“You can’t stay in this house. What you say about the will doesn’t hold anymore. There were irregularities and Whitlam’s lawyers got the land tenure invalidated. So there’s nothing now to hold me to you. It’s his company owns the land now. There’s going to be a golf course here.”
“Hah – might have known that arse of a father of yours messed up. Always talking big he was. Same as you. So maybe you buy me a fockin’ golf hole to live in.”
*
Into the house where Dion was born, light and air poured each morning, filling the day with a rich, warm core like cream or caramel. Then, at evening, there was a softer light, diffusing through the rooms, lighting the faded paint of the walls with a warm glow, picking out dust motes drifting in the old, familiar spaces. Their home – a small, stone-built plantation house, around which, over the decades and centuries, had grown a minor settlement of weatherboard chalets and bungalows. An occasional pig would wander up the unsurfaced track that ran between the brightly painted houses, casually defecating, rooting around an overturned rubbish bin. The scents of the place – bougainvillea in the midday heat, pigshit, the wooden veranda freshly painted and the hot, salt Caribbean wind blowing in through the open windows. In the morning, he would wake to a view across lanes and fields to the sea and the clear horizon. From the front porch he could look up to the tall, swaying trees with their bare trunks and topknot of broad leaves, and beyond to Morne Diablotin and the clouds piled high by the North-east Trades. School was only up the road – if he chose to put in an appearance. And there was a beach within walking distance where in the late afternoon he could watch some older boys practice careless, fluid gymnastics. He would try some of the moves himself when they felt like showing him.
Dion’s parents talked incessantly about going to Europe. They seemed to think he would be as excited as they were. Dion’s grandmother went on taking him for walks as if nothing was happening. He waited for her to talk about the imminent change in their lives, but she held her silence. When he could stand the gap in her opinions no longer, he asked her outright what she thought about it all.
Her old eyes were so expressionless he might have been talking to someone else. She looked around as if she had lost or forgotten something. Then she pulled out her clay pipe and prepared a smoke, lighting up and puffing on the peculiar smelling mixture with unusual force. Eventually she said, “What you know about World City, Dion?”
He’d never heard of the place.
She grinned wickedly and said, “Okay, I know you don’t know nothin’. Nobody around here know World City except maybe as some fancy words that smart peoples on the cable use when they want to be clever. But nobody really know the place. They don’t know the place no more than a fish know where the sea is. I know the place because I live outside of it. Maybe you get to know it too, young Dion. You got some sight so maybe you get to see round its corners like your grandma can.”
She took a deep draw on her pipe. “So, you ask me, what’s World City?”
Another puff, then, “I’ll tell you what’s World City, Dion. What I’m talkin’ about is the made world. The made world. Seen in thought and made in stone. You know the made world? Made like everything joined together, like on a map. That different from what I show you, Dion. There no map for what I show you. What I show you changes with the light, changes with what side of the bed you get out of in the morning. But not World City. No change like that there. World City – seen in thought and made in stone it is. Seen in thought and made in stone, so the thought be there forever and ever. And that stone, Dion, shiny as hell – pretty as hell. Just like those thoughts that make it. You see them every day, those thoughts. You see pictures of them. Big pictures. Rich-livin’ pictures. Pictures of World City. And the good World Citizens, they want to be in those pictures. They want to look like one day they go driving along that beach in that fine car looking like they goin’ to live forever, and looking like they come in through the front door and find this happy family smilin’ to meet them, and like those peoples who walk on red carpets and have others open doors for them. I tell you, Dion, that real sorcery. And powerful as hell. In a trance they are. A trance, I tell you. Because they only get to see the picture. They don’t get to feel what it like – you know? They don’t get to feel what it like to have been and done all the things you got to be and do to ride that car down the beach, looking like that driver, like you goin’ to live forever. All the little shit you got to drop. All the big shit you got to take on. All the power you got to get. All the parents you got to have. That the trick I tell you. That the sorcery. Put ‘em in a trance so they work for what things look like, so they work for appearances is all, an’ appearances is all they make. They work to make the made world, they do.”
She took another deep draw on her pipe, “You know all this, yes? Sure you think you know all this. Every smart-ass college kid who don’t have to fockin’ work for his living think he know all this. I tell you he don’t know nothin’. Where he get his food from, eh? Where he get the freedom to think he know all this? And every smart-ass street kid who look at the peoples who’s the cogs and wheels of World City and thinks, not me man – he just the same. He think, not me man, and then he go and score some shit which he sell on, and what he do? – Eh? – What he do? All he do is go buy himself some World City trash like he seen in that shopping mall he broke into one time. Bewitched is what they is and you know something, young Dion? – You know something? – Your gran’ma who thought she knew the name of every fockin’ devil there is, she don’t know the name of the fockin’ devil that doing all this. She ask of the devils she know, and when she ask, she expect an answer. And most time she get an answer. Like why the bananas don’t grow so well this year, or why Philippe’s goat sick, or why Patrice don’t love his old lady. All that stuff, I get answers for. But when I ask why young Anthony down at Massacre take one look at some shiny thing he see on the cable and go to Miami to get his balls shot off because he trying to do some too tight deal that he think’ll get him that shiny thing, that I get no answer for. What devil got a hold on people’s heart so they want World City? Eh? What devil is it that got peoples so tangled up in the made world? I don’t even know what he want, this devil. All I see is what him doing. And what him doing? Joining peoples up so they all talk the same. Making up made things so they all want the same. Making up pictures so they all look the same. And all I see is things. Made things. What this devil that he want everyone in the world all tangled up in things?” A pause and a chuckle then, “Maybe this devil a thing. Maybe he big an’ shiny. Big ‘n big. And maybe this devil he just like to be making things. He like making things like he got the whole world making things, every soul in World City a little devil, makin’ ‘n makin’, just like the big devil, just like in his image. Heh, maybe this devil, he what them priests call God.”
She took a deep pull on her pipe then muttered with all the sourness she could muster, which was considerable, “Anyway, he won’t rest till every fockin’ banana’s got a label on it. Your daddy crazy wantin’ to take you to World City.”
*
After that, she went back to taking him on walks as if nothing was happening. Dion followed, still learning. His father was away a lot, ‘On important business,’ his mother said. Then, one evening, Dion’s father came in and announced, “Whitlam’s sure he can pull it off. He’s got the top people coming here to ask him to back off. Coming here – can you believe it? Whitlam’ll get everything he wants. He must do, else they wouldn’t be coming. He’s paid me up front for the move to Europe. He says we need to start packing now.”
Over the next few days, Dion watched as his family’s possessions disappeared into boxes and were taken away in vans. And he watched as his grandmother continued about her daily round as if nothing was happening at all. And he listened as his father, finally losing his temper with her, shouted out, “Stay here if you like, but don’t expect me to find you another place to stay. Don’t think that when work starts here, one old w
oman hanging on to the door handle is going to get in the way. I’ve got agents in place who’ll throw you out without so much as a by-your-leave when I’m gone. You know that once I’m gone, you’ll be just a squatter.”
Dion began to feel anxious for her. “What are you going to do, Grandma?” he asked. “You’re not just going to sit here and get thrown out like he said, are you?”
They were walking a familiar track around the base of Morne Diablotin, his grandmother completely silent. At his question, she stopped walking, paused, then faced him, first confirming she had his attention, then speaking clearly and firmly. She said, “Listen, Dion, and you listen hard. Because you not going to hear me say this again.” She paused to give weight to her command, then, “You go from one day to the next and you think this world goin’ to carry you along just the way it always done. Might be some good days, might be some bad days, but most days is going to be much like the day before. But after you start listening to an old witch like me, young Dion, you can’t be so sure no more. After you start listening to me, something might happen. You just might find yourself stepping into a different world.
“Now you don’t know when you goin’ to step into a different world. No way you got of knowing that. Could be you find yourself in a different world when you stepping out the lavatory first thing. Could be when you pick up the phone. Could be anytime. Now listen. What ordinary peoples do when they step into a different world is get excited. They go running around shouting about how they just stepped into a different world. They shout about how great it is, or they shout about how bad it is. Stuff like that. But that way they miss everything and they don’t function proper. Suppose you stepped out the front door one morning and started mouthing on about the dirt and the paving and the street and the dog shit, all that, when what you need is to be seeing where the street’s going to be taking you that day. That’s what you need to do when you step into a different world – deal with it, like you deal with every new moment that livin’ puts you through. You got that? Good. Now, shut your eyes and count to ten.”
Dion had learned not to ask her for reasons. He shut his eyes and after ten he opened them again. He looked around for his grandmother. There was no sign of her.
Dion stood very still. He knew without the slightest doubt he would never see her again. He had a momentary image of himself running up and down, shouting wildly for her. But he stayed very still and thought about what she had said.
There was no doubt about it; he was in a different world. It was a world without his grandmother. He thought some more about what she had said. She’d said he needed to see where the track he was on was taking him that day. He was on a track, the same one he had gone stumbling along looking for the place where he would live forever. ‘Maybe I help you find that place,’ his grandmother had once said. She was gone now, so he would have to find it himself. He set off along the track.
*
When he had first headed out into the wilderness of jungle that clothed the mountain, Dion had been looking for the place he had seen when his grandmother had killed the cock up on the Cabrits: Dion’s Place, where he was absolutely himself and would live forever. There had been a picture of the place in his mind and he’d been looking for places that looked like that picture. And obviously the more places he could get to see the more chance he would have of finding his place. So he had rushed around, exhausted himself and found nothing.
But now Dion simply continued along the track, thinking about where he wanted to be, but lightly, so lightly he hardly noticed the picture fade to just one more memory shadowing the back of his mind. What mattered were the impressions: the leaves and rocks around him, the changing scents of the different trees and plants that he moved past, the shifts in the air in the close, hot undergrowth. He continued like this, purposeless, for some miles. Then into the purposelessness he let build an awareness of having decided he was simply going to find his place. Not day nor night, nor sleep, nor hunger, nor any thought of returning home, was going to distract him. He was going to find his place. That was all.
Abruptly, he turned off the track into dense jungle, heading down the slope of the mountainside. He moved quickly but carefully through the thick undergrowth. A voice in his head was telling him there was no way he would find his place by taking this route. He should be going up the mountain. His place had been high up; there had been open rocks and running water. There was nothing like that where he was headed now.
Dion ignored the voice, walking fast, the vegetation seeming to open up before him as he moved. After a while, the course he was taking curved around to follow the contours of the lower slopes of the mountain, then it broke away along a kind of saddle in the land and he found himself moving beyond the orbit of Morne Diablotin into old, overgrown plantation country. He began to go more slowly, not because of any physical difficulty; rather he felt that a greater sensitivity was now needed. He was getting near to where he wanted to be.
His sense of expectation began to build into a feeling of imminent revelation. He saw ahead of him a tumble of rocks. The voice in his head told him there was no running water, but again Dion took no notice. He came round the corner of the rocks fully expecting to be confronted by the scene of his vision – Dion’s Place. But what he saw bore no resemblance to the scene he had been vouchsafed. Instead, he saw, propping herself against a rock, the most beautiful girl he had ever set eyes on.
*
Dion had been moving silently, in strict accord with his grandmother’s teachings, and he had been ready for anything that might come into view. Even so, he experienced a momentary paralysis of confusion before he managed to drop back behind the rock he had just rounded. His first impulse had been to run up to the girl and say hello. Normally he might have done that. But this was not normal. He had been looking for his place. For some hours, he had been in the odd state of detached concentration his grandmother had taught him, and he had been convinced he was about to find his place.
Instead of his place, there was this most beautiful girl he had ever seen.
Dion moved his head out from behind the rock, with the slowness and deliberation of a growing plant. The girl hadn’t moved, hadn’t shown any sign of having noticed him. Dion examined her closely. The thought at the front of his mind was not ‘who’, but ‘what’ is this? In the eerie world of shifting identities his grandmother had schooled him in, where a rock could be a close friend, an insect the agent of devils too horrible to contemplate, or a breath of wind the whispering of the mightiest spirit on earth, a beautiful girl encountered under highly unexpected circumstances had to be considered carefully.
She was about his age and height – comparatively tall – hair dark, red-brown, cropped but still with a wave and curls at the ends that looked natural. She was white-skinned, untanned and, therefore, unlikely to be an islander, if human she indeed was. She wore loose, cotton trousers, the colour of light canvas, and a fully-cut, long-sleeved shirt in a similar colour. The shirt hung loose down over the top of her trousers. Her shoes were of a slightly darker earth colour, with thick soles.
‘Too sensible to be a vision,’ Dion heard his grandmother’s voice say. Dion smiled; his grandmother was right. The girl’s skin looked as if it had been hardly touched by the sun, and she was dressed to cover herself to a maximum. He thought she could have used a hat though. But no – a hat would have obscured the full, white brow that her hair seemed to draw back from of its own volition. And a hat would have shaded the wide, serious eyes, and the perfect oval of her face. Dion stared at that face, afraid the intensity of his gaze might reveal his presence, yet unable to look away. What so compelled him was not so much her beauty – he could see beautiful appearances whenever he turned on the television – rather it was her profound inwardness of expression. Instead of radiating out, seeking the regard of others and their approval or admiration, this girl’s expression was settled about some entirely internal focus. It reminded Dion of his grandmother in moments of repose whe
n he thought she didn’t know he was looking at her.
There was a more superficial aspect to the girl’s expression though. A sense of unease and disturbance, which suddenly became an impulsive movement that carried her away from the rock she was leaning against and off through a narrow gap in the vegetation surrounding them. Dion followed.
It didn’t take him long to recognise she was lost. She kept heading for what looked like gaps between the trees. But he could see they were just random variations in the spacing of the trunks rather than entries onto the kind of long-running tracks that animals might use. Several times Dion had to back up swiftly and silently as the girl hit a wall of branches and turned to retrace her steps. He could see her getting hotter, more frustrated, more frightened. He decided it was time to let her know he was there. He did this by walking in the opposite direction to her, whistling, making as much noise as he could with his feet. He heard her call out, “Hello?”
He called back, “Hi,” and turned to walk towards her.
She was standing in a natural clearing, tensed as if ready to run if she saw anything she didn’t like. Her face was shiny and there were strands of hair whipped across her face, stuck together by the sweat. Her barely-concealed desperation made her look even more beautiful. He watched her take him in and saw her relax. A boy, he thought to himself, that’s me – just an island boy. “Who are you?” he asked.
She didn’t answer, looking at him as if she wasn’t used to having to answer for herself. “My name’s Dion,” he tried.
“What are you doing here?” she asked, in a way that made Dion feel his story had better be good.
“Uh, I was just looking for something.”
“What?”
Dion was about to tell her, in an obedient way, like his schoolteachers would have liked, but he just managed to catch himself.
“You’re lost,” he said, slightly defiant.
“What if I am?” she replied, still as if it was Dion who should be answerable to her.
In World City Page 5