She drove towards the sea. They sat out at the little bar and watched the yachts rise and fall at their moorings. Dee matched the rhythm of her breathing with their movement. She and Harold held hands. The waiter came. Harold sat up with his still sprightly athletic posture, took charge and ordered, “Two Bombay Sapphires with coconut water and a curl of lime rind. Put lots of ice.” He squeezed her hand, saying, “Your favourite drink.” She gave him a little smile and closed her eyes. When the drinks came, they toasted long life, good health and happiness – gifts they had already been given in abundance and had almost used up. The sinking sun cast haloes of pure light around the residual rags of rain clouds. Wide streamers of gold shivered on the heaving and sighing waters, across the gulf from where they were to where they couldn’t see. They held hands while the purple night deepened, its heavy velvety chill descending, cloaking their shoulders.
GHOST STORY
Any day of the week, Sunday to Sunday, you seeing Ghost walking up and down the narrow road that winding through our little valley. People in car swishing by weaving round him, careful not to bounce him, because he walking in the middle of the road. Ghost wearing boots, like discarded army boots, black heavy, lace-up boots, and where you expect to see socks, you see very dark brown, stringy, hairy calves leading up to ropy thighs with the wide legs of khaki shorts flapping around. Holding up the shorts is a wide, black leather belt – more army throw-out stock. And that’s it for clothes. Ghost always bare back, back running with sweat, and he have a full, lumpy crocus bag fling over one shoulder or across the whole two shoulder. In one hand he holding some kind a tool: a three-canal cutlass or a hoe or a grass-swiper; sometimes is only a long stick with a hook at the end.
We used to wonder how come police don’t ever stop Ghost to ask why he breaking the law, walking around the place with bare sharp tools when honest gardeners wrap up their cutlass and thing in gazette paper to keep within the law. But is when you look at Ghost face you know why nobody don’t stop him to ask no question, because Ghost face always set-up, vex-vex, like he about to cuss you, his eyes cokey – one eye looking so, next eye looking next way, and Ghost have a wild look, the raggedy beard and the thick-thick locks, hanging in two-three dense clotted mat like a old coconut fibre doormat. You feel anybody could put God out their thoughts to even say morning or evening when they pass him? Too besides, he striding up and down purposefully like he have somewhere to go and he can’t be late, and you fraid to get in his way. But most of all is because he looking don’t-care, and don’t-care is like untouchable to us ordinary people.
But that don’t mean people didn’t talk to Ghost at all. We used to have plenty conversation with Ghost, after all, is only good manners to exchange a few words with a person who spending more time in your yard than you. Everyone in our cluster of little houses scrambling along the face of the steep hill-slope have a favourite Ghost story. When we meet up at one another house for breakfast after church on a Sunday morning, was always a chorus of complaints about Ghost. Marjorie say one time she hearing the dogs barking and she gone outside to check. The dogs and them running around and around a orange tree and she look up and see Ghost. She say, What you doing there? He say, I picking some orange. She say, Get down, get down at once, and he get down. She tell him, When you want something, you must ask for it. And she tell him to get out her yard. Next morning, she hear someone calling, Morning ma’am, morning ma’am, at the gate. Marjorie in the middle of preparing breakfast buljol, but she go outside. Is Ghost. I come for some orange, he say. She say, OK, and she lead him to one of the tree. Pick from this one, she instruct. Ghost shake his locks. Not that one, he say. Them orange too sour. I taking from that one over there. Them sweeter. He pick and pick and when he done he tell Marjorie, Look I pick some for you too, and he leave about a dozen or so in the mop bucket by the back step.
Hazel say she ketch Ghost in the zaboca tree and tell him to come down immediately. He say, I can’t come down yet, I have a order to fill. Hazel tell us she understand, because that same afternoon she see the same zaboca self, now label avocados, at the nation’s favourite grocery, for ten dollars each. When Nicky tell Sue that Ghost pick out all the nice yellow-flesh breadfruit and he tell her when she see him leaving the yard with the crocus bag bulging, that he leave three more for her and they will be full enough to pick next week, Sue say, But he is a nice man, last week he sell me some really nice julie mangoes, five for ten dollars. Mavis say, He thief those mangoes from off my tree. Sue say, Your julie is the best I eat this season. So it look like he harvest from the one and sell to the other, keeping the fruit circulating and making up deficiencies where he seeing them, like supply-side economics, with him as middle man.
Louisa say, Is people like Ghost who keeping the neighbourhood safe because he always on the lookout, he know everybody times of day and comings and goings and if a strange bandit come in to do real harm, he will see them. She say, We don’t recognise that Ghost is our protection. Marlene laugh and say, We should call him Holy Ghost then. But Louisa quickly remind her blasphemy is a sin. OK, sorry, Marlene agree, is like having a kind of informal security and we paying with surplus fruit. Is not surplus, Denise say, is years I watching my young zaboca tree. First year it bear, is only one zaboca, but it big and nice, smooth texture, dryish. Next year three fruit and I waiting for them to be really full before picking and one morning I look for them and they gone. That wasn’t no surplus. He coulda pick one to sample for future reference and leave two for my family until the tree start to bear more. Is hard to have a tree in your own yard and have to buy zaboca in the grocery. People sympathise, Yes, we agree, Ghost does be real indiscriminate sometimes.
But Ghost know everybody business and Maureen say he and her husband does talk good and make joke and only last week her husband pass Ghost sitting on the bridge, and her husband ask him when he think the zabocas will be ready and Ghost tell him, Boss them zaboca have another three weeks still, and how Ghost really have a good heart because when her husband was sick Ghost look in the bedroom window and say, Boss I hear you ent too well, look after yourself eh? I go be real quiet. I ent go disturb you. Look I going to shut your dogs in their kennel so they go stop the barking while I here. And then he proceed to pick off all the full limes. When Ghost leaving he see Debra coming in the gate. She hustling, hustling because she had to drop the child by the child father mother as her own mother had to go out. Debra already late for work and she have to hurry up to start preparing lunch, but he stopping her and telling her to bring out a bowl for him. She steupsing but she still bring it out for him. You know what he do? He put down the crocus bag and he drop a couple dozen or so limes in the bowl and he say, Make some juice for the boss, I don’t find he looking too good, nuh.
Ghost and we woulda continue like that if the mealy bug hadn’t arrive in a schooner-load of plantain and dasheen from Grenada. In a few months many of the fruit trees off which Ghost was making a living was infested and bearing less and less fruit; in a year, pickings was meagre. Ghost begin to use his intelligence of the area to supplement his income in a different way. Children bicycle left in the yard begin to disappear; Maureen wake up one morning to find the toolshed ransack and lawn mower missing; Denise hear what she thought was rain in the night then next day see pieces of pvc piping lying around spouting water and her six-hundred-gallon Rotoplastic water tank gone. Is now a different relationship start to develop between us people and Ghost. What we use to tolerate before as a kind of sharing was now thiefing. If tree bear plenty, you can spare some – it cost nothing, next year it will bear again; but if you pay good money for something and it gone, you have to pay more good money to buy it back.
People start to lock gate, put up chain-link fence where they was depending on steep drop to be deterrent – some even put in automatic gate – and a barrier came between Ghost and his host. He start to walk the street doing house-to-house visit, calling at the front gate, asking for work. He offering to do garden and clean y
ard, wash car and so on. Some people feel sorry and take him on but when you make arrangement for him to come Wednesday and you wait and wait for him and he don’t come, you bound to get vex, and when he turn up Friday and say he had something else to do, you tell him don’t bother you will cut the grass yourself, or wash the car or whatever. It looking like Ghost life always too free for him to get tie down with day and time.
One Saturday morning, Denise pick up the papers from where the delivery man throw it in the yard and she see that a man in the next valley shoot a bandit who he see walking out his yard with his bush-whacker over his shoulder. The papers say the bandit was wounded in the back and was warded under observation in hospital. They print the bandit name: Alfred Thomas. Nobody didn’t take it on, nobody think they know any Alfred Thomas, but when Debra come to work that morning she well excited. She calling from by the gate self, Miss Maureen, Miss Maureen, guess what? I hear Ghost get shoot. People was talking about it in the maxi coming up. Before you know it, is all of we people calling round to one another and saying how the Alfred Thomas in the papers is Ghost, and Sunday morning all of us by Maureen for breakfast and the subject is Ghost and the shooting and Maureen ask what we going to do about it.
Marlene say, What you mean what we going to do about it? What that thiefing rascal getting shoot have to do with us? Denise, still vex about the water tank and the zaboca, say, It damn good for him, now he will have to keep his blasted tail quiet. Hazel say, That is not a nice sentiment to express on a Sunday morning after coming from church. Denise say, If you did have something thief you woulda be damn vex too. Nicky say, Oh no, what am I going to do now? And she say that she was expecting Ghost to come Monday to clean the yard, the drains slimy with moss, and now she would have to do it by herself and her back not feeling so good these days. Marjorie say that it is a good thing she wasn’t depending on him for any yard work, and anyway, yes, she have to agree with Denise that Ghost get what he looking for long, long time. Mavis say, Poor feller, he don’t deserve to get shoot for a bushwhacker when, right in the heart of government self, every manjack hand digging deep in the national cash register, and you don’t see any citizen rushing out to do a citizen arrest or shoot any of them big thief. Sue say, is people like you self that walk quite to the polling station and stain your finger for them. Is the people like you self put them in power; like all you people don’t remember the track record they had build-up when they was in government last time. For the people in this carnival-mentality country everything is a nine-days’ wonder. Mavis answer that the last lot wasn’t no good either and like we head hard and can’t learn no lesson from experience. Sue say Mavis confusing the issue; who is big thief and feathering they own nest, giving big contract and directorship to friend and family is besides the point. Louisa say, ladies, ladies, stop that please; don’t bring no politics talk here today. The subject we discussing is Ghost who lying wounded in a bed in the public hospital and at least we could feel good that is not us who responsible for putting him where he is. She say, I asking all of you, who looking after Ghost interest now he get shoot? Ghost is somebody we know and he is a human being too and I personally don’t see how we can let him just lie down there in the hospital, shoot-up, and nobody caring if he living or dead. Well, with that second sermon of the day, we focus and we talk and talk and we agree somebody had to go on a mission of mercy and visit the hospital to check-up on Ghost.
Debra serving out some guava juice at this point in the talk, and she volunteer to help out and go and see Ghost in hospital. She say she know about the public hospital, where the different wards is – male medical, male surgical and so on. She say she know the rules and regulations about visiting time and number of visitors allowed and she say how we kinda people wouldn’t know how to deal-up with them security who like to rough-up people who wearing church hat and talking and behaving hoity-toity. Denise want to take on the hoity-toity challenge Debra throw down just so, but Louisa jump in quick and say, well, thank you Debra, that’s very kind, we appreciate your offer. Everybody agree that Debra is the most suitable person of all of us to tackle the petty bureaucracy of government-run space.
That same afternoon self, Debra set out with a bag of mango, orange and sapodilla we gather up hurry-hurry, to visit Ghost and take him our get-well-soon message. When she come back Monday morning she say, Ghost not doing too good nah: the bullet still inside and he have to have operation. Well, things start to get technical now and is like we have to intervene beyond mango and sapodilla. We send back Debra next day. She don’t mind going because she get getting off work early and too-besides, her role now enhance beyond cooking and cleaning – she is the designated intermediary. Her mission is to find out who is the doctor on the ward, when the operation is, whether police pressing charges and so on.
Debra come back and say the operation is for next week Thursday – if the theatre have current and if they get through the backlog from last Thursday when current gone whole day. She say she know the fellow who does make up the list for the surgeon and he say he could put Ghost name high up on the list if he get some encouragement for him and for the surgeon too. All-a-we vex like hell about this grease-palm business. What the hell the oil and gas royalties is for, what taxes is for, what else health surcharge is for if not to make everything in public hospital and public clinic available for everybody in the public, irregardless, and ent these people getting pay already from we same tax etc. But, after all said and done, all-a-we know is vent we only venting; we know this is not a whistle to blow so easy, when people out there in the know have it to say that even the Head of the District Hospital Authority been seen to be redirecting brand-new hospital equipment and supplies the Health Ministry pay good money for, to his own private clinic. We not powerful but we not stupid; we know the cards stack in their favour not our own and if we play mad and say we going public about corrupt practice, before you could say bribery and corruption, Ghost would be discharge immediately with the bullet still inside him and then what we will do? Paying the same surgeon to do the operation in his private clinic was out of the question. So we agree to shut up, sub up and help out; it will be cheaper in the long run. Eventually, talk done and everybody boil down and agree and pull out wallet and purse. Cash only, no cheque.
Debra continue to visit in the hospital; Ghost get the operation, Ghost discharge, Ghost home recuperating. And Debra bringing us the latest news about how Ghost progressing. That he living up a steep hill over by so, with a dirt track to the house Ghost and his father scramble to build together. And that now that his father dead, is his mother and sister living there with the sister three children. That the sister does do a little hairdressing – braiding, weaving, straightening – and how she expand to nails too with her biggest girlchild helping out, learning the same beautician business because it does pay good, because everybody want to look nice, and that the school the same girlchild pass exam for is only a waste-a-time place; the teachers don’t come to class and the children only having sex in the classroom and taking videos with their cellphone and sending it all around the place, and some even selling it on the internet, and how she don’t want her daughter mixing-up in that kind a thing, is best she help out with the business and learn something she could make a living with. Debra say to us, all you don’t have to study Ghost at all, nah, he mother and sister helping he out. We self wondering among ourself, but of course not out loud in front of Debra, how come poor people does have enough money for hairdos and fancy nails but only buying Crix biscuits and Chubby sweetdrink for their children when the day come, and how come little, little schoolchildren can have cellphone with camera in it and not have books for school, but, in the end, we breathing easy, we well glad that it looking like Ghost pulling through all right. So we listen to Debra and we lay Ghost to rest for the time being as we have plenty other thing to deal-up with.
Outside in the yard, we seeing that the mealy bug finally ecologically controlled by a fast-multiplying ladybird colony they
bring in from foreign, and fruit trees flowering good again. Mangoes ripening and falling in the yard – and rottening; zabocas too high in the tree for we older folks to pick – is only iguana and manicou enjoying the fruit. And whole week-a-day, we people raking up and sweeping up and piling up whole heap a rotten mango and carcass of hollowed-out zaboca skin and seed that drop when the iguana and parrot done with them, and we wondering how after one-time-is-two-time and how you never appreciate what you have until it done. Nowadays gardener and them don’t want to climb no tree for you. They only coming in a team, cutting lawn zrrr, zrrr, zrrr with the whacker, blowing grass cuttings vroom, vroom and then gone, quick, quick to the next yard, and you standing there like a fool with your purse empty, and nothing you really want do, getting done.
One Sunday morning Maureen hear a voice calling, Morning! Morning! at the gate and she look out the kitchen window. She see a man holding a clipboard. Maureen, wondering what he could be inspecting, go to the gate. On the clipboard she see a checker-line copybook clip to it and a list of names and numbers. He say, Good morning madam, I come to offer my services as a estate maintenance professional.
Maureen tell us afterwards she feel something was familiar but she couldn’t say exactly what until the man say, Miss Edwards you don’t remember me? Alfred Thomas. She say the name sounding familiar but where she know him from? The man say, I used to get lime and zaboca from your yard. She say she look at him good, good. And in the eyes and the eyes alone, she recognise Ghost. His hair cut flat down to his scalp, his face clean, clean; she say is the first time she see he have forehead, ears, cheeks, chin like everybody else; is only the eyes looking two different ways same time. She say she didn’t say the name Ghost out loud because it might have sound too friendly, so she just say, Oh yes, is you Alfred, I didn’t recognise you. He say, I seen The Light, Miss Edwards. I was in hospital and a pastor come and show me how I was on the wrong path. He point me in the right direction and now I am save. Miss Edwards, I want you to know you can put your yard in my hands. I am making a exclusive list of client who I select on pass experience. Maureen say she didn’t know what to say. So she say, What you will do? Ghost, now known as Alfred Thomas, say he will like to come in the yard and make a assessment of what it will entail. Well Maureen and Alfred Thomas go in the yard and he say he will pick the mango and clean up under the tree and he will do that on Tuesday coming. He write down, Tuesday, next to Maureen house number on the list and he say, Thank you, ma’am and he gone up the hill by where Denise and Mavis living.
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