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.First she shaved the bark off the cure-rootand put it aside, then shaved the rest of the root into a small iron kettle.That she hooked onto a small chain hanging from a pulley over the greatcauldron, and had Selene lower it partway down into the boiling water.Then atintervals she sprinkled into the bobbing kettle first the crushed leaves fromthe water plant, then the gray-green leaves from the bush, then the barkshavings, and lastly the purple flowers.It was Joe-Pie's job to keep the fire up.Selene was given charge of thechain, maintaining a constant temperature in the kettle by lowering or raisingit at Granny's instructions, while the weed woman danced with surprisingspryness around the cauldron as the blue smoke shifted, tossing in leaves orstirring the kettle with one hand, holding the skirt of her black dress out ofthe fire with the other.At the very end of the process, Granny had Selene lower the kettle into thecauldron all the way to the lip while Joe-Pie worked a hand bellows to raisethe temperature of the fire.Selene secured the last loop of the chain to thenail at the base of the tree, then approached the cauldron.Granny warned herto hold her breath, then let her peek in.A violet-white paste in the bottomof the kettle was being condensed at a rapid boil.Granny sent Selene back tothe chain, and at the precise moment that the last of the moisture had cookedaway, signaled Selene to raise the kettle as high as it would go.Granny backed away a step.Using her long wooden paddle as leverage, sheoverturned the heavy cauldron, sending the boiling water pouring down on thefire.A dreadful hissing and billowing ensued.Selene gasped it looked as ifJoe-Pie had been steamed alive, but gradually he reappeared, grin first,through the blue-white smoke."Dot's de best part," he assured her.When Tosh arrived to drive Selene and Joe-Pie to the beach, he was burstingPage 68ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.htmlwith news.According to Francis Sylvester, a cab-driver who had served theDrinkers at the Greathouse both as a Drink (sort of a feudal blood donor) anda chauffeur, there hadn't been any unusual visitors at the Greathouse or atleast not any who had taken cabs.But something out of the ordinary had takenplace in the past few months: around the end of August Mr.Whistler himselfhad flown toEngland to visit his father.Just how out of the ordinary that was, though, was something perhaps onlySelene could truly have appreciated.Jamey and his father hadn't seen eachother in thirty years.He never talked much about his old man either.Itoccurred to her as Tosh dropped them off at a small lagoon protected by agrove of poisonous manchineel trees just south of the Old Town that she didn'teven know his first name; he'd always been referred to facetiously asWhistler's Father.Oddly enough, she did remember his address, though No.11was how Jamey always referred to the home of his youth.No.11 Cranwick Square.She reviewed what little else she knew about Whistler's Father whilefloating on her back in the blood-warmCaribbean while Joe-Pie snorkeled forlobsters.Like the son, the father had been born wealthy.The bulk of the Whistlerlegacy came from the building of the trans-Russian railway, a fortune that wasenhanced over a hundred years later with the discovery of a trunkful ofgenuine James Abbott McNeill Whistler drawings in aBaltimore attic.What else did she know? Jamey was born inBaltimore , she remembered; thefamily vacationed on Santa Luz, where Jamey was cared for by a Luzan nanny.But when Jamey was around twelve the old man, who fancied himself a painter,had moved the family toLondon to carry on the Whistler tradition.Went tenyears without selling so much as a cartoon.How had Jamey put it? "Failure isalways a tragedy.Even a rich man's failure is a tragedy.Unless he hangs onto all his money.Then it's a comedy he gets to keep everything but hisself-respect."Jamey's mother died when he was nineteen, whereupon his father had sufferedsome sort of nervous breakdown; according to Jamey the old man had been onantipsychotic medications ever since.As far as she knew, he had neverremarried.When Jamey turned twenty-one, Nanny Eames invited him back to SantaLuz for a visit and initiated him as a Drinker [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]