by Amanda Smyth
Terence leads him around the side of the house to his studio apartment.
‘This is where I live. You can find me here most of the time apart from Sunday. Sunday, I go to church and then to my mother’s in Buccoo.’
It always surprises him how church-going people are in these islands. Safiya says that Trinidadians are a people of great faith: Hindu, Catholic, Church of England, Shouter Baptist, and Obeah can all find a place here. This is what will save Trinidad, she says. ‘Think of all the different religions existing simultaneously and harmoniously on this island. Where else in the world do you find that level of tolerance?’ Safiya has a point.
There are two chairs in front of the French doors and a tree that reminds him of a weeping willow. He can see a bed, and a kitchen beyond. From the top of an old television set, Terence takes up a framed photograph.
‘My daughter,’ he says, proudly. ‘Chelsea. After my favourite football team.’
‘Lucky it’s not Tottenham.’
Terence grins.
‘How old is she?’
‘She just turned five. Her mother lives in Scarborough but she’s from Sweden.’
The little girl is light-skinned, her eyes are a greenish brown.
‘Sometimes she comes to stay; usually when my ex has a date and wants the place to herself.’
‘She’s beautiful. I hope we get to meet her. I’m sure Georgia would love to see her.’
It is hot in the room, and they step outside. There is a cool, soft breeze swishing the tree. This is not a bad life, he thinks: looking after a luxury property with your own private living quarters and the Caribbean Sea on your doorstep: all this beauty without expense. There are worse ways to earn a living. Could he do it? Maybe so. Although he’d rather not be alone.
‘This is Conan,’ Terence says. A three-legged Alsatian trots down the driveway towards them and barks loudly.
‘Conan is our early-warning system. Anyone comes to the gate and he barks.’ The dog’s tail is wagging, and he seems friendly enough.
‘What happened to his leg?’
‘He was down in the village chasing chickens, and someone chop him with a cutlass. The cut get bad and the vet had to take it off.’
‘That’s pretty brutal.’
‘The vet or the man who chop him?’
Terence smiles and he catches sight of a gold tooth.
‘Let me tell you, sir, Tobago people can be savage.’ Conan rolls down on the ground and tips back his head. Terence puts his foot on the dog’s stomach.
‘I need to show you how to work the metal shutters. They only put them in the living room; the rest of the place has bars.’
From the doorway, he watches Miriam unpacking her suitcase. She has turned on the overhead lights and it is bright. She is tired but determined, her dark hair pulled back from her thin face.
‘There’s plenty of space. If I put mine on this side, you can have the other,’ she says, cheerfully. ‘And there’s lots of drawers too.’
He glances around the room, and in particular at the large four-poster bed; her folded nightdress is on top of the sheet along with a clean pair of underwear, no doubt for after her shower.
He says, ‘Are you hungry? There’s bread; I can rustle something up.’
Miriam nods. ‘Georgia is probably starving; she hardly ate on the plane.’ She steps towards him, cautiously. ‘I’m really pleased we came.’
‘Me too,’ and he rubs her arm awkwardly. He can see that this confuses her slightly and he doesn’t know what else to do. At one time he would have kissed her mouth, put his arms around her.
Glad of an excuse, he leaves the room and goes to the kitchen. He opens a bottle of cold beer and leans for a moment against the tiled worktop. There is a large stone arch, and through it he can see the living room, and a painting of a woman with her breasts bared. It is a strange and erotic painting to hang in a family holiday villa. The buttery-coloured woman is wearing a headscarf and her arm is back, above her head. She is boldly showing herself to someone, someone she must like very much. At one time Miriam might have shown herself to him like this. Not now. At least he hopes not now. How do feelings change? Is it a slow, ongoing metamorphosis or a quick and sudden thing?
When he first met Miriam, she had seemed somehow familiar. She was attractive; her features were too hawkish to be pretty. Her cousin, a colleague and friend, introduced them. She seemed carefree and plucky, opinionated; different from any other girls he knew. That summer, she was visiting from northern Spain where she taught English as a foreign language in a small school.
At the time, Miriam warned him that she had a boyfriend, José, who lived in Barcelona, and they had been together for almost a year. For two weeks, Martin pursued her as if his life depended on it. When he finally persuaded her to cut loose, she discovered that she was six weeks pregnant with José’s baby. Miriam was inconsolable. She said her life was over. He reassured her; she could stay in England and decide about her future. He would support her.
They moved together into a tiny semi-detached house, in Roundhay, Leeds. He had finished his two-year induction, and was about to start working shifts. For a while Miriam played homemaker. She stripped and painted the walls. She dug up the tiny garden and planted shrubs; where there had once been gravel, grass soon grew. When the house was finished, Miriam enrolled on a teacher-training course. There was no use in wasting her language skills, she said; she would teach Spanish.
For a long time, they didn’t talk about the abortion. Yet he felt, instinctively, that she was sometimes disappointed in the path she had chosen; that she regretted leaving Spain and all it had offered. Even then, he was aware of his desire to make it up to her, to prove to her that she had, in fact, picked well. This desire had no doubt made him more ambitious than he might otherwise have been. He has loved her well, he believes.
But are we are really meant, by nature, to be monogamous? These days, people live such long lives. Last week in Time magazine he’d read and memorised a quote describing exactly how he feels and has felt for the last two years: The world is big and I want to have a good look at it before it gets dark.
He checks the cupboards. There are several tins of Vienna sausages and a couple of onions. He can fry these up, and make a kind of hot dog: a Safiya special. The first time she made it, they had come home late, hungry. After a few minutes of scrabbling in the kitchen, suddenly, there it was: a delicious spicy sausage mix squished between two slices of bread. Safiya had a knack for making something from nothing.
Georgia is lying on her bed, the small bedside lamps throw a soft amber light. It is cool; clever girl, she has figured out how to use the air conditioner.
‘Dinner in ten. Is that okay?’
‘Sure!’
He notices that her bed is nearest the door and he wishes it wasn’t. There is something about sleeping away from the door that offers more protection; like walking on the inside of the pavement. He would like to tell her but she will complain that he is being overprotective. It is curious to him how the need to safeguard his daughter never goes away. His mother had warned him, when you have children you will understand why I worry so. Georgia’s delicate frame, her gentleness, has always made him feel overly protective. That, and, of course, the other more obvious reason, has turned him, where she is concerned, into something of a worrier.
He remembers one afternoon, her primary school teacher telephoned to say that Georgia had fallen in the playground and taken a ‘nasty bump’. Martin left the station and drove there at once. When he saw her small face bloody and scuffed, her gaping chin, he’d actually cried. These last months he has felt her absence deeply like a limb lopped off. In her young hands she carries his heart. He has talked to Safiya about this. Georgia is the one thing that always stops him in his tracks—his red light.
And yet, if it wasn’t for Georgia, he might not be in Trinidad. Three years ago, after thirty years of service, he’d retired. Using his chunky lump sum, they moved fr
om their detached, modern estate house to a five-bedroom farmhouse with two acres, and a paddock—and enrolled Georgia in an excellent private school. He carried on working in the same post as a civilian; with a smaller salary and his pension, they could more than manage. The Home Office warned of cuts but it was still a surprise when redundancies were announced and, more so, when his post was axed, along with an entire department of Community Safety Officers.
Miriam returned to work full-time, but they soon found themselves struggling to pay the £15,000-a-year school fees. It was either sell the house, put Georgia into a local comprehensive, or he must find another job. He registered with recruitment agencies in Birmingham, Leicestershire, and Nottingham. He was beginning to despair when, out of the blue, Nigel Rush telephoned about opportunities for former army and police officers in Trinidad. Easy money, Nigel said. Tax-free; expenses covered, accommodation included, along with regular flights home. Apparently, he fitted the criteria, perfectly. You could do this standing on your head with your eyes shut. Martin wasn’t sure exactly where Trinidad was.
Miriam calculated, if he worked for eighteen months, Georgia could carry on at the school; they could put money aside for university, and even allow themselves a holiday or two. Eighteen months wasn’t long; time would fly by. He spoke with Raymond on Friday, and the following Thursday he was on a plane to Port of Spain. At first he was unsettled by the tropical landscape, the intense heat, the chaos of Trinidad. He was lonely; he felt like an outsider. He called Miriam every day.
Then, slowly, he got used to being alone, and he began to realise that leaving England offered him a kind of relief. Since losing Beth, they’d existed in a permanent state of grief, as if the colour had gone from their lives. Trinidad gave him an escape; no one need know about his past, of his enormous loss. Here he was a free man, and this sense of freedom made him more confident, somehow; unfettered, alive. He rediscovered his sense of humour; people found him quick-witted, dynamic, a can-do man. After the incident of the eleven-year-old boy, he’d felt different. He started to believe in himself again: There is nothing you cannot do. This is the side he showed to Safiya. He never expected to fall in love.
He sets the kitchen table and fills a jug of water; he presses a button on the fridge and ice tumbles out. This Electrolux fridge would be perfect for his kitchen in Trinidad. He will ask Safiya where he might be able to pick one up. She’d be pleased to know that he is thinking of buying a fridge. He checks his mobile phone. There is a message from Juliet telling him that she will send the new contract, and to enjoy his family holiday. Good, he is glad. Juliet read his mind.
He notices how quiet it is, much quieter than Trinidad. In his apartment, he can often hear the television next door, or people talking, the dull thrum of traffic from the highway. Here, they seem far from anywhere and anyone, which is exactly what he’d wanted. In a hotel, there’d be no escaping Miriam. No room to think. He had told Juliet he wanted a villa with at least three bedrooms and preferably a sea view; a taste of authentic Tobago life.
From the window, he can see beyond the pool of soft kitchen light, the vast lawn, and tall security lamps at the end of the garden where the high chickenwire fence begins. Yes, he thinks, this will more than do.
Miriam and Georgia drift into the kitchen, pale and tired and still in their travelling clothes. They sit on the high chairs and start on the sandwiches.
‘I’m dying for some tropical fruit,’ Miriam says, picking through the sauce, and he knows she doesn’t approve of tinned sausages. ‘Is there anything particular in season right now? I remember when you first arrived mangoes were coming out of your ears. You were eating two or three a day.’
‘I’m sure we’ll be able to pick up fruit. Bananas, oranges, they’re all year round.’
In England, every morning, Miriam made his sandwiches and in a small Tupperware box came an assortment of fruit, the total of which would amount to his five a day. If he came home with leftovers, she complained. It is on the tip of his tongue to tell her about the high rates of diabetes, heart disease and cancer in Trinidad. Most people hardly eat fruit; vegetables are often heavily seasoned with pepper and cooked in oil. There is no five a day.
He would also like to tell Miriam how much he has grown to like hot and spicy Kentucky Fried Chicken and French fries. And how he enjoys the Hawaiian cheeseburgers from Burger Bar on Maraval Road.
They clear the table and he can see they are exhausted. ‘It’s three o’clock in the morning for us now,’ says Georgia. She kisses him on his cheek and goes off to her room. He tells Miriam that he will wash up, and lock up. There are electric metal shutters in the living room which he must remember to draw down every night. Terence has shown him how to operate them. He will see her in a minute.
By the time he comes to bed, Miriam is asleep, her bedside light still on, her mouth slightly open, and she is breathing deeply. He moves silently around the room, taking off his clothes and placing them quietly on the chair. He does not bother to shower, or brush his teeth. He slides in next to her, noticing how her in-breath catches on the back of her throat making a familiar ka sound. Thankfully, she does not stir.
His body is tired; it has been a long day; it is hard to believe that only a few hours ago, he was in Trinidad with Safiya sleeping deeply beside him. He misses her smell, her cinnamon skin; the sound of her sleeping is pleasing to him. And yet he often finds himself unable to sleep when she is there, tossing and turning until the early hours of the morning. Does his guilt keep him awake? Is it possible? In truth, he probably sleeps better with Miriam, or alone. If she knew, Safiya would be dismayed.
He knows this much: he has never been a good liar. During these past months, he hid his growing feelings for Safiya behind a heavy work schedule. He told Miriam he was up against the wire. When they spoke, especially in the early days, he often sounded exhausted. Miriam understood. She didn’t complain about being alone; she handled it all without him—taking care of Georgia, running their comfortable new family home, project-managing the installation of a new Shaker-look Magnet kitchen, and all the while continuing to teach Spanish part-time at a further education college. She has been patient. A rock. But rocks can crack, and Miriam is here now because she needs him. There will come a point, tomorrow or the next day or the day after, when she will expect him to come to her, to want sex. She will want sex too. The thought of this fills him with terrific anxiety.
FOUR
They are up early. It’s the time difference, Miriam says. For them it is already almost midday; half the day is gone! They are in their swimsuits and colourful wraps, flip-flops on, ready to potter down to the beach. Miriam rubs sun cream into Georgia’s shoulders. Her hair is bushy in the heat and sits at the bottom of her neck. He always preferred her hair long, not this middle-aged midway length. It is neither one thing nor the other.
‘Breakfast? Coffee?’ His eyes are tired.
‘All done,’ Miriam says, and points to the little stack of washed dishes. ‘Georgia had toast and juice.’
Georgia rubs her tummy and smiles at him. ‘Good afternoon, Dad,’ she says, and checks her watch. She pecks him on the cheek. She is going to look for towels and some goggles. Terence has shown her where they’re kept.
He slept quite well, considering. It was a relief to hear the door close when Miriam got up, to stretch out in the bed. His waking thoughts were of Safiya, and he wonders if she woke in her Mayaro beach house thinking of him, too. He guesses not, or at least, not for long. She seemed determined to have a good weekend with her young friends. And so she should.
He makes a cup of instant coffee and follows them outside. He is fond of the local instant coffee. In fact, when he last went back to England he took a jar of Nescafé with him. Miriam said, ‘You’ve been in Trinidad too long, you’ve lost your epicurean taste.’ Yes, Miriam prefers her Krups capsule coffee maker with its milk steamer and adjustable stainless steel drip tray.
Through the casuarina trees, the sea is a br
ight turquoise. He stands for a moment and watches its rippling skin, and he is wondering if the tide is high. From here it looks calm enough, and in a moment he will follow them down to the sandy beach and make sure everything is okay.
Miriam and Georgia are walking quickly down the path, towels slung over their shoulders. Miriam waves, and then Georgia waves too. From here, Georgia is lanky and striking; her fair hair is flaxen in this light. Otherworldly. He has already warned Miriam that she must be mindful of the sun even when it is overcast.
‘Be careful,’ he shouts. ‘I’ll be down in a minute.’
In the yard, he can see Terence walking with a hose; Conan follows on behind him. Terence is spraying the small palms; their smooth trunks are red and bright, like blood. The large garden must take a lot of maintenance. An acre and a half, at least. What would young Vishnu make of it? It would certainly keep him busy. There are three or four coconut trees, and a large mango tree. There is a landscaped section to the right of the veranda with an enormous cactus and small boulders, and when he looks more closely he is surprised to see a camouflaged hot tub. It would take four people quite comfortably. Georgia will love it. He will find out from Terence how it works.
Above the hot tub is a lattice with a vine of some kind; pale purple flowers and grassy shrubs surround the steps. He wanders around the other side of the house where there is a bony white tree with long branches. Its leaves are deep green and it has bright pink flowers; they are scattered all over the ground. He picks one up and the sweet scent is almost overwhelming. Frangipani. He picks up more flowers for Georgia and Miriam. What an abundance of colour; what a wealth of beauty. This place is a kind of Eden.