The Day I Fell Off My Island

by Yvonne Bailey-Smith

  ‘Bwoy,’ said the neighbour, ‘mi stap counting long time!’

  ‘Im nuh ave dat name fi nuttin, man ave to do im ting,’ replied the old man who was sitting on his verandah next door, puffing on a huge cigar.

  I carried on through the village and followed the road until I found my way to the banks of the Boldero River where I sat with my feet dangling in the cool water, listening to its soothing flow and watching fishes dart about in a shady pool under a stooping bamboo.

  ‘Erna! A wah yuh do hereso all by yuhself? Yuh nuh fraid alligator bite off yuh foot dem?’

  In one swift movement my feet were out of the river and I was looking up at my father, who must have crept up silently behind me.

  ‘A joke mi a mek wit yuh, Erna,’ he laughed. ‘No alligator nuh in dis river, but plenty a dem down a Black Point. Tree years ago, a big rass one nyam a market woman whole. She did siddung innah de same place by de bridge weh she sell chocho fi years. Im mussa watch har fi a long time, before im mek im move. Dem tings clever like sumady.’

  ‘Yuh mean seh de alligator nyam de whole woman, like im swallow har?’ I cried, casting my eyes nervously at the river.

  ‘Mi swear pon yuh mada life,’ my father replied, ‘yuh kyan hask anyone round here. People still talk bout it.’ He held out his hand and pulled me to my feet. ‘Come,’ he said, ‘I was tinking yuh might waan fi see mi limestone pit. Is a big someting,’ he added, when he saw the doubtful expression on my face. ‘Mi ave a contract wit de government. De money mi get from selling it help mi fi manage dis place.’

  ‘What de government use de limestone for, sarh?’ I asked him as I trotted along at his side. He walked with great big strides and it wasn’t easy to keep up.

  ‘Dem have road building programme right now, dem a use it for dat,’ he said. ‘Yuh know de nice road yuh see near de town dem? A fimi limestone dem a used to build dem. Government a plan fi asphalt up all de main road dem. Soh mi might become a rich man,’ he chuckled. ‘Yuh kyan see mi wife cow dem too, wi pass dem on de way to de pit. Iris ave…’ he scratched his head as he considered the size of her herd, then added, ‘mus be eighty a dem in all maybe.’

  ‘Dat a whole heap a cow, sarh,’ I said, wide-eyed in amazement at this statement. ‘Miss Iris she musa rich woman too!’

  My father just laughed in response.

  Soon we were strolling through a field that was indeed full of Miss Iris’s big fat cows. I spotted a couple of bulls and instinctively moved closer to my father.

  ‘Dem nuh go bada yuh,’ he said, ‘dem only ave time far each odder.’

  We passed through the field and scrambled up another hill on the far side. As soon as we reached the top, the limestone quarry came into view. It looked like a giant had bitten a huge chunk out of the land and the rock it had revealed was such a brilliant white it almost hurt my eyes to look at it. I watched as a massive noisy red machine, controlled by a man with a yellow hard hat on his head, scraped the limestone from the bottom of the pit. Two big trucks sat at the edge of the pit and about a dozen men were heaving baskets of the limestone into the back of the trucks.

  ‘All dem man dem work for me,’ my father said. ‘Some a mi older bwoy dem down dere too.’

  My father seemed proud of his wealth, but not, I thought, in a boastful way. He’d worked hard and built up a big business and earned himself quite a reputation into the bargain – in more ways than one, as I’d discovered.

  An hour later we were back at his provision store, where my father ordered me a soda and then announced that he had to return to the quarry.

  ‘Yuh wi be alright here on yuh own, Erna,’ he said, with a nod to Aunt Berta who was serving behind the counter.

  I thanked him and took my soda outside where I sat on the grass verge and watched as clouds scudded high above, forming the most fantastical shapes before fizzling out to leave the deep azure blue of a perfect island sky. I’d almost dozed off when I heard the sound of footsteps crunching on the pebbles behind me. I turned to see a postman bearing down on me, holding something in his hand.

  ‘Yuh is Miss Erna?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes,’ I said, confused.

  ‘Your father told me I would find you here,’ the postman said. He handed me a thin blue envelope.

  It was a telegram. My heart sank immediately, as he pressed it firmly into my hand. I thought about the telegram Grandma had received exactly one week before the ugly Satan devil man arrived in our village. She knew for certain that it was bringing bad news, and it turned out to be the worse possible news. I had that same feeling of certainty now: this telegram was not bringing good news. I was sure of it.

  The postman tarried a little. ‘Why yuh don’t open it, miss?’ he asked. ‘It don’t have to be bad news!’

  I studied his face, in the hope that he could reassure me that he really hadn’t brought bad news.

  ‘I am sorry, miss,’ he continued, ‘but if yuh could just sign to show that yuh receive de telegram, miss, den I can be on mi way.’ He handed me a lined exercise book in which I scrawled a childish signature. ‘Tank you, miss. Like I say, it don’t have to be bad news. Bye, miss. Tings will be aright.’ He turned and hurried back down the path.

  I stayed sitting for a long time, until the pounding inside my chest calmed. The whole village seemed to fall into a silence. Nothing moved, not even the fluffy white clouds that only a few moments earlier had dilly dallied across the sky. Then I tore open the envelope.

  MELBA DIED YESTERDAY. COME BACK WHEN YOU CAN was all it said.

  Chapter 15

  My beloved Grandma was dead. Dead! When I was much younger, I couldn’t understand what being dead meant. I thought that people only died because they slept too deeply. I practised waking myself up, believing that if I could do this at will, I wouldn’t die. The reality of death only struck me when Delphine’s baby Leslie died. Then Everton drowned in the parish tank, and soon after Glenmore was thrown off his mule and smashed his head against a sun-baked dirt wall. He had startled the mule with a sudden scream when the bumblebee that he’d trapped in the palm of his hand stung him. Glenmore was eleven years old and was his mother’s only son. It was after these harrowing events that I truly understood that not only was death the end, but that it appeared in many guises and could happen at any time to anyone. But I’d never experienced the death of anyone who meant as much to me as Grandma Melba.

  My father returned home that evening to find me clinging to Miss Iris and weeping uncontrollably.

  ‘Busta,’ Miss Iris cried as soon as she saw him, ‘har grandmada dead mussi yesterday, or de day before. See de telegram yasso. See fa yuhself!’

  ‘But how dat happen?’ my father said, picking up the telegram. ‘Nah yesterday, mi did hear yuh a talk to har about har grandparents dem. And she tell yuh dem both strong!’

  ‘Is true dat,’ Miss Iris replied. ‘Soh someting musa happen fi change tings soh fas!’

  What my father and Miss Iris didn’t know about, of course, was my grandmother’s history of high blood pressure, or the half-bucket of blood that sometimes poured from her nostrils leaving her weak and delirious. They didn’t know about the time, not that long ago, when the village men had to rush her out of the village to get her to hospital. Nor did they know that the reason she never combed her hair was because she couldn’t tolerate any pressure to her head. But I was in no state to explain any of this.

  I could see from both my father’s and Miss Iris’s faces that they understood my plight and, even though my father couldn’t find words to console me, Miss Iris told me, ‘Erna, chile, mi sarry. Mi know seh she was a mada fi yuh. But a soh life go, chile. None of us ave authority over it.’

  The following morning, before I had even had breakfast, my father found me.

  ‘Yuh want fi go back a yard today?’ he asked, and I nodded. ‘Den go get yuh grip an sort out yuh tings dem. Mi will tek yuh pon de bike to Santa Fe and get yuh into a car.’

  I lost no time in gathering my few b
elongings. My father took my grip and I followed him to the back of the provision store where he kept his shiny red and black motorcycle. He strapped my grip to the back and wheeled the bike out on to the road.

  ‘Come, Erna, climb on an hold tight pon mi waist.’

  I settled myself on the bike and he sped off. A large part of the road between Boldero and Santa Fe was asphalted and once we reached this section my father picked up speed. We flew past row upon row of swaying sugar cane plants and before I knew it we’d dismounted in the square of bustling Sante Fe.

  It was market day and the town was full of colour and the pavements were lined with higglers selling every conceivable kind of goods.

  My father parked up the bike outside a shuttered building. ‘Wait right yasso, Erna,’ he said, ‘mek mi go sort a car fi yuh.’ And he vanished into the crowd.

  I leant against the bike and watched as two women haggled over the price of a basket of sweetsop.

  ‘Come down, auntie,’ said the propsective buyer, ‘yuh kaa hexpect mi to pay dat whole heap a money fi one little basket a sweetsop. Mi a give yuh two dollar fi de lot! Dat’s mi last price.’

  ‘Dat kyaan run, sarh,’ the seller argued. ‘Jus put one fifty cents an top an wi done.’

  ‘Yuh is a hard sumady,’ the buyer replied, ‘but mi a feel generous tiday.’

  A few minutes later my father was back. He removed my grip from the bike and we walked over to the taxi stand. It seemed like every taxi driver was shouting at my father at once.

  ‘Me wi tek har, papa!’ said a young man, despite having several people jammed into his car already.

  ‘Mi ready, man! A weh she a go? Mi will get her dere safe! Mi a di best pon de road!’ another young fellow claimed.

  ‘Come nuh, papa!’ a third chimed in. ‘Sen har up wit mi. Mi a tell yuh seh, dem woulda gimme prize if dere was a competition!’

  My father passed on these young men and chose an older man in a colourful island shirt who mocked the younger men and boasted that he was the best driver.

  ‘Yuh young bwoy tink seh yuh a driver before yuh kyan walk,’ he said. ‘A nough accident oonoo people dem cause. Plenty!’

  ‘Mi respect yuh, papa, soh mi nuh bada fi rise to dat one,’ the first young man replied, before trotting off to find himself another passenger.

  My father turned to me and put his hands on my shoulders and looked into my eyes. ‘Erna, all a de car dem pack up wit people, a soh it stay at de beginning, but some a dem nuh go far, soh if im nuh pick up more people yuh might get some comfort. Try not to tink too hard bout tings, and mi a hope to see yuh soon,’ he added, as he squeezed me into the crammed car where I became the seventh passenger.

  I wriggled into the space and then turned and waved goodbye to my father through the open window and watched him melt into the crowd.

  ‘A true seh yuh little bit, yuh wi fit dere nice, man,’ said the driver as I settled into the front seat between the gearbox and an unhealthy-looking middle-aged woman whose head was almost completely swallowed by a huge pink church hat. Behind us sat a further five people, including a man whose belly was so big I wondered why he didn’t have his own car – since men with big bellies were always supposed to be rich – and a woman seated on the lap of a man I assumed must be her husband. The nightmarish journey seemed to take far longer than my bus trip a few days before. I sat quietly, trying to make sense of what had happened to my grandmother. When I had left my village, she was full of life, just as I told Miss Iris. She hadn’t had one of her awful nosebleeds for some time, and my youngest uncle had been due to visit in a few days. Grandma had told me the news before I left, and even managed to show a bit of excitement. ‘Im will still be here when yuh get back from yuh fada,’ she’d assured me. And now she was dead. It had to be my fault. I told her that I wanted her ring when she died. Perhaps I was some kind of Obeah girl. I thought of all the things that would never happen again: I would never be able to tickle the bottom of her feet over and over. No more trips to the Top Hill to help her feed her pigs and goats. No more market days. She was never going to be around for even one more Sunday dinner. Never again would Grandma flash her shiny false teeth in one of her fits of laughter. I would never hear her calling out to Grandpa when she needed something fixed or had a problem to be solved, ‘Yuh grandfada will know wah fi do!’ Everything had died with her.

  ‘Oh, God!’ I wailed ‘Please help me! What mi fi do? Mi grandmada dead pon me!’

  ‘Chile, mi sorry to hear dat,’ said the woman in the hat squashed up next to me. She placed a skinny brown arm around my shoulder.

  ‘Murder woe!’ I screamed bitterly. ‘God, why yuh tek mi grandmada from mi? Wah mi did do?’

  ‘Calm yuhself, chile!’ the woman said. ‘Yuh know seh de Almighty work in mysterious ways. Yuh grandmada gone join him in Heaven. Righta now! She a sit by his feet with angels pon her side.’

  ‘But mi nuh waan har fi go to no Heaven!’ I cried. ‘Mi want har right here wit mi! Mi nuh wan har fi sit wit no angels.’

  ‘Yuh wi see har again, chile,’ the woman replied, more softly this time. ‘Yuh wi see har soon innah de new order.’

  I pulled my handkerchief from my purse and cleaned my face. This woman with her strange talk was in no position to understand or help. My tears were replaced by a mountainous headache and each jolt of the car felt like a clash of thunder inside my head. The woman stopped speaking and thankfully the rest of the passengers remained silent. That was until we drove past an overturned jolly bus resting precariously on the side of a steep precipice.

  A man in the back seat who’d spent most of the journey clearing his throat commented, ‘Lard, ave mercy pon de people dem soul! Mi hope nobody nuh dead. The stupid driver musa go too fas!’

  The skid marks, which ran for several yards, suggested that the man was right. Suddenly there were more opinions.

  The woman who’d been trying to console me piped up, ‘Dem nuh see dat de good Lard a watch every striking ting dem do!’

  ‘Driver like dem should be put in charge a donkey an mule! Dem nuh fi trust wit people life,’ the taxi driver added.

  Everyone apart from me roared with laughter. I was the proud owner of two donkeys and I didn’t get the joke. And anyway, the pain in my head was a constant reminder of why I was crammed into a wreck of car with a bunch of strangers. It was a relief when three people left the car at a village named Mountainside, including the man with the belly. The woman in the hat climbed into the back at that point, so I was left on my own in the front seat. By early nightfall, the taxi finally arrived in Preston. There had been no time to send word to the village of when I would be expected back, so I didn’t expect Grandpa Sippa to meet me, and anyway he would have been too busy with arrangements. As it was, I would have to make my way to the village, alone and in the dark, with only the stars and the flickers of light from people’s cooking fires to guide me. Although I’d never been frightened of the dark, or even by Grandpa’s duppy stories, I still felt nervous about negotiating the tortuous path on my own.

  The lanterns hanging on the verandah of Mass Julius’s shop lit up the road where the taxi had stopped, and it was buzzing with customers, mostly old men, drinking white rum and playing dominoes. Mass Julius was leant up behind the counter talking with a couple of men about a new parish tank, which had been promised by the local council. ‘Dem seh it will improve de water supply in the district, but dem is politician,’ he said.

  ‘Dem kyan look yuh straight innah yuh eye, shake yuh hand and still nuh do what dem seh dem will do,’ one of the domino players added.

  ‘A so de world stay,’ Mass Julius replied. ‘We ave to exercise patience. Dem nuh ave no choice but to do it now, but mark mi word, dem a go tek time still!’ At that point, Mass Julius noticed me. ‘Wi sarry to hear bout Miss Melba, Erna,’ he said, walking towards me and placing his hand on my shoulder. ‘Every striking soul around here a go miss har. Dere is not one sumady in de entire district dat roll a cigar like Miss Melb
a. Whole heap a man dem come aready fi ask, weh dem a go get dem cigar and pipe tobacco from? Mi nuh know wah fi tell dem! Nuh heverybody ave dem kind a skill dat Miss Melba had. But a soh it go. One day we deya, de next who kyan tell?’

  In my misery I hadn’t thought about that part of Grandma’s life at all. She was indeed the only person who rolled cigars in all the surrounding villages, and probably the entire parish, as Mass Julius had said. And her sales provided us with a steady income. Grandma had a keen understanding of the whole process of getting green tobacco leaves to the point where they could be made into cigars. She knew exactly how the cigars should look and even how they should taste, even though she never smoked a single one herself. Her cigars really were legendary, and Mass Julius’s words made me realise that it wasn’t only me and Grandpa who were going to miss Grandma Melba.

  ‘Sorry, Mass Julius,’ I said, feeling a pressing need to get on, even though I wanted to listen to the conversation, ‘but mi ave to get back home in de dark, sarh, and mi did want fi borrow one bottle torch, sarh.’

  ‘No problem, Erna,’ Mass Julius replied, ‘yuh need de torch fi stop yuh from bouncing up yuh foot dem in de dark.’ He reached behind the counter and brought out an already-made-up torch, which he lit and then handed to me. ‘Tek care how you goh now, Erna,’ he said, ‘an remember fi keep de torch from yuh face.’