The Final Passage

by Caryl Phillips

  ‘I see,’ said Millie. ‘Well, now that the testing done maybe you don't mind testing your backside up to Sandy Bay with me where my aunt wants to have a word with you about something.’

  Bradeth moved to get up. ‘Toosie?’

  ‘It's only one aunt I has in Sandy Bay, or maybe you hear of a next one.’

  ‘I just checking, that's all.’ Bradeth stood, hind legs first, and reached up to hold his head straight.

  ‘So you get hangover as well?’ asked Millie.

  ‘It's just a little headache that I had for a long time now,’ said Bradeth. ‘A long time now.’

  ‘I know,’ said Millie. ‘Since when you begin to drink is about how long you had it. You coming or what?’

  Bradeth sucked his teeth and dusted down his shorts. Millie turned to Leila.

  ‘I going call round later and let you know what happen.’

  ‘Alright,’ said Leila.

  Millie pulled sharply at Bradeth's shirt, which was flapping in the breeze. He seized it from her.

  ‘What the hell is all this mystery nonsense?’ He tucked his own shirt tail back into his shorts. ‘And what it is you going let she know later on?’ Millie pushed her finger into Bradeth's chest.

  ‘Bradeth, please just shut up your mouth and let we go for I done spend enough time waiting for your backside to appear.’ He did not move. ‘Come!’ shouted Millie. ‘Come before I box you one lick!’

  Carefully avoiding his eyes, Bradeth nodded Michael a final farewell. He fell in one step behind Millie. Leila watched as the pair of them, one oversized, one undersized, marched off to try and find a stray taxi or bus, anything that would take them to the country. They soon became silhouettes.

  Michael moved to get up.

  ‘I'm sorry I didn't meet you, but I just forget and fall asleep.’ Leila brushed off some dust from his sleeve.

  ‘Well, I found you anyway.’ She stood on her tiptoes, put her hands on his shoulders, and kissed him lightly on the lips. It was not that he was that much taller than her, but she knew he liked it when she stretched to reach him.

  ‘I better get back home,’ said Leila, ‘for I have a lot of things to get sorted out with my mother.’ She paused. ‘And I have to read to her.’

  ‘Tonight?’ asked Michael. Leila nodded.

  He took her hands from his shoulders and moved across the street to the motorbike. She followed, got on and hooked her arms tightly around his waist. Michael kicked the starter and a few people began to drift out of the Day to Dawn bar. He raced the engine, filling the air with a thick smoke, then he took off, violently weaving his way down the twenty or thirty yards to the end of the street. Once there he braked, threw the bike to his right, and straightened up before accelerating up the west coast toward St Patrick's. The spectators wandered back inside the bar and again there was silence in Baytown.

  As the island rushed past, Leila held her head back and let the wind play with her hair. To her left lay the sea, which gently lapped up the beach before stopping and spreading back upon itself; to her right lay a bed of vegetation which swam’ out flat and expansive until it brushed into the first heavy slopes of the mountains. Leila shifted her view from left to right, then back to the left and so on, enjoying the freedom that she always felt when riding on the back of the bike. But Michael remained stiff, slamming the bike into curve after curve, choosing the most frenzied rhythms of the road.

  As they swept through Sandy Bay Leila looked for Toosie's shop, which lay a little way off the road, but she could see that only a small light was burning. Obviously Millie and Bradeth had not yet arrived. Then she remembered. They had passed neither taxi nor bus and Leila was sure that Toosie would be irritable, idly squinting into the candlelight and waiting for them both.

  As they left Sandy Bay Leila waved at some children, and they waved back eagerly. They should have been in bed, she thought, for it was dark now. And then the low vegetation to her right was immediately replaced with the familiar high fencing of sugar cane. Sometimes the road between Sandy Bay and St Patrick's was fenced in on one side, sometimes on both, sometimes neither, but more often than not the mountain side of the road offered no view and it was like riding through a partially constructed tunnel. Then the engine began to cough and splutter. It threatened to die, but as it neared the last gasp Michael managed to revive it and nurse it back to health.

  He pulled up outside her mother's house and Leila slipped off the bike. He spoke quickly. ‘I see you Saturday, then.’

  Leila nodded her reply, and Michael spun the bike around and disappeared into the mouth of the bend. He did not even smile. Long after he had gone the noise of the engine still seemed to hum in her head. Leila waited a few minutes, then it was quiet again. She should have been home a long time ago to read to her mother, for the day after tomorrow she would be married. Then, more wife than daughter, she would no longer have time for stories.

  Her mother sat as if courting misery. There were no pictures on the bare walls, no carpets on the wooden floors, and at the back of a long, thin room stood two attentive doors. The door to the left led into Leila's room, the door to the right into her mother's, but in this one rectangular room they cooked, ate, talked and read. This was the way it had been for as long as Leila could remember, and this was the way it would be as long as they were just mother and daughter. In front of her mother an uneasy pile of books rested on a small circular table. The present book lay on top, face down, leaves spread wide like a square butterfly come to rest.

  She was, unlike her only child, a dark, almost black woman and she spoke with a deep voice. She could no longer shout, her body having been steadily eroded by an illness which left her looking much older than her forty years. Though her high cheekbones suggested the skeletal, in her proud voice one could detect the lost joy of a voluptuous past. For her this was no longer life as she just stumbled from day to day.

  ‘Where have you been and I don't want any sideways tale.’

  As she said this she bent slowly and reached under her chair, picking up a prayerbook from off the floor. Leila followed her every move. Her mother was not a religious woman and it confused her. She straightened up and felt for the secure support of her stick.

  ‘Here, take it.’

  She thrust the book upon her daughter. There was silence. Leila fumbled with the prayerbook and avoided her mother's stare.

  ‘Child, I'm waiting.’

  Leila faltered as she spoke, her voice breaking with every syllable.

  ‘I left work at the normal time and Millie came to meet me. Then we waited for Bradeth and Michael but they did not come, so we went to find them.’ She stopped and dared to look at her mother whose face was icily attentive.

  ‘Where you find them?’

  Leila lowered her voice. ‘Day to Dawn.’ Her mother picked up her cue.

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘And then Michael drove me home.’

  ‘And that is all?’ Leila nodded. ‘It take you so long to get back here?’

  Again Leila nodded. Her mother left the room quietly. She closed the door behind her, and Leila stood alone in the semi-darkness.

  It was the night Michael had walked all the way from Sandy Bay to St Patrick's, to ask for an answer to his proposal, that things between Leila and her mother had really started to go wrong.

  Her mother had lain in bed, the sheet pulled up to her neck, which made her appear grotesque, as if she were merely a dismembered head resting upon a clean white pillow. Leila had sat on the edge of her bed as if visiting a patient in hospital. Her mother looked up at her, then closed her eyes.

  ‘So when he ask you to marry to him?’

  ‘Today, this evening,’ whispered Leila.

  ‘So what you done with your reasonings?’ she asked.

  Leila said nothing.

  Her mother went on, ‘You think he is the man to make you happy? You think he is something that Arthur don't be?’

  Leila listened, then spoke cautiously. ‘I
love Michael, I don't love Arthur.’

  ‘And you think it's that simple?’ She opened her eyes and looked into her daughter's face. ‘You cold?’ she asked. Leila nodded for all she had on was a loose shift. Having finally plucked up courage she had crawled out of bed and come into her mother's room as she was. She had not even pulled on a gown.

  ‘So what you going do?’

  Leila lowered her eyes. ‘I want to marry to him.’

  ‘But I asked you what you going do?’ Her mother paused. ‘You can't tell me?’

  Leila parted her lips, though they clung to each other until the last possible moment.

  ‘I want your advice.’

  ‘I see, so it's my advice you come seeking?’ Leila tried to smile. Her mother shook her head. ‘You going write Arthur and tell him?’

  Leila nodded. ‘I'll write and tell him.’

  Her mother sighed, long and hard. ‘You're a fool, girl. A damn fool and you let me down. Arthur is a good man and the boy from Sandy Bay is no good. He loves himself too much and he will use you. He don't even have a job.’ She looked at her daughter who was close to tears. ‘If you don't see that, girl, then you don't see nothing and I don't bring up no blind child.’ She paused, half-exhausted, half-frustrated. ‘I mean, why a girl like you want to marry to such a man? I just don't understand.’

  There was a long silence and Leila knew her mother had finished. She was being dismissed. Leila got up from the bed and left her mother's room.

  She stood alone in the front room, and as the tears began to run down her face she heard a noise outside. Sure that it would be Michael she ran to the door and she could see from the shine on his face that he had been running. But she could also see that he had been listening. Michael threw the flowers at her feet and before she could stoop to pick them up he spat on them. Leila felt the cold spit trickling down the slope of her foot. She looked up and caught his eyes with hers. Then she rushed forward and threw out her arms, but it was like hugging a statue. As she thudded against him he rocked back slightly. His arms did not move from his side nor his feet from the earthly pedestal they were rooted to. He was stable, and lifeless, and balanced.

  ‘Michael, I'll marry you.’

  Michael turned and left without speaking to her.

  From that night, things between Leila and her mother changed, but Michael too began to behave differently. Before that night, he used occasionally to comment on how good she looked and bring her the odd small gift, but somewhere at the back of her mind Leila felt that, unlike Arthur, he had never really known how to do these things. He had simply been remembering that he ought to be doing them. After that night he began to forget, and although he had said nothing, Michael no longer appeared to be trying.

  There was a light tapping at the door. Leila jumped, a little frightened at first, then she made her way across the room and let Millie in.

  ‘What happened?’ asked Millie hurriedly.

  ‘Nothing,’ said Leila. ‘She was angry that I was late.’

  ‘But you tell her that they never show up?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And what?’

  ‘And nothing.’

  ‘I see.’ said Millie. ‘So you not read for her?’ Leila shook her head and there was a long pause as Millie looked around at the familiar drabness.

  Leila lit the lamp.

  ‘I'm tired,’ said Millie.

  Leila thought for a moment before replying, ‘Me too.’

  Leila picked up the lamp and led the way to her bedroom where they both got undressed and crawled into bed beside each other. They spoke in a whisper, Millie first. ‘You tell her I going spend the night here?’

  Leila lied because she knew it would be alright. ‘I told her. It's alright.’

  ‘Good.’ Leila gave Millie half the pillow and they settled down. Then Leila spoke. ‘What happen with you?’

  Millie made herself comfortable. ‘Just what I tell you would happen. Before we get to my Aunt Toosie's house I just tell Bradeth I pregnant and he don't say anything like his ears done fall off he small head.’

  ‘You mean he didn't say anything?’

  ‘He don't say a damn thing. Then I tell him I going have to tell my aunt for she going find out sooner or later and he just say “yes”, like it's 10 cents I ask him to borrow.’

  ‘Is that all?’

  ‘That's all. So when we get to she place and I tell her, and she say that he should marry to me if he be any kind of man at all, you never guess what he do next.’ Millie paused dramatically, but she gave Leila no time to hazard an answer. ‘The man get up and walk away from the table and auntie shout after him that he should have more blasted manners.’

  ‘So what did you do?’

  ‘I just say “excuse me” and run after him. It's like he be in a dream world. I think the man over-shock. When I catch up with him he just say that he walking back to town to do some thinking. I ask if he going marry to me. He say he don't know but he don't think so but he going support the child.’ Leila wanted to interrupt but she let Millie go on.

  ‘So I go back and tell my aunt this and she say it's better than nothing.’ Millie paused for a moment, then went on, ‘You know the man shock. Sort of lost for true.’

  ‘You don't care that he's not going to marry to you?’ asked Leila, her face creased with worry. Millie looked at her friend, then smiled.

  ‘He going marry to me,’ she said. ‘Just wait and see. He going marry to me soon enough.’

  Leila reached over a tired hand and turned out the lamp. She wanted to know one more thing. They lay in darkness now.

  ‘Do you love Bradeth?’ asked Leila.

  Millie giggled. ‘It's a stupid question, for course I love the man. It's the most important bit, you know.’

  Leila thought for a moment. I suppose it is,’ she said. I just wanted to make sure.’

  Next door Leila's mother was asleep but her sickly cough still polluted the night. Leila listened and wondered if she was going to be alright. But she convinced herself that she would be. Millie turned and lay on her back, hands by her side, mouth slightly open. She fell asleep. Leila watched as occasionally she snored and sniffed. Then Leila listened to her mother coughing and tried to fall asleep.

  Like Leila, Michael slept badly. He awoke as mature daylight streamed in under the door and he guessed that it must be nearly midday. For a moment he was confused. Normally he was awake by 8 o'clock at the latest, it being too hot to stay in bed any later. Then he remembered. Last night. The memories were not pleasant so he lay down again. He closed his eyes and pulled the sheet up over his head.

  He was in the pious atmosphere of his grandmother's house. He could hear her out on the front step listening to one of the American radio stations which broadcast religious programmes all day long. He visualized her with the accuracy of a freshly drying photograph. She was a stout woman with a deep black face, a face so old that it looked like it had been partly melted by years of exposure to the sun; shapeless, like a fused tyre. Her eyes were small, her nose only vaguely prominent, her lips almost invisible and the colour of the rest of her skin. He knew she would be squinting into the sun, only closing her eyes when they could no longer drink any more of the good Lord's light. It was in this rêverie that she best liked to listen to the sinners being consumed in burning lakes, to the ominous voices from the clouds, repentance, donations, forgiveness, and then the clearly annunciated post office box number in Salt Lake City.

  Michael heard her beginning to hum to the clear strains of a lonely hymn and he decided to leave her to the serenity she deserved. He would not get up. She had probably not heard him come in last night but no doubt she had already looked to make sure that he was here this morning. This being the case they both knew where the other was, and what they were doing, and they liked it that way. Michael let sleep steal back into his body.

  Last night only the thin sound of water lapping up against the beach had disturbed the calm, but it was a night of hi
dden eyes. A quiet, mysterious night, and in the far distance a dog sat on its haunches and bayed at the moon. Michael had only travelled about half a mile back down the road towards Sandy Bay when the bike's engine had finally spluttered and given up. Fortunately the road was flat, so after the engine cut out he let the bike cruise for a hundred yards before its momentum finally faded and he was forced to rest his feet on the ground. He got off, wheeled it over to the side of the road and kicked the stand underneath it. Michael's first thought was to wait for a car to pass and take a lift into Sandy Bay, but he did not want to leave the bike. So, with one hand pushed into his trouser pocket, he waited. He looked down the empty road to where St Patrick's lay, but he knew he would not go back there tonight. He could probably beg, borrow or steal a bicycle for the night, but he did not want to risk the possibility of bumping into Leila. He would see her on Saturday. He leaned against the bike and looked out over the cane to the sea. Above him the trees made hesitating, whimpering sounds, and as he listened a great moth blundered into his face, then curled away into the night. If he had been a smoker he would have smoked. He just thought and waited.

  It would have been different, he thought, if he had a car, but as far as he could see there was no chance of his ever having that kind of big money. He had no qualifications. Being thirteen when his grandfather had died he had little choice but to leave school. The few pennies he could scratch selling country fruit in the town or, when the time came, weeding the fields, had made more sense to his grandmother than money spent on his books and uniform. (Perhaps she was right, for you could not buy a car with a school certificate. It took a different sort of paper. His grandfather had taught him that.) Which left only cricket. If you did not make it at school, they said, you had to make it with the bat. But Michael was not displaying any flair in this sphere either, and he realized this and sold the bat his grandfather had made for him. With the 40 cents he bought his first beer. To celebrate he dropped his voice, then he learned how to walk slowly, like a man, then he learned how to spit and curse.