The Water Mill

By John Trethewey

A West Indian baby is discovered mid-Atlantic on the banana boat Il Mondo bound for the United Kingdom. Adopted in Lancashire and christened Dominique Alston, she grows up in 1950s Britain, a United Kingdom riddled with social, regional, and racial divides. Scarred in a racist attack at prep school, she moves to a boarding school in Sussex. But here, far from finding equality, the divides are reinforced.

Dominiques godfather, orchestra conductor Harold Goodall, is her guardian after the sudden death of her foster parents. At age eighteen, she starts work at The Mill House in Sussex. Gifted with a fine voice, she is to perform her premiere at the Chichester Festival. However, her Mill House duties are extensive, involving frequent voyages on the English Channel to fetch supplies. A visit to disfigured Caprice Capricciosa, Southdown lighthouse keeper, crystallises an underlying hope that she may one day find again her ocean cradle, the Il Mondo. But everything conspires to make the ocean not only her cradle but also her grave.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse UK
• Release date: Feb 23, 2017
• ISBN: 9781524678036

John Trethewey

Born in 1950, the son of grammar school teachers, young John Trethewey promised himself that he would never follow that profession. Although determined to be a composer, he embarked on his first novel at the age of eighteen. Over the following forty years, he has produced ten novels, a five-act stage play, and several major works for orchestra. A gifted linguist, in 1973 he decided after all to take up teaching. He has taught in several schools, with the twenty years leading to his retirement as teacher and director of studies in a Swiss international school. With wide interests, he particularly admires the music of Berlioz, the performances of the late Sir Colin Davis, and the lyrics of singer Al Stewart. This novel, the last in the series The Baines Saga, finally reveals the cosmic element that has increasingly been prevalent in events throughout the saga. It is a powerful dénouement to a long saga.

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© 2017 John Trethewey. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 02/22/2017

ISBN: 978-1-5246-7804-3 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5246-7803-6 (e)

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Contents

Chapter I

Chapter II

Chapter III

Chapter IV

Chapter V

Chapter VI

Chapter VII

Chapter VIII

Chapter IX

DEPARTURES AND ARRIVALS

1956

I

Saturday, December 1st 1956

The tiny Caribbean island of Dominique, lying between the better known lush Windward Islands of Martinique and Guadeloupe, was a far cry from the idyllic paradise associated with Barbados and the West Indies.

The Magistrates’ Court in the small town of Roseau, capital of Dominíca, was itself a solid, stone-built island, surrounded by shanty-town shacks and dwellings hardly worthy of the name. In the only courtroom, the bored Magistrate, an elderly, silver-haired colonialist whose career was reaching the end of any useful purpose, as was the impoverished Crown Colony of Dominíca itself, closed the folder on his desk. He stared malevolently at the young woman standing in the dock. Perhaps aged twenty, hardly more, Ramya lowered her eyes to look at the floor, uncertain of what was to come. She did not have long to wait to discover her fate.

‘The Magistrates’ Court for the Circle of Roseau in the British Crown Colony of Dominíca…’ his voice droned metallically through the wood-panelled courtroom, as he pronounced the name of the island Domineeca, derived from the earlier French colonisation of Dominique, ‘… concludes that the accused…’ he glanced at the cover of the file, ‘… Ramya No-Name, or rather Non-existent Family Name, is guilty of the following crimes: vagrancy, soliciting and prostitution on multiple occasions.’ He looked at the plump, dark-skinned woman standing beside Ramya. ‘Please translate that to the accused,’ he instructed. Fatima, the interpreter, muttered a sequence of guttural noises that vaguely resembled French and Ramya blenched. Her hands gripped the metal rail in front of her so that the black skin on her knuckles was pale in the afternoon light filtering through grimy, high windows. The Magistrate continued.

‘The sentence of this court is that the accused, Ramya No-name, shall serve a prison sentence of three years during which no remission will be granted.’ He looked again at Fatima, who translated the sentence in Kwéyòl, the Dominícan patois. Now Ramya released the rail. Her hands rose to her head, gripping her long black frizzy hair and she started to sob, tugging wildly at the shoulder-length plaited strands. ‘Take her down.’ The Magistrate’s voice was implacable, without inflection. He rose and strode to the door to his Chambers.

In the courtroom Ramya looked despairingly over her shoulder as she was pulled towards the staircase down to the cells. She stared at the solitary young woman on the Public Benches, her sister Ramini. At the top of the stairs Ramya pulled herself free of the restraining hand of the Court Usher and turned to face her sister. Now she lifted her left arm against her body so that the forearm was actually pressing against her breasts and lifting them, while with her right hand she touched her lips and blew a kiss to her sister. Ramini nodded, and in her turn performed the same movements. Ramya ceded to the urgent gestures of the Court Clerk to the Usher, and disappeared into the bowels of the Courthouse. The Clerk, who had watched this silent exchange in sign-language, stood up and waved to Ramini to leave.

Ramya and Ramini were not only No-Name girls, with no knowledge of parentage, they were also of no fixed abode. But this did not mean that they had nowhere to live. Since childhood they had grown up in the empty shell of a disused warehouse just within the perimeter of Dominíca’s principal port, Woodbridge Bay. For more than ten years the girls had lived there, sometimes plying their trade in a nearby shack, sometimes going aboard vessels where eager sailors were ready to dispense more than just a few shillings of their pay. The negligent Harbour Master, thoroughly unworthy of the title, was drunk for half the time and using the girls’ services, or those of other girls, much of the remainder of the time. It suited him to have this questionable harvest of flesh, for which he alone never had to pay, literally on his doorstep.

Ramini returned to the port with a heavy heart, and not only on account of her younger sister’s incarceration; she now had a duty to perform, to fulfil her sister’s strange, silent request from across the Courtroom. It had been more than a request; it had been an order.

She went first to the Port Office on the quayside. Only three of the port’s six berths were occupied, one by an ocean-going Reefer, the 2,000 ton Banana-Boat that plied between Dominíca and the UK on a twenty-four day roster. The other two ships were smaller, inter-island traffic delivering bananas to the Reefer. The clock above the only desk in the tatty office showed four o’clock. On a blackboard below the clock the names of the three ships were scrawled in chalk, and beside each name the time of departure. All three were scheduled to depart on the high tide that night, at eleven o’clock, with the Banana-Boat Reefer Il Mondo first to set to sea.

Ramini made a mental calculation. She knew from experience that the crew would remain ashore until at least ten-thirty, with just half an hour to spare before sailing. Most of the eight crew members of the Il Mondo had made use of Ramya’s and Ramini’s services in the past six years, when the girls provided on-board satisfaction which was understandably absent during the tedious eleven day trans-Atlantic crossings. Both girls knew the layout of the accommodation aft of the bridge as well as any crew member.

Two who had not sampled the questionable delights of cheap loin-flesh were Danish Captain Helm Bøding and his Jamaican wife Lamplight. Whether she had a more probable name even she could not say, so Lamplight Bøding she was, the ship’s cook. Both knew that Ramya and Ramini frequently visited the crew quarters, and turned a blind eye to the inevitable.

Now Ramini walked urgently through the deserted wasteland of disused maritime materials: rusty cables, a crane that no longer lifted anything and had not for years, broken wooden packing cases and desultory cardboard banana boxes no longer fit for use. She arrived at the cavern-like warehouse that was the only home she could remember having. In what had once been an office at the rear of the building she unlocked the door and entered the two-room hovel which was what she and Ramya called home. Any time before ten-thirty would be ideal; she had several hours to wait. Reaching up to a high shelf she took down a grimy, nearly empty bottle and put the open neck to her lips. As she swallowed the lethal brew, she wondered precisely where Ramya was now, and how she was faring. But there were more urgent considerations.

At ten that night a tropical rainstorm was battering Roseau and Woodbridge Bay Port. In windless conditions bullet-sized raindrops hammered down on corrugated metal roofs as if fired by some giant Gatling gun from the skies above. In the grubby back rooms of the warehouse Ramini stared at the open, rectangular banana box made of solid cardboard and inspected her handiwork. Satisfied that there was nothing more she could do, she scribbled an enigmatic note on a scrap of paper: Dominique + Portugal Cabine 3. Now she closed the tight-fitting lid over the box, picked it up tenderly and went to the door of the warehouse. She hurried to Quay Four. Just feet from the gangplank she stepped into the welcome shelter of a doorway and stared at the ship. She and Ramya knew the Il Mondo literally inside out; there was not a cabin they had not visited, not a corridor along which they had not, at some time, trod. She stared up at the only illuminated windows on the ugly superstructure, the panoramic bridge at the top. Through the driving rain, she saw a figure working close beside the window, his head bent. The Captain. Now a woman approached his side carrying something. Captain Helm Bøding lifted his head, gratefully took the mug of tea from his wife. As Ramini had expected, the Captain and his wife Lamplight were the only crew aboard, with the deck hands returning at the very last minute.

Ramini stepped out from the shelter of the cabin, carrying the banana box, and crossed to the gangplank. There was no sailor at the top to challenge her, but even had there been he would never have challenged Ramini or Ramya; their visits for social purposes were legend. Every crew member knew both girls by sight, and several knew one or the other of the girls a good deal more intimately than by sight.

Once inside the superstructure through a metal door, and out of the rain now, Ramini wiped the moisture from her face and went down the nearby staircase to the crew accommodation. Here she hesitated outside the door of Cabin 3, then decided otherwise and moved on to the Galley. The only hiding place that would work was the Galley Store, which no-one would enter until breakfast the next day. And by then the ship would be many miles out in the Atlantic. She put the banana box down on the table, crossed herself, and left. It was done.

Captain Helm Bøding was the only European crew member on the Il Mondo, and he was also singular among ships’ captains sailing the Seven Seas. Cargo ships were invariably owned by Greek shipping magnates or Panama-based convenience flag companies. Forty year old Bøding and his ship were the exception to the rule; Bøding owned Il Mondo as an independent vessel, which carried with it certain advantages but also potential penalties. On an independent ship Bøding could select his own crew, which explained why his wife Lamplight could be cook on the ship. The eight deck hands and engineers were all hand-picked from the Philippines, Morocco or Venezuela, and thoroughly reliable. This last fact was another singular attribute that set it apart from freighters in general.

A major advantage of being a stand-alone one ship company was the avoidance of the need for a port agent in the UK and Dominíca. A major disadvantage was the penalty clause invariably inserted in contracts by clients, penalising any late delivery of perishables. Even one late delivery could bring Bøding’s company to the brink of bankruptcy.

At eleven that night, with all the crew back on board and manning their posts, and Lamplight already preparing the bed in the Captain’s accommodation at the rear of the bridge, Bøding literally got the green light which blinked out from the end of the breakwater pier at the port exit. He checked through the windows that the cables fore and aft had been cast off, then spoke into the antiquated voice-pipe to the engine room.

‘Slow ahead, four knots.’

He took the wheel and the Il Mondo slowly nudged its way to the port exit and the open sea. Half an hour later he was relieved at the wheel by the Venezuelan First Mate and he retired for the night, joining his wife.

Sunday, December 2nd 1956

It was not until eight in the morning that any serious activity was scheduled in the Galley, Lamplight preparing breakfast. This Sunday morning was no different. The ship was already nine hours out from Roseau, and over a hundred miles into the Atlantic, distinctly rough in December, with spray bursting over the bow from the six-foot high waves.

Bracing herself against the swaying and pitching of the vessel, Lamplight first set the urn to boil water, then went to the Galley Store for breakfast materials. On entering the small, windowless room she paused, staring at the unexpected banana box on the table. Then she heard the sound coming from the box. It would have been eminently reasonable for her to tear off the tight-fitting cardboard lid to confirm her worst suspicions. But she did not. She crossed to a metal bulwark and lifted the wall-mounted telephone to call her husband. The sounds from the box did not let up.

‘Helm, come down now, it’s urgent…’ She cut short her husband’s query and repeated: ‘Now. We have a problem. Galley Store. I’ll wait.’ She rang off and finally opened the box.

By the time Captain Helm Bøding reached the Galley, Lamplight was holding the unexpected cargo in her arms, her eyes on the folded pile of butter muslin in the box and the anonymous paper sachets alongside it. Bøding entered the Galley Store then stared at his wife.

‘Good God!’ He looked shocked. His eyes fell on the box. ‘It was in there?’

She nodded.

‘Good God!’ he repeated, then said: ‘Take it to our quarters, I’ll carry the box.’ Lamplight was already climbing the staircase. Bøding’s mind was grappling with the improbability of the situation, and the multiple problems which he now faced. Which faced them all. Seafarers have wider ranging experiences than many professions bring to a man, but this was beyond comprehension.

‘What is it?’ Bøding asked his wife up in their cabin. She held it up and showed him. ‘Not that it matters.’ he added. He looked at his watch, it was past nine in the morning. ‘How old, out of interest?’ Lamplight shrugged and put the bundle back in the box. She stared at her husband.

‘We’ll have to go back,’ she muttered, ‘we’ll have to take it back! This is impossible!’ Bøding shook his head.

‘Twelve hours out, twelve hours back and then God knows how long during the enquiry. The delivery company, for retailers, has a punitive late delivery clause… we’d be bankrupt! For God’s sake, how did it get here? I mean get there, in the Galley? And why? Why us?’ Lamplight held up the scrap of paper, the scribbled note.

‘This is all there is…’ Bøding seized it from her.

‘Oh my God!’ he said again. ‘Dominíca plus Portugal, Cabine 3. There’s only one explanation… and we can’t go back, no point anyway. I think I understand now…’ He looked at his wife. ‘Could you handle it… another ten days to Preston?’ His wife shrugged.

‘Do I have any choice?’ Bøding shook his head.

‘We don’t. We’ll hand it over in Preston. I’ll leave you to do the… you know… Use the couch for now.’ He turned and left, crossed the bridge and took the stairs down to the lower deck and the mess room.

II

Monday, December 10th 1956

In 1956 the thriving town of Preston in Lancashire was a social enigma. Its title of PP – Proud Preston – and the coat of arms, a reclining white lamb with a shining halo and a shepherd’s crook over its shoulder, were clear indicators as to how the town saw itself, taking pride in a mild-mannered, gentle and caring protective community.

Preston was also proud of its status as a hub of world trade and international contacts, by virtue of its major, inland port. Shipping companies such as Seatrade Lines carried freight and passengers as far away as