‘I’m French, not English, you know,’ I said to one, but he only laughed.
We recognised our crate emerging, too. A young stevedore tossed it from the ship’s belly to the wharf. The crate landed with a thud in the dust. George ran to rescue it. But I was shocked, checking myself: maybe these people couldn’t read English?
The Chevrolet swept us along the foreshore, along Wrightson Road, to a hotel opposite open parkland called the Queen’s Park Savannah. This was the Queen’s Park Hotel: the grandest in Port of Spain. My spirits lifted. A curious building; the main part resembled a Victorian country house, though one adapted for the Caribbean, constructed from rainforest hardwood, with wide verandas and jalousie shutters. One wing was art deco in style, tall, with scalloped windows. We were shown to the older rooms. Inside, slow-moving ceiling fans stirred the thick air. In the corners there were nests of softly faded white wicker furniture, feather-stuffed chintz cushions. Persian rugs thrown down onto wide polished wooden floors. An atmosphere I immediately recognised. Two macaws clambered along the veranda rails, one turquoise, one scarlet.
Qui est là? Qui est là? One spoke in French. I was delighted.
George squeezed my arm. Here I could collect myself. We went upstairs to our room and collapsed on the four-poster bed. The ceiling was high and our balcony overlooked the huge savannah opposite; a light breeze fluttered in. I loosened the mosquito net hanging above the bed.
‘Other wives,’ I said.
‘Who?’
‘I’m not like those other expat wives, am I?’
‘No, my petal. You’re not.’
‘I won’t want to leave, I promise.’
George was already drifting into sleep. ‘That’s right,’ he muttered. ‘That’s right, my darling.’
I watched George sleep, pressed my lips to his warm belly. Of course, there had been an interview in London. George’s bosses at Forbes-Mason had wanted to meet me. Other wives hadn’t liked it. The firm had found it impossible to keep its employees long in Trinidad. Three couples had quit before us, all lasting months, not years. Men loved the West Indies. They had something to do. Usually they enjoyed higher positions than they did in England. They loved the climate and the people. The wives hated it, though. I knew this. But I wasn’t put off. George wanted to show me off, to show them that I was different. And I was. I knew that, too. I was bilingual. I was comfortable with a mixture of tongues and races, different cuisines and cultures. I had lived in a hot place before. I was gay, vivacious. It wasn’t hard to reassure his bosses. They only had to take one look at me, my olive skin, my Mediterranean nature, to see that I was different. I impressed those grey men. Three years: we had nothing to lose. A house was thrown in. We signed the contract. I thought: I’ll show them.
I drifted off, too, dreaming, of all things, that I was riding my green bicycle along the road to my new home in Harrow on the Hill. The road was frosted; it was January. I was wrapped up in a tweed coat and gloves and shivering with the cold, riding home to meet George. Happy, newly wed. Eager to see him. As I rode, white flecks tumbled from the sky, graceful and mesmerising, reminding me of something: black flecks I’d seen somewhere else, against a blanket of white. The white flecks became black flecks. Black birds spiralled and wheeled ahead of me, littering the sky.
We stayed exactly one week at the Queen’s Park Hotel. The company wined and dined us dutifully and we received an invitation to tea with George’s new bosses and their wives. Bonny and Miriam amazed me: they wore hats and gloves and stockings.
‘Where are you from, originally?’ Bonny probed. Her creamy oval face was rather stern; a shadow of dark hair crept along her jaw.
‘Antibes.’
Tight, forced smiles.
‘And did you have a good trip out?’
‘No,’ I laughed. ‘I was seasick all the way.’
‘Did you bring much with you?’
‘Just my bicycle.’
Their eyes shot wide open. Miriam smirked. ‘I suppose you’ll buy a vehicle,’ she said.
‘I don’t drive.’
Looks of horror.
‘Do you play bridge?’
‘No.’
Froideur.
I grinned and puffed my cigarette smoke into their eyes. I had so many questions but it was clear they weren’t the right women to ask for advice. They thought I wouldn’t last. This only concentrated my resolve. We would not only stay but do well.
That first honeymoon week ended. Only then did we find out that the home we’d been promised hadn’t even been built! We were expecting the key. But when we arrived, the entire subject was tacitly avoided. I pushed, gently. We were taken to view a tiny apartment on Bergerac Road in a district called Winderflet. Near Chen’s Pick and Pay, a supermarket, and the Country Club.
‘Handy for six months or so.’ The company didn’t even apologise.
When we opened the door I yelped. Black shiny cockroaches, fat as mice, scuttled up ceilings and across the floor.
‘Qu’est-ce que c’est?’ I shrieked.
‘Just beetles.’ George tried to placate me.
‘Beetles? They’re not beetles. They’re demons!’
George stormed in yelling and stamping on as many as possible. The flat was in a shocking state. The mattresses hopped with nits, the refrigerator was mottled with mould. The walls flaked grey paint.
Tears welled and ran down my cheeks. ‘Take me straight back to the hotel,’ I commanded.
George nodded, his cheeks flushed. ‘Sabine, I can’t understand this . . . Really. There must be a mix-up.’
The company weren’t even ashamed. At my insistence, the flat was quickly scrubbed and repainted, new furniture was delivered. A bed, a table and four armchairs. A new fridge. Those tight forced smiles: my first taste of what those dour English women didn’t speak of. Chin up, don’t mention it. A large glass of rum. In the afternoons, a little Valium.
I was determined not to be bored in Trinidad. When George was at the office I tidied and cleaned our minute flat till it was spick and span. I decorated it with the few precious knick-knacks we brought out with us. I went shopping every day at Chen’s, the dark and ramshackle supermarket near by. My first shopping trip was difficult. My simple shopping list read:
bread, one baguette
milk, one pint
cheese, cheddar, half a pound
butter
apples
tomatoes
biscuits
sugar
tea
Chen’s appeared deserted at first. Outside, a row of rusty shopping trolleys burnt molten hot in the sun. I managed to disentangle one, pushing it ahead of me like a shield. At the entrance, I stopped. The shop bore a tangible air of melancholy. A dank earthen odour hung in the aisles and the two bare light bulbs leaked a wispy light.
Immediately, I came across the fruit-and-vegetable section. I saw a large heap of root-like bulbs, dirty and hairy, like potatoes or coconuts. I looked for a label but found none. Next to them, a pile of bananas and hills of green beans, forlorn and shrivelled. I found tomatoes, too, grown locally, small and yellow, a little rotten; also some cauliflowers, heat-tired and turning brown. Oranges, I recognised oranges, except they were green. I picked one up and squeezed it. It was solid. I pushed my trolley past this section several times. Overripe mangoes exploded like hand grenades, fizzing with their own juice. Flies buzzed over them, over everything. Nothing even resembled an apple.
The wooden shelves were dusty, their contents sparse. Boxes of flour and tins of Carnation condensed milk. Tins of corned beef. Other brands I recognised: Heinz, Bachelors soup. Tins of orange juice and garden peas. Fray Bentos pies. Bags of rice and pulses. Split peas. Black-eyed peas. Gungo peas. Tubs of ghee, bottles of cooking oil. Bottles and boxes of local products: Matouk’s, Bermudez. Towers of wooden crates of Coca-Cola bottles; bottles of rum. Cockroaches flitted along the shelves. I turned a corner.
A fridge! Thank God. In it, four pats of butt
er. Six packets of Birds Eye fish fingers. No milk.
I decided to ask for help, steering my trolley to one of the checkout tills. A young black woman with stencilled-on eyebrows and a hairnet sat there, half asleep.
‘Excuse me.’ I smiled as charmingly as I could. ‘I’m looking for milk and some cheese.’
Her huge black eyes blinked. She looked at me with a profound blankness, somewhere between depression and contempt.
‘I’m new here,’ I explained.
She looked away, muttering inaudible words.
‘Sorry?’
Again, she muttered.
‘I’m afraid I can’t hear you.’
‘We ha’ no cheese.’
‘Oh.’ I perspired profusely.
‘Milk?’
She stared through me.
I waited.
Finally. ‘Ovuh der.’
I didn’t understand. I cringed.
She pointed to the aisle where I’d seen the tins of condensed milk.
‘I want real milk,’ I explained.
She looked mystified and then sullen, as if offended.
I returned to the aisle and found the condensed milk. I threw a tin into my trolley. After that, I hurried. Too ashamed to return to the till empty-handed, I bought anything to fill the trolley, pulling boxes and tins off the shelves without looking at prices, wanting to escape quickly. On the way out, I passed through a different checkout. I didn’t even glance into my basket until I returned safely to our flat. When I emptied it, the contents were very different to my shopping list.
One tin of Carnation condensed milk
One box of Crix crackers
One tin of peas
One bottle of rum
One packet of Birds Eye fish fingers
One jar of Matouk’s marmalade
One bottle of Limacol
One bunch of bananas
One big brown hairy bulb
That evening, George laughed at my haul and reluctantly I did, too. We sat on our balcony and drank rum and ate fish fingers and peas. We devoured the bananas.
‘They’re a little tart, don’t you think?’ George commented.
We discussed the bulb; George found one of his botany books and we decided it was either a yam or cassava. I wanted to talk about the young black checkout girl’s attitude but didn’t know how to bring up the subject. George would only say he didn’t know what I meant. But I wasn’t imagining it. She wasn’t exactly rude or unhelpful; it was her complete refusal to engage, as if I were an irritant. I pushed the subject to the back of my head as best I could.
We played Scrabble and I won.
‘Damn!’ George leapt from his seat in feigned anger at his loss, burying his head in my lap, taking the material of my skirt in his mouth and tugging at it like a lion might tear at a kill. I shrieked as he plunged his head deep between my thighs and somehow, between my protests and then moans, he managed to tear the skirt from my hips with his teeth. We made love on the floor. George whispered thickly into my ear, I love you, love you, love you, Sabine. I never quite managed to mouth the same words back. Most times, I went near to unconscious in his hands.
In the morning our stomachs were bad. The bananas, we discovered, were unripe plantain.
CHAPTER TWELVE
THE HIDING CLUB
Every morning I waited on the balcony for the postman. The Bergerac Flats, a neat row, six on top of six, ours on the top floor, number twelve. One morning my neighbour was waiting, too. I liked the look of her. Intelligent green eyes, a still and candid regret in them that she couldn’t hide. She had dusk-brown skin, a mixture, of Indian and something else, and a poised demeanour; a subtle and aloof manner which made me want to win her favour. She smoked, too, like me. Even in the morning, in her silky blue kimono, she appeared fashionable. I’d noticed her husband, a sprightly, always-smiling, dark-skinned Indian man, bounding up and down the staircase, taking the stairs in twos. We’d exchanged brief hellos.
‘Anything for us?’ I called down to the postman.
‘No, ma’am.’
I sulked. No post for her either.
Until then, George had been my only companion.
‘We’ve just arrived,’ I ventured.
A wan smile. ‘Me too.’
Her accent was American!
‘We’re from England. Well, I’m French, but we came from the UK. My husband has a contract to work for a shipping agent, Forbes-Mason. They service the cruise boats.’
‘I’m from Philadelphia.’
Her face was fully made-up even though it was so early in the morning. Painted-on eyebrows, rouged lips. Her hair was reddish from henna, combed back in a chic Hollywood style.
‘My husband is Trinidadian.’
‘I see. What does he do?’
‘We’re both lawyers.’
I was stunned. She saw this. A resigned expression came into her eyes.
‘I’m Sabine.’
‘Helena Chowdry.’
‘We’ve signed up for three years.’
She nodded.
‘I am finding it all very interesting.’
Helena looked at me carefully with those discreet green eyes. I didn’t mind. I was starved of company. ‘I’ve lost ten pounds. The heat! I am melting.’
She smiled, but only the corners of her mouth turned upwards.
‘How do you keep looking so glamorous?’ I gushed. ‘I’ve given up.’ I wiped the perspiration from my face.
But Helena, like George, was cool-skinned. ‘Oh, I know, it’s terrible,’ she drawled.
I babbled on and gradually Helena thawed. Even so, I extracted little from her: they were newly married, too, her husband’s name was Gabriel. He’d studied law in England. They were settling in Trinidad: no contract, no end date. Helena was proud, guarded in her manner. I didn’t understand why, not then.
In one of the flats below lived Irit, a Hungarian Jewess. Her thick Hungarian accent was luxurious. Irit oohed and ahed and dahhhlinged and rolled her ‘r’s. She even spoke a little French.
‘Sabine dahhhling,’ she purred. ‘Viens ici, come for a petit cocktail, oui? Où est that husband of yours? Out on his petit vélo? What does he expect you to do? Ride on the back? Like some English beatnik? Eh? Viens. I am making some rum punch.’
Irit’s flat was chaotic, full of paintings and books and headless dressmaker’s mannequins pinned up with satin or chiffon. It reeked of garlic and heady Guerlain perfume. Pets were forbidden, but Irit had smuggled in Mao, a violet Persian cat with a rude plume of a tail. She was married to John, a much older Englishman, who’d helped her escape Hungary during the war. John was besotted with her and she was devoted to him. Irit was ravishing with her rich-chocolate hair, cut short; her angular cheekbones. Her eyes were only ever half open and peered up through long inky lashes.
My green Raleigh bicycle saved me. Without it I was stuck. I rode it everywhere in my shorts and halter-neck top. It gave me freedom. I rode it through Boissiere village and then round the savannah. I loved to ride past the big mansions there, the former estate houses of the cocoa barons. Most stood empty, one was a school, Queen’s Royal College. The house on the corner looked like a Rhineland castle, another like an eccentric gunboat, all spires and cupolas and oval windows. One was like a wedding cake made of coral. Another looked like a French chateau. All mimicked bygone European architecture; all seemed ludicrous rather than stately. A castle on the savannah? A chateau surrounded by coconut trees? The owners had arrived, grown rich and then constructed eternal landmarks in an effort to reassure themselves that they were still European. These houses gave me a sense of comfort; like me, they were hopelessly at odds with their environment. I often rode to the savannah just to gaze through their high gates, to conjure up the families who once sat at their dining tables. Little did I know that my daughter would one day marry the descendant of one of these families.
One friend led to two, three, four. All in the same boat, all women, all from other countri
es, mostly Europe. All stranded. We swapped our histories and tips on how to get by. Oona was Irish, Myra was Scottish, Leila was Russian. Jews, Catholics, Protestants, a mixed community; all young, all marooned, our husbands there for the opportunity. The last exploiters? Yes. I can admit this now. I measured myself against these women, determined not to complain too much. They seemed to complain an awful lot. Even so, I welcomed their camaraderie.
We met at the Country Club, which was a short walk from the flat. A Samaan tree spread itself like a cloud outside the front door, its shaggy beard caught up with orchids, dangling to the manicured lawn. The Club spoke of British colonial order, of former French flamboyance and grandeur. Marble sweeping stairs and wide teak verandas. Fountains and a pool and an enormous dance floor. We went every afternoon, when the sun sank, to sip Bentley cocktails. Or we lunched on flying fish and breadfruit chips under cover of the bar area. We used the pool. Every Saturday, the Club hosted a dance and we wore full evening wear, dancing all night.
Uniformed black staff glided about behind us, again in the background of these adventures. Their wordlessness made me feel self-conscious. The staff never spoke unless asked a question; silence, of course, an ingenious form of resistance.
Once, when a waiter brought over a cocktail, I decided to try my luck at conversation: ‘Thank you so much. I’m Sabine,’ I smiled.
‘Yes, Miss.’
‘Do you live far from here?’
‘No, Miss.’
‘I understand it will be carnival soon.’
‘Yes, Miss.’
‘Carnival here is famous, I’m told.’
‘Yes, Miss.’
‘Do you like carnival?’
‘Yes, Miss.’
There was no possibility of a real conversation. But these people weren’t wordless, quite the opposite. I often saw them chattering to each other. Like the girl at the checkout at Chen’s, they just didn’t like to speak to us. Besides, I often couldn’t understand their language. Eh, eh, oho. Mash it up. Watch meh, nuh. Oh Gooood, Oh Gyaaad. They sucked their teeth when cross. This even had a word: steupse. There were many new words to learn, some African, some Africanised French: Bobbol, meaning scandal. Mamaguy, to make fun of. A langniappe was a child born after a long gap. Tantie this and Tantie that. Every older woman was a Tantie someone; the word was a form of the French for aunt. French was my first language and I spoke English fluently; I was a good mimic and had a keen ear for an accent. But the black people I had come across spoke their mixture-language so quickly and so quietly it was almost a whispering.
The White Woman on the Green Bicycle Page 17