A Kind of Eden

by Amanda Smyth

  Miriam stands up. ‘I found her things. At first I thought they were Sherry’s. Then Georgia said they must belong to someone younger. I’m assuming she likes poetry.’

  ‘What did you say to Georgia?’

  Miriam watches him coldly. ‘Nothing. If I’d told her, she’d probably hate you. Georgia has enough on her plate.’ Then she asks, ‘Does she live here with you?’

  ‘No, of course not.’

  The questions come quickly now, and he would like to be somewhere else, anywhere. Her voice is rising.

  ‘Is she black?’

  ‘Why does that matter?’

  ‘It doesn’t. I just want to know. I have a right. I want to be able to picture her.’ Then, ‘How old is she?’

  He lies. ‘Thirty-two.’ If Miriam knew Safiya was twenty-eight, she would be appalled. ‘Her name is Safiya. She works for a newspaper.’

  Miriam sits on the bed. She sighs and draws her feet up to her chest. A sound comes out of her like a kind of groan. He wants to tell her how very sorry he is. For everything. But his breath is shallow, his tongue thick in his mouth.

  ‘So you’re a father figure. How clichéd. She wants a father, you need a daughter.’

  He gets up and walks over to the window. Outside the night is still, the orange glow of the streetlight falls by the gate. He thinks how many times he has stood here waiting for Safiya to arrive, checking the gate, looking at his watch. It is a fact, for the last fifteen months, she has been his happiness. He has been deeply in love.

  Miriam says, ‘Before I came here I hated my life. Now I hate it even more. I didn’t think that was possible.’

  On the bedside table is a copy of Time magazine. He picks it up and flicks through it. He does not know why.

  ‘Even now, with all this. You don’t want to be near me. You’d rather look at a magazine.’

  Her feet are bare, her toenails unpolished. Georgia has her same feet, the same high arch, the large big toe. Miriam once told him it was a sign of fortune, a happy life.

  ‘It’s not true, Miriam.’

  Her eyes are red and so very sad. He wants to comfort her, but he cannot bring himself to. Whatever is between them feels dense and hard as concrete.

  Outside, he can hear rain starting up, like maracas gently shaking.

  Miriam says, ‘Why didn’t you talk to me? We could’ve stopped it from happening. We could’ve avoided it—all this, everything that’s happened here. Georgia, everything.’

  He looks at her deep frown lines, as if carved.

  ‘Can you see? It didn’t have to be like this.’ She starts to cry. ‘It didn’t have to be like this, Martin.’

  Is Miriam right? He has made his choices; all his little decisions have brought him to this place, here, now. Yes, in a way, he is responsible.

  He rubs his eyes. He would like to rub it all away, all this pain. Start again.

  She says, ‘What do you want to do?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  She looks down at her bare hands; he remembers her rings. They are somewhere out there.

  TWENTY-THREE

  All day, Miriam is busy getting ready. There isn’t time to talk or to go over things. She tells him, she has said all she needed to say. Her manner is cool, detached. He is surprised by his reaction, he’d expected to feel relieved, liberated. But he doesn’t, he feels debilitated, morose.

  Last night, he’d stayed up late thinking about his life—about Miriam, Safiya, his life here, and mostly he thought about Georgia. For the first time since that night, wandering in the dark garden, he cried. He has failed his daughter in every way he can think of. He has failed his wife. Perhaps they are better off without him. Everything seemed stark, real; the black hills seemed to be watching him, and he felt afraid; of what he doesn’t know. Miriam was right; he used to want the ordinary. Now he wants adventures. Is this what comes with adventure—loss, pain, confusion? By the time he went to bed, the sun was coming up.

  They leave for the airport around three p.m. It is just starting to cool down. Georgia sits in front. He talks about the cold weather waiting for them at Heathrow, the Tupperware English skies, the long journey home on the M40. Tomorrow they will unpack, buy groceries, settle in. Miriam has arranged an appointment with their doctor on the afternoon they get back. He wants Georgia to call him as soon as the appointment is over. He tells her Fanta will miss her. He will miss her. Georgia is wearing jeans, a T-shirt, and tied around her waist is her hooded top. She looks more like herself.

  ‘What’s the best thing about getting home?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Georgia says. ‘There’s loads of things.’

  ‘Call me as soon as you’re in the house. Tell me if the roses have made it through the winter.’

  At the airport, they check in quickly and easily; it is quiet, he is surprised. Only the Tobago check-in desk is busy; the line weaves around the pillar towards the arrivals.

  Tobago, for newlyweds and nearly deads.

  They have a drink in the food hall. He can see Miriam flinching at the dirty tables, the flies, the trays piled high, a dustbin overflowing with food cartons. ‘Someone needs to clean this place up. It’s a mess.’

  Georgia is cheerful, and he can see—really see—her relief that she is leaving. She has Jeanne’s email address, they will keep in touch. She tells her mother not to fuss. Soon they will be home.

  Around five p.m. Miriam says, ‘I think we should go through.’

  He hates this last part, the goodbyes. He has dreaded saying goodbye to Georgia since she arrived.

  They stand at the passport checkpoint. He hugs Georgia tightly; he smells her hair. She is thinner than when she came. Yes, there is less of her now.

  ‘Don’t forget to wave. I’ll be watching from the gallery.’

  Miriam is determined not to cry. When he kisses her, he feels ashamed. He wants to say that he will be back soon, that she mustn’t worry, and that he is sorry; and he would like to thank her for keeping his affair with Safiya from Georgia. But he doesn’t; he cannot find it in himself to reassure her, to thank her. He has nothing left in him. Last night she called him a small man.

  He watches them walk through the double doors, off into the bright lounge where the shop fronts shine. They both look back, and he sees that Georgia is upset; Miriam puts her arm around her.

  Outside the sun is dipping. It is a good time of day to fly, he thinks; by the time they reach Barbados, the sun will have set and the skies will be glorious. He buys a cold beer and makes his way to the waving gallery. On the balcony, the breeze is warm and he is hit by the smell of fumes. The hills are bronze in the late afternon light. He waits. It is almost an hour later when they appear. Ground staff are gathered now at the bottom of the aircraft steps. He watches Miriam and Georgia walk across the tarmac to the rear of the plane.

  At the top of the steps, Georgia turns and waves.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  It is just after six when he pulls up outside Safiya’s Woodbrook house; he rings the bell on the metal gate. The roads here are badly in need of repair, the pavement is high and uneven. Where the roots of a tree have burst through, the tarmac is split and raised. And yet, he likes this street; it feels like an old part of Trinidad, a part where community still exists. If he were going to buy a house in town, he would like it to be here.

  It is Marjorie who comes out to greet him. She wears a polka-dot dress; her hair is plaited and tied. She does not look surprised or angry. If anything, he catches in her a look of pity; something he could do without, and a sure sign that his instincts are right and his relationship with Safiya is in trouble. Yes, he would prefer if she was angry.

  ‘Marjorie,’ he says. ‘how are you?’

  She calls out behind her, unlocks the gate and stands to one side to let him in. He glances around the yard; along the path are blue glass bottles. It is orderly and simple: the potted plants, the hanging baskets, a bicycle leans against the wall. They have a visitor. He has not been here mu
ch in the daytime—just briefly, when dropping Safiya off after the beach in the early days. Back then, she didn’t have a car. She took taxis everywhere. He never liked the idea of her in a shared cab, bunched up with people she did not know. It was Martin who encouraged her to learn to drive, and went with her to buy her first car, the Mazda 626. The seller had thought Martin was her father. He’d felt awkward, embarrassed.

  Safiya appears in the doorway, her hair is wet; she is wearing shorts, a vest top. Her home clothes.

  ‘Martin,’ she says, and to her mother, ‘Go inside, I’ll talk to him out here.’

  She walks quickly down the path towards him, and leads him just beyond the gate. She’s taken aback, he thinks; she doesn’t want him in the house. The sky is pale blue. Gold falls on the pavement; there is a lick of gold on the wall. She leaves the gate open, and they stand together, awkwardly.

  Safiya says, ‘Don’t worry, no one can hear us.’

  He says, ‘I want to know what’s going on.’

  ‘There’s nothing going on, Martin.’

  ‘You haven’t replied to my message since I saw you at the Hilton.’

  She stares at him; her green eyes are lighter in the sun, with tiny copper flecks. She looks about eighteen years old; a college girl, barely out of school.

  ‘Well?’

  She says, ‘I’m sorry. I told you how I felt at the Hilton. I’m sorry.’

  He leans heavily against his car, feels its heat. He takes out a cigarette.

  ‘Are you, really?’ he says, lighting up. ‘You don’t seem sorry—you seem quite jolly.’

  ‘That’s such an English thing to say.’

  She has her thumbs hooked in the loops on her shorts, her head is cocked to one side, and he knows with every fibre of his being that he has lost her; her mind is made up. There is no point in trying to persuade her. Their relationship is over. Like the ground below, the sky above, it is a fact. He looks away at the road where two young boys are playing cricket at the far end. The batsman hits the ball down the street towards them. It rolls along the centre of the road, drops down towards the drain.

  Safiya says, and he can see that she is uncomfortable, ‘I just can’t do it anymore. I think you need to be with your family. They need you. Your daughter needs you. We both need to be free now. It’s gone on too long.’

  ‘I am free,’ he says. ‘Since yesterday. I told Miriam everything. She’s gone back to England; she left this afternoon.’

  Safiya looks surprised.

  He says, ‘She knows your name, she knows what you do. I’ve told her all about you.’

  He pulls hard on his cigarette, puffs the smoke out of the corner of his mouth.

  Safiya says, ‘Why did you tell her when you knew it was over? I told you at the Hilton how I felt.’

  He stares at her mouth; her beautiful rude mouth.

  Then she says, ‘We can’t build a relationship on someone else’s pain.’

  For some reason, perhaps because it sounds like it came straight out of a self-help book, this makes him laugh.

  He says, ‘It’s not like we’re starting from scratch. We’ve already built a lot. Now you want to knock it down. Why?’

  ‘It’s not about knocking anything down, it’s about moving on.’

  ‘I’ve moved on. I’m a free man.’

  Safiya stares at him. Then she says, ‘What about Georgia? Is she okay with it?’

  Georgia. She shouldn’t bring Georgia into this.

  There is a voice from the house. A male voice. And a young blond man appears at the gate. He is handsome, sun-kissed, an Adonis.

  The visitor.

  He says, ‘Is everything okay, Safi?’

  Safi? Safi?

  ‘Yes,’ Safiya says, her face is flushed; she is embarrassed, and he realises without a doubt that this man with a Canadian accent is Pete Blanc. He stands in front of Martin.

  ‘Pete’s here for a few days from Vancouver. He got in on the weekend. He’s here for a wedding.’

  ‘Okay,’ Martin says. ‘I see.’

  He is nodding, and he can’t help himself. Everything is coming together in his mind. It is forming a shape. A shape he doesn’t like.

  Pete Blanc is standing with his arms folded, his head upright, back straight.

  ‘I think you should probably leave,’ Pete Blanc says. His teeth are even and white. ‘Safiya doesn’t want to see you again. You should get the message.’

  ‘Fuck you,’ Martin says, and he waves his hand as if shooing Pete Blanc away, as if he wants to hit him. ‘Fuck you both.’

  Pete Blanc takes a step towards him.

  Suddenly Martin rushes at him, his hands open to grab him around the throat. Safiya tries to stop him but Pete Blanc pushes him back, and then he punches him. It is not a good hit—though the knuckles strike Martin’s cheekbone where the flesh is still tender, and he falls back against the wall. He is like an old man, stumbling and falling on the ground.

  To Pete Blanc, Safiya says, ‘Just give me a minute with him.’

  Pete Blanc looks at his hand and waves it in the air; then he looks at Martin. ‘Loser,’ he says, half-smiling. ‘You’re a fucking loser.’

  He trots up the steps to the house.

  Safiya helps Martin stand, and she pats his clothes where the wall has marked them with white paint. At the window, he sees Marjorie.

  ‘Don’t bother,’ Martin says, checking himself for blood, and he backs away towards his car. It all seems bizarre, childish.

  Safiya says, ‘Please, Martin; it’s not how it looks.’

  TWENTY-FIVE

  He decides that he will get there by boat; that way he can take his car. No need for a taxi at the other end. It is an eight-hour journey, and he will travel overnight. He can rest, arrive at sunrise unnoticed when it is quiet. He packs a small bag; he does not need much. Just the essentials. He has arranged it well. Sherry will come tomorrow; she has her keys, she can let herself in. Before he leaves, he will take Fanta to the TSPCA in Port of Spain. Fanta needs his rabies injection; there is a thirty-day wait before he can be shipped to England.

  He spoke briefly to Jeanne and said that he might go up to Blanchieusse, to stay at the German hotel. He doesn’t know why he lied but he found himself doing so, and it felt okay. She had brought him a pot of lasagne, garlic bread. ‘We’re here if you need company,’ she said. ‘You look tired, you should get some rest.’ She didn’t know that he had just come from Safiya’s house, that he was in a kind of shock.

  Before he left, Georgia called to say they had got home safely. The weather is spring-like, primroses and daffodils are out in the garden; there is a fox nesting in the hedge at the back. There are baby foxes, Georgia said.

  ‘Mum says we have to call environmental health but I don’t want them to take them away.’

  He imagined it all, the little creamy flowers, the bright daffodils, the clear spring skies, and it looked in his mind like heaven. She tells him the roses made it through the snow.

  Georgia will be feeling better for a day or so, but then she will hit a wall. Miriam needs to keep an eye. He wanted to talk to Miriam, but Georgia insisted her mother was busy. For the first time since they were married, he senses Miriam’s absence. He feels exposed, vulnerable.

  Miriam, his good wife.

  It is dark when he gets to the port. There is a long line of cars, large crates stacked, small trucks, lorries, people on foot, and he remembers, there is a public holiday tomorrow. By the time he drives on board, parks up, it is almost ten and the boat is heaving. He leaves his car, and makes his way up the narrow metal stairs to the air-conditioned bar. It is lively, the television is on showing CNN news, and the volume is turned up loud. People sit around the bar, mostly men, smoking. He buys a beer, and takes it upstairs to the top deck. He steps out into the warm night air and the wind is blowing hard, flattening his hair, his shirt. He finds a seat on a bench near the front of the boat. The sea is black, the sky is black. There are lights behind him,
but ahead there are no lights.

  Up here, he feels alone; as if he is the only person on the boat. Today he has hardly spoken to anyone, and he feels disconnected from the world around him. He feels as if he is invisible. How is it that, one day, he can have so much, and on another day, nothing. Safiya, Miriam, Georgia, Beth—they have all gone. Strangely, last night, for the first time, he dreamt of Beth; she was riding her horse along the road to the villa in Tobago. Seeing her like this, somehow, gave him strength to do what he needed to do.

  This morning when he woke, he erased Safiya’s messages and contact details from his phone. Then he built a fire in the far corner of the yard; onto it he threw her clothes, books, sandals, make-up; anything he could find that reminded him of her. He stood and watched the little flames flutter about and clouds of smoke drift into the sky. Fanta sat on the veranda wall, mesmerised. At one point Jeanne came outside, and he waved as if to say, everything is okay. Yes, he’d thought, this is a season for fires.

  He has had his life; he has been lucky. Twice he had found love. Safiya didn’t know what they had. She is too young to realise. One day she will look back on her life, as he is doing now, and she will remember him. With regrets? He hopes not. Today he is full of regret. It is pointless, he knows; as pointless as digging up old bones.

  The boat arrives into Scarborough just after sunrise. The delicate light is pale and the sky is clear. The atmosphere is subdued, everyone starts getting ready to make their way from the boat. He is surprised by the number of passengers spilling out onto the walkway. Where are they going? Who have they come to see?

  He takes a slow drive along the sea front, looking at the waves unfolding on the beach. This is where he came with Stephen Josephs that night. He no longer feels angry towards Stephen. He feels only pity. He is living a life without meaning. What is the point in that?

  The night he came back from Safiya’s, his life had felt utterly meaningless. He had wondered if he was better off dead, if the boys had killed him. Better for him, better for everyone.