Raveface

RAVEFACE

Published by John Siney at Smashwords

Copyright 2012 John Siney

Smashword Edition, Licence Notes

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PROLOGUE: June 1857

He could hear voices nearby but his fatigue was such that he lacked the will to turn his head their way, not even when it seemed that there might be some kindness spoken, some sympathy offered.

Sympathy he would have welcomed, had he but the energy, for sympathy was the best that could be hoped for; he knew he was beyond help.

'I pity the poor beggar lying there, taking the sun all this time.'

'Aye? Well he's a splendid enough shade of mahogany to begin with. His kind can bear it.'

'And the cold at night…'

'They're a sturdy breed.'

'Still…'

The barque 'Hosanna' was four weeks out of Jamaica, three days yet from Liverpool, and for all but the first morning he had been shackled on deck, his hands and feet in irons. In the heat of afternoon he scorched, in the chill of night he shivered, in the fiercest of squalls which marked their course east he was tossed about as helpless as an infant. But only as far as his chains would permit. Then the harsh metal cuffs would snap at bone and bite at flesh, jar at his joints until he feared that he would be torn limb from limb.

'…poor wretch.'

'Poor? Ha!' There was a hawking rattle, a vicious snort, and a gob of phlegm splattered on his shackled leg, the colour and consistency of the pus which was seeping from his open sores and weeping wounds. 'Serve the cocksure negro right for laying claim to be as able a seafarer as the rest of us.'

'He was only after passage. How else was he to get it?'

'You pays in coin,' came the uncaring reply. 'If you can't do that then you pays in kind, trading your skill and craft. If you boast no skill then you warrant no passage. But him? Boast was all he could do!'

And the boast was so quickly seen to be idle, even while yet in sight of land the second mate, Seymour, had taken the lash to him for his lack of competence, flailing out like a man possessed. First mate Rodgers had lent a hand to the punishment while Captain Miles looked on in silent approval.

He had heard from the old folk of what it had been like on the slaving ships, in the evenings in Worthy Park his history had been related to him by those who remembered, by Gullah Will and Shovel Jack, and by his mother's mother, Grandma Raveface.

For more than forty years she had toiled as a field hand on the Worthy Park estate, had survived through to emancipation and then for another score years or more. Even in her dotage her memories had been bitterly clear. Five hundred and more slaves to a vessel, they were stacked on shelves like any other goods, shoulder to shoulder or head to toe, evacuating their bowels where they lay, on who they lay, and eating by hand from common troughs; their mouths were washed with vinegar to ward off scurvy, that same vinegar which was used to swab the decks; their anuses were stopped with wadding and oakum to hide the signs of dysentery; the dead and the living lay chained together.

Yet this suffering of his forebears had not been without its purpose, as cruel as it was he could see the necessity for it; of those taken into slavery in the Guineas as many died as were successfully transported and there were profits to be made, quotas to be maintained. His present suffering had no such suspect motive, could be excused by nothing other than a simple sadistic pleasure; he was there for the ghoulish entertainment of the Captain and his mates, to break up the monotonous routine of their voyage home.

If he had been a woman they might have used him a little more kindly, fed him well enough to keep the flesh on his hips; being male, he was there to be buggered and beaten.

A voice called out that land was sighted and there was a hubbub of excitement, the clatter of feet across decks, the chatter of voices rising above the straining of timber and the cracking of sail.

'I can sniff out the perfumed pussies of those whores on Castle Street already!' said one.

'All the way from Anglesey?' marvelled another with a laugh.

'With a nose like mine? Aye! I can smell them alright!'

The son of the daughter of Grandma Raveface could smell nothing other than the stink of his own excrement, it plugged his nostrils and caked his cheeks, baked dry by the sun.

The day before a bowl of pea broth had been slipped to him, but not slyly enough to avoid being seen by Seymour, who had dashed the bowl away and then thrust his face into the excrement in which he had lain for weeks.

'Sit in your own filth and that's what you'll get to eat!' he was told. 'And you-!' To the Samaritan, the one Christian soul aboard that ship of Satan. '-any more pity on the negro and you join him!'

The stench at least served the purpose of keeping the Captain's dog at bay, deterring it from the daily mauling which its master gleefully encouraged. It would sniff curiously, lick cautiously as if with distaste, but no longer was it inclined to feast on him, chewing chunks from his limbs. It was as if he had fallen into so decrepit a state that even the most miserable cur shied from him.

In his despair he prayed for deliverance.

In his pain he begged for death.In his misery he sang:

'Jerusalem, my happy home,

When shall I come to thee?

When shall my sorrows have an end?

They joys when shall I see?'

There was a surge of laughter when his song was heard, mocking taunts from the crew, derision that one of his colour could take up a hymn of theirs. They turned from the sighted land and gathered around him, smiling down, nudging each other and cheering him on.

He thought to amuse them, then, to make them smile, knowing anger to be no use he raised his voice to the heaven they all shared, louder, ringing as clear as his weakened state would permit.

'Jerusalem, my happy home,

Would God I were in thee!

Would God my woes were at an end,

Thy joys that I might see!'

The mocking crew were suddenly swept aside as he saw a figure cut a path through them, arms wheeling about its head, fists catching any who were too slow to move out of reach.

'Woes? Sorrows?' Captain Miles raged, glaring down at him, eyes blood-red with anger. 'You know nothing of them! Not yet! Rodgers,' he snapped to the first mate. 'Gag the creature! Stop his heathen tongue!'

Rodgers looked around, for scraps of sailcloth or linen, but the Captain had no patience with the dithering about and snatched up a heavy iron bolt.

'Here! This'll do well enough!'

His head was pushed back, his jaw forced open and the hard metal jammed against his teeth so hard that it chipped them, so cold against them that it made them ache.

He tried to swallow, his mouth stretched as wide as it would go, but could only make a choking sound.

'Eh? What's that?' Captain Miles demanded, pacing the deck before him, coming close and then pausing as if the living creature at his feet was no more than animal dung. 'Tell me, negro, do you hate me? Do you? As much as I hate you?' He gave a smile of sufferance, of distaste, said, 'What I wish, negro, is that you would either drown or hang yourself.'

And what he wished…

His answer was no more than an incoherent gurgle, saliva and blood spilling from his lips, bruised tongue freezing against the raw metal gag which filled his mouth.

'What does he say? Does anyone understand?' the captain asked, turning to his crew and wanting his smile returned, though there were many who were already becoming uncomfortable with the entertainment. 'Unplug him! Let's hear!' he laughed.

The bolt was torn from his mouth and his head sank to his chest as he filled his lungs with the fresh brine air.

'Well speak!' he was invited, a hand beneath his chin forcing his head back and working his aching jaw. 'What you wish…?'

'What I wish,' he answered weakly, wearily, 'is that you would do it for me.'

'Hang you? Drown you? Then willingly!' Captain Miles ranted, and as the chains which fastened him to the mast were loosed he was dragged across the deck, lifted as easily as an empty sack and hung over the side.

There were prayers he remembered but they were no longer the Christian ones of mercy and forgiveness, the God he turned to was not their lord of love and light but a blacker creature, as black as the darkness of his dying.

'Now do you hate me, negro?' the captain hissed in his ear, and gave a tug on the chain which held him suspended, jarring his limbs. 'Give me your hatred, damn you! Let me feel your anger!'

No….not now… but someday.

CHAPTER 1

At that time of night, in that part of the city, there was a distinctive look in the eyes of people who approached, a look obvious enough to notice yet silly enough to be dismissed. Sometimes it was caution which furrowed the brow and clouded the gaze, other times it was fear. Aitch's brother would say that it was being black and an outcast and a worry to the bastards which made people fret, a notion Aitch scoffed at.

'People frown through trying to see us in the gloom, Winston,' he would respond. 'They stiffen because they're trying to make out the dark brown skin from the deeper shadows of the street. So flash them a grin, man, let them see the shiny white teeth and they'll smile right back at you.'

Winston would have none of this, though, he met the wariness of others with aggression and a clenched fist. At another time, in a different culture, this fist might have been wrapped in supple black leather, Panther-style, but in the eighties, in Liverpool, all he wore on his hands was a sovereign ring or two, heavy enough to hurt and sharp enough to cut.

Aitch wore no rings and felt no cause to clench his fist, Aitch had his brains to help him and had no need of brawn. It was this that galled his brother most of all, to see the grey matter wasted on 'A' levels and such things, to see Aitch planning to slope off to some middle-class redbrick university when what he should do is stay at home and fight.

It made Aitch laugh. To hear Winston talk there might have been some war being waged.

Yet to see the derelict tracts of land which shortened Aitch's journey it could easily have been the case. These had not been caused by the Luftwaffe in the forties, though, but were a result of more recent outbursts of temper, a bare-handed process of demolition to begin with, a result of the frustrations of Winston and his kind. Taking a brick here and a brick there to rain on the police soon causes buildings to totter, giving the professionals an excuse to move in with their bulldozers and their mechanical shovels. The blame had to be shared equally, the authorities had played their part, and clumsy methods of policing on the one hand had been a catalyst to the impatience and unrest on the other; everyone was to blame and everyone had suffered, but the district itself was the plainest victim of all, it showed the scars most visibly with barely a single terrace in a single street spared. Granted there had never been that much beauty about the neighbourhood in the first place, the once grand houses had been over-crowded and under-maintained, but just sometimes, on misty early mornings perhaps, the streets seemed to regain their quiet dignity. Only occasionally, though, and only if the preservation orders which were their one main hope did not come too late to save the powdery plaster and falling stucco; for however many shells were saved there were a greater number that collapsed wearily, leaving broken black cavities where the homeless lit fires yet still shivered, where children played, having found some space at last but not realising that it should have been green. There were places, Aitch had learned, where a child could drown in lush emerald swathes, slip under and never be seen again; in his neighbourhood, though, there was only the faded 'terre-verte' rectangle of the square he now entered, fenced off, a peeling sign warning people to keep off what was jokingly called the grass.

Aitch failed to notice that there was anyone in the parked car, he vaulted the low railing which bordered the small park, cutting directly across the square from corner to facing corner, and passed unsuspectingly by the vehicle. It was only some yards on that he heard the doors opening, and then his name called out.

He turned, body tensing until recognised one of the two figures climbing out of the car. 'Oh. It's you, Mooney.'

'Mister Mooney to you, Aitch. Or Detective Sergeant.'

Out of the car Mooney had straightened up to his full height. He was a tall man but slightly built, thin enough to be broken like a brittle twig. He wore a confident smile, though, he was not vulnerable, he was comfortable in the knowledge that few were ever rash enough to challenge him; his reputation as a mean and vindictive man deterred all but the the most foolhardy from tangling with him. He smiled easily, then, as he approached Aitch, while behind him his colleague climbed out of the passenger door and followed. Aitch wasted no effort on going forward to meet them, just stood there waiting, but despite this show of dumb insolence the sergeant still managed to maintain his smile.

'A new motor?' Aitch remarked, looking at the car, his hands tucked into his pockets hugging two books under his arm.

'You know fucking well it's a new motor and you know what happened to the last one,' Mooney reminded him bitterly, his smile now a little more forced. 'It had a television dropped through its roof from the top of the Heights, didn't it? Recall that, Aitch? Perhaps you also recall who did it?' He waited, his expression grim, but guessed that there would be no admission. He said to his companion, 'This is Harold Truman Smith, by the way, brother of Winston Spencer. The one is as bad as the other, though Aitch isn't quite as thick as Winston. Not quite as dark, either. More Irish-coffee than nigger-black.'

Aitch's mother came from Cork, his father from St Kitts.

'Let's search him, see what he's got on him.'

Aitch shrugged, unconcerned. Mooney took the books from him so that he could raise his arms, and while his partner frisked him, checking the pockets of his jacket and trousers, he flicked through the two volumes, frowning at the text and examining the covers.

'Nee-who?' he said, reading from the title of the first, having difficulty deciphering the name in the dim streetlights.

'Nietzsche,' Aitch told , his arms still raised. 'You might like his work, Mooney. Hitler did.'

'Very funny.' Mooney shuffled the books around to look at the second. 'And who's this? Des Carts?'

'Descartes,' Aitch said, now with a scornful edge to his voice. 'The 's' is silent.'

'As you'd better be, chocolate fucking smartie!' Mooney slammed the book shut. 'Told you he was a clever sod, didn't I?' he said to his partner. 'Doesn't talk like a black boy, does he? Uses words big as his mouth.' He smiled, waiting for the insults to be felt, then asked, 'So what've you found on him?'

'Nothing.'

'Nothing? Not even a pack of Rizla? Then search his wallet. If he's not carrying anything then he'll be off to score. He'll be loaded.'

Aitch surrendered his wallet, which contained a single five pound note.

'Is that all?' Mooney took the wallet and checked it for himself, his movements agitated, his boney fingers fumbling with each pocket. 'What's wrong, Aitch? Are times that hard?'

'You know me, just a struggling student,' Aitch smiled, retrieving his wallet.

'Like hell! Go on, piss off!'

'And the books?' Aitch asked, holding out a hand.

Mooney took one last look at them, muttered under his breath and returned them.

Walking on, keeping to the haloes of the streetlamps, Aitch looked over his shoulder when he reached the corner of the street. The car was still parked in the square, but he knew it would follow after him as soon as he turned the corner. Ahead was the local library and he walked slowly towards it, giving the car time to catch up with him, wanting to be seen; he paused on the steps of the library for a moment, saw Mooney's vehicle cruise slowly by, reflected in the glass door before him, then entered.

The library was a squat brown building with iron grilles covering its windows; it was not the one he normally used, he preferred the central library adjacent the museum, and he just drifted around without looking at anything in particular, simply killing time. There were two old men at a table doing the same, there for the warmth and only pretending to study the books before them; a girl yawned behind the desk; a middle aged woman stretched on tiptoe to reach the top row of romances, her dress lifting to show the dirty underskirt beneath. Aitch walked on to the farthest corner of the room. There, hidden behind banks of shelves, he found a young boy, ten or eleven years of age, carefully tearing pages from a glossy art book; a Botticelli and a Titian were on the floor beside him and he was just in the process of removing a pale puffy Rubens.

Aitch caught the boy by the short hairs at the temple and twisted.

'Ouch!' the boy hissed, his voice low, as if conscious that he was