George pressed his lips to my bare shoulder and I felt a thrill spread through my spine. He moved nearer. In minutes the creature had dug a deep well. She manoeuvred herself so that her tail hovered over the pit. I drew closer, too, following George. Then I understood why she didn’t see us. Slowly, George waved his hand in front of her face. No response. She was in an altered state, a birth-trance. The creamy eggs cascaded from her womb. Eyeless, perfect, benign. The sight of them brought on a tender feeling. George reached forward and stroked her blind head. ‘Good girl,’ he whispered. His eyes were also glazed, his face placid: the monster between us was mute, almost desultory, a monument raised from unknowable silt depths. I wanted to put my hand out and catch one of her eggs, steal some of her mystery for myself.
When she was done, she sealed up the hole. We watched from a distance. When she disappeared back into the waves she left a distinctive pattern on the sand, which George carefully swept with branches from a nearby palm. We watched the ocean again and this time I felt an inexplicable emptiness. I felt separate from George, not closer for the experience. George stood at the shoreline and gazed after her for a long time.
George changed. Gradually, over the weeks and months after arriving in Trinidad, I noticed a difference. He stared up at the hills more and more. He would drive up there, up into the spine of Trinidad, past Arima, up to where waterfalls trembled from the green hills. He returned with stories of enclaves of Caribs still living in those hills, of shamans, of ordered mile-long lines of bachac ants, of butterflies the size of birds, blue morpho, of scarlet mountain roses.
George pored over maps, plotted days out, to central Trinidad, the east coast, Manzanilla, Mayaro, once a cocoa estate, where miles of coconut trees arced gracefully towards the sea like crowds of slender girls. Or to the famous Pitch Lake in the south, where thick black tar welled and oozed from the land. He wanted to see the golden tegu lizards at Asa Wright, the agouti, the honeycreepers, the plantations of christophine which covered the hills. Often I went along on these trips. I observed Trinidad as he did, this landscape parading its fertility, a banquet of eccentric delicacies. I had never seen a tiny tree spouting from the parched dried husk of a beached coconut; never seen fireflies, like fairy lights, like minute oil lamps, etching out the garden trees at night. I saw what George saw and knew, finally, that I had competition.
In June, when the rainy season arrived in earnest, the skies swelled and remained dark for most of the day. I didn’t ride my bicycle. George bought a small Ford saloon and I took driving lessons. We found a new club. St Andrew’s Golf Club was higher up in Winderflet. George played mostly in the early mornings in the rainy season. We socialised there on Saturday evenings, especially if there was a tournament. A barbeque, rum punches round the bar. Once, I came up to the bar to meet George and found him standing with a man I didn’t know; his dark hair was slicked back with brilliantine. He was light-skinned, his eyes alert, teasing.
‘Darling!’ George broke off. ‘Come and meet Sebastian.’
We shook hands and, either because he held a cold drink, or because my hand was damp, a crackle shot between us. Momentarily, it was embarrassing.
‘This is my wife, Sabine.’
‘You!’ Sebastian dashed his electrified hand to his forehead. ‘The white woman on the green bicycle! This is your wife?’
‘Yes.’
Sebastian shook his head. ‘Jesus Christ. Well . . . What a surprise. I’m very pleased to meet you.’
He smiled at me, a mixture of wonder and regret. ‘Everybody wants to know who you are. You’ve been causing a commotion. We’ve all been dying to know your identity. You cycle past my surgery. You stop traffic. Cars crash behind you. Haven’t you noticed?’
‘No.’ I was too busy watching out for Eric Williams.
‘You must be the only white woman ever to ride a bicycle through the streets of Port of Spain.’
‘I come in to shop or meet George.’
‘How long have you been here?’
‘Six months.’
‘Sebastian is a doctor, Dr Sebastian Baker, the best in town, I hear,’ George explained. ‘A good golfer, too.’
‘Oh, I think I’ve seen your wife. At the Country Club,’ I said.
‘Christobel? Oh, good. She’s on her way.’
My stomach tightened. I’d been intrigued by her, but also put off. Christobel hadn’t changed her attitude over the months. A wordless communiqué between us: Keep your distance.
When Christobel appeared I stood my ground.
‘Christobel, I believe you know Sabine.’
Christobel Baker towered several inches taller than me. Up close she looked even more regal, her skin honey-brown and buffed, a décolletage so voluptuous it was hard not to stare. Her dark bobbed hair was pushed back in a bandeau, revealing a high smooth forehead. Her eyebrows were arched and fine, eyes outlined in kohl. She peered down her long nose.
‘Pleased to meet you, at last.’ Her accent was local, sing-song, but nothing like Venus’s broad dialect. Her voice was languorous, like her manner.
‘This is the woman who’s been cycling all over Port of Spain,’ Sebastian chuckled. ‘This is her.’
‘You?’ Christobel’s eyes creased with mirth. ‘Yes. I’ve seen you at the Club. We’ve never been introduced. But you’re famous.’ Her face cracked into a smile crossing the width of her face, dissolving my reserve, bewitching us all.
George, the fool, was completely smitten.
‘Is there something wrong with cycling?’ I asked.
‘Well, no.’ Sebastian was politic. ‘But no one else would do it here, no white local woman.’
Christobel examined me. I felt the heat of her gaze, wished I’d made up my face, worn a more stylish dress, higher heels. My hair was wet after a shower, plastered to my scalp. I couldn’t meet her eyes. I sensed she was wondering if I was attractive enough to steal her husband.
‘How long are you here for?’ she probed.
‘Another two years.’
‘Minimum,’ George chipped in.
‘Maximum,’ I snapped.
‘You’re already counting the days?’
‘I didn’t mean that. It’s just everything is so different here. Like my bicycle. I keep getting things wrong.’
‘Where are you from?’
‘I’m French.’
‘Ah, my family were French, too. From Martinique.’
‘Parlez-vous français?’
She shook her head.
I was disappointed.
‘Christobel is fourth generation,’ Sebastian boasted.
A fine specimen, too, I thought. The perfect hybrid to withstand the West Indies. Her blended skin, her Afro-European features, her demeanour. Proud of all this.
‘What makes someone a Creole?’ I asked.
‘It’s a birthright,’ Christobel explained. ‘Everyone born here is a Creole of some sort, except the East Indians. They arrived with their own culture intact. The rest of us have all been seasoned. We’ve lost our native language. No one here speaks Spanish or French or African any more. A little of French patois exists here and there, in remote places. We’re transformed from what we were.’
‘How?’
‘The landscape, the sun. The temperature. The heat gets to us all in the end, especially the Europeans. We’ve seen so many come and go. Mosquitoes like white skin. George, you like it here?’
‘Yes. This country is ravishing.’
I almost hit him.
‘I love the sun, the temperature. I don’t seem to notice the mosquitoes,’ George smiled easily.
‘You like the rum, too, eh?’
‘Of course.’
‘What about society?’ Christobel said this with her nose in the air, her chin set square.
‘I’m bedazzled. In love with every creature made in Trinidad.’
‘Really?’ She batted her lashes.
‘Trinidad is a place where God came to design the planet earth.’
<
br /> ‘You are romantic, no?’
‘This is where I want to live. Maybe even die.’
They were getting on my nerves.
‘What do you think of Eric Williams?’ I intervened. I studied Christobel, wanting her to answer this question, for it was a new question. I wanted answers.
‘Oh him. Ha,’ Christobel snorted.
‘I’ve seen him speak, in Woodford Square.’
‘That little runt? You couldn’t pay me to go der.’
I was almost personally insulted. George looked awkward, but Christobel kept her cool.
‘He’s not a runt at all,’ I retorted. ‘He’s been to Oxford.’
‘That man, that bush nigger in a suit?’
I stared, incredulous. Her face was marked with bitter contempt. I had never seen such a look of superiority.
‘Why do you hate him?’
‘Hate him? He hates us �� he wants to be one of us.’
‘Well.’ I looked her up and down. ‘Isn’t he?’
Christobel barely concealed a snarl. I flashed my eyes and smiled and quit the subject, not daring to ask what I thought: Are you and Eric Williams related?
When we got home I hurled a banana at George’s head. It was in protest at his fawning.
‘Ravishing. Oh God! Your eyes were on stalks!’
‘So what? I can look, can’t I?’
‘She’d eat you for her dragon’s breakfast.’
George was thrilled at my jealousy. ‘Now, now, there’s no need for that.’
‘She was breathing fire all over you, you stupid man.’
‘What about him?’
‘Who?’
‘Sebastian. He couldn’t keep his eyes off you. He practically jumped out of his skin when you appeared. I bet he’s got a pair of binoculars in his desk drawer. I bet it makes his day when you cycle past.’
‘Oh, be quiet. She’s such a snob. She’s the jumped-up bush nigger. What makes her white and Eric Williams black? They’re both a mixture. What gives her the right to look down on him?’
‘It’s a class thing, mostly, not colour,’ George explained. ‘Christobel is from the class of the master. Williams is from the class of the slave. She is a queen and he is a servant, that’s the unspoken class structure between them. She doesn’t like the roles reversed.’
‘Well, someone in her family slept with the servants, that’s for sure. Maybe that’s what she doesn’t like. That Great-Grandpapa was a common philanderer.’
‘Very likely.’
‘This place. French Creole, British, master, slave. A tiny fickle inward world, more snobby than England. Did you hear what she said about Williams? Do you think she’s got much of an education? And I’m now supposed to stop riding my bicycle.’
‘I love you on your bicycle. Please don’t stop riding it.’
‘Oh George! I hate Trinidad.’
‘I love you.’
‘I’ll ride my bike for you, then.’
‘It will make my day, puddle duck.’
‘Oh, get lost.’
‘Come here, duckling.’
Once, Venus was silent for a whole day. I couldn’t penetrate her mood, no matter what I tried or said. I left her alone, which was always the best thing to do. She chopped vegetables loudly, and sighed heavily. We had become close, but I had still never met Granny, or visited her home up in Paramin. I had grown increasingly curious, but never dared invite myself or offer Venus a lift home. She lived in my house and knew my world, but her home and her world were none of my business.
‘Oh God, Venus, what’s wrong?’ I blurted.
‘It Granny.’
‘What about her?’
‘She join de PNM.’
‘What?’
‘She gone political, she say she done done. She sign up wid de political fellas.’
‘That’s a good thing, no?’
‘She go see Mr Williams speak all over de country. She sleep out on de street. She gone for days, down sout, over in Arima. She gone mad.’
‘You should be proud of her. Eric Williams will lead Trinidad. Maybe he’ll employ Granny. That would keep her out of trouble.’
Venus giggled.
‘I mean it. I hear he is very pro-women. He has very progressive ideas. How old is Granny, anyway?’
Venus went quiet and shook her head. ‘Nobody know. She ent even know. Granny old.’
I smiled just at the thought of such a formidable pair of colleagues. Eric Williams as Prime Minister and Granny Seraphina as his deputy. Granny was still a mystery.
‘I’d love to meet Granny.’
‘Granny woh come here.’
‘Then invite me round for tea.’
Venus rolled her eyes.
‘Trust me.’
But Venus went silent again. No deal.
Late one Friday afternoon, I was cycling past the big church in Abercrombie Street when I spotted a commotion up ahead. I sailed right into the knot of cars, without a thought, finding myself behind a large flashy American car, a Buick. The car had stopped at the lights or maybe the lights had broken down or maybe there had been an accident, I’m not sure. I pulled up much too close to the left-hand side of the car and noticed a chauffeur in the driver’s seat. I was wearing shorts and a halter-neck top, as usual. Up ahead I saw the cause of the hold-up: crates of oranges had fallen from the back of a truck.
‘Eh, eh,’ the chauffeur steupsed and beeped his horn. I peered surreptitiously into the back seat. In an instant, I recognised him. Eric Williams. The suit, the thick black glasses. He was sitting against the cream leatherette, composed ‒ and looking straight at me! He was sizing up my backside. I turned quickly, head facing front, trying to think of a way past. My shoulders, my back, my legs blazed with fury. And yet, with the same sense of intrigue, the words he’d uttered that day, up there on the bandstand, came to me. Repudiate colonialism. I felt his gaze on me.
‘Hurry up!’ I shouted at the people ahead. Eric Williams was appraising me, his eyes shooting hot lines up and down my back. Another truck had driven across the road, blocking us.
The chauffeur beeped his horn. The second truck reversed back enough for me to slip past and I pedalled frantically, only to find the American car trailing me, beeping, trying to beep me out of the way.
Others began to notice who was in the car and a path cleared. I pedalled harder, refusing to get out of his way. His huge car caught up with me and then, for a moment, or maybe two, the car tracked my course, along the hot narrow street towards the dock, towards the Red House. That’s where he was going, I presumed, for a meeting with those he was to replace.
I glanced across.
Eric Williams nodded. I wobbled and looked ahead. I glanced again. This time, he was abreast of me. His face had a studious expression, his head was tilted, as though wanting to ask a question. I had so many questions for him. I wanted to shout them across through the window. But our wheels moved forwards, both of us gliding as if on magic carpets, up Abercrombie Street. I wanted to scream but the words were caught up in me. We’re not wanted here. They hate us. We came too late, George. That little runt, that bush nigger, he wants to be one of us. Panic rose in me, for no reason. And I was enjoying his eyes on me, squirming with the pleasure of his curiosity. I wanted him to look, yes; I wanted his eyes on me.
Riding home, I looked up into the hills of the green woman of Trinidad. She surrounded our home. Venus and Granny lived somewhere up there, hidden in the discreet folds of her thighs.
I understand nothing of you, I whispered to her.
One day you will.
I’m not planning on staying that long.
Go away, then.
Before I go, I’ll venture up.
Like your husband does.
What?
He comes to look at me, all the time.
Really?
Of course. I knew. I knew.
That night, George and I drank rum cocktails and dined on crab-backs and curried kingfish. Pe
pper and rum stung my lips. George lounged on the sofa with a novel and I stood by the open door, restless, looking out onto the porch. The night sky was alive, ablaze with fiery stars, with a ripening moon; the air was very humid. I turned to face my husband.
‘George?’
‘Yes, my love?’ Casually, he looked up.
Slowly, I began to unfasten my blouse from the bottom upwards, pulling it open delicately, as though the fabric were opera curtains.
‘Look at me.’ I revealed the stage.
George’s eyes lit up.
I pulled the blouse wider, exposing my flat belly, my breasts, which were firm and snug in a fine black-lace bra.
George gazed at me.
I shrugged my blouse to the floor and unhooked my bra, the cups relaxing. I held the bra to my breasts, gazing down at myself, the feast of me, and then flicked my eyes back to George, raising my eyebrows to make sure he understood that I was a gift, that he must never take me for granted. I smiled, dropping the bra. Moonlight fell on my shoulders. I caressed myself under the moon-curves of my breasts, running my palms over my nipples until they stiffened to points. I loved my young body. I turned slowly, so George could look at the shapes of me, the swells and swoops, my slim waist, the S of my back. My breasts, like fruit, like pears, soft and swollen in that first skin of youth. I lifted up my arms and arched my back so they moved like naked dancers.
George stopped reading his novel, oh yes. He came towards me on his knees.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
THE HOUSE IN PARAMIN
Irit had opened a boutique at the top of Frederick Street, Zandolie, and it was a great success locally. It reeked of heady scents, the musky incense sticks she bought from Rastafarian vendors on the pavement: orangewood, frankincense.
‘Like a holy place, no?’ Irit laughed.
She served strong cardamom-scented coffee to regulars and had arranged a peacock-backed wicker throne in one corner which encouraged customers to sit and chat. We often gossiped while she sewed behind her tiny desk. Most of the dresses were her original design. She sold locally-made accessories as well as expensive smuggled-in watches and jewellery and crystal perfume bottles and handbags. The boutique was half cave, half Burlington Arcade. You could buy Cartier and Rolex watches and brooches carved from a coconut husk.
The White Woman on the Green Bicycle Page 22