Birds of Paradise

By Anthony Parker

A psychological thriller and right of passage novel set in the West Indies in the 1970s. David Beauchamp goes to the island of St Cats to teach science but soon finds himself embroiled in a strange world of full-moon parties, creole aristocrats, and voodoo adepts in a fast-moving tale that will keep you up half the night finishing it.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Aug 20, 2019
• ISBN: 9780244511647

Anthony Parker

Anthony Parker is a former All-State high school football player and now the president of a youth sports company. Anthony has also coached for several years on his kid’s youth football team. After years of coaching Anthony started a youth sports company to provide access to quality youth sporting events and to provide skills training in the community. Today Anthony offers a wide range of programs and services from hosting youth football and basketball tournaments, hosting USA Football/NFL Play 60 football camps, and providing individual skills training. To contact Anthony, email at [e-mail] or please visit his website: http://www.exlr8sportscamps.com

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Birds of Paradise

Birds of Paradise

Anthony Parker

©Copyright 2019 Anthony Parker

The right of Anthony Parker to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

All rights reserved.  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form without written permission of the publisher.  Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

978-0-244-51164-7

First published in 2019

Parker Publishing

pp

Dedication

To Avril with whom I have travelled the Caribbean many times.

Though resembling a real island in physical details, St Cats is a figment of my imagination, the events in this tale are fictitious, and the characters including David bear no resemblance to any real persons, living or dead.

Birds of Paradise

Anthony Parker

Sit still, and hear the last of our sea-sorrow

Here in this island we arrived, and here

Have I thy schoolmaster made thee more profit

Than other princes can, that have more time.

The Tempest

Prologue

A South American Airport, early twenty-first century.

The plane circled again.  The pilot had already aborted the landing twice, changing the usual drone into a scream of vibrating engine parts, and angling the Boeing unmistakeably upwards. 

‘This is the captain.  We have had to abort our last attempt to land due to heavy rain on the runway.  However, they are trying to clear it, and we will have one more attempt to land here.’

The passenger cabin, which had reverberated with lively noise as the end of the eight-hour journey seemed at hand, was now eerily quiet.  Just the noise of the engines and the hum of the air conditioning broke the silence.  The atmosphere, which had grown heavier and more aromatic as the flight progressed now felt positively oppressive.  Outside, rain obscured the view through the darkness, though flashes of lightning could be seen in the distance, lighting the darkened cabin.  The turbulence that had dogged the last hour of the journey was worse now, and the plane bucketed like a tramp steamer in a force nine gale.

I finally put down the book that I had been pretending to read for the last half hour.  The butterflies in my stomach earlier in the journey had now become Deaths Head Moths.  I had that strange sensation, when you know you are doing something for real, but it seems like a dream, that one has no control over anything, as if the pageant is being played out on a screen in front of you.  Any moment you expect to wake up, and be back in the comfort zone of one’s own home.

I tried to put any negative thoughts out of my mind, the constant yawing and tilting of the plane not helping.  As its engine noise roared I heard it as a cry for help, from all of us, the rational need for more lift driven from my mind by more primeval urges, of self-preservation and need for sanctuary.  The flaps creaked as the pilot straightened the aircraft again, and I tried very hard to breathe normally, and think on positive thoughts.  All those experiences to come, the well-earned holiday after retirement, the new voices and cultures, the release from a grey and cold world that I had left only a few hours before.

‘This is the captain here, we are starting our descent again and this time I am confident we will be landing.’

This announcement led to a murmuring throughout the cabin.  Nervousness spread like an epidemic.  I could hear some people praying:

‘Hail Mary, mother of God…’

Long learnt phrases passed through my mind, calling back mornings sat in Chapel, in my school uniform:

Our father, which art in heaven…’

‘Local time is eleven oh five.  The outdoor temperature is eighty degrees.’

The routine announcements pulled me back towards reality.  It would be all right.  All my fears would be groundless!  I relaxed a little.

Two sharp turns again left the stomachs of many in the plane behind as the pilot yet again straightened his jet in line with the poorly lit runway.  I wished I had eaten a little less of the rubbery beef, with the cold green vegetables, and the little plastic bun that was made only for airlines from a secret recipe.  And had drunk a few more brandy and gingers!  Once more the jet stuttered downwards, each drop feeling like a lift descending, and giving one that sinking feeling in the stomach that wasn’t entirely due to gravity.  Some still pretended to continue reading, though few pages seemed to be turned.  Others held hands, and some were definitely praying.  Rather fatalistically, I just took a deep breath, leant back as much as I could in my seat, and just hoped this would be the last run.  My misgivings about this whole course of action returned again like crows descending on a corn field, devouring my attempts at positivity, and I just hoped that this flight would not set a precedent for my holiday.  What an irony!  I might not even get to start it.  With the cabin lights dimmed, total blackness interspersed with a few rain drops outside the windows, total silence in the cabin, and a dread in my heart, we descended.  The lights of the airport were visible ahead now, but they didn’t seem to be in the right orientation.  Some thoughts burst into my head; a lifetime’s rushing through my brain like with a drowning man.  Strange snatches of conversation, images, a look, a memory, all fought for a place in those split seconds…

A sudden blow, from below, hard through the seat driving me up, screams.  Falling luggage, no light, then flames, coming in from the side.  Oxygen masks hanging down, the only time in my life I had seen them, bouncing about like obscene puppets.

Seat belt caught.  Tugged at it.  At last it came free.  Clasp undone.  Just a cacophony of sound: shouts, yells, roaring.  Thank God for the emergency lights, along the floor, can barely see them.  Everything dark and obscured.  Can’t breathe, awful smell.  Of course, it must be smoke, get down under it.  You must think clearly.  Crawling forward, that was where the emergency door was; thank the lord I worked that out before we hit.  Nearly there.

My mind is going now; I’m fading in and out of consciousness.  No fear, no pain, just quietly passing away.  I feel hands on me, am I being lifted?  Where am I?  Am I still alive?  Come now, you don’t believe in an afterlife.  But not quite so certain now.  Drifting down a long tunnel, bright lights ahead, the pain is easing, I feel strangely happy.  Is this the end?

I feel cooler air on my body, which is starting to sting.  Have I been out in the sun?  Lying on a bed, bright lights, coalescing into a single bright spot.  Someone, no, several people staring down at me.  Sounds are coming back, suddenly there is excruciating pain, like torture, every nerve in my body is in action.  I want to scream, but nothing comes out.

‘You speak English?’  Of course I speak English, what a silly question.  But no, I can’t speak at all.

‘This will help you to sleep.’

A great feeling of calm.  The pain is easing, the lights are fading, all sound going.  All sensation is passing away.  Is this really the end now?  I seem to be disappearing down a long tunnel, dark and cold this time, and the light at the end is fading…

Then there was nothing, an emptiness, a floating through the air, confused images, ghostly figures coming and going.  Different voices, some seemed to make sense but others not at all.  Sometimes there was movement, pain, flashing lights, changing colours, then they all drifted away again.  I seemed to be in the air again, and then still on land.  As things cleared a little I tried to get a grip on reality, tried to remember, bring back good memories.  Then suddenly there was a voice, and a face in my mind, one I hadn’t seen for years…

PART ONE

Chapter 1

A hospital in Britain, early twenty-first century.

I’d heard that voice before, long ago and far away.  At first I assumed it was a dream, but it was more substantial than that, and as the pain killers started to wear off I was sure I was not asleep.  No, it was real enough.  I tried to open my eyes to see, but then remembered I still had the bandages around my face.  I had to lie, temporarily blind and dumb, just listening to that voice I had first heard thirty years before.  A mixture of feelings flowed over me: anger, bitterness, regret, longing.  The cocktail metamorphosed into frustration and melancholia; without being able to stop myself I knew I was being transported back: back into my youth, back to an airport in a foreign land, back to live it all again. Before all the memories came flooding up, I felt a hand upon mine, firm but comforting.

‘How are you today, my son?’

It was the Catholic chaplain.  He had come every day to see me, from the time they brought me in and he had delivered the last rites.  But against all the odds I’d survived, and my doctors said I was making an excellent recovery despite my burns.  I could speak now, but my eyes were still covered.

‘I’m fine, father.  Tell me, did you see a woman in here just now, visiting me?’

‘No, I didn’t.  Did you know her?’

‘I think so.  She was someone I knew a long time ago.’

‘I’ll see if I can find out who she was.  Was she a welcome visitor?’

He sensed that there was something different about her, that her visit had disturbed me.

‘Yes and no.  She reminded me of a strange period in my life, when I was living abroad.  A lot of things happened: some good, some bad.  Some still can upset me today.’

I heard him sit down on the chair beside my bed.  ‘Would you like to tell me about it?’

‘It’s a long story, father.’

‘I’ve plenty of time.’

‘OK then.  It all began with a meeting at an airport, a long time ago, in an island far, far away...’

An oppressive darkness, fragrant and noisy, almost suffocating in its intensity, had welcomed me as the plane doors opened.  Braving the wall of heat and humidity I descended the stairs while the plane sat on the tarmac.  Though it was early August, the summer had not been hot back home, so I was overdressed, the sleeves of my cotton shirt sticking to my arms under my sports jacket.  The air conditioning of the ancient prop-driven plane was no preparation for what was now being experienced. 

There were four volunteers who disembarked at St Cats to start their two-year tour of duty on that West Indian island in 1972.  Steve and I were the two teachers, he for Queenstown High School, the school in the capital, me for Marigot, a village up the coast with a newly built and just opened secondary school.  An engineer who was to work in the public works department and a medic going to work in a clinic on the other side of the island made up the quartet.  I didn’t know either of them well; we had not trained together, though I had met them in the final briefing for the island.  We had sat together on the final lap from Antigua, chatting a little but mainly sleeping after a journey that had already lasted twelve hours.  The final descent to Golden Rock Airport was hardly comfortable; we bucketed about as we flew through the darkness, with rain occasionally striking the windows, and flashes of lightning in the distance.  When the cloud cleared, we could see ships below, and islands, with little dots of light marking houses, hotels, and even cars. 

‘I’m afraid there is a lot of turbulence around Mount Misery,’ the pilot announced, ‘we are going to have a bumpy ride as we go down.’

I held my breath as the plane came in, its wing tips rocking, but the pilot obviously had things well under command, and soon we saw the welcome sight of the runway lights, and then the tarmac itself.  Suddenly we hit the runway, a bit hard, but safely, and after a couple of bounces we were running smoothly down the strip, lights and parked planes flashing past us, till we turned and the terminal was in sight, a two-storied building, with an open gallery on top, where we could see a few people standing.  We were surprisingly silent.  The prospect of two years living and working in a third world country had seemed a distant dream when we started out on the training.  Even when we boarded the plane at Heathrow the West Indian islands we were going to seemed like imaginary tropical paradises.  Now the dream was reality.  You may think, in these days of long-haul holidays, that islands in the Caribbean are not so exotic, visited by multitudes off cruise ships and wide-bodied jets, but back in the seventies these were unspoilt tropical islands, in our imagination the home to pirates and Creole plantation society, romance and violence intertwined.  So we all were struck dumb by the realisation of the enormity of the change now happening to our lives, unwilling to express our thoughts to others.  Were our hosts waiting to greet us, we wondered?  What was waiting for us?  And the question we all had in the back of our minds: had we made the right decision?  Was this the place to spend the next two years of our lives? 

The plane had drawn to a halt, the doors were open, the hostesses smiling by the exits, and it was time to step onto the island.  Clutching our hand luggage, we edged forward to descend the mobile staircase out into the night.  I gasped in the wet, oppressive air, and staggered towards the open gate across the tarmac, a hundred metres away.  Apart from the terminal and a few airfield lights the place was in total darkness, and the sky was lit up with a myriad of stars I’d never seen before.  The Milky Way really looked like a spilt bottle of milk, and the array of light from the depths of space was astounding.  But though there was little to see on the ground there was plenty to hear.  A deep rhythmic ringing pervaded the atmosphere.  Later I learnt it was caused by tree frogs, tiny creatures whose size belied the amount of noise they made.  We soon realised that this was not the only sound we could hear; there was also the rasping caused by the mating call of the cicadas set every night on orgiastic celebrations.

‘Are you the new British volunteers?  Great to see you.  Welcome to St Cats.  My name’s Susan; I’m the British Council representative here on the island, and so I’m responsible for all of you.  Sorry you had such an awful flight in, but never mind, you are here safely now.  We have to go through all the usual formalities, but after that I’ll get you straightaway to your hotels; I’m sure you all need to get a good night’s sleep.’

The representative from the British Council who was due to meet us on arrival was already there, with her clipboard and beaming smile.  She seemed much older than us, though in reality she was a woman in her thirties.  She was slim, about five eight, with blonde hair dyed by the sun, and skin with that rather mottled appearance that European women who have spent a long time in the tropics often have.  She was no beauty, to be sure, but instead had the kind of face that one remembers long after prettier ones have faded into memory.  It was a rather angular, gaunt face framed by high cheekbones, and might have been forbidding, but for her huge eyes, a bright luminescent blue which held ones attention in an almost hypnotic grip.  Her stern appearance was belied by her friendly and informal manner; she certainly didn’t seem the archetypal foreign office bureaucrat.  She wore a light summer dress, floral patterned, whose thin fabric did not hide the shape of her body, with small breasts but broad hips.  The dress finished well above the knees, exposing bare tanned legs, bony but well-muscled, the legs of an athlete.  They ended in white open-topped heeled shoes, a touch of elegance out of step with the rest of her outfit.  Her accent spoke of Home Counties public schools.  She noticed me looking at her and beamed a smile.  ‘You must be David Beauchamp.  We have a place in a hotel nearby for you.  I’ve arranged transport to get you all to your lodgings.  You must be very tired.’

She was certainly right on that account.  Although it was only eleven o’clock in St Cats, by British time it was four in the morning.  The adrenaline that had sustained us throughout the journey was now running out; we were exhausted.  Our chaperone was nothing if not efficient.  We were quickly gathered together like a skein of geese, and having done the usual - passport control, visa issue, baggage collected, customs negotiated - we herded into a minibus and were driven speedily along dark roads towards the capital, Queenstown.  I can still hear the sounds and smell the aroma from that drive: the tree frogs’ ringing, the cicadas rasping, the smells of spices and strange flowers and fruits.  It was like being sucked into a fairy tale.

That first night in St Cats stays especially in my memory.  We were dropped at a quiet, old-fashioned hotel, situated in a pleasant square which I subsequently found was named the Circus.  The middle-aged black woman who ran the hotel was clearly expecting us.  A quick word with Susan, and a young lad appeared to take in our cases.  It was a typical large Queenstown house, brick on the ground floor and wood on the first, with a balcony across the front of the upper storey.  Later I learnt that these were known locally as ‘blouse and skirt’ houses.  The red tin roof was high pitched, and the whole façade was painted white.  Inside, the air-conditioning struck one like a cold shower, bringing gasps of relief from the stifling heat, still present even late in the evening.  The bedroom was old-fashioned but comfortable, and Steve and I settled down in the twin-bedded double room.  However, sleep did not come quickly.  The deafening roar of the air-conditioning failed to drown my fears, which were loud enough to resonate throughout the room, almost suppressing the sound of Steve’s snores.  I was three thousand miles from anyone I knew or knew me, starting a new career in a strange land, and here for two years.

What on earth had I done?

Now that I was finally on St Cats, and committed to live and work there for two years, the anticipation that had buoyed me up during the preparation was gone, and so was much of my enthusiasm and bravado.  I felt quite lost.  The fear that I had the first night at university came back to me, except this time it was much stronger.  I realised I was totally separated from my family - no easy phone calls or e-mails then.  I was only at the end of an airmail letter.  I was in a place of which I had little knowledge: my life in the hands of strangers, with only the support of my fellow volunteers, whom I barely knew, and who were as vulnerable as I.

I couldn’t sleep so I got out of bed, and wandered over to the window.  The blackness outside was not total; there was some light filtering from somewhere which exposed the unfamiliarity of the surroundings, the palm trees, the dusty square, the strange houses.  As I stood at the window, from somewhere in the town there came the sound of someone shouting.  There was some kind of argument going on, far away, but carrying in the still air.  Then there was some kind of scream or yell, I couldn’t make out which.  Then silence, just the rattle of the air-conditioning and the eternal grinding of the cicadas.  The little incident added to my mood; suddenly the dark shapes in the shadows adopted an air of menace that wasn’t there before.  I shivered a little in the fierce cold of the conditioning, and went back to my bed.  Finally, tiredness overcame my insomnia; after all, it was now really six in the morning as far as my internal clock was concerned.  I collapsed into a troubled sleep, full of dreams of home and parents and unknown dreads.

In the morning, however, I found I felt a lot better.  The sleep had done me good, and a natural curiosity and desire for adventure were reasserting themselves.  Besides, it was a lovely day outside: blue, cloudless skies.  The hotel staff served up a traditional breakfast, with an American flavour.

‘Do you want your eggs sunny side up or over easy?’

Not being too sure I decided to go for the former, and got a fried egg with a cheerful yolk staring me in the face in imitation of the tropical sun awaiting us outside.  It seemed a good omen. After breakfast, Steve and I decided to explore the town, setting out before the sun became too hot.  The heavens were a deep blue, and the rays from the tropical sun beat on to our heads.  Its intensity, even at this early hour, took us by surprise.  Just across the road from the hotel was what might be described as an all-purpose store.  The emporium had no windows, just wooden double-doors opening straight on to the pavement.  Inside was like a dark cavern, with rows of goods on shelves behind the counters, and stands carrying items in front.  The selection was totally eclectic.  Rows of tinned goods, especially meat, were present in profusion.  There was not much in the way of tinned vegetables, but we soon discovered the reason for that.  Other delights were many and varied, from clothes to matches to oil to beer and soft drinks.  We both purchased suitable hats, which had us looking a little more Caribbean in our wide brimmed straw headgear. 

The Circus itself, as the name suggested, was a hub about which the limited traffic circulated: some old American cars acting as taxis, battered and much repaired, some lorries containing piles of sugar cane, mounds of green mangoes or heaps of ruddy-brown sweet potatoes.  There were even a few cyclists, struggling with their heavy old-fashioned black bikes.  In the centre was an old green clock, with four faces, an elaborate confection with a Corinthian pillar at each corner, a coat of arms on the front, and a cross on top.  It was obviously Victorian, a relic of empire, incongruously abandoned in the centre of the road, as if someone had plucked it up from some English market town and dumped it at random in the Caribbean. The surrounding area was dry and dusty; an all-pervading heat was present everywhere.  The houses were mostly much like our hotel, though in a variety of colours, often with red or green roofs.  They shimmered in the sun, as if they were sunbathing.  An air of unhurriedness pervaded everywhere. 

We strolled on down a narrow lane into the main square, incongruously known as Trafalgar Square.  There was little breeze, and the high humidity hit us properly for the first time.  Throughout my time on the