‘Just bring me here, to the sea, from time to time.’
‘I will, my darling.’
We kissed and frolicked for an hour or so, till the sun began to set. We sat on the dry, warm sand wrapped in towels, watching the display ‒ shades of mango, paw-paw and hibiscus swam in the sky. We drank a rum-cocktail mixture from a flask and I felt a little better. I loved my husband. Maybe he was right: don’t ask questions. I squeezed his hand and he kissed my fingers.
‘Paradise,’ George said, hugging me.
That first year we wanted to watch the carnival bands. This meant a whole day in the sun. I decided on my favourite Chinese coolie hat with cherries on one side, a gift from George purchased on a trip to Paris. I wanted to dress up.
‘I shall take Grand-mère’s fan,’ I decided. ‘It’ll be so hot.’
Grand-mère’s fan, a prized possession, a hundred years old at least. Whalebone and lace, it resembled the wing of a decayed red admiral butterfly. Grand-mère used it in the high summer months, batting it against her chest. As a child, she let me snap it in and out, play coquette, stamp around her flat shouting ‘Olé!’, hiding my eyes dramatically behind it. Grand-mère’s Chanel No. 5 still lingered in the fabric.
We parked at the nearest corner of the savannah and walked towards town. It was mid-morning and we joined the gathering throng; everywhere groups of people drifted in the same direction, towards Fredrick Street, some in costume, others like us. Open-top cars, full of white people, toured the savannah beeping their horns. They looked gay and happy and festive and black people stared at them as if they were the outsiders, a little odd and foolish.
In those days the carnival masquerade bands were small and fairly segregated. Whites and other light-skinned people stuck together. They played pretty mas by day and their bands were well ordered, parading in lines down the centre of the street or across the stage in the savannah. Some had brass instruments, trombones, trumpets. Their costumes were fairly innocent: farmers, cowgirls, sailors. The whites behaved in an orderly fashion, as though attending an English country fair.
The black bands were more alive and seemed to be more spontaneous in their revelry. This was carnival born from the barrack yards, the jamette class, a spontaneous festival of foolery and trickery devised, years back, to ridicule the rich whites with transvestism and piss-stained sheets. Carnival wasn’t just dressing up, oh no, nothing so simple. It was first fuelled by ill-feeling, by the loathing of the black man for the white master. As I approached the top end of town it was with a sense of thrill mixed with threat, a spectator and yet also an object, the spectacle itself.
The black masqueraders jumped in the streets, their bands accompanied by kings and queens, huge papier-mâché statues on wheels pulled along by a cavorting man or woman. Enormous butterfly creatures, fantasy insects, grasshoppers, begemmed praying mantis. Contraptions of netting and sequins. In Frederick Street we stopped, standing on the pavement outside Sa Gomes, watching the bands parade past. I was grateful for my fan, hiding behind it to watch. Men and women danced in a lewd manner, rotating their hips in full circles, thrusting their backsides rhythmically in and out, often inches apart. Wining, they called it.
A Spanish Armada floated past, papier-mâché galleon-headdresses bobbing on the sea of afro heads. Classical costumes, too: the planter and the planter’s wife, Dame Lorraine, a stock character still much lampooned. Statues of Donald Duck and Mickey Mouse bobbed past. The American marines based at Chaguaramas were unpopular. Little boys, painted blue or red, tiny horns stuck on their heads and with pointy wire tails, ran around causing havoc. Devils. Jab Jabs.
I forgot to hide behind my fan. I wanted to join in, but didn’t dare. I turned round to dance with George but he’d wandered across the hot road to take photographs. I waved at him and he waved back. I moved to the music, enjoying myself, closing my eyes, letting the rhythm take effect, climbing up through my soles, grasping my calves.
So I didn’t see the ol’ mas band arrive with its donkey carts and the men’s faces blackened with coal; didn’t see the Robber Man on his way through the streets, the carnival band in the street scattering. I heard his whistle, though, an ear-splitting screech.
My eyes shot open.
A tall black man stood in front of me. My heart faltered. He wore a wide-brimmed Cavalier’s hat, a black ostrich plume curling from it. His silk cape was voluminous, covering his shoulders and torso. He carried a small box the shape of a coffin.
‘Eh, eh! Look wa’ we have here! A real life Dame Lorraine,’ he said, looking at me. ‘My God. Ting self, man! Look she fan and she hat. She dan dan.’ He pranced around me, showing me off.
His entourage laughed. Children gathered round him, half frozen with fear, half awestruck. I was quickly encircled. At first, I wasn’t too scared.
‘Let me introduce myself,’ he proclaimed, taking my hand as if to kiss it. ‘I am the Night Invader, the Unthwarted Bandit of Paramin, the King of the Verdant Hills, Conjurer of the Clouds, Highwayman, Body Snatcher!’ The children squealed. He bent to kiss my wrist formally, but snarled and slobbered instead.
I tried to snatch it back.
‘Oho. She try to wriggle free.’ He clasped my hand in a steel grip. ‘Madame Lorraine doesn’t like to look at me. Why so? She ‘fraid? She does not know who I am? Why, Madame, wid dis whistle, I can call hurricane from de sout. I can break up de lan’ wid earthquake. I does mash up de sea wid big waves, calling dem ovuh de norden range, over de hills of Paramin. I does wake up de dead!’
His henchmen crowed. The children darted about in circles. One poked at my shoes. The Robber Man clutched my hand.
‘Eh, whitey. You here by yourself? Eh, eh, she pretty like pretty self. Doux doux. Sweetheart. Look how she blush and fan she face. You like it here in Trinidad? Have you sampled any of de local delicacies ?’ He rolled his hips, leering. By then a crowd had gathered, others joining his band, whistling, egging him on.
He stood up straight, about to make a speech.
‘Eh, you like it here in Trinidad? Well, Miss, lemme tell yuh somptin: yuh days numbered. Go back to where you came from. De Doc go put allyuh on a boat. Send you home pack up head to foot, pack you tight, in chains. And if you doh like it he go pitch you overboard. You tink I make joke? Go back, white girl. Take my advice. It time for de people to have der day. We go run dis place, den you go see how yuh like it, eh? Maybe you get taste of your own treat-ment. Maybe we go bury you up to your neck near a red-ant nest! Paste your pretty mout wid honey.’
The crowd erupted, jeering.
The Robber Man lowered his head; we were eye to eye. ‘Or wossssss. Fill dat lovely ass of yours wid gunpowder.’
The children shrieked.
‘Blow you up like a cannon!’
He thrust his face close to mine and smiled sweetly. ‘Eh, doux, doux?’
I trembled.
‘De Doc, he does read books. He know a ting or two. Nature speaks in louder tones dan philosophy. Lightning announce thunder.’ The Robber Man threw his cape back.
‘I tell you dis. Plenty lightning now. He has appeared. Come to save his vexed and oppress children. He has come forward, cast down he bucket. Everywhere people will bless de name of de hero. Eric Williams. Trophies will be raised in his honour.’
I backed up against the shop front in a cold terror.
‘Time to pay up, my plump white chicken!’ The Robber Man opened his coffin. Inside, rolled-up banknotes and coins, a packet of cigarettes, bracelets.
Intentionally, I had left my handbag at home. George kept our money; he was nowhere to be seen.
‘I h-have nothing to give.’
‘Oh no?’
I shook my head.
The Robber Man stared lasciviously at Grand-mère’s fan.
‘No! You can’t have this.’
‘Oh, no?’
One of the children jumped up. Quick as a flash, the child snatched it and threw it in the coffin.
Wap. The Robber Man s
napped the coffin shut. He smiled and bowed and doffed his fine hat.
‘Good day to you, Madame Lorraine.’
He blew his whistle again. The band moved on and the Robber Man vanished.
When George reappeared with his camera, smiling, he found me dazed and limp, and then furious for no reason as I’d been happy on my own.
‘What happened, darling?’ he quizzed me.
‘Nothing,’ I spluttered. ‘Nothing I want to talk about.’
Eric Williams: that year carnival was Eric Williams. I couldn’t avoid him. A young calypsonian called Sparrow erupted into the public consciousness. Lean and hungry, Sparrow was a mesmerising showman, possessing a powerful baritone. When he laughed, a canyon laughed, deep and echoing, and it was hard not to laugh with him. Sparrow pranced and wined on stage in tight suits, his arse as rotund and muscular as a stallion’s. Gold medallions nestled in his chest hair. In the papers I read that he had won both the Road March and Calypso Monarch competition that year. ‘Jean and Dinah’ blared at every public fête, pulsated from every corner parlour, every rum shop in the villages across Trinidad. He was the people’s other hero, photographed everywhere with Eric Williams.
Eric Williams starred in my dreams. Sitting on the veranda at the Country Club, dressed in tweeds, silk tie, polished leather brogues, white waiters attending his every need. Bonny, the bitch, serving him tea and digestive biscuits on her hands and knees. Eric Williams was perusing the grounds of his ancestor, Poleska de Boissière, a white attendant taking notes as he spoke. Eric Williams preparing a speech. I am going to let down my bucket where I am right here with you in the British West Indies.
My shoebox file grew bigger. Cutting round the articles in the Trinidad Guardian that contained him. If I pressed and filed Eric Williams he’d go away, he would stop pestering my thoughts and daydreams. Knowledge was power and with power I could conquer my preoccupation with him.
‘Madam, you crazy. Why you put Dr Williams in a box?’
‘That’s where he’s safe.’
‘Why you ’fraid him so? He a good man.’
‘I’m not afraid of him. I agree with you. He’ll make a big difference.’
‘Of course. Granny love him.’
‘Will he give Granny what she’s been waiting for? Running water, electricity?’
‘Yes, madam. Everyting go change. I will have bath and light bulb and we go buy a stove. Granny Seraphina been saving for it all now. She keep her money safe under she mattress.’
‘I’m sure she’s right.’
‘Yes, madam.’
‘You think you can trust him?’
‘Madam, if we cyan trust him, den who?’
I wanted things to change for Venus. I couldn’t imagine her home. A shack? A shanty, up that cold hill in Paramin? I couldn’t bear to ask. How many shared it? Two or ten? If she bathed in the street what did she use for her ablutions, her time of the month? The whole subject was her secret life, which we never discussed. Besides, we were only visitors. Who was I to distrust or, for that matter, give a damn about Eric Williams? Even so, I kept my cuttings. Snip snip snip round that homely scholarly face, the thick-rimmed spectacles. Snip, snip snip round his speeches, his meetings.
Once, George almost caught me. A shoebox was on the table, stuffed with clippings. The words ERIC WILLIAMS and the year were written on the side of the box facing me.
‘New shoes, my kitten?’ he asked.
I quickly put my newspaper down, covering the box.
‘Yes.’
‘Can I see?’
I blushed. ‘No. I was hoping to surprise you.’
His eyes filled with tenderness.
The box of notes on Eric Williams lay on the table between us. I almost told him then. Almost opened the lid and said, See? I’m going mad here. I want to leave. I’ve lost my senses.
George came forward and I stood. He put his arms around me and kissed my face, my neck, my mouth. I felt a swoon of love for him, the same swoon as on the first night we met.
And George did try to show me the sights. Friends from his office invited us to Toco, the very north-eastern tip of the island. A rough and ragged coastline. Choppy waves. The air fresh with the tang of salt and sea-grapes. But when we reached the beach house the tiny cove was secluded and the sea a lazy lace froth. Some of the froth looked irregular from afar, some of the bubbles bigger than the others. We didn’t go into the sea at first. We dined at the house on the cliff-top, drank rum and ate buljol with Crix. We gossiped.
Later, I wandered down to the cove alone. The surf lapped the shore. On the sand, left behind in the wake of the waves, was something very strange: huge glutinous sacks dotted here and there along the shoreline. Bags of fluid, a frilled ridge along the top. The bags had long tentacles trailing back to the sea. These tentacles were black-blue and several feet long. Not one or two of these jellyfish, but many; I walked along the small beach counting as many as twenty. I looked out to sea and saw that the bubbles in the sea were in fact these jellyfish. Hundreds? Hundreds, like a fleet about to land. Was it the season? I turned and hurried back to warn the others and on the way I came across a gang of skinny children in the narrow lane leading to the house. One was a little Indian girl with long black hair, hanging to her waist. She was elfin, her eyes were black pools. She wore a pink dress and she was gesturing to me while holding out her other arm at a right angle to her body.
‘Come an’ see,’ she said.
I froze.
‘Get that thing off you!’ I shrieked.
The little girl didn’t have long hair at all. Along her outstretched arm she had arranged one of these lethal sea-creatures. The milky bag lolloped dangerously on her puny bicep. The tentacles were spread along her arm and dangled from it, like long black hair. The girl smiled, as if pleased with her magic, her ability not to be stung. She came towards me, as if to let me touch it.
‘Keep away!’ I gasped. But the little girl ran away with the huge jellyfish on her arm. Off to scare another. The other children shouted and laughed and chased after her, up the lane.
When I returned, I told the others what I’d seen.
‘Portuguese man-o’-war,’ said one of the locals in our party.
‘Really?’
‘Yes, it’s the season.’
‘So many?’
‘Sometimes.’
No one believed me about the little girl, not even George.
‘You’re imaging things, darling.’
I wanted to throw my glass of rum in his face. He was always right about things. He had the facts. I didn’t. He understood Trinidad. And I was always seeing what he didn’t see.
We moved house. Forbes-Mason were still building a place for us and when I kicked up a fuss we were allowed to find another. Our new home was twice the size of the flat, tucked down a narrow street right opposite the Country Club. I danced around its empty shell. Three bedrooms, a dining and living room, a patio, a small garden. Furniture, too: new beds, tables, chairs, a proper fridge, a stove. A back yard. High walls and a driveway and suddenly there was space to breathe and be alone. Venus came with us and I could hop and skip to the Country Club.
The rains arrived. Not a drizzling affair. Not a piddling, piffling, pitter-pattering. Not a drip, drip, drip. Not the extended misery of an English winter, where the skies are always shrouded and sullen.
The rain came in a moment. From nowhere. A roar. The hair on the back of my neck stood on end, like needles. Goosebumps rashed my arms. It was a flood hurled from the sky. I shivered and felt guilty about something I’d done, searching my conscience. I sat in the living room and reached for a cigarette, puffing anxiously as I stared through the louvres at the sheets of belting water. What had I done wrong? What? Pools collected on our new lawn. I watched the green mountains all around. Voluptuous, the undulating hills of a woman. I saw her everywhere, this green woman. Her hips, her breasts, her enticing curves. Shoulders, belly. She encircled us. She laughed at us when it rained,
shaking her hair. Birds stopped their chatter. The roar was deafening. The rain, when it came like this, was a lashing, a bombing.
Afterwards, the deep drains behind the house bubbled with brown water. Winderflet River flooded; it became bruised and swollen, the roadside gutters ran riot, engorged, bobbing with stolen goods: shoes, dead snakes, broken-up furniture. Potholes like tiny lakes appeared in the road. Crapauds lumbered out from under stones, burping, licking up the insects hurled from the trees. Mosquitoes, newly hatched, marauded in gangs, clouds of them. It was then I had my first conversation with the hills.
Feel better now, I spoke in a whisper.
Yes.
Feel relaxed?
Yes.
Well, I don’t. I’m on edge.
Relax, she soothed.
You’re beautiful, you know that.
So are you.
I hate you. My husband loves you.
They all love me.
How long will this rain last?
As long as it lasts.
Will there be a hurricane?
No, not this far south.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
HE WANTS TO BE ONE OF US
April: a time of leatherback turtles. We were staying in an apartment on the north coast. I’d persuaded George to come for a swim with me not long after daybreak. The sky was still pale and the surf was tea-green. We sat under a coconut tree to dry off. I huddled in a towel in George’s arms. He stroked my hair as we contemplated the surf. My skin was salt-tight. The swells were hypnotic, bulging. Then, near the shore, a dark shape broke the waves.
‘Look,’ I exclaimed.
The shape surfaced again, something like a small submarine. And then, in a moment, the animal appeared whole-bodied, its shell sleek, its limbs ancient and elephantine. A head like a boulder, a flash of razor gums. The creature heaved itself from the surf, its fins scraping at the sand, oddly mechanical in its gait. She didn’t notice us, or, if she did, she was too exhausted to care about our presence. She shambled past us and began digging not fifteen feet away, her fins tossing up clumps of sand into the air.
The White Woman on the Green Bicycle Page 21