Well-meaning friends warned her of muggings and the risks she was taking in wearing her gold bracelets on subway platforms in Brooklyn. But she persisted and was lucky. (Those were the days when New York City, not Port of Spain, defined dangerous). In her final years, my mother added other bits of gold jewellery but her prized possession remained her twenty-four carat gold cocoa-pod bracelets, that gift from her prescient father.
2
MONTY AND MARILYN
Last night, Sandra watching Oprah, and she making sign for me to come and watch too. I get a beer from the fridge because, you know, I can’t watch them women show dry so. Well, I stretch out on the sofa, put my two foot on top of Sandra lap, and I watching too.
You know how Oprah does have guests coming in the studio to talk about different things? Well, last night she had somebody talking about how men and women different. How they are like different species. Well, I see Sandra looking at me sideways and nodding her head at everything this fool on the TV saying. I look at Sandra and say, “You don’t believe that stupidness?” She say, “Why not? I see that kind of thing all the time.” I say, “Tell me what you does see.” She say, “I will say only these two words: Monty and Marilyn.” Well, I can’t admit to Sandra face that she could be right, but she had a point. Because the story about Monty and Marilyn really make you wonder whether what the psychologist man on Oprah was saying had some truth to it.
My friend Monty was a big, strapping man. He used to go to the gym. He used to jog around the savannah. He used to play football with the boys. And strong? Well, when he shake your hand, you feel like he wringing it off. Well, one day, Monty take in with a belly pain. Everybody say he pull a muscle. Monty try Alka Seltzer, he try aloes, he try ditay payee but nothing working. When Marilyn couldn’t stand it any more she say, “Is doctor for you.”
Well, the doctor look at Monty, he poke this and that, he send him for some tests, then the verdict: Monty have cancer, liver cancer, advanced liver cancer. And nothing to be done. Just so, Monty start to shrivel up. One week, Monty fine, next week, Monty have belly pain, next week, Monty have liver cancer, next week Monty squeeze up like a orange, and the next week I have to put on suit and tie and go to Monty funeral.
About two months after Monty pass away, phone ring. Is Marilyn. Before I could even say, “How you girl? I was going to call you,” she start bawling. “What’s up Marilyn?” I ask her. Marilyn say, “Come over now, Leo, I have to talk to somebody. Something has happened.”
When I get there, Marilyn eye red, red, but at least she stop the bawling. “What happen, girl?” I ask her. Marilyn pull a phone bill from her handbag. “Monty’s cell phone bill,” she say. “Look at the date on this one.” The date was about when he pass away. Marilyn say, “Look at the numbers.” I see that one number come up almost every day, but I don’t want to say so; I say, “I see Monty used to make many calls, like his business keep him real busy.” She say, “Leo, don’t take me for a fool. Why do you think I called you here? You were Monty’s best friend and I need some answers.” “Answers to what, Marilyn?” I ask her.
Marilyn look at me straight in my eye and say, “I want to know what you know about who he was phoning every day. Look at the bill, Leo. I’m not making this up. Look, it’s right here. See that number? Nearly every morning at nine o’clock, he called that number.”
I start to feel uncomfortable because I could guess where she heading. “Why you letting a little thing like phone bill bother you? Monty was your loving husband, not so?” I say. “All a we uses to admire how when you go out, Monty always dancing with you and hugging you up. Remember your silver anniversary how he propose to you again, in front all a we at the party? What else you could want to know?”
Marilyn not budging. “Who was he doing business with to call almost every day? On Saturday? On Sunday? Nine o’clock nearly every day. And look,” she say, pulling out more bills, “this is one year’s bills from his drawer, same number, same time. What’s going on?”
“I swear, Marilyn,” I say to her, “I know nothing about this. Monty was my best friend, but I don’t know nothing about this phone business. And if I don’t know, it can’t be anything serious. Look, remember when he had that trouble with the house? And the bank was going to foreclose? Monty come to me first about it, even before he talk to you. Yes, is true. He didn’t want to worry you. Remember the incident with his sister son and the police and the drugs? Who you think Monty confide in to get lawyer? Me! So I telling you, Marilyn, you can forget about these phone bills. If I don’t know, is not important.”
One week later I get a call – Marilyn again. This time, she not bawling, but she sounding determine. “Look, Leo,” she say, “come now.” So, I jump in the car and I go and in two-twos, I reach. “Leo,” she say before I could even sit down, “I found out who it is.” She give me one hard stare so I can’t even pretend I don’t know what she talking about. “I rang up the number and a woman answered the phone. I told her who was speaking and I asked her who she was. She told me her name is Tricia and she could guess why I’m calling her and if it is about Monty. I told her I saw that my husband used to call her every day and if she could tell me why. She said why do you think? I came right out and said you two were having an affair? She said what do you think? I said why else would he want to call you every day? She said you’re right. I said I want to meet you to talk about it. She said yes, I could do that. I always wanted to meet you. I said what about Veni Mange for lunch on Friday? She said yes about one o’clock.”
* * *
Men are really something else. You know what Leo told me last night? He told me that his best friend, Monty, you know the one who died a couple months ago? Well, it seems that Marilyn, Monty’s wife, told him that Monty was having an affair with a woman for more than a year and she didn’t know about it. And you know how she found out? It was the cell phone bills that showed the number coming up often and Marilyn called the number and spoke to the woman. Yes, she spoke to her. And more than that, she took her to lunch – Veni Mange, no less.
When he told me this, I said, “Leo, what do you think about Monty having an affair?” He said, “Look here, Sandra, that is the man business. If Monty did want to have an affair, is he business.” “And you didn’t know?” I asked him. “Sandra,” he said, “we was best friends but we never discuss wife or outside woman.” I said, “Leo, I didn’t ask you whose business it is or isn’t. I’m asking you: what do you think about Monty having an affair?” He said, “Sandra, you not listening or what? I just tell you, that is the man business, not mine.”
I don’t know if he was playing stupid to avoid answering the question, so I took another tack. “Leo,” I said, “how you find Marilyn handled it?” He said, “All yuh woman is too much trouble. Why she couldn’t leave it alone? The man done dead and gone. Why she have to be digging up in he phone bills? Why she have to call the woman? And go and meet her? Why go looking for trouble?” “Looking for trouble,” I said, “who had an outside woman when he had a wife? Who was looking for trouble?”
Leo said, “Sandra, all that is so, but Monty did love Marilyn, he didn’t leave her, he never ill-treat her. Marilyn had everything she want. You self use to say how nice her house is and how many nice vacations they went on. Why she couldn’t leave that alone? Now she gone making trouble for herself.” “Leo,” I told him, “how you think she feels now, knowing everything was lies and cover-up?” “What lies and cover up?” he said. “He lie? He never lie to Marilyn. Monty behave decent. He never put anything in her face. She choose to bring on her own heartache.”
“You don’t think,” I said to him, “that Marilyn is beating-up on herself now for trusting him? She probably feeling embarrassed remembering that twenty-fifth anniversary party last year, when Monty proposed again – thinking that when he was in bed with her, that maybe he was imagining he was with the other woman.”
“What is the problem with that, Sandra?” Leo said. “I know for a fact that Mo
nty did love Marilyn. Look how he provide for her. Marilyn was Monty queen.”
* * *
When Monty’s wife called me, I wasn’t really surprised. I was kind of expecting it. You can’t be a successful “outside woman” without some understanding of the “inside woman”. So, when she called, I was very pleasant. She asked whether Monty used to phone me up every day and if I was his mistress. I thought to myself, Monty’s dead and gone. He left two women behind. We might as well behave civilised about it. So, I told her, “Yes,” and she said she wanted to meet me and would I join her for lunch on Friday? When I got there, I told the maitre d’ I was there to meet Mrs. Turner. He pointed to where Monty’s wife was sitting. I looked and I saw an attractive woman in her early fifties. She was wearing glasses, looking at the menu. Her hair was cut in that stylish low cut that older women like. She was wearing a black pants and a pretty embroidered Indian-style khurta. Looking at her I felt a little uncomfortable. I wondered what she would make of the tattoo on my ankle. I tried to pull up the neckline of my top and pull down the hem of my denim skirt. I felt I was back in third form and I was waiting outside Sister Bernadette’s office. But, as I looked at her again, I saw the head bowed over the menu, the hand twiddling with the thin gold chain around her neck, she looked vulnerable, and I felt a little sorry for her.
I went up to her and introduced myself. “Mrs. Turner, I am Tricia.”
She turned her head, stood up, took my hand, nodded and smiled. “Tricia, call me Marilyn. You want to sit over here? It’s cool by these crotons. What would you like to drink?”
We sat and she signalled the waiter. “Ronnie, make that two coconut water and put a double gin in one for me please. And we will have today’s special.”
I couldn’t stop myself. “You are younger-looking than I thought you would be.”
She glanced down at her hands in her lap, twisting round the thick gold wedding band. “And you are older than I thought.” She looked up. “How old are you? Late thirties?”
Well, that is not a question I answer directly. “Somewhere there. I’m no teenager, if that’s what you thought.”
She sat up, leaning slightly forward. “You know something, Tricia? I never thought I’d be sitting down to lunch with my husband’s mistress.” She rested her chin on intertwined fingers, elbows on the madras-print tablecloth. “How long you and Monty were together?”
“Not long. Just over a year. We met one night at Trotters where I stopped for an after-work drink with some friends.”
She nodded slightly. I felt encouraged to say more. “He was there alone and he came over to my group to talk with someone he knew and we got introduced. We all had a few drinks together and then he dropped me home because my car was at the mechanic.”
She closed her eyes at this point and I went on. “The next night he came round by me again. I had forgotten some papers in his car and he came to return them. He came in for a drink and we chatted for a while. Then he started coming round regularly.”
The drinks came and I was glad for the distraction. She took a long draught of the gin and coconut water and set the glass down. “So, you didn’t have a boyfriend or husband or anything?”
I sipped slowly through the straw. I wasn’t sure how much I should tell her. “At the time, I had just separated from my husband and he was giving me a hard time, ringing me up, harassing me. Your husband and I used to talk about that. He used to ring me up and we would talk. But you know that already.”
She nodded, leaned back in her chair. “And?”
“And things started getting serious. I had borrowed money to fix up the flat I was renting. Your husband was very kind and helpful. I was glad for the help-out.”
The condensation on the outside of her glass had now formed fat drops. She turned her attention to the glass, using her right index finger to trace small circles.
“Did you know that he was a married man?”
“Yes, he was wearing a ring and I asked him. He told me that he was married almost twenty-five years.”
She dropped her hands in her lap and looked down at them. I could see her twisting around her wedding ring. “And that didn’t bother you?”
I can’t abide it when people imply I’m to blame for a man horning his wife.
“Well, I didn’t go looking for him. He came of his own free will. I never asked for anything. He gave me what he wanted to.”
She looked up, directly at me.
“You never asked about me?”
“Yes, I did. He said that was his private life and I shouldn’t go there. I respected that.”
I was glad when lunch came. We talked about the pumpkin soup and how we prepare it – she roasts the pumpkin first, I just toss it in the pot; the mahi-mahi led to talk about where to get the best and freshest fish; the callalloo prompted discussion on whether one should add salted meat in these health-conscious times; oil-down would have been preferred to coo-coo. We talked about the merits of coconut milk powder for making ice cream and she told me about her years making ice-cream with hand-grated coconut in a hand-turned churn. I told her about my mother baking bread on the Saturdays of my childhood. We didn’t mention Monty.
She then ordered gin and coconut water for both of us, then said to me, “You used to cook for Monty?”
I thought, this is a nice lady; she has been through a lot. I will not hurt her any more. I said, “No, he used to say he ate already… at home.”
She nodded with a wide, dreamy smile, making her face so much younger, happier. She looked beyond me into the distance. “Monty loved home food. First thing when he came home, he would open the pot and whatever it was, he would smile and say, ‘I see you cooked my favourite!’ ” She looked directly in my eyes and we both laughed at this.
I said, “The way to a man’s heart…” and she added, “…is through his stomach.” We laughed again. I feel sure we were both thinking of Monty and home-cooked food, but in two different kitchens.
“Does your mother still make her own bread?” she asked.
I told her my mother had died six years before and the tradition died with her. I asked about her ice cream. She said there was no point without Monty to enjoy it.
* * *
“Sandra,” I say, “Monty having an affair didn’t interfere with his life with Marilyn.” Sandra say, “Leo, you missing the point. If it was Marilyn having an affair and Monty finding out, what you think he would’ve done?” I laugh, because, in that case, Monty woulda go berserk – beat up both a them. But, I couldn’t say that to Sandra, I could only look – she know the answer already. She continue, “And if he found out after Marilyn died, what would he have done to the feller?” I remain speechless, both a we know Monty’s temper.
“Yes, Leo,” she say, pushing my feet off her lap, “I will tell you what would’ve never happen. Monty and the hornerman would’ve never become good friends. You would never have found them liming on weekends with each other’s friends. Look at Marilyn and Tricia, making bread and ice cream together, like sisters, nah, like mother and daughter. Men would never have been like that. Not at all!”
Women! They have to rub salt in every wound.
“OK, Sandra,” I say, “you win this rounds. Mars one way, Venus the next. But listen well. Don’t let me catch you with some other feller or it will be the battle of the planets.” The woman look at me hard, reach for the remote and turn off Oprah. “Leo, you feel you could catch me doing anything? I too fast for you!” She laugh, turn away and she gone in the kitchen. I laugh too because I know is only joke she making, not so?
THE TALISMAN
Margaret stood near the edge of the cliff, her gaze wandering over the sea. There was Tara some distance away – she could see her out of the corner of an eye – hurling pebbles at the foaming wave crests. Their argument that morning still rankled. It pained Margaret, this new distance between them, but she was sure she was in the right – after all, her concern was purely for Tara’s own good. A deep rumble
vibrating through her feet and a tearing sound behind her interrupted her thoughts and she swung her head round to the source. There, on the slope above, a man, cutlass in one hand, crocus bag and stick in the other, locks swirling about his head, was hurtling towards her on a slide of rolling pebbles and loose dirt. She jumped away from immediate danger – the cliff’s edge and his likely trajectory. He skidded to an abrupt halt midway between the two women.
He did not look towards either but both women looked at him. Locks screening his face, he leaned towards a fallen coconut, slapped the tip of the cutlass into it, and swung the blade into the crocus bag, freeing the nut with the stick. The blade snicked into another nut that was also despatched into the bag. He then flicked his wrist sharply, sending the cutlass plunging into the ground, where it hummed in quivering, diminishing arcs. He looked directly at Margaret, his legs bridging the path, his bare toes tensed, holding the earth.
“You enjoying the sea?” A trace of a fake Yankee accent.
Margaret nodded.
“Where you from?” Again, that false intonation.
“Diego Martin.” She pronounced it Digger Martin, with a more colloquial emphasis than usual.
“Oh… you is local people…”
His voice drooped, sounded Trini, sounded disappointed. He rested a foot on the cutlass handle. Tara turned to gaze at the horizon, a thin line of bright steel, where the leaden sea met the iron-grey sky. Margaret could not easily distance herself from his attempt at engagement; he would think her rude, snobbish. Her nod cued him to continue. “The water rough today, like it coming from far, far.” Having paid her dues to courtesy, and not wishing to encourage him further, Margaret returned to the rhythm of the crashing waves. She could feel them undercutting the ground on which she stood, slamming into gaps and cracks, dislodging every weak particle, sucking out loose grains, tugging out boulders. He tried again. “But it still nice to look at.”
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