Trials of a Calm Waterfront

By Cornell Charles

A natural disaster is sanctioned by legal decree to be an act of God, and so it could be interpreted, though equivocally, as a divine means of correction or reprimand for various inequities.

The plan to relocate occupants of a seaside fishing village and to acquire the land for the construction of a holiday resort caused some turmoil among the residents. However, a volcanic eruption brought an abrupt halt to the plan before it could be implemented.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Jan 7, 2015
• ISBN: 9781496962461

Cornell Charles

Cornell Charles resides on the island of St. Lucia, where he finds much inspiration for his writing, He is the author of the novel, In Pursuit of Running Water. A successful businessman, he was awarded a Companion of the Most Distinguished Order of St. Michael and St. George (CMG), in 2000, for services to business and commerce.

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CHAPTER 1

The seaside village of Pointe Sable was predominantly a fishing community settled on an acreage adjacent to a beach. The government was in the process of acquiring the land for construction of a hotel complex by a foreign entity. An opposing political party was in disagreement with the government’s decision to acquire the land and began planning protest actions.

A televised broadcast announcing details of the government’s decision to relocate the fishing community of Pointe Sable was of interest to six men meeting at the home of Rufus Abbott.

This waterfront village overlooked a generally calm body of water and was blessed on most days with azure skies. Fishermen and seafarers for many generations used this location as a base and launching platform for their boats, and the present lot had come together in a habitat of small huts on the seashore, a stone’s throw from high tide. The huts sat aboveground on randomly stacked boulders and were closely boarded all around with timber of uneven sizes, except for the windows and door spaces, which were located at astonishing intervals. Some door openings had toddler-high barriers, and behind them, infants with mucous-soiled faces gaped at half-dressed bodies traipsing along narrow, sand-caked lanes to some familiar open-air resting place.

At the seaside, canoes rested near the water’s edge, with bows facing the village or toward the sea; some that were in need of repair were propped farther inland next to gnarled trunks of almond trees standing in a carpet of their crisp fallen leaves. Beachcombers avoided the underfoot crunch of dry leaves and romped on sand, pockmarked with holes dug by watchful crustaceans, named in jest, toolooloo crabs. Only half their shelled bodies in standard red and black tunics were exposed when they peeked cautiously out of their sand bunkers, alert and ready to scamper farther down their holes when drifters strolled nearby.

Rufus Abbot was a well-known political operative, and hosting this gathering would enhance his importance. His political currency was minted on the city streets in a role that saw him often denouncing policies of the ruling party. A key activity of an operative was publicizing negative information on persons with binding allegiance to the rival party. The reports were often pernicious and calculated to be politically embarrassing to aggrieved opponents.

Rufus walked with a bowlegged swagger and aimed a menacing stare above the bridge of his nose, hoping to reveal himself as a person of sturdy character. When given an opportunity as stand-in speaker at party rallies, he labored over the issues in a raspy voice that tested the attentiveness of his audience.

Among the men gathered at the Abbot home, five miles south of Pointe Sable, was Victor Provident, the undisputed leader of the group. His contrarian views were aired publicly and attracted a following of political operatives.

With uncontested authority, Victor Provident devised and initiated strategies to be followed. His respected educational qualifications and highbrow reasoning had no match among the present company. He was also gifted with a timbre of voice that gave what he said extra effect and resonance. This made him both a favored antagonist and a protagonist of causes, and for many occasions, a master of ceremonies.

His preamble was a curtain-raiser and backdrop to the anticipated news item, intended to sway thoughts away from the pragmatic offerings of the government authorities for the acquisition of Pointe Sable.

Our beaches are the island’s landmarks, each with its own distinctive imprint. The many coves indenting our coast are repositories of coral sands bathed continually by the cleansing foam of the ocean’s surf. At the water’s verge, a pageantry of coconut palms fan the heat of a sun shimmering in calm reflection on the surface of waters in saline concentration. The white sands are immaculate fingerprints, pointing to intervals along a steep and rugged coastline. There is a plan to defile those creations to house chambers of hedonism and dispossess gentle parishioners of gifts nature bequeathed to them.

Victor had spent six years at prestigious universities in the United Kingdom and another three years ruminating and absorbing iconic and cultural England. He returned to Au Tabor after a nine-year educational absence as a full-fledged poet and arts aficionado.

However, his return was much earlier than he had planned following frustrations experienced in pursuance of a career as a stage actor. For a brief period while in England, he strutted onstage hoping to catch the eye of producers, playwrights, and drama critics, but he felt stultified in the ethnic stereotype of an Othello Moor. Ultimately, his confidence and talent as a promising actor lapsed for want of an exterior qualification essential for many eminent roles. Stagehands and various members of productions often lauded his talent as an actor and rated him equal to premium performers in the business of theatre. However, during many auditions, the character’s ethnicity in a script was adhered to even though his acting was satisfactory, but the decision was evidently the producer’s to make. Victor was disheartened by a dearth of roles for which he could audition successfully.

Victor was born in and spent his early years in the disadvantaged community of Baxter’s Yard. His former acquaintances from the Yard expressed disappointment he had strayed from his publicized intention to study medicine. The residents felt deprived of an opportunity because one of their own gave up gaining healing expertise for the studies of art and literature, a branch of learning usually for students from upper-class families. Many manual laborers felt a disconnect and the absence of give-back, along with the notion that Victor would detach from them further. Careers in medicine and law always topped the list of most desirable in the expressed opinions of Victor’s parents, Herman and Lorna Provident.

Prior to their demise as a result of a tragic landslide, his mother, Lorna, deemed her son’s rise from underprivileged beginnings to be the recipient of a scholarship a reliable indicator of his future renown and of his potential to be a medical practitioner.

His father, Herman, had all-round skills in construction as a carpenter, mason, and plumber. He often recalled his stint of service as a juror. Impressed by the robed and wigged members of the legal profession, who addressed each other courteously as My Learned Friend or My Lord or Your Worship, he was moved to appreciate the apparent civility, contrasted with the alleged heinous crime of the individual seated next to the court security officer. Herman praised the eloquent delivery of the prosecution and defense lawyers and hailed them as purveyors of justice.

Victor’s route to the meeting place was along a paved sidewalk cluttered with rows of trays, laden with displays of assorted items and attended by a throng of vendors. The vendors were of both genders, and they were diverse in temperament and nationality. They had positioned some trays at the front entrance of Rufus Abbott’s home.

You and Mr. Rufus sure make a good pair, remarked one vendor as she raised her ample mass off a bench and leveraged her torso erect. Dey going to make dis government see hell, she predicted while shifting her wares to allow Victor room to pass.

I will do my best to help all of you, offered Victor calmly as he waited for a path to be cleared.

Please tell Mr. Rufus don’t forget the thing he promise us, a self-assured voice chimed in, and then it ordered, Mister Victor, look over here. The prancing slender vendor, in tight-fitting jeans, grasped Victor’s upper arm with a seductive plea. Come ‘dodo’ diss is where everybody does pass. Then the vendor led him to a yard adjoining Rufus’s house to avoid shifting some trays and other displays of merchandise.

A third vendor wanted some details. What is it that Mr. Rufus promise?

Mind your business. I don’t feel like telling you; as soon as somebody get something, you want to be in it, she reprimanded in her loudest voice. After you does say so many nasty stories about Mr. Rufus behind his back, the sprightly vendor revealed further.

I don’t care if you don’t tell me, because other people will always tell me, argued the other with a dismissive wave.

But is only long after you will find out, and by then it will be too late, was the reply. Then she sought the attention of others. Y’all see how she does provoke people.

Why not tell everybody, and finish with that, urged someone.

I not a radio station to tell everybody; those at Mister Rufus meeting last night know already, she disclosed.

You mean about the new vendors’ arcade? someone guessed aloud. The rude, sucking noise of choopses sounded from the puckered lips of nearby vendors.

Rufus’s house was painted garishly, causing some persons to squawk at the ostentation. When told of this, he claimed it brought awareness to the preservation of the island’s national bird, the Amazonas versicolor parrot. His social and political status among his neighbors increased somewhat as they anticipated fulfillment of plentiful promises should he be elected.

His father, Emile Jerome Abbott, was a prominent trader of local lumber in the Boisflo Village district; he met his death when a tree he was felling tumbled the wrong way and trapped him beneath.

At the time of the incident, Rufus was only fifteen years old, but his paternity was never in doubt because of a remarkable similarity to his father in gait and protruding forehead. His mother, Agatha, wanted him to disavow his father because in her opinion he was a no-good father, a label she was always prepared to expound on. She recounted his accidental death with unforgiving words God saw his wicked ways. They had never married, even after living together for twenty years.

You have no sympathy at all for the man, even after the way he died. Rufus claimed some gratitude was due his father. After all, he left you the best and biggest house in the area.

Rufus experienced the disdain of his mother when he stood with hands on hips and his body swaying as if he was riding a light sea-swell.

Boy, you standing there just like your father telling me how I should be grateful when the other women were taking all his money. His irate mother tore down the image before her and dwelt on the resolve that rescued her from ruin. It is a good thing I stand up for myself, or I would have end up with nothing.

Agatha had a thin, wiry body and ignored local comments on how badly her dresses fitted. With almost no extension for a bust line, waistline, and bottom line, her slim body stood upright without curves. Her posture personified austerity and pride, the result of a strict though deprived family upbringing. To many, the choice of Agatha by Emile Jerome as his in-house companion was a surprise. However, he used her social ineptness to keep his home base private while he indulged in promiscuous behavior and cavalier treatment of women in the district.

Victor Provident was introduced to the Boisflo district by the Abbott Boy, a title indicating the prominence of the Abbott family. Victor quickly gained the confidence of persons in the district and was widely admired for his suave personality. He brushed aside taunts and threats of influential persons with his plans to enhance the welfare of the community. Pesky problems were disclosed to him in an environment of bias and resentment, as his crusade to seek better services and economic opportunities resonated in the district.

Rufus had made a special trip to visit his mother after Victor Provident had alerted him to be watchful because of the numerous claims on the estate of his father, Emile Jerome Abbott. Rufus was considered a shoo-in candidate to win