipped back and his eyes closed. ‘But then I wouldna’ be here by your side lassie,’ he’d say. ‘Have another sip.’

My throat was so numb I could not speak.

‘Ye’re a braw lassie ae, a braw wee lassie, will ye no give your uncle Wim a wee kiss?’

We lay down in the bushes, the way the sky and the earth were moving it was like being on a boat. Then Uncle Wim fall asleep and I get up and walk away, wiping the sticky stuff off my legs with a bunch of leaves.

Like a tattoo on the memory.

Then Uncle Wim’s gone. My mother Teio say, ‘It’s a good thing he gone. He was getting too crazy.’ She didn’t know I’se a drinking from his kettle too, and he’s showed me how to make that rum with roots of ti plant mashed up. She didn’t know bout Uncle Wim playing those games with me. She didn’t know I seen him the day he died, choosing a big rock with a narrow part on it, looping a rope around there. ‘What for you tying one rope on that rock?’ I asked him. He’s just look at me eyes all reddy, got his hair all bushy wild, can’t hardly stand upright but make a sailor’s knot in the rope, and another one the other end.

‘Goin’ to Davey Jones, lass. A sailor shouldn’ae die on land.’ He gestured out over the cliffs with a shaking hand, past the white curling surf on the rocks below and the constant heave of blue water that surrounded us day after day. He put the loop of rope round his neck and took another swallow of his dram with the rock in his lap. His eyes rolled up in his head and he gave a moan. I squatted beside him, curious at this new behaviour. He didn’t even pass me the cup, he pressed it fast to his breast. ‘Uncle Wim?’ I said.

He opened his eyes and stared at me as if he’d forgotten I was there. ‘Run away lass!’ he said.

Afeared of one of his rages I jumped up and ran. I ran home and played with Dan McCoy all afternoon, taking good care of him. My mother had our sister Kate in her belly that time, and she was making fresh cocknut pilhai that day. ‘Grate the nuts for me,’ she say, ‘be a good girl and grate the nuts, my belly too hard today.’ I grate the nuts and say nothing, and when I go asleep that night, Uncle Wim’s not come back to the house, and when I wake up in the morning, he’s still not there.

‘I know where he is,’ I told my mother. ‘I know where he’s a hiding.’

I led her there, under the fallen tree trunk and down the slippery path and up the edge to his place he kept the rum kettle. But he wasn’t there. My mother looked over the cliff edge, holding to a bush while she leaned right over. ‘We won’t see him any more,’ she said to me. ‘He’s gone to Davey.’

She never cried one tear, my mother Teio.

Not like Mrs Christian. I don’t remember Mr Christian. He was dead long afore. But Charles Christian I knew my whole life. Up the bush we all lived together, all the mothers and children. After the boat sinking, they carried us up there into the hills, where we lived in shelters made of cocknut fronds. Hiding from the fathers we were, one long game of hide a seek.

They come looking for us sometimes, mothers hear them coming, they calling our names. ‘Matthew! Daniel! Charlie! Where are ye? Come out now!’ Mothers hushing us up, climbing up under rock ledges, pulling the greenery down around us, squatting in the rustling bushes.

Jenny’s putting the powder in her musket. ‘You no answer they call, never!’ says she. Mrs Christian she’s a weeping again, all a time weeping. Charles and baby Mary holding on her dress. Charles got big brown eyes wet and shiny as a starfish, smooth his baby backside as a brown egg.

That’s the same kind of babies we made together, Charles and me, when he grew big enough to be my man, and I his wife. Eight little sullen we got, last one only a baby himself when the fever take me from my body.

Lived my whole short life on the fenua maitai, got buried there after that bout of fever, but never cease to hear the scratching of the cocknut fronds above my head and the voices of the living passing by.