‘You were fonny on dat bike.’
‘How so?’
‘A white girl dress so casual, who ent care who look at she. Many wouldn’t do dat.’
‘Why?’
‘White women ’fraid black men look at dem.’
‘People stare now. They never used to.’
‘Madam, tings different.’ There was a look of caution in her eyes.
‘I thought I was imagining it.’
‘No, madam, maybe bes you don’t ride down tong dese days. Maybe it bes you ride it rong close by us.’
I scrubbed and scrubbed until the bike shone. Venus’s words nagged at me. What did she mean? What would happen if I rode my bike into town? Before I knew what I was doing, I had opened the front gate, mounted the bike and cycled out into the road.
‘Bye-bye, Venus! I won’t be long,’ I shouted over the hibiscus hedge. ‘Look after the children.’
Venus came to the kitchen window, mouth open, shaking her head. ‘Madam, you mad! You watch yuhself.’
I tinkled the bell on the handlebars, pedalling slowly down the road, past the Country Club and down into Boissiere village, alert, watching out for those who might be watching me. Years had passed since I’d ridden my green bicycle into town. Years since I’d cycled to meet George at the docks, since my arrival. I was a different woman now, a mother, less innocent.
I rode down into Frederick Street in the midday sun. The streets were bustling, everybody on their lunch hour. Pigtailed brown-skinned schoolchildren in white knee socks and uniforms strolled along in groups. An old man, dreadlocks in his beard, leant on his cane as he promenaded down the hot pavement. I weaved in and out of traffic, down to Marine Square, to the cathedral there, right down to the dock, where I dismounted. I bought a snow cone from a vendor, wheeling the bike towards the lighthouse, all the while adjusting to the stark assessing gaze of those around me. It bored holes through my back. Worse, far worse than the sun. I kept moving, nervous, eating the sweet red cherry ice. People stared but I couldn’t stare back. It wasn’t dangerous or menacing; somehow it was worse, an ancient consideration. Or had they all been listening to Eric Williams in Woodford Square? Were they his students? Had his message settled in their hearts? Yes. I imagined them all waving balisiers. No one would physically harm me, no, nothing like that. This was covert, a group operating as one.
‘Ayyy,’ a man called from across the road. ‘Come here, white meat. Lemme taste a piece, see if white taste different. Come here, nuh, lousy white pig.’
We mixed with the Bakers on and off at cocktail parties and dances. Christobel dwarfed me physically. Socially, too; her status was as good as aristocracy. Sebastian Baker’s eyes fired up whenever he saw me and I played up to it. He’d delivered both my babies and I was comfortable around him, had an unspoken and natural intimacy with him.
‘Come and dance with me, Sabine,’ he said one night at a Country Club fête. He pulled me onto the tightly-packed dance floor. I wore a low-cut dress, a well-boned bra. I flattened myself against him and he groaned with pleasure. I laughed and let him enjoy the feeling of my young body pressed to his. He was light on his feet, an excellent dancer. We salsaed into the centre of the crowd.
‘How are your children, Sabine?’
‘Happy.’
‘And beautiful?’
‘Very.’
‘Like their mother, then.’
One hand was cupped to my buttocks as he gazed into my face and ample cleavage. Our thighs were locked. A little tipsier and God knows I’d have reached up and kissed him in full view of George and Christobel. He smiled, guessing my desire. I let him pull me closer and could feel he was aroused. We danced well together, slowly, moving as one. I was happy to enjoy another woman’s husband, who, up close, smelled of limes and whisky and brilliantine and the heat of the evening.
‘You look ravishing this evening,’ he whispered into my ear.
I pressed myself closer.
When we left the dance floor we were drenched in sweat, mostly other people’s. Christobel had watched us and her face, as we approached, was bleak. She shot Sebastian a look of pure hatred.
‘You minx,’ George chided, dancing me back into the crowd, where I fell into his body, fell into step with him, in love with him again. I loved everything about George. His long slim hands, his boyish face, his eyes, so full of casual mirth. I loved his freckles, the strange rust shadow of stubble which appeared when he hadn’t shaved for a few days. George’s face glowed. It was that of an innocent, yet George was far too clever to be innocent. He gazed down at me with love-swollen eyes and this melted me. I loved George and no one else.
George spun me around, pulling me close. ‘I’m your slave,’ he whispered.
‘Then take me away from here.’
He pulled me tighter, pressing his lips to my neck. ‘Yes, my love. Yes.’
My skin had turned milk-coffee brown. I was shades darker. There was no escaping it. The Trinidad sun was mighty, omnipotent. And I perspired constantly. Whenever I showered and towelled myself dry, I was damp again within minutes. I sweated from doing nothing, just sitting. There were two seasons: the dry season and the rainy season. But it was always humid. I was always limp, half-hearted. I often walked around dazed, forgetful. The heat punished me, treated me with contempt. It leached away my strength. Venus, I noticed, hardly perspired, never complained. Mosquitoes never troubled her either. I itched all the time as they devoured me. TCP was my eau de parfum, Limacol was my eau de cologne.
We endured a plague of scorpions, tiny brown shrimp-like creatures with barbs held high above their heads. George trod on one and was off work for days. We found the nest under an old bench out in the tool shed. Bachacs were another pest, red ants which marched in unwavering columns; their razor-sharp jaws vibrated like an electric knife. They stripped one of our mango trees in a day, denuded shrubs in hours. They even made off with other, larger insects: cockroaches, spiders, often wriggling, legs in the air, like damsels in distress, carried up above the ants’ heads. If you tried to block their path, they tramped around your trap like robots. The only way to stop them was to pour a lethal blue poison into their nest, but finding this was near impossible. Bachacs lived in colonies dug deep into the ground. They marched for days to hunt. Scorpions and bachacs and army ants and tack tacks, big black ants the Amerindians used as surgical stitches. Then there were Jack Spaniards, wasps with bums hanging at right angles to their torsos. Trinidad teemed with ferocious insects.
Nothing upset me more than the bats. At night, tiny pipistrelles swooped at great speed through the house. Leathery velvet rockets which hit the ceiling-fan propellers, splattering guts across the walls. The first time this happened, I cried. Mon Dieu, mon Dieu.
I became a murderess. I went mad with murdering these beasts. I whacked and bashed and sprayed Flit onto anything and everything which crept or wriggled. I nail-varnished caterpillars, hair-sprayed beetles. I stamped and kicked away all manner of scuttling black demons: wood lice, earwigs, centipedes. I mashed and mangled them to death.
Venus arrived one morning looking miserable. Her face was drawn, her expression preoccupied.
‘Venus, what’s the matter?’
She steupsed.
I didn’t want to push.
‘Are Bernard and Clive all right?’
She moped, nodding.
‘Please tell me. I can’t bear it if you don’t.’
The whites of her eyes were huge, veined with red. Clearly she hadn’t slept.
‘What is it?’
‘Water, madam.’
‘What?’
‘We ha no water for six days.’
‘What? Why didn’t you tell us?’
‘De stanpipe in de road dry up. I OK. Ah does bathe here. But de chilren dirty. Granny cyan bathe. We cyan cook.’
‘What happened?’
She shrugged. ‘Me ent know. Dey tun off de supply for buildin’ somptin.’
‘And they’ve forgotten to turn it back
on?’
‘It seem so.’
‘Why didn’t you tell me? Why don’t you ring the water authorities?’
‘We ha no phone. Nor de neighbours.’
I blushed with shame.
‘Oh Venus. Go and use the shower. When you’re finished we’ll go and get the children and Granny. They can all come here to bath. We’ll get some plastic drums, fill them for you.’
Venus’s eyes were full. I sent her off and found the phone book, searching for the number for the water services. I rang it but no answer; rang again and the same thing. I rang and rang until the phone went dead. I rang George.
‘Hello, darling.’
‘Why hasn’t he done the most basic things?’ I bellowed.
‘What are you talking about?’
‘Five years! It’s been five years. What’s he doing? What are they doing?’
‘Who, darling?’
‘The PNM.’
‘Darling, you’ve gone mad. What’s the problem, what are you talking about?’
‘Venus has had no water for six days.’
‘Well, ring the water authorities.’
‘The cretins aren’t in.’
‘Well, I’m sure there’s some good reason.’
‘I’m sure there’s no good reason. For God’s sake: can’t you see it? Nothing works. No one cares. Not even they care about Venus. They say they do. But they don’t care. She’s invisible. Eric Williams? That stupid hearing aid he wears. He’s gone deaf in five years. He goes shopping at Zandolie, flirts with women. Granny Seraphina is saving for a stove. Do you think that she’ll get current in her lifetime?’
‘Darling, I’ll be home soon. Simmer down.’
This put me into a wilder state. ‘You stupid man,’ I shouted and slammed the phone down.
Venus came up behind me, smelling of coal-tar soap. She smiled carefully, having overheard.
Fuming, I drove with Venus up Morne Cocoa Road to Paramin. When we arrived at the corner where the old house stood I sensed a stiffness come over Venus; I guessed she didn’t want me to come in.
‘Stay here a moment,’ she muttered.
I parked and waited in the car.
Venus hopped up the steps, peering into the dark interior of the house. ‘Granny?’ she called.
No reply.
‘Wait a while,’ Venus called down to me.
I nodded.
She disappeared inside.
I sat for a moment contemplating the mountainside. He used his power shamelessly for his own private needs. The mountain was silent. Anger rolled around inside me. I wanted to kick the mountain, strangle Eric Williams. Bellow for order, for a hurricane to blow that old house down the hill. I got out of the car and waited down in the yard. I could hear a commotion in the little house, Venus talking in lowered tones. A toddler crying.
A skinny dog prowled near by. It didn’t look fed.
‘Venus?’ I shouted, mounting the steps. ‘Venus? Can I help?’
Venus’s face appeared from behind the sheet-curtain, worried.
‘Please, let me help.’ I was halfway up the steps.
‘It Granny . . . she cyan get up. Ah try to raise her up, but she too heavy.’ Still Venus was reluctant to open the door.
‘I’ll come in then,’ I offered.
It was gloomy in the old house, quiet and gloomy, everything cast in soupy shadows, shades of brown, ochre. A table in the makeshift kitchen. Pantry cupboards. Sheets draped as curtains. Plastic roses in a vase. A huge cross high up on the wall, pictures of the Lord and the Virgin in thick gilt frames. Everything so tidy, bare. Bernard, the baby, was asleep in a straw basket on the floor. Clive sat on the sofa, sucking his thumb.
Venus led me to the back of the house. A figure lay on a mattress on a metal-framed bed, very brown and small. Granny Seraphina. A sheet was pulled firmly up to her chin. Her lips were sucked into her mouth. She seemed to have been praying hard. Her white hair was covered in the same red scarf.
‘Granny, Mrs Harwood here. She come to take you fer a bath.’
The old woman nodded minutely. Her brilliant yellow eyes were enormous, stripping me down.
Together we tried to help Granny to her feet. I saw what Venus meant: the old woman was heavy. Tiny, emaciated, but heavy. A bag of metal bones. With great effort we managed to raise her. No word of thanks; in fact, I got the impression she’d rather I hadn’t come.
We struggled down the skinny stone steps to the car, propping Granny up. We helped her into the back seat, forcing her rough body to sit down.
‘I ent goin’ nowhere.’ She tried to get out but we calmly forced her to sit. We went back up the stairs and picked up the boys and settled them in the car next to Granny. Venus sat in front with me, clutching a bag of spare clothes for everyone. My stomach swam; I thought of the Robber Man. He has appeared. Come to save his vexed and oppress children. Eric Williams: five years. What was he doing?
I peered into the rear-view mirror at Granny Seraphina, who stared out the window: waiting. She didn’t want to look at me; she didn’t like the look of me.
Venus took her sons to the shower adjoining the room in which she slept in our house. There was much squealing and squawking with delight under the warm jets of water. I collected their dirty clothes and put them in the washing machine. Granny sat at the kitchen table, resolutely silent. Her back was hunched and she stared into her lap, fingers laced together, a different person to the firebrand at the rally, to the woman I had met weeks before. This woman had come undone, temporarily. I began to prepare sandwiches, busying myself buttering sides of bread, deciding it best not to make small talk. Granny Seraphina. Made from what? Oil? From tallow wax? From old rope? What did we have to talk about? I matched her silence. Buttering bread, slicing ham, tomatoes. Cutting off crusts. Then I noticed she was looking past me, inspecting the four-ringed electric stove behind me.
‘Venus tells me you’re saving for a stove,’ I dared, heat in my cheeks.
She nodded slowly.
‘You must be thirsty. Would you like a cup of tea?’
She stared. A stupid question.
‘I’m going to have one.’ I turned the knob. The kettle always sat on a ring.
Granny studied my movements.
‘Come and see,’ I said.
She resembled a skittish horse, head held high, poised, eyeing me.
‘Come and feel,’ I encouraged, holding my hand above the reddening ring.
This invitation got the better of her: she rose slowly, mouth set.
I lifted the kettle up.
Granny approached, hand out, palm down. The ring pulsed candy red.
She held her hand out above it, nodding, as if she knew.
‘It goes hot quite quickly,’ I said.
Cold yellow eyes, deadly with intent. ‘Yes. We gettin’ one a bit smaller.’
In the end the Queen didn’t attend the ceremony. I was piqued. Instead, she sent her sister, Princess Margaret, who read out a message from the Queen, the usual starchy stuff. Even so, thousands flocked to Woodford Square to watch the ceremony one steamy overcast afternoon in August. It was 1962. Marches and parades in every village in Trinidad, euphoria in the streets. Eric Williams, Trinidad’s new leader, read out his solemn pledge to the people. The Union Jack was lowered. The newly designed red flag of Trinidad and Tobago was hoisted onto a white pole in the Red House forecourt. A lump rose in my throat as I watched all this on television. Eric Williams became Trinidad’s first Prime Minister. No longer a try out, a by-proxy affair. He and his party, the PNM, would rule undisturbed by the Crown.
I was moody all day. I clubbed cockroaches. I played with the children. I took a shower and sat down afterwards, plucking my eyebrows too thin. We’d been invited to a party to celebrate but I didn’t feel celebratory.
‘You’re as jumpy as a cat,’ George noticed.
I had an idea.
I’d write to him! My very own ritual to commemorate his arrival.
I found some writing paper and ink. I filled a fountain pen. In my cocktail dress, at my dressing table, I sat down to write. I stared at the pages but the words didn’t come. I saw him on the bandstand. Standing heel to toe. Casual and sure of himself. The man who watched me through the windows of his flashy car. No words between us then. Something was wrong. So much placed on his shoulders. I thought of my young son, Sebastian. I would never want him to grow up to rule a world; would never wish this for any one man. I began to scribble down my thoughts and hopes and well wishes for the new government, giving them my blessings. My heart was full of trepidation.
Remember me? The white woman on the green bicycle. I know you saw me. I know you. Talk, talk, talk. Today, all that pomp and ceremony. Good luck. Kiss the hand that kept you down. You should tell them all to get stuffed, including that horsey twit of a princess. Already you are adapting your words. You are letting them dictate the very way they allow you to take over. Is this the right way to get started? You don’t know them like I do. My husband George, he’s one of them. Quite mad. They’re indestructible. Massa day done? Well, tell that to Granny Seraphina. Tell that to the old slave woman. She’s the one you need to worry about. No water for six days. No current. When will it come? When will you remember her? Oh Father of the Nation. Granny can’t write to you. She can’t read and write. Why do I feel unhappy? Why am I full of mistrust? You’re a child again, Trinidad. Not an adult. A child. Don’t run, don’t run away with yourself. Learn to walk again, walk away from them. Crawl and walk in the opposite direction.
TRINIDAD, 1963
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
THE CASTLE
George built his hacienda out in the bush. His great-aunt died suddenly, and it was just the windfall he needed. A local architect helped him realise his dream. When he razed the land on that old ruined cocoa estate, he found he wasn’t the first to build in that lonely godforsaken valley at the foot of that voluptuous hill. Miraculously, the roof of another house peeked from behind the tall grasses, right behind our plot. A mad French Creole had beaten George to it.
The White Woman on the Green Bicycle Page 25