“Not Stepney. Maybe I would leave Jamaica altogether. Go abroad. See what it would be like to live a little while someplace else.” As I stared at him, I thought about all that I had once found so attractive in him. But I also couldn’t help thinking about all that I found maddening about him. I wondered if I had really been in love with Lewis Montrose, or if I had only been in love with the idea of someone from his world—someone as brilliant and sophisticated and as educated as him—actually falling for someone like me.
“You’re so set on getting away from me. I’d sort of gotten used to you being around.” He sighed deeply. “I’ve driven so many people out of my life. Souci, you have everything here. What can you have anywhere else that you can’t have at Reach?”
“I’ll be able to do whatever I want.” As I spoke, Lewis slowly wandered over to the French doors. “Go to a dance. Walk down the street without anybody following me. Dance in the rain. Marry someone who’s in love with me. I’ll be free.”
He leaned his head forward until it was almost touching a pane of glass. “I’m sorry you feel that way but I can’t have you leaving here at this particular time. It’s impossible.”
“But why, Lewis? I’m not a prisoner. If I want to go, you have to let me.”
He turned to face me. “I don’t necessarily see things the same way, Souci.”
“So, I have to do what you want then? I went along with the arrangement I agreed to. You know why? Because I agreed to it. But when you decided to change the terms by not having an election, well, I don’t think I should be punished for that.” He didn’t answer. He just walked to the dining room door and opened it.
“You can’t control people, Lewis. Well, maybe you can. But I’m my own person. Always have been. And you can’t control me … like you controlled Elsie Smalls.”
I don’t know what I was trying to do or what reaction I was trying to get. I never intended on mentioning Elsie. It just came out. Lewis stopped in his tracks and slammed the door shut. He turned to face me, and his face went as white as parchment. His eyes narrowed, and he just kept staring at me. He looked like one of those singers at Nine Nights, once they had fallen into a trance. He took a step toward me, and I moved backwards. His eyes were locked onto mine, and I saw so many storms raging.
“Where did you hear that name?” he said in a voice hardly above a whisper.
I was too afraid to speak, to move, to breathe. I could see that he was trembling, and I knew for certain at that moment that he was in Guava Ridge the day Elsie died.
“You are not leaving,” he said calmly. He seemed to have come out of that mesmerized state. “In time, the situation here will change. But for now, you will remain here as my wife and as this island’s first lady.”
Lewis’ reaction to the mention of Elsie Smalls’ name flashed over and over in my mind. But then something strange happened. A couple of days later, I had to pose for official photographs with Charlotte and with Lewis. It was supposed to have been an outdoor thing, but the continual rain had caused it to be moved indoors. So, there I was sitting on the sofa with Lewis’ arm around me, smiling for the camera. The strange thing was, I really was smiling. It wasn’t one of those fake ones that made your face hurt from clenching your jaw so tight. I was smiling because I actually felt like I had some control over things.
For so long, I had been like a blade of grass in the wind—just bending in whichever direction that wind blew. Lewis had known so much about my life, and me, so little about his. But now I knew something about him that those closest to him probably didn’t know, and though I didn’t know the complete story, and was in some ways afraid of what it might be, it didn’t change the fact that I had been let in on probably his greatest secret. And he couldn’t be sure of exactly how much I knew. So for once, he wasn’t in total control, and that made me smile even broader. I smiled because for the first time since I had been in Kingston, things appeared so clearly to me. My time at Reach was limited. My time as Lewis Montrose’s wife would be coming to an end. I knew what I needed to do.
Over the next three weeks, Charlotte gave me something to focus on and gave my days meaning. My nights were spent on a new project. There really was a door leading from the kitchen pantry to an underground space. If Mr. Moore hadn’t mentioned it some time before, I would never have remembered it. It wasn’t something you just stumbled upon. The kitchen pantry was huge. It could probably have held enough supplies for a small army. Actually, it did. If there was ever a hurricane and the roads were impassable, no one at Reach would have to worry about ever going hungry.
There was probably a year’s worth of canned goods and grain and soft drinks and hard liquor in there. Since the trap door was against the innermost wall, it took me about four nights of looking and an hour to maneuver enough things out of the way to get to it. Besides that, I had to be as quiet as possible and careful not to drop anything, which was not easy, considering I had to rearrange empty crates of D&G soft drink bottles. I didn’t want to have to try explain to the Moore’s and to security what I was doing roaming about the deepest depths of the pantry in the middle of the night.
Then there was the matter of Charlotte’s feedings. I had her routine down pretty well, but once I discovered the door and that it actually opened onto something, I needed to buy more time. For the first time, I was actually glad Mrs. Dickinson had been retained, and I decided to use her to my advantage. I decided I was about to catch a bad cold. Since I didn’t want to infect the baby, I had Mrs. Dickinson care for her. She would be fed formula whenever she became hungry at night, and I was able to buy myself as much time as possible.
The wooden steps leading down to the space were very steep, so I had to be careful on my way down. I would always pull the door shut once I was half way down the stairs, which was a bit strange. It was so closed in and damp. I wondered if that was how it felt inside a mausoleum. Even the glare from the flashlight seemed dim in this tunnel. The dirt walls were densely packed and hard. Fortunately, the passageway was tall enough for a man of average height, so I didn’t have to hunch over or contort myself in any way to walk through.
I didn’t get very far along that first night in the tunnel, as it seemed to go on forever. But I kept advancing further and further along with each successive trip. Funny, but the compact walls of the tunnel didn’t scare me as much as the prospect of someone noticing the latch in the closet undone, reattaching it, and trapping me underground forever. This was incredibly unlikely, but I still couldn’t get the thought out of my mind. I should probably have been more worried about the horrible storms we had been having over the past month and the great amount of rain that had fallen. I wondered whether the walls could withstand all that water. But then I recalled that those walls had remained intact for more than a century and a half of hard, driving tropical storms.
My fifth time along, I started to get somewhat dejected. I felt as if I had walked for miles, and still there was no end in sight. Maybe that path didn’t really lead to anything. Or maybe it was sealed at the end. At one point, the passageway curved, but then it leveled out into a non-ending line. I wondered about the people who had come before. I thought about the lovers who met halfway and consummated their relationships right there in the midst of the pathway.
After about an hour’s walk, I noticed a glow ahead in the distance. I decided it had to be a mirage. But the dry earth soon gave way to a murky, soggy underneath. The water level deepened. I reached a dead end, but there was a set of wooden steps mounted against the dirt wall. They were a bit difficult to maneuver, but I reached up, grasped a rung, and pulled myself along. It led straight up to an opening from which the rainfall streamed through. When I got to the top, it was easy for me to remove a couple of floorboards, which practically crumbled under my touch. I soon found myself standing on a partial floor. It had once been wooden, but the wood had almost completely deteriorated. What remained was rain soaked and porous. I looked around at the familiar, eerie space with its weeds
and cracked walls. I looked toward the barely hinged front doors and recalled the evening Lewis made me feel like the most beautiful woman on earth.
A year before, maybe I would have tiptoed through the backyard, down the orange grove, and ran for my freedom. But now there was a guard that remained in the back of the house at all times. Now I had a small baby who would not have been able to withstand the strong elements. This tunnel wasn’t patrolled. No one even remembered it. It was just perfect.
-34-
I made the drive from Brown’s Town to Kingston in just under two hours. After I had gone through Spanish Town and crossed the border into St. Andrew, I veered right, instead of going straight, and ended up having to drive through downtown Kingston. I didn’t much mind the detour since it gave me a little more time to adjust to the idea that I would soon be seeing Lewis Montrose for the first time since that stormy evening in the summer of 1979.
There were still a couple of ships docked in the harbour, but they didn’t seem as grand or as important. I didn’t feel the energy that had been there when I first visited Kingston years before. All that grandeur seemed to have just faded away. The old colonial buildings that used to house banks and law firms were barred up, and vendors of American jeans and detergent and seafood now set up shop in the doorways. As I passed Barry Street, I looked off at the site where the Chinese-owned framing shop was once located. There was a grocery store in its place.
I drove past National Heroes Park, then continued north to Half Way Tree Road, and over to Hope Road. There were school children sitting on benches in the yard at Devon House, licking on ice-cream cones and cherry suc-sucs.
The buildings along Hope Road had more or less remained the same. They were still big and beautiful and elegant. Only one really stood out from the rest. The actual building had been there in the seventies, but now it had taken on new owners. A long line of tourists waited along the sidewalk in front of it, and from above the front gate, a giant picture of Bob Marley smiled down at them. I slowed down long enough to take in some of the activity, then I continued on. A couple of minutes later, I was driving past Jamaica House. A little further up, groups of schoolboys walked toward Kingston College. Once I reached the Botanical Gardens, I started getting a little nervous. Kingston was now behind me, and all that stood between me and Reach was Papine and the Hope River Valley.
When I turned off onto Skyline Close, instead of pulling the car down the drive, I parked several yards from the property, in the shade of the paw-paw trees. The guardhouse looked so empty and so lonely without the security officers inside. I walked through the gate, which had been shut but not latched, and strolled down the driveway. The beautiful branches of the flamboyant trees swayed gently. The cool mountain breezes still blew.
As I climbed the steps to the verandah, I almost expected to see Henry hunched over a rosebush. The front door was open, but I still knocked. I hadn’t lived there for a long time, and I couldn’t help feeling like a trespasser. I knocked again, but no one answered. Agnes’ car was parked in the driveway, but there was no sign of her. I wandered into the living room where the portrait of the Gooding family still hung, then I walked down the hall and out onto the back verandah.
The yard was still very well maintained, but there was no sign of a gardener this day. I wondered if Henry still worked there. I never did get a chance to say goodbye to him. So many thoughts and memories began rushing back to me. For fourteen years, I believed Lewis was dead. For fourteen years, I tried to put his life and his death into perspective. Now I needed to try and grasp how a living man of some notoriety could endure for a decade-and-a-half as a dead man.
“Excuse me,” a voice said.
I turned to face a young woman who was carrying a tray filled with silverware.
“Cyan I help you in some way?”
“I’m sorry. I was just waiting for Agnes Good…”
“Oh, me savior. You de prime minister’s wife, or former wife, or de former prime minister’s former wife.”
Before I could say anything, she spun around and ran back through the house, silverware clanging against the tray. I stood there looking after her, but when she didn’t return, I turned back toward the yard. Soon, there was another set of footsteps, and then a familiar voice.
“Ms. Gooding has been expecting you. Would you like some food, something to drink maybe?” Mrs. Moore asked. She looked the exact same way I remembered her.
“No. I’m fine, thank you. How are you, Mrs. Moore?”
“I can’t complain, ma’am.”
“I was sorry to hear about Mr. Moore.”
“Well, the Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away. We all have our time. My grandniece lives here with me now. Well, make yourself at home, and I’ll call Ms. Gooding for you,” Mrs. Moore said as she made her way back into the house.
I sat down. The familiar bamboo furniture had been replaced with white wicker. I didn’t much like wicker. I looked off toward the orange grove. It was as dense and as vibrant as ever. But there was something sad about the home now that there were no security guards or gardeners or cabinet ministers buzzing around.
“Thanks for getting here so here quickly,” I heard. I turned to find Agnes standing in the doorway behind me. “I wanted to come up with some light, witty thing to say, but it escaped me. I don’t think there’s any good way to prepare you for this, so if you’d just follow me.”
I started walking behind Agnes, but as we neared the staircase, I reached out and touched her arm.
“I don’t know if I’m really ready for this,” I said. “This is the first time …”
Agnes pressed her hand against mine.
“Twenty-four hours ago, Lewis Montrose was a dead man. Now I find out he’s alive, but not for very long. How does one man die twice in a lifetime? I don’t even know what’s wrong with him.”
“Everything,” Agnes said. She walked slowly up the staircase with me following closely behind. Some sunlight streamed in from the upper vestibule. Aside from that, the second level seemed rather dim. All of the doors leading into the bedrooms were shut. Agnes approached the room that had served as Lewis’ bedroom when we had been married. She placed her hand on the doorknob and kept it there for some time.
“Agnes,” I whispered. “Are you sure about this? I mean, if it might upset him …”
“He’ll sleep better because of it, believe me.”
Agnes turned the knob, and the door opened to reveal a darkened room. She entered slowly, her body blocking much of my view. She stopped after taking a few steps and remained still for what seemed like forever. I couldn’t figure out what was going on inside her. When she turned to face me, her eyes gave way to sadness. They were speaking to me, but I couldn’t decipher exactly what they were saying. Agnes grasped my left hand tightly, then stepped away from the door. I breathed in deeply and allowed my eyes to travel the length of the room. When they reached the bed, I focused them, and my knees buckled beneath me.
“Agnes,” a voice said hardly above a whisper.
“Yes, it’s me. But there’s someone else here as well.”
“Mrs. Moore?”
“No. It’s Souci.”
There was silence. As I forced myself away from the wall, I could see the figure turn its head slowly away from me.
“It’s all right,” Agnes said encouragingly.
“Is it really him?” I asked. Agnes nodded.
I looked once again at the pale, drawn face of the person lying in the king-sized bed. My heart sank when I recalled Lewis’ athletic frame and commanding stance. His hair was now almost entirely gray, his cheeks hollow. He reminded me so much of his mother that day I had seen her dozing off on Mrs. Eldermeyer’s verandah.
“It’s alright,” Agnes said as she placed her hand on the small of my back and guided me along. I took in a deep breath and slowly made my way toward the bed.
“Why did you tell her?” Lewis asked Agnes in a hoarse voice.
“You know why,�
� Agnes said as she gathered up a couple of empty glasses. She walked past me, touched me lightly against the shoulder and then left the room.
“You didn’t want me to come?” I stuttered after the door closed.
“I didn’t want you to see me. I didn’t want anybody to …” His voice trailed off. “How are you?”
“I’m good.”
“Yes, you look good. And your husband?”
“Fine. He’s in Atlanta with Charlotte. They’re getting ready to join me here.”
“Yes, I heard you moved back to the island. It’s been so long, I never thought you would return.”
“Charlotte wanted to know Jamaica, and being away for so long, it was like a piece of my heart was missing.”
“This island does that to you, doesn’t it? It becomes a part of you. You can leave it, but you can never get it out of your soul.”
“How are you feeling?”
“All right, I suppose … considering. I feel a lot better than I look, so don’t let it scare you. And you are writing those romance books now.”
“I read enough of them. I figured if there was anything I could do, it would be that.” I looked around the room, noticing how gloomy it was. The light, spring curtains that once draped the windows had been replaced by ones of thick gray, and no lights were turned on.
“It’s such a nice, sunny day,” I said.
“They all are, but sometimes the only effect they have on me is reminding me of the past.”
I shook my head. I completely understood.
“I hope you’re not angry about me coming, and please don’t take it out on Agnes. To tell you the truth, I’m still surprised she came to me.”
“Agnes has always believed she knew what was best for me.” He stopped speaking and looked me directly in the eyes. “You can come closer, you know. What I have is not contagious.”
I walked to the foot of the bed and stood there nervously.
“Come closer,” he said. “Sit on the chair right here near the bed.”
Crickets' Serenade Page 33