The Final Passage

by Caryl Phillips

  Inside Sandy Bay Anglican Church the walls bulged at their seams for, as ever on these occasions, there were too many guests. It soon became very hot. The congregation began to fan themselves, softly at first, then with a greater vigour as the minutes grew longer and the service more trying. Leila stood rigid, frightened to move, or blink, or smile even. Outside the church row upon row of well-wishers waited patiently, slowly burning in the midday sun, their sticky bodies pressed up warmly, but without invitation, against each other. Michael was a poor boy from this village and he was marrying the mulatto girl from St Patrick's. He had done well for himself and they waited with anxiety. Even if it took all day they would wait; if nothing else, the marriage had been announced in heavy capitals in the Worker's Spokesman.

  Back inside the church the service was drawing to a close, and the paunched and balding preacher in his purple robes had already successfully stage-managed the exchanging of the rings and the signing of the book. He mopped his glistening brow with a loud handkerchief and pushed it manfully back into his pocket. Leila watched as a fly buzzed around his ears. For a moment the spell was broken as his eyes rolled aimlessly around his head. Then, as if nothing happened, the fly swerved away, bored and fatigued, and the magic returned. Straightening up, one hand pulling at his lapel, the preacher's voice boomed out: ‘At this moment I would like to call upon the congregation to be upstanding.’

  The preacher made a large skyward gesture with both arms. Then, throwing back his bull-like head, he endeavoured to take on the appearance of a man who was in constant contact with God, not just a casual acquaintance, but an intimate and life-long friend of the Holy Spirit himself.

  ‘And now I would ask you to join together and sing with me hymn number 47.’

  Leila stood before him, feeling like a spectator at her own wedding. Then the organ burst forth and the preacher began to bellow out the words to an unfamiliar hymn, a hymn which curved upwards in search of an understanding heaven.

  The church hall was cluttered with neither pew nor altar, idol nor performer. Around its perimeter there lay, neatly arranged in a correct rectangle, the tables which laboured under the burden of the food and drink. Plums, mangoes, sugar cakes, rice and meat, pears, ginger beer, soursop, lemonade; rum; the tables were laid as if for a country feast. At the end of the hall the double doors were thrown wide open, allowing a fresh breeze to circulate and the sweet smell of the food and drink to sting the afternoon air. Immediately outside the door the wispy grass swept down towards the trees of a cool coconut grove where the land was even grassier. From there, like tall thin legs, the trees marched without discipline towards the placid turquoise sea. Beyond the sea the soft gentle peaks of the smaller sister island, today light green and definite in their outline, sulked on the horizon.

  The open doors allowed guests to slip outside into the sun and talk there if they wanted to, before coming back in for more food and drink. Some did so but, at least to start with, most stayed inside.

  Leila, her body small and hot beneath her gown, felt assailed on all sides by well-wishers and those who just wanted to feel the cloth. She kept mixing up false smiles with real ones, ‘I'm very happy's’ with ‘Thank you for coming's’ the kissing of some people on the cheek with the shaking of other people's hands. Everybody was too polite to say anything when she got things wrong, and when they had finished they just stood back and gazed at her. Leila pretended not to notice the number of eyes on her, but inside she panicked, feeling that maybe her white bridal gown was really black to their eyes, or else something was hanging from her hair, or an earring was about to fall out. But she was not able to examine herself, knowing that once she started she would merely descend into a paroxysm of twitching and scratching, checking and double checking, so she stood transfixed as her temperature rose by the minute, easily outstripping the temperature of the air in the hall.

  Michael and Bradeth were the last to escape the sun's heat and take refuge inside the hall. They had discarded their jackets and ties long before going outside, and they now stood just inside the doors, jackets thrown over their shoulders and ties tucked out of sight in their trouser pockets. They looked back down the slope towards the sea.

  ‘So you make she pregnant, then?’ Michael spilled his drink as he spoke. He was clearly drunk.

  ‘Hush nuh, man. You want everyone to hear you?’

  ‘It's a secret, then? A big secret?’ asked Michael.

  ‘Sure it's a secret. I don't want everyone to hear, you know.’

  ‘But look, man, they going find out sometime, or you planning on giving she a gin bath?’ laughed Michael.

  ‘I not planning on giving she anything.’

  ‘Well, not anything more than what you did already give to she.’

  Michael laughed too loudly at his own joke, but Bradeth was unmoved. He stood quietly, his eyes wide and inviting, like the petite saucers of some delicate tea service, eyes which together with his trousers which had mischievously crept up high above his red woollen socks, gave him the appearance of being an alert and intelligent boy who had outgrown his school uniform.

  ‘Why you not take up some protection?’ asked Michael.

  Bradeth laughed incredulously. ‘You telling me about protection? Who it is used to give the girls Phensic telling them it's contraceptive pill?’

  ‘If it make them feel better then nothing wrong with giving them a pill of some kind. Anyhow, it always work out alright.’

  ‘Always?’ asked Bradeth.

  Michael paused for a moment before replying. ‘Well, Beverley don't be the type of woman you can just fool like that, and beside it don't matter with she.’

  Bradeth sucked his teeth. He dabbed at his brow with a freshly laundered handkerchief. Michael swilled the rum punch around in his glass, took a drink and swallowed.

  The reception was losing some of its excitement in the energy-sapping heat, and everybody now seemed to be anxiously seeking refuge as part of a group. They chattered away, seemingly frightened to detach themselves in case they could not find a point of entry into another group. The few lonely exceptions seemed bored, but somehow comfortable in their boredom, like sentries on duty. To the centre of the hall the preacher was talking with a beaming Millie, but as far as Michael was concerned, Bradeth apart, there was nobody to talk to and nothing to talk about. He turned and looked out of the double doors again. Then he drifted away down the slope towards the sea. Bradeth shrugged his shoulders and followed.

  ‘Bradeth, tell me what colour you think your child going come? White, fusty, musty, dusty, tea, coffee, cocoa, light black, black or dark black? You remember that saying?’

  ‘Don't be an arse. Sure I remember the saying,’ snapped Bradeth.

  ‘And what about the child hair and complexion? Fair skin, good hair, rough skin, kinky hair, ringlets, or maybe it's a mulatto child you going get?’

  Bradeth's patience was expiring. ‘What the fuck you talking about, man?’

  ‘I talking about the child,’ said Michael, ‘the child you give she to have.’

  Bradeth looked away, his skin bristling with anger, but he could feel Michael's eyes burning into him. There was a brief pause, then Michael spoke again.

  ‘You see these people,’ he said, gesturing up the hill, ‘and how much food they be eating off, and all the drink they be drinking.’

  Bradeth did not reply.

  ‘You know,’ said Michael, seemingly oblivious to Bradeth's wrath, ‘If I has a son I just going give him a ten dollars and tell him go fuck off to some other island to get married, for I sure I can't afford all of this nonsense. Or even better still I tell him not to bother at all, for why a man should buy cow if he can get milk free?’

  Bradeth turned to face him, his damp face catching the sunlight, his small head shaved so close that it seemed a shame not to take off all the hair.

  ‘Look, man, why you not go see to your wife?’ Bradeth spoke slowly, his words spiked with indignation. ‘I sure she going apprec
iate a bit of affection on she wedding day.’ Michael laughed alone and spilled more drink.

  ‘Let me tell you, man, you might have the common sense not to marry to the woman justfor you put she with child, but still it's me who you learn that lesson from. Now a next lesson you must learn is how to keep a wife in she place after you done take one up so why you don't just lock off your mouth and observe me over the next few days, for I know when it's affection time and when it's coolness time.’

  ‘What it is you trying to do?’ asked Bradeth, elbows adrift as he wiped off the perspiration from underneath his collar. For a moment Michael lost his balance and he grabbed at Bradeth's arm and pulled himself upright.

  ‘I don't be trying to do nothing, man. There's nothing here for me to do, nothing!’ Michael gestured wildly. ‘Nothing, man!’

  With that he walked away from Bradeth, up the hill and back into the hall. He saw Millie talking with the preacher and he jostled his way across to her.

  ‘Where Leila be?’ asked Michael. The preacher stopped talking and Millie pointed coldly to a door which led off from the hall.

  In the corner Leila sat crying, her face buried in her hands, her body hunched. As she heard the door close she looked up at Michael both relieved and ashamed to see him. She tried to stop the tears. Her white bridal gown looked spotless, all the more so in a room as gloomy as this one. Then she unbent herself and smiled, her creased brow betraying her true anxiety.

  ‘So what you crying for?’ asked Michael. More drink slopped from his glass. ‘And what you doing hiding away in here like you is escaped convict or something?’ Michael had a habit of pointing with his little finger when he got angry. He stabbed vigorously at the air, poking holes into space.

  ‘Nothing,’ whispered Leila.

  ‘What you mean, nothing? Nothing is nothing. There has to be a reason. You not want to tell it me?’

  Leila looked up at her husband and then away from him again. She opened her mouth to speak but inevitably she stuttered badly.

  ‘It's just that I was going to ask you if it was time to cut the cake and my mother said it was but you should have the decency not to drink so much that you would completely forget all the details of your own wedding day.’ She paused, but Michael's face registered no emotion. ‘Do you love me, Michael? The least you can do is tell me that.’

  ‘Tell you what? You sitting in here crying over some fucking wedding cake instead of being out there with all your friends and family.’

  Leila stared at him, but Michael continued, ‘As if fucking wedding cake is important issue on a day like this.’ Michael steadied himself and strengthened his tone. ‘I tell you what is important issue, me!’ he said, knocking hand and glass into his chest, ‘or maybe you don't think so?’

  ‘Of course I think you're important.’

  Michael threw the rest of his drink in her face and turned to go, but as he reached the door Leila's crippled mother stood before him. For a brief moment they stopped and faced each other in the doorway, then he swept past her into the loud, brightly coloured, happy church hall, and he charged through the double doors and down the hill towards the sea.

  Her mother looked lamely at her daughter. She shut the door behind her, blocking out both the noise and the light. From her sleeve she pulled clear a white lace handkerchief. Without meeting her child's eyes, she pressed it into Leila's warm hand. Then she left the reception hall and made her way home.

  Leila pulled the handkerchief from her dampened grip and wiped her face. Never before had her mother left her, but though she felt deserted she knew she had already cried too much. She got up, found a mirror on the wall and looked hard at herself. A wife and a woman. A woman and a wife. She shut her teeth tight with frustration, knowing she would go out there and talk to her husband as if nothing had happened. That was the way it would have to be. Later, when he had forgotten, she would mention it again just to let him know that she had not forgotten.

  Michael walked along the beach and listened. To his right the sea murmured and gently swelled, with only the occasional white fleck spoiling the view. Though the flecks were small they looked to Michael grossly out of place, like spots of toothpaste on a bathroom mirror. He turned away and began automatically to increase his pace. He knew where he was going, but before he got there he wanted to think. His body, blindly following his mind, began to race, and his feet strayed carelessly into the dying surf.

  By the time he arrived at Beverley's house she had already put their son to bed behind the curtain. She crossed the room and took Michael's dinner from the rough oven. As she did so she picked up a bottle of beer for him to drink with it. Then she sat by the front door and watched the moon appear. Michael looked at her back. She seemed to be able to understand things without his having to explain. At least there was that. But she was too placid, just nothing. He stabbed at his food and drank a hasty mouthful of beer.

  In the twilight Leila sat on her mother's step, resting up her back against the shuttered house. Stretched out in front of her a lengthy shadow, her own, lay sullen against the grainy street. In the distance she watched Bradeth and Millie fade away, two shapes, one long, one short, arms locked around each other. They were making their way back down towards town having accompanied Leila up to St Patrick's in Mr Johnson's taxi. Mr Johnson was now going on round the island at his own pace, so the two of them had decided to walk back and try and pick up a lift on the way. Leila watched them, knowing they would spend the night at Bradeth's place making love till early morning, but she did not want to think about this. As the night put out the day her thoughts drifted back to the church hall.

  She had stayed until the end of the reception. Apart from the preacher, she and Bradeth and Millie had been the last to leave. The preacher, looking even more obese without his purple robes, drew a hand down his face and left behind a smile.

  ‘Where Michael is, or should I say your husband?’ His face split like a coconut and his teeth poured out. ‘He leave you already?’

  In one movement Leila pushed back her mop of black hair and wiped the light perspiration from her brow with her mother's lace handkerchief.

  ‘You land a good man there, for he got something about him that most the other boys on this island just don't got, so mind you look after him well.’

  Millie shuffled her feet nervously, and the preacher began to giggle like an aged clown.

  ‘And I sure whatever it is he got you going find out about it tonight!’ He leaned back, closed his drunken eyes and roared with laughter.

  Outside Mr Johnson was leaning up against the side of his taxi waiting for her. He had brought Leila to her wedding and on to the reception, and he would take her home. But as they drove off, Bradeth and Millie having joined them, nobody spoke.

  Leila got up from the doorstep and went inside the house. As she slipped quickly out of her bridal gown she could hear her mother's quiet coughing and she stood and listened. Her mother coughed with the same low noise that the wind made as it brushed through the trees. The occasional squeal of the bed was the only other sound that came from her mother's room.

  Having taken off the gown, Leila could smell the sweet scent of the day's perspiration which had settled dew-like on the parts of her skin that had been tightly covered up. She walked back into the front room, filled a small tin bath half-full with cold water and washed her body, taking care not to splash too much water out on to the floor. Then she wrapped a long towel around her shoulders and dripped her way across the room. She stopped at the small wooden table and ran her damp finger down the dusty spine of the still spread-eagled book. Leila wondered if she would ever finish reading the book to her mother. She walked back into her bedroom and closed the door before peeling off the towel and standing naked. The drops of water on her body turned cold and she began to shiver. She had already admitted to herself that he would not come so she climbed into bed, sneezed and turned over.

  The next morning the murderous cry of the crowing cock woke Leila w
ith a start. Her first night as a married woman had passed by without incident. She lay in bed and listened to her mother who was getting up. Leila dared not imagine what she must be thinking of her. But, as she heard her beginning to boil some water, Leila again drifted off into a light sleep, though the dull and obedient sounds of a new day provided for her the background noises which would ensure her restlessness.

  Again Leila woke up with a start. She listened, but this time she heard nothing, so she presumed her mother asleep. She lay in bed like a waxen dummy, her shock of hair a deeper black against the white pillow and forming a nest-like down on which to rest her head. She had dreamed but she could not remember what it was she had dreamed about. If it had been a bad dream she would have remembered, and the same would have been true if it had been a particularly good dream. It was just nothing, but then again the pillow was wet. She turned it over and decided there was little point in her getting up.

  Throughout the day she tossed and turned. She thought about things she did not really want to think about, but things she could not banish from her mind. Eventually the day ran its true course and Leila slipped away into a deep, wearisome sleep. She awoke just once to hear her mother coughing and spitting at the darkest point of the night, but she fell asleep again, unsure as to how to offer any help. As she slept she dreamed again, but this time she would remember her dream for it would be more than fiction, a memory as opposed to an invention.

  Another hour had drifted by. Millie picked up a smooth stone and tossed it gently down the hill. It bounced a few times then began to roll, at first quickly, then slowly, finally coming to a halt long before the bottom of the slope. Millie stood up, her small body blocking the sun's light from Leila's face.

  ‘Move, Millie,’ said Leila, squinting at her friend's back, her head resting in her cupped palms. ‘Do you want me to sit in the dark?’