“It was a tough time for me. I was so hurt. It almost ended my friendship with Lewis. But I loved him so, and I decided I would prefer just being a friend than not being in his life at all. It’s strange how things work out. Lewis and I actually became closer during this period than we had ever been before. He learned to confide completely in me. I found out that he wasn’t in love with Beatrix; that he wouldn’t have married her had she not gotten pregnant. I also realized that Elsie Smalls was not just a childhood crush. He had very deep feelings for her. He had even planned on marrying her after he returned from America.” She suddenly stopped speaking. I could tell she was trying to figure out whether or not to go on. I touched her lightly on the wrist.
“Please, Agnes. I need to know. Even though she hadn’t been around for years, Elsie Smalls affected my life, too. Please.”
“One day, a few weeks after Lewis had gotten back, Elsie turned up at Reach. I had been talking to Aunt Margarette in the foyer when the door sounded. I heard everything that took place. Elsie begged and pleaded to see Lewis, but Aunt Margarette refused her. Despite her disappointment for me, she had come to like Beatrix, to look forward to her grandchild and to take an active part in her son’s budding career. She broke the news of Lewis’ impending fatherhood to Elsie. She told her that he had fallen in love with and had married another woman. She also said that Lewis didn’t love her and didn’t want to have anything to do with her. It wasn’t difficult to make Elsie believe this. Aunt Margarette only had to remind her that Lewis had not seen her once in the time he had been back in Jamaica. I think the last thing she told Elsie was that Lewis had made up his mind to be a great politician and that he couldn’t have such an unwanted diversion.
“Elsie ran off down the lane and off the property. I didn’t know it then, but Lewis had walked out into the upper vestibule, and as Elsie ran off, she saw him. But he panicked and turned away from her. He hadn’t expected to see her at that moment, and was too embarrassed to face her. When he confronted his mother about what had been said, Aunt Margarette told him that Elsie was so upset over his marriage, she threatened to ruin his life. She told him she had come asking for money and that if she didn’t get it, she was going to go to The Gleaner and tell them Lewis was carrying on with her while his pregnant wife was sitting at home.” Agnes sighed deeply and looked at me.
“I suppose I could have said something, but what? It wasn’t my business to get involved in. I knew what Lewis’ mother was doing. She was trying to protect her son, to insure that he would get the life he deserved. I can’t say I disagreed with that. Lewis eventually went to see the girl, but her brother tried to fight him off. That’s when everything went wrong. Lewis is very coordinated, very fluid. He’s always hated physical confrontation, but when they were smaller, he and William would get into some bad ones. And even with William being older, Lewis would rough him up pretty good. I’m sure he was giving that brother of Elsie’s quite a thumping. That’s probably when the brother grabbed the knife. If only Lewis had just left it alone and walked away. I’m not completely sure how things played out. But I know Elsie tried to stop them from fighting—the two men she loved. It was just an accident. Lewis would have killed himself before he would have ever hurt that girl. But Elsie tried to get between them. And when she was struck, it was Lewis who had been holding the knife. It was all such a stupid, senseless tragedy. Elsie was dead, and so was a part of Lewis.
I allowed the story to sink in. “But how come Bumper Smalls never went to the police?”
Agnes smiled sadly and looked off at the empty guardhouse.
“What else is there, Agnes?”
“What makes you say …”
“Because it’s all over your face.”
Agnes remained quiet for a long time. She caught me by surprise when she suddenly resumed the story.
“That young woman had told Lewis’ mother one other thing, which is why Aunt Margarette never wanted her to cross paths with Lewis again. She had an eight-month-old baby girl. Oh, it was terrible. The names Aunt Margarette called that girl. But as much as she wanted to discount what Elsie was saying, I think Aunt Margarette knew there was a very good possibility that that little girl was Lewis’. After everything had happened and Lewis came back down the mountain, I’ll never forget the look on his face. There was blood on his shirt, and he looked as if he had come face to face with death. Anyway, some story was concocted and Aunt Margarette told Bumper Smalls that going to the police could not bring his sister back. She reminded him of the daughter Elsie had left behind and gave him enough money for him and his niece to live comfortably for some time. He took it and left Jamaica.”
“So he had a child,” I mumbled. It was finally all coming together. “But whenever Bumper Smalls came back to the island, it was Lewis he went to see.”
“He gambled away what money he had been given. Lewis’ mother continued a payment plan of sorts for several years. When she had no more money, Mr. Smalls went to Lewis and told him everything. Lewis never even knew Elsie had a child. When he found out, that ended whatever was left of his relationship with his mother. But he picked up where Aunt Margarette had left off, paying Bumper Smalls off to keep his mouth shut about everything and to make sure that the little girl was taken care of. He didn’t think there was any way he could ever face this little girl and explain all that had happened; explain that he had killed her mother, albeit accidentally. He never forgave himself for any of this. When Elsie Smalls died, and at his own hand, all the emotion and the love just went out of him. And to no one was this more apparent than to Beatrix. I think Lewis believed Elsie would still be alive if he hadn’t married Beatrix, and a part of him blamed Beatrix for how things ended up playing out. After Beatrix miscarried, there was no longer any bond between her and Lewis, so she left.”
“Lewis’ daughter … where is she now?”
“All I know is that she lives somewhere in New York. I think she’s married with children.”
“And he’s never seen her?”
“Not that I know of. It was too painful for him. And as time passed, he knew it would be too painful for her.”
Everything was finally making sense. We sat quietly for some time. Agnes sipped her wine. I looked up at the puffy white clouds dotting the sky.
“Remember when you asked me how I knew I wasn’t the one for Lewis?” she asked. “I told you that he told me so. Well, there is more to that. I was so jealous of you.”
“You? Jealous of me? But why?”
“Because I saw the way he reacted to you. And I knew if he ever allowed himself to open up, he would have fallen for you completely.”
I just stared at her.
“That can’t be. He once told me he didn’t even see me in a womanly way, really.”
“All a cover. Truth is, he didn’t think he was worthy of you.”
“How could that be? Look at this place he grew up in. Look at the schools he went to and what he ended up becoming.”
“To him, those were just accessories. The real, solid core was the person’s actions and inner thoughts. You were so unaffected that it attracted him. It introduced him to a way of life he hadn’t been exposed to since Elsie’s death. He didn’t trust how he felt around you. He felt the same way around you as he did when he was around Elsie—and that made him think about Elsie and what he had done to her. I, on the other hand, was more in line with his more complicated world. I had my share of marriages and affairs. I had used enough people. I had hurt others. Without even knowing it, you made him think about all he had done that wasn’t right, and you made him feel an incredible amount of guilt. So I would step in and listen to him talk about you, and I would grin and bear it. Then I would try, in the only way I knew how, to comfort him. I thought if I tried hard enough, he would forget about you. You see, Souci, if he had allowed himself, you would have been the love of his life.”
“If he allowed himself,” I said softly, “he would have been the love of my life.”
When it was time to leave, Agnes held her arms out and pulled me close. There was genuine warmth in that hug.
“Your husband seems like such a good man,” she said.
“He is. I don’t deserve him. He’s stood by me, even though I’ve never spoken about most of my years with Lewis. He accepts what little I’ve told him. No questions asked. ‘In time,’ he says. ‘When you’re ready. If you’re never ready, that’s fine, too.’ And I don’t know if I’ll ever be ready.”
“Only you know what’s best for you. Go with God, Souci Montrose Saunders. Go with God.”
As I sat behind the wheel of my car and drove along Gordon Town Road for what would be the last time, I let out a great, big sigh. After so many years, it all finally made some sense.
I took a different way back to Brown’s Town. I traveled route A-3 along the north coast. Somewhere between Ocho Rios and Runaway Bay, I pulled the car over to the side of the road and walked until I reached a small portion of land that overlooked the sea. I stood there looking off into the distance. When I was a girl, I had been told by one of my teachers that if I ever looked across the Caribbean on a clear day, I would be able to see Cuba. I squinted off into the sunlight, but could make out nothing but the never ending blue of the sea. Nothing in life was certain.
I began shaking my head, and then the tears began to fall. They seemed to come from the very deepest part of my soul, and there was nothing I could do to stop them. I was crying as much for Lewis Montrose’s death as I was for coming to grips with my past. I was crying for a daughter who didn’t really know who she was. I was crying for this love Lewis had for me that he never showed me. How wonderful it might have been. I was crying for the secrets he took to his grave. I was crying for the secret I thought I would take to mine.
There wasn’t really luck involved in me leaving Jamaica when I had. I knew of what was to come. I had spent so many years being affected by what went on around me, and finally, I affected things. Marilyn had visited me several times those last few weeks I was in Kingston. On the surface, they appeared as just friendly visits, but in time, I found out that David Benson and several other influential business people who had left the island had been meeting with opposition leaders and were trying to force a change in government.
They wanted to reinstate Carlysle. Marilyn didn’t tell me all this at first. She would talk about Paulette and read me letters she had gotten, then she would pine away about how bad things had gotten and try to get me to confide in her about how I felt about recent events. We talked like we had never talked before, though I let her do most of the talking. I didn’t forget how loose she could be with her tongue. But eventually, she started letting me in on things and admitted her part.
No one wanted an overthrow of government. They wanted a legal change—through an election. But I told Marilyn I didn’t think there would ever be an election. I told her that under Lewis, things would never be as they were before. I told her he employed gunmen and would probably use them as he saw fit and that they should all be careful, especially when it came to the people they were confiding in. I told her that if they wanted a change of government in the near future, they would have to change it themselves. In essence, I told her I supported them overthrowing Lewis Montrose’s government.
I was somewhat vague on how things would happen, but not on when. And I never said a word to Lewis. What I did was not out of malice. It was done because I felt I was right. It never really crossed my mind that he could be hurt. And when he was, when I thought he had died, despite all I had been through with him, a part of me felt as if it had died. So, I too had my secrets.
-37-
When I reached Brown’s Town, I didn’t stop the car. I just kept on driving. I hadn’t planned on doing so, but I just couldn’t seem to make that left I needed to make once I neared the main square. I kept driving until I reached Stepney. At the main road, I turned off onto the small lane that led to my old house, which I had visited twice since returning to Jamaica.
As I walked through the rooms and ran my fingers across the furniture, a wave of sadness and of loneliness swept over me. I sat at the small dining table and looked out toward the little hut in the backyard that served as a kitchen. My mind drifted back to that rainy day, years before, when Lewis paced back and forth as I tried to keep my concentration focused long enough to prepare dinner.
Despite all the changes I had been through in my life, Stepney remained virtually the same, right down to the domino games on the bar’s verandah and the red of the undisturbed dirt. Aside from the people who had passed on, the only drastic changes the village had experienced were the retirement of Dr. Bennedict, and the two full time medical residents who had taken his place at the clinic. A telephone had also been installed, which enabled them to remain in contact with the hospital in Runaway Bay.
“I cyan come in?” a voice said from just beyond the front door.
I looked up in time to see Greenie squeezing his lanky body through the partially opened door.
“I see you cyar come down dis way. I figure you would come back up de main road, but I wait likkle bit an’ not’ing, so I figure I would just come down here an’ see how you was doing.”
“I’m fine.”
He stutter-stepped over to the table and sat down.
“Me go up to Brown’s Town fe look fe you earlier, but you husband say you gone a Kinston.”
“Mmm. Is true. Dere was some business I had was to take care of.”
“Well I meet you daughter. Fine girl dat.”
“She is, isn’t she? You know, you an’ Brenda an’ de kids have to come up one day fe lunch or dinner or whatever. How de kids doing anyhow?”
“Oh, plenty fine. But de big bwoy too damned fresh. Him t’ink him is grown. Him nuh listen to me no more. A good ass whooping is what him need.”
Greenie’s face brightened. “Farmah Bygrave need fe have him suit mend fe somet’ing or de oddah. Him boddah me every t’ree minutes. Him ’bout due right now, so I suppose I should go back before him sneak into de store, tek him ole musty suit back an’ try fe mend it himself.” Greenie walked to the door.
“Oh, I have an even better batch a mint tea. Maybe you’ll have some time before you go back to Brown’s Town fe have likkle bit wit’ me. An’ de yams are just right. Nice an’ yellow. Not as watery as de last time. An’ not too dry. An’ as big as rock stone.” Greenie smiled and squeezed his body back through the door.
I just sat there in the dining room, thinking about what he had said. Some time later, I walked into the front yard and down the tiny lane that led back up to the main road, stopping just long enough to pick some of the white bougainvillea that sprang up along the roadside.
“Hello to you,” Mavis Parker yelled from her doorway. “We haven’t seen you in a bit.”
“I’ve been getting t’ings ready fe Wilton an’ Charlotte to arrive. Dem in Jamaica, you know.”
“Well you must bring dem to Stepney. Dem need fe see how you grow. Where you going now?”
“To visit Michele.”
“Well, stop by before you go. Me have a likkle jerk pork stewing.”
Once I reached the main road, I noticed Jimmy Mason standing behind his counter favoring his tiny fan and listening to his radio. I stopped in Tommy’s Bar where Tommy was trying to moderate an argument that had started, not over a card game, but over a disagreement about which foreign made car ran the best. He pulled me into his slim, outstretched arms and squeezed tightly, just like he used to when Michele and I were children.
We talked about Michele, then he rambled on about the problem he had been having ever since a new pub opened near Nine Mile. Michele’s children eventually ducked their heads in. Actually, they were no longer children. Mary was a grown woman. She was big-boned, unlike her mother, and had the largest breasts I had ever seen. I had to do everything to keep myself from staring at them. Paul was almo
st twenty-eight with hair all over his face and a six-foot frame.
I walked past the clinic. They had done a wonderful job rebuilding it. It had gone from a one-room space to a building containing a treatment area, waiting area and two bathrooms. There were four large medicine cabinets filled with supplies, new leather examination tables and two large weight scales, among the new additions. It even had a balmy, medicinal smell like real clinics had.
I was so proud of how everything had turned out, although it took some time to get things running smoothly. The first few doctors who came through were less than impressed with how “basic” the area was. They stuck around less than three weeks. Since their short, unhappy stay, all candidates for the rural clinic positions have been taken on field trips to the villages before being required to make a decision.
The next set of doctors went through a long period of adjustment. At first, they were a bit of an enigma to everyone in the village. They were always trying to push this pill or that tonic, or to teach something about some disease. And have mercy when they tried to teach the benefits of vaccination. Eventually, they calmed down, eased into the slow pace of the village, and stopped telling people they knew what was best for them. This led to some success. After all, Jimmy Mason couldn’t deny that the eye drops he was given helped him to spot the young girls sashaying along much sooner than he had before.
By the time the most recent doctors took up residence, having big city doctors around was the norm for the people of Stepney. Even people from the nearby villages came by for treatment. I smiled when I noticed all the kids spilling out onto the verandah of the residents’ home, trying to get a glimpse of the JBC Saturday evening karate movie. My name floated through the air, and I turned to face the main road. Winston, who was making his way home from a day in the fields, came up to me.
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