Big Island, Small

by Maureen St. Clair

  “I guessed. Judith talks about you all the time. I thought you went to school outside the city.”

  “I do. I came home to write a paper.” I can’t imagine Judith talking to Drey about me. I can’t imagine what she’d say. Did she tell him about us kissing? Did she tell him about that? Did she tell him I play rugby? About the concussion? Did she tell him I introduced her to Dolma and Shy, Iris and RasI? Did she tell him about our time at the cabin snowshoeing? The time we went canoeing and capsized because I stood up too fast? The willow tree where we met every day during the summer? How I screamed like a banshee on the roller coaster? Did she tell him about Jared and how I never supported the friendship? How I blamed her for whatever happened that night. Did she tell him I was uncaring, unloving, angry all the time? That I talked bad about my own mother? Did she tell him how we got along sometimes and then sometimes never?

  “I can’t believe she bathwater was hot enough to burn she skin. What the hell. She not easy you know. She careless,” Drey says.

  “I prefer showers myself.” As soon as I say it I feel bad for making fun of the situation.

  “I didn’t know you had a man’s head,” Drey says.

  “Is that a problem?”

  “Why would that be a problem? You free to wear your hair the way you want. I just pictured you differently.”

  I feel a missing of sorts. The boys back home. Mikey and his crew. They have a way of making the world simple. Basketball at the junction. Pelting mangoes from trees. A cook by the side of the road. Evening gatherings at the shop. Wind ball on a Saturday. Fishing by the river. A beer and a smoke on someone’s verandah. Never too busy for one another. Not like here where people scurry around like ants. Drey’s whole self reminds me of home. The softness of his voice and the way he holds his head kind of to the side and his eyes remind me of Mr. Jessamy. I ask him if he is related to any of the Jessamys on the Island. He says no but that he heard of a teacher with that name who some people tell him he resembles. I start to laugh. “Yep Small Island is small for real. It’s true though. You do. Mr. Jessamy was my teacher. A teacher I will never forget,” I say with a smile that lasts the rest of the walk. Drey and I continue to immerse ourselves in Small Island talk figuring out who we know, how we know them, what relations we are to them and if Judith knows them too.

  “Did Judith play sports in school?” I ask Drey.

  “Nah. After she mother dead she keep to she self. I remember wishing she’d stay after school, come to my football games but she never stay. We never meet until Judith second year, my third. I know when she mother dead though. Everyone know. Everyone know Ms. Pauline.”

  “Judith’s Mom dead?”

  “So you never know Judith’s mother dead? Just before Judith first year in secondary school. She die in a car accident. Ms. Pauline’s sister in the car too but she live.”

  “Aunt Rachel?”

  “Yes, Aunt Rachel.” I want to ask Drey more questions but really I need to ask Judith not Drey.

  “Damn,” Drey says. “Why the girl standing on the edge of the tub anyway? She lucky she alive, a knock like that can kill. And why she can’t take shower? She like to waste water too much. She don’t think.”

  I listen to Drey and hear the same complaints going through my head over the past few months. They sound old and redundant. “I think she’s been having a hard time.”

  “How so?”

  “Not sure.”

  We reach the hospital in quietness, both of us, I assume, contemplating Judith. A nurse leads us to the waiting room. She tells us Judith is with the doctor.

  “You don’t see this place?” Drey says. “Everything clean, clean clean and organized. Nurses friendly. People taking time to let you know what’s happening. We have it rough back home you know. People dying. Like Mr. Deron. The other day they remove both he legs ’cause of diabetes and send him home. The man dead the next day. How they can remove the man’s legs and send he home the next day? And Tonisha. Tonisha just a little older than we and they send she home after she complain she have pain in she chest. They send she home twice you know. Both times they say she need to relax she self. Tonisha fall down dead next morning in she bathroom. You feel it easy back home? Poor people life cheap man.”

  “People dying here too you know. And just because people are acting nice on the outside doesn’t mean they are clean on the inside. I’d rather be waiting outside than this stale airless place.” I’m thinking about the waiting area back home at the health centre. The mountain breeze blowing day and night through open windows and doors.

  I cross my feet, stretch out a little, close my eyes and watch the same childhood memory running inside my head. Mikey, Ma Tay and I climbing the hill to the hospital. Looking up to see the sky ablaze in magenta strips. A piece of moon floating above. The young girl’s face. Train track stitches on pale skin. Both eyes swollen shut. All of us watching the Rasta. Ma Tay telling us he the father, car accident, the girl pitch out. I still don’t know for certain if that was Judith so I ask Drey about Judith’s scar.

  “Yes. She in a car accident too. She and she father,” he says.

  “I was there. I was at the hospital that day. I saw Judith.”

  “So you never ask she where she get the mark on she face?”

  “I never asked because she never offered.”

  “I thought you two close.”

  “We are. But I don’t want to pry. I don’t want to expose anything that she doesn’t want exposed.”

  “How else you going to know someone if you don’t ask questions, pry a little?”

  Judith is right. Drey is special.

  That night when it is my turn to sleep in a hospital chair I feel cramping in my fingers. The stone I hid behind the back door where Ma Tay kept her garden boots walks into my memory. It is the stone I used to rap my fingers with. Any time I’d think of him and those nice feelings crawling up my skin I’d pound my fingers like I was pounding lambi just before Ma Tay stewed it down. My fingers raw, sore, the skin scraped clean, sometimes bloody. On the chair with my eyes closed, Judith’s out breath a soft rattle, the squeak of shoes on floor, her big toe a bubble of water. My heart racing while an icy dampness climbs up my spine. My hands shaking. My mouth dry, swallowing, my breath quickening. I drink a glass of water slowly, advice I remember from a blog post I read on anxiety attacks. I walk to the elevators. Take the stairs instead. Walk out into the cold, a cold that feels like February even though it is the end of March. I walk the streets weaving in and out behind the hospital until my breath settles, until I can sit again with Judith by her bed.

  JUDITH

  I WAKE UP AND hear Aunt Rachel calling me from my room but Aunt Rachel not home. Drey home but he not calling. I hear the TV in the next room. Drey sleep on the couch last night ’cause he fraid he might bounce me in the middle of the night when he move about in he sleep. I lie in bed thinking about the night before at the hospital. Squeaky shoes on linoleum, hushed voices in the hall, a loose rickety snore from the woman in the next bed. I think I see the back of Sola’s clean-shave head leaving the room. Every time I move I feel the fresh sting of my body, mostly tops of my feet, insides of my legs and arms.

  Aunt Rachel on my mind. Our conversation from the night she phone. Drey answer. She want to know who answering the phone. I say a new friend from school and we studying. I don’t like to tell lies but I never mention Drey to Aunt Rachel. I thought she’d come home early if she know Drey staying at the house. If she know we that kinda friends, she might come back and make sure we not sleeping in the same bed. Aunt Rachel a strict Catholic. Mom say one time Fabian, Mom and me stay by Aunt Rachel when we visit and Aunt Rachel tell Fabian he have to stay on the pullout couch ’cause Mom and Fabian not married.

  That’s why Mom say she’d rather stay with friends when we visit Big Island ’cause she and Aunt Rachel different. “Different with a capito
l D,” she say. For example, Aunt Rachel only speak when she have something to say. Mom speak all the time. Mom not fraid to speak she mind and she vex when people close-minded. She say Aunt Rachel close-minded even though she teaching sociology at big university. Mom say she get real vex once when Aunt Rachel say, “Evil is evil and there is not much to be done when people are evil.” Mom get so vex she say, “Rachel what kind of sociology prof are you?” Mom say, “Aren’t you supposed to be trying to understand evil through a social perspective?” I used to love hearing Mom argue she perspective.

  After hearing them argue I ask Mom all kinda questions about good and evil. Mom say she believe we all born good. She say evil happen when society fuck up. I remember ’cause that’s the first time Mom use the word fuck in front of me. She use without apology too. She say she get so frustrated when people want to use evil as an excuse for violence without trying to understand where the evil come from. She say she feel Aunt Rachel should know this considering all the years she spend to get a big PhD. This the first time Mom talk to me like we companion and not just mother and daughter.

  I think about Aunt Rachel and our last conversation on the phone the night before I throw myself into a tub of burning water. I ask about Margaret. I ask because I forget to tell Aunt Rachel about the time Margaret come over when Sola and me at the cabin. Margaret come over again when Drey there with similar offerings of wood to burn. She come just as Drey and I about to leave. Like she know we leaving and she don’t want any big conversation. That’s how it feel, like she nervous. Margaret say she live a few houses down and that she live there all year round. She say any time we visit the cabin and we need anything to come by. Then she leave just as fast as the time with Sola. She turn she back on Drey and me uttering have a nice day and then she gone. I want to know more about mysterious Margaret. So I ask.

  Aunt Rachel pause and it feel like she holding she breath ’cause when she talk she let out one big exhale and say, “Stay away from Margaret, Judith.” She say Margaret always up to something. She say Margaret like to control people through giving them stuff. “There is always an alternative motive to her giving,” she say.

  I want to know what she think about Margaret’s motive for giving Mom the cabin but I don’t ask. I stay quiet ’cause I can feel and hear Aunt Rachel real upset. She breathing fast and she making noise with pots banging and glasses tinging. Sound like she putting away things or taking things down fast and clumsy. I tell Aunt Rachel I not sure I understand and she get more flustered and tell me I just need to trust her on this. I think to myself, she want me to trust she not to trust Margaret. I want to know more about Mom and Margaret’s friendship but she not giving me much else, she just repeating what she say before. They have a falling out but she not telling me over what. She just loosely telling me not to get myself involved with Margaret. She upset Margaret come over twice to offer assistance. I hear she walking on floor with sharp shoes clip clip clip. She ask me when I going to the cabin next and I say I don’t know.

  She tell me again, “Just keep your distance from Margaret. Okay?”

  I just about to ask about Mom when Aunt Rachel say, “Maybe your mom would be alive today if it wasn’t for Margaret.” Then she say she got to go and I sure I hear she cry. A whimper. A breath that get caught in the back of she throat. She hang up before I can say something else. This the first time Aunt Rachel mention Mom’s death. Feels like Aunt Rachel and me have an unspoken pact not to speak about Mom.

  Sola ask about Mom. She ask when I getting ready to leave the hospital. Like she know I thinking about Mom all night. She want to know why I never tell she about the car crash. And I want to know why she never ask me any questions. Sola say, “Maybe that’s my Small Island genes, never wanting to study other people’s business.

  And I say, “Well I thought we closer than that.”

  And Sola stare out the window.

  I tell she we’ll talk but not now.

  And then the doctor come in and say I can go home. We take a taxi. We in the backseat again and I put my hand down thinking she’ll do the same as before but she hand stay rested on she knee. And mine just there exposed.

  I hear Drey clear he throat. I want to go into the living room and sit beside him on the couch and tell him about Aunt Rachel and I’s conversation the night before all this shit happen. I want to tell him how I never tell Sola about Mom. How I never tell no one much about Mom. But I too tired. I know he thinking about leaving. He say something the night before but I pretend I don’t hear.

  I thinking I’m exactly what Arlene warn Drey about. Even though he never tell me or I never hear Arlene give warning. But if she did, she’d tell Drey he should find someone more he kind. Someone he can relate to. Someone who know the same struggles as they.

  I feel sick. I want to hide inside the bedroom for the rest of the day but I know the longer I stay in here the longer the distance between Drey and me will spread. And spread it spread ’cause as soon as I walk into the living room he say he make up he mind. He leaving in the morning. He going to visit Arlene before going home.

  SOLA

  JUDITH IS ON MY mind. I wonder if she knows Drey made up his mind to leave early, like he told me when we were walking to the hospital. I wonder if Judith’s burns still hurt and how they look by now. I wonder if she is feeling shame over what she did to herself, if she has enough money saved to return to Small Island, if she’ll go back with him. I call her. She says she’s fine. She says Drey went already and is with his sister, Arlene. She says I should be focusing on my studies and not on her. Then I don’t hear from her again. I try but she must have turned off her phone and got off the internet.

  For some reason I know she is fine. I know she needs this time alone. She told me at the hospital. She said she just needed some time alone, that she never took time for herself and she was going to do that. She said she was trying to figure things out. She said maybe she’d go to the cabin. Or maybe she’d keep working to save money. There was something eerily stoic about her.

  I have to believe she is fine, even if she isn’t, because I need to write my exams. I need to calm myself as I can feel the anxiousness more regularly and there doesn’t seem to be any predictable pattern. I know I am coming back for another year. I want, despite the concussion, to play rugby one final year and I want to pull up some of my grades so I can apply for post-graduate studies.

  The more I concentrate on exams, on essays to be written, dissertation to be defended, the more my mind finds its way forward. My mind travels along one, two, sometimes three different strands: linguistics and literature; history and political science; psychology and sociology. The more I focus the more I can keep the bad feelings at bay.

  I hold it together, make it through my exams, feel proud of myself and then I say goodbye to Kat and Greg, make my way back home, collapse for a few days, sleep, eat and help Dolma and Shy in the garden. I don’t check on Judith. I get used to being on my own again. Even though I still check my phone incessantly, hoping for a message, a missed call, a reason to reconnect.

  A week later I go looking for Judith by accident, by fate, by need, by fright. That is the day Shy, Dolma and I are in the garden. The community garden. When I was younger I timed how long it took me to walk, run or skip around that small space. If I walked at a steady pace it took just over a minute. Skipping took under a minute and running, 35 seconds. But then Dolma put a shovel in my hand and told me to stop playing and start working. Ever since, I’ve been helping out. Shy used to compare that small piece of community land to his garden back home. Cocoa and nutmeg up the mountain, a kitchen garden by the side of his mother’s house, sorrel and peas stretching down the side of the road by his grandfather. Dolma finally convinced him that a little piece of land is better than no land at all and once he sunk his hands into the soil of that miniature fertile space he was hooked. All his free time from spring to fall was spent in the garden. Summer nig
hts were his favourite, with his plastic patio chair perched in the middle of carrots and cabbage, peas and cauliflower, pumpkin vine stretching, sunflowers boasting. Neighbouring gardeners from Syria, Nicaragua, Sierra Leone, St. Vincent calling out, visiting each other’s artistic creations, sharing memories of family, friends and gardens back home.

  On this day we churn up the soil, prepare our rows and place down our first set of seeds: Swiss chard, beets, kale, beans and carrots, while Dolma eagerly tells us news from home. I hear how Elvis finally got his visa and is coming to meet his mother here on Big Island; how Ma Tay is feeling much better after falling and twisting her ankle. I hear how my sister, who I’ve never met, is making another baby; how Old Man Tate was robbed by some village boys; how Mr. Jessamy is getting married to another teacher, who Dolma says I must know but I don’t remember, Ms. Calliste. Dolma says she’s the one with all the pretty flowers in front of her house. I still can’t remember but I am happy for Mr. Jessamy.

  While flicking soil over seeds I hear his name. I hear Mr. Robbie’s name and in the same sentence I hear Baby Mado’s name, who isn’t a baby anymore but a child, a child of around twelve. I feel her in my arms like a large sweet potato. That’s what Ma Tay said, “Go on Sola hold her she weigh as much as a large sweet potato.” I smell coconut oil and camphor balls on her skin. Her eyes close then open when I make a kissing sound. A yawn that looks like one big smile. Everyone around me cooing at the baby but it feels like they’re cooing and talking softly to me, especially if I close my eyes. My eyes are shut and I am inhaling all the ladies in the yard around me laughing and smiling and reaching out to touch me as I hold the baby.

  “The child dead you know,” Dolma says, slapping me out of memory. “They say Mr. Robbie kill she. They say Mr. Robbie used to interfere with she.”

  All of us go silent like the inside of a church, people on their knees praying.