by Leone Ross
She walked back to Arrivals and smiled as a small, sprightly woman lowered her head respectfully, then jumped up to give her a seat.
‘Peace be with yuh,’ said the woman. She looked anxious.
‘And also unto yuh,’ Amber answered.
She watched the woman walk away, glancing backwards, like she, Amber, was a barking dog.
So. This was going to be how it felt.
‘’Ey gyal!’
Amber turned to see an open-armed Birdie coming towards her at a clip a fifty-year-old would admire. ‘Yuh ready to mash down Jamaica?’ People turned and stared. Same old Birdie. A bright purple, low-cut jumpsuit and orange stilettoes. She had tied yellow handkerchiefs all over her outfit – around her calves, dangling from her sleeves. The earrings were festive baskets of miniature fruit and her lipstick was uncompromisingly red against the ash of her face. Blue nails flashed on her hands. She’d always felt grey next to Birdie. She put a self-conscious hand up to her own tidy, braided hair, and then her friend was on her, hugging her.
She felt unexpected tears prick at her eyes.
‘Lawd, girl, yuh look good, good, good!’ Birdie patted her ass. ‘Albert mussi cry eye water to see yuh out of that chair!’
‘Some.’ She didn’t want to think about Albert right now; that was too hard. She wanted to smile as wide as she was smiling right now at Birdie. It had been too long.
Birdie read her mind. ‘Ten years, eh? What a disgrace! Anyway, Miss Ting. We goin’ mek up for it now! Where de car?’
One of the airport security guards showed them the way. She couldn’t help wondering where he came from and how he was just a bit too damn smooth.
People passed them, whispering.
*
The convertible was sleek and mean, like a resting carnivore. They stood for a while, gazing at its green elegance, impressed. Birdie passed one long fingernail along its gleaming bonnet.
‘Well, rass.’
Amber let out a breath. ‘At least we got style.’
Birdie grunted. ‘Yuh hands don’ let yuh drive, right? So is me! Ah wonder how fast this t’ing can go?’ She opened the door and climbed into the driver’s seat, caressed the leather wheel, gazed at the dashboard. ‘We can hit 500, chile! Zero to 500 in eight seconds!’
Amber carefully moved to the passenger side. The seat was soft and reassuring. ‘Yuh know we not supposed to hit that speed until we reach,’ she warned.
‘That’s no fun. Now. Tell me what’s been goin’ on with yuh.’ Birdie hit a switch and watched delightedly as the top of the car slid away. She flung her arms open. ‘Praise Jesus! Fresh Jamaican breeze!’
Amber opened her mouth to answer, but the sound of a child’s voice interrupted her. A little girl on the pavement was tugging at her mother’s hand, her high voice cutting through the air.
‘Mamma, Mamma! Watch de Post Ladies! Post Ladies. Look Mamma! See dem deh!’
Her mother squirmed. ‘Eleanor! Shut up yuh mout’!’
The child continued to stare at them, at the green car. ‘But me never seen a Post Lady before. Me can talk to dem?’
Amber looked away. She had hoped to leave without this. It was too hard. She pressed her lips together.
The woman looked apologetic, gesticulated at her daughter. ‘Me sorry. Peace be wid yuh –’
Birdie turned the key and the engine purred velvet. The way before them was clear and free. ‘Lady! Tell yuh pickney –’ she clicked to Start ‘– me not no rass Post Lady!’ She put her foot down and threw her head back. The car leapt forward. ‘Bloooodddd-claaaart!’
Despite herself, Amber began to laugh.
Their relic voices wound around each other, reminding them of their youth.
*
‘Yuh want a draw?’ Amber dangled the small packet at Birdie, watching her friend’s long white hair stream back in the wind. Birdie had always been proud of her hair.
‘What? Still a sinner!’ Birdie chuckled. ‘Tell me is double contraband!’
‘Double double!’
They shrieked with laughter. Birdie closed the roof as Amber slipped a plastic case from her purse and began to roll the spliff on her knees.
‘Damn expensive these days I hear…’
‘Cheaper in the old days when it was illegal. Cho!’ Amber tutted as the papers fell from her crumpled fingers. That injection was making her too optimistic.
‘What?’ Birdie was looking fine. There was a shine in her face.
‘Nearly spill the damn weed all over the car.’
‘Lord, hush, never mind!’
Amber turned her left hand over, blue lines in the back of it, lumpy thumb. Her hands were once quite beautiful. No-one said ugly, these days, but she thought it often.
‘You save it?’ said Birdie.
‘Yes. Birdie?’
‘What?’
She didn’t want to be afraid. ‘Yuh want to talk about it?’
‘No.’ There was a small silence. Birdie moved one hand from the steering wheel and patted Amber’s cotton knee. ‘Not yet, aright? Too soon.’
Amber bent forward and picked up the rolling paper. Pain flared on either side of her pelvis like two small probing knives. A small moan escaped from her lips.
Birdie glanced over, her face set. ‘Yuh need to stretch, don’t it?’
‘Yeah.’
‘We can take a first stop, soon.’
Amber realised that her blouse, so lovingly ironed by Albert that morning – Albert who still liked the old ways – was soaked with sweat. ‘Me did tink the pain woulda done by now,’ she said irritably.
‘Too soon, baby.’
‘Yuh think I shoulda tek a second injection?’
Birdie looked worried. ‘One will do the job, them said.’
‘Yeah, but yuh had two.’
‘Keep pace with yuh.’
‘Oh.’ It hadn’t occurred to her that co-ordination was necessary.
They were silent for a while. Birdie was something else – handling the green car like it was part of her body, scooping them through the Kingston traffic. Amber circled her wrists, stretched her crunchy elbows; stretched legs and circled ankles. The injection would probably improve things before the stretches did, but it helped to do something, however small. As she performed the exercises she thought about her daughter, Simone – her fit, efficient body. She and her husband always seemed to be bounding all over the place with their young children. Jogging, hiking, tennis, diving. That was good. She felt limited, a limiting grandparent. Worried she might frighten them with her chair, with her ugly.
Simone didn’t approve. She’d come over from Quebec just before Amber left. Hardly spoke. Wouldn’t stop stroking the curtains, palms wide and open. All over the house, stroking the heavy, burgundy curtains Amber had made when they first moved there, when Simone was a little girl. Her full mouth was set in a thin line when she left. She’d expected Simone to argue and fight. The silence was more disconcerting.
‘Be positive,’ said Birdie.
‘What?’
‘Yuh nuh hear the people-them say we must “remain positive”? Birdie sucked her teeth. ‘Them did have one big-nostril man there, talking about how “mental attitude is key”.’
Amber grinned. She set about rolling the spliff again. Sifting seeds, tiny bit of card; she could do it, now. ‘What yuh do to him, Birdie?’
‘Mi tell ‘im the only thing that would really improve my mental attitude was a good backways-fuck.’
‘What happened?’
‘Well. Them fling me out of the group.’
‘And then what?’
Birdie rolled her eyes. ‘Then I charm my way back in, how yuh mean?’
When the weed was finally ready, the top went down again so they could swap it back and forth. Amber had brought a collection of their favourite oldies and Birdie insisted on turning the sound system to blaring decibels. Lionel Richie crooning. Prince promising them eroticity, Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five. Amber surprise
d herself by remembering every lyric from ‘The Message’ and Birdie carolled out the chorus, her voice like steel inside cotton wool. They fought playfully over the rockers: who first, Chaka Demus & Pliers, or Shabba?
*
For lunch, they stopped at a bar at the side of the road. They had breached Kingston’s outer limits and now thick trees caressed each other, breeding scarlet bougainvillea. Mosquitoes swam around Birdie’s head as they exited the car.
‘Boy. That weed gone straight to my head.’ Birdie weaved slightly.
‘Yuh could never hold a spliff.’
‘Kiss me bumbo.’ Determinedly, Birdie moved forward.
The bar was a modest affair, flanked by pink hibiscus bushes. Inside it was as cool as peppermint. Candy-striped chairs. No Vacupacked meals on the menu. REAL CURRY GOAT COOK LIKE YOUR MOTHER USED TO. The barman looked gloomy, but he brightened when he spotted the car.
‘Peace be wid yuh.’ It sounded strange in his mouth.
‘That foolishness again?’ Birdie rolled her eyes and parked herself on the stool in front of him. She wiggled her long fingers. ‘Also unto yuh, an’ gimme a rum an’ coke. By de way, yuh have pan chicken?’
The barman shifted uncomfortably. Amber hid a smile. He was probably worrying about the bill. The government would award him several thousand points, of course. People were paid well to be good to Posts. Just that it would take at least six months to reach him. Blue screens hadn’t solved bureaucracy.
He had the good grace to smile. ‘Yes, ladies. We have chicken, curry goat –’
Birdie tossed that hair flirtatiously. So thick. ‘What yuh want, Amber?’
Her stomach fluttered happily. ‘Please tell me yuh have a roti to put that goat into…’
His smile grew broader. ‘You ladies know good food.’
Birdie arched her eyebrow. ‘Well, look at how we old, man!’ A tall frosted glass appeared before her. She took a long swig and shuddered. ‘There is a God! Rass! Amber, park yuh pretty hide and put one of these down yuh neck! Mm, mm, mmm.’
Amber watched the man taking real onions from a container. He was no more than fifty. A spring chicken, and well preserved. Given his generation, he’d probably last until at least two hundred and fifty.
Birdie nudged her. ‘Him sweet, eh?’
She shrugged. Thought of Albert. His voice, his polished shoes. His patient quiet.
Birdie raised her voice. ‘Hey, Mr Bar Man! Me friend like yuh, yuh know!’
The man turned and grinned and then went back to chopping onions.
Amber writhed with embarrassment. ‘Shut up!’ she hissed.
Birdie would not be hushed. ‘She want to know if yuh give a smooth ride, pretty man!’
‘Sir, ignore me friend. De alcohol gone to her head.’
‘Don’ start me on the drink stories!’ Birdie was in full swing. ‘Me remember a certain somebody who get drunk di first time mi meet her and grab up two man one time! Don’t look on dat innocent face and believe nutt’n, Mr Bar Man! No more than seventeen, a wine down wid two man! Slackness!’
Amber tried to put a hand up to Birdie’s mouth, and they wrestled gently, playfully.
‘Imagine…’ Birdie was panting. ‘Gyal, me seh, let me go! Imagine, Mr Bar Man, she married now, but me know seh Albert married her because the pu–’
‘Birdie!’
‘– me seh the pum-pum sweet him!’
Amber buried her head in her hands. She couldn’t stop giggling. The bar-keep smiled at them. Together, they watched the laughter roll through the bright day and over the Blue Mountains.
*
‘Birdie, which man yuh love the most in yuh life?’ Forty minutes after they left the bar behind them, Amber had managed to lift her legs onto the dashboard and she left them there. It felt like victory. The car was going faster, and the wind splayed her plaits.
Birdie glanced at her. She had zipped her jumpsuit further down and her collar bones jutted into the wind. She downshifted to avoid a meandering chicken. ‘Yuh can see seh we hittin’ country. People out here still have dog and goat ah walk like people!’ She yelled at the fleeing bird. ‘Chicken! Yuh ever see a car in a hospital bed yet?’
Amber shook her head. ‘Like yuh ever see a chicken inna hospital!’
‘Wid de Animal Rights Bill in Atlanta yuh see dem all de time, me dear. Chicken wid bruk foot ah get aromatherapy; donkey dat forget how fe bray all ah get counsellin’–’
Amber burst into laughter. ‘Birdie, how yuh so lie?’
‘Yuh don’ believe me? Me see fowl ah get rub down wid geranium oil!’
‘Anyway, yuh changin’ the subject.’
Birdie tossed her hair and sucked her teeth. ‘Yuh know who.’
‘Mickey?’
‘Of course.’
Mickey. How could she forget? He was the only man who had ever made Birdie chase. They’d met in New York one long winter, the first time she and Birdie had lived in different cities. She in London, doing her nurse training, Birdie being Birdie, squired all over the US by a rich man thrice her age. In the days when Birdie’s hair smelled so good you could get drunk on it. By the time she had scraped together the money to visit, Birdie had left the rich man and was drunk on Mickey. Mickey, who pulled out Birdie’s hair in ten-strand handfuls, making her count. Mickey who brought Birdie a prostitute home for her twenty-first birthday. Insisted on watching. Sick Mickey, with toffee eyes. He’d lasted too long.
‘But yuh lef’ him… what? Seventy-eight, seventy-nine years ago…’
Birdie’s laugh sounded younger than it had two days ago. ‘Miss T’ing, ah don’ really appreciate yuh remindin’ me of me age!’
‘Birdie…’
‘A’right! Yes, me love him the most.’ She flicked a fly off the steering wheel. The road had gone bumpy, rolling their breasts. ‘The man had the sweetest lyrics me ever hear in me life. Would ah be wid him now? No rass way. Would ah tek him back fifty years ago? No. But sixty years ago, maybe. Maybe.’
‘But why? He was an abusive asshole.’
‘So yuh start swear now?’ The car bumped. ‘Somethin’ just occur to me. Suppose dis car bruk down? What we do? Put it off?’
Amber moved uneasily. ‘I guess we call dem an’ dem send another one.’
They were silent once more, each lost in her own thoughts. Albert would be drinking a coffee substitute, hating it as he always did. It was still hard to be this age, with these memories, in these times. Remembering real coffee. He was only seventy-five. He could still have a life.
Love, even.
‘Yuh know what?’ Birdie’s voice had moved down an octave.
‘What?’
Birdie reached up. She did it so quickly that Amber had no time to register her intent. The hair, grey and black, sat in the purple lap. A wig. Amber stared. Birdie’s naked skull was smooth and elegant. With all that hair in the way, she had never realised how graceful her friend’s neck was. The sun spots didn’t seem to matter.
‘Oh my God! How long –’
‘It start drop out fifteen years ago.’ Birdie’s voice was quiet. She coaxed the car up to 110. ‘Is a’right. Old woman hair does drop out sometimes. But it mek mi t’ink ah Mickey. T’ink how him hurt me, an’ how me woulda do anyt’ing for him dem time. So when it start drop out, mi shave it off.’
Amber touched the wig. It looked so real. It must have cost a thousand points. More. ‘Birdie. Me don’t know what fe tell yuh…’ She wanted to cry.
‘Fling it out for me, darlin’.’
‘What?’
Birdie’s jaw was set. ‘Fling. Fling it out for me. Time for me to bloodclaaht realise seh me ah old woman!’ Her voice rose. ‘Yuh hear dat, Jamaica? Dis is a old woman, drivin’ dis car! Too old fi fuckery!’
Amber could not remember a time when Birdie had looked so queer and so beautiful.
‘Yuh sure?’
‘Yes, girl. Fling it!’
Amber took a deep breath. Let the wig flow through her fingers into the
tail wind.
*
The injection crept up on them, like the good weed had. She was sitting lotus-style, now. Hips free and smooth. They had told her to go slow, but if they hadn’t been in this car she would have tried to dance. Like before she was a nurse. Drum. Pocomania. Wrap-head. Grande jêté. Rastafari en pointe. Now the hips were painless, she was suddenly aware of how many years she had been in pain. Curiously, she straightened her fingers. The ache was dying, creaked and subtle, an old rocking chair of sensation, clicking away from her.
‘How yuh feel?’ Amber asked.
‘Wicked.’ Birdie wriggled her slender hips in the seat. ‘Me see seh yuh sittin’ like one ah dem yoga man, like yuh bad.’
‘It feel funny.’
‘Dat’s what dem seh would happen…’
‘Yeah, but me forget what it feel like to not have to shift around de pain all the time, y’know? Yuh in pain a lot?’
Birdie tossed her head and then remembered she had no more hair to toss. ‘Sometimes. Me nuh feel is cancer. Me t’ink somebody put a obeah spell on me.’ She gripped the steering wheel. ‘Yuh want to go faster?’
Amber was jolted out of her fascination with the fading discomfort.
‘No. Not yet. How yuh in such a hurry?’ She hated the sound of her voice. Squeaky and mean.
‘Yuh ‘fraid?’
‘Well, is jus’ like yuh can’t wait to reach.’
Birdie squeezed her knee reassuringly. ‘Me ‘fraid too, girl. But what we goin’ to do? Cyan’ change it.’
*
Amber watched the deep green foliage whip past the edges of the car. They slipped across Flat Bridge and told each other the old stories of drownings, before they had made the bridge safe. Past Pum Rock, where matching sets of stone genitalia sat mysteriously in the rocks, one on each side of the river. They had proved them natural fifty years ago, after all the rumours that the indigenous Taino had created them. Amber giggled wildly. Pum Rock always pulled her funny bone.
It was she who had come back to Jamaica after her training. Birdie was the adventurous one, the one who had always wanted to see more, to get past what she saw as the parochial limitations of the island. Amber had missed everything about it in the four years she had been away. The dusty yellow butterflies that once a year took over Kingston, fluttering and dying on benches, in mid-air, on people’s foreheads. The smell of anti-mosquito coils at night time as the heat dimmed and broke into soft orange-grey evening. The cut and thrust of Jamaican voices on the radio. Mango. Hairy mango and Number 7 mango. Bombay and Julie. Even as she watched things change, watched the whole world calm before her as people’s spirits met and relinquished the old resentments, even as technology and spirituality had combined into a new order that she could not have predicted as a child, as shiny, efficient TransVacs replaced the clapped-out buses and the mad people disappeared from the streets, as Birdie wrote and then Skyped the news of her life, a life that had seemed inherently more exciting, with its stolen romantic hours. But she had not regretted staying in her country. The butterflies did not go away. Simone came back a few times a year with the family. She was proud of her daughter, a woman of her time, impatient but courteous in the face of her mother’s archaic opinions. It was a good life with Albert’s love and even his little miseries, even the arthritis and the heart condition they said they couldn’t cure because she had old DNA. Her grandchildren would never have swollen joints or be unable to drive a car.