Further up, on the left, Forbes-Mason, gutted and hacked.
‘Dear God,’ George murmured.
There was glass all over the pavement. We drove abreast of the block, peering in. The floor was black with soot and ashes. The chairs and desks were charred, overturned. In-trays and telephones and Rolodexes and ring binders blackened, broken, flung across the floor. Paper, reams of blackened paper. Magazines, Manila folders pulled from shelves, hurled across the room. Petrol fumes, like a bee swarm, hung over it all.
George stared across me, shaking his head.
Three armed policemen walked towards us.
‘Come on, George, let’s go.’
George was sombre, as though he had been personally attacked. We accelerated, turning straight across the square, down Chacon Street and then out, out of it all. And there, beside the Queen’s Wharf, like a massive swan: the Southern Cross, milk white, spotless, glistening in the white heat. The cruise ship towered above the dock, its tiers of decks like folded wings, the glittering windows of the bridge a tiara nestling on its brow. A fantasy vessel banked alongside the smooth flat wharf. It was moored, the gangplank up. Even so, riot police were guarding it.
‘George . . .’
‘We’ll be on it.’
‘Thank God.’
‘I’ll arrange it when we get home.’
We sped past and away from Port of Spain. Out in the Gulf of Paria, way out, I spotted the smeary outlines of grey ships approaching, a small fleet. Pelicans sat regarding them, too, with the lack of interest they show everything. Eric Williams: surely this was the end of him. We drove up through Woodbrook and then past the cricket oval, missing Long Circular Road where Camp Ogden was ablaze, the firemen unable to put the fire out due to low water-pressure.
Trinidad. Even in revolution it was a farce. Mutiny. Antique tin hats for those who would defend the state. A trickle of water to douse the fires of discontent and half the government hiding at the Hilton.
We found a small supermarket open on the way back, its shelves mostly bare. We managed to buy bread and condensed milk, some cheese, a dozen eggs, four tins of baked beans. Plantain too, a bottle of rum, a bag of pomme-aracs. We arrived home to find Lucy making up a jug of freshly squeezed orange juice, sprinkling it with Angostura bitters. She’d carried in a bag of oranges on her head.
Lucy was silent, her eyes welling, glossy and black.
‘Lucy, how are things in the valley?’ I asked.
‘Quiet, Miss. This stupidness only happenin’ in town.’
‘It’s not stupidness, Lucy. They’ve burnt down Mr Harwood’s office, burnt it to the ground. He can’t go back there now. We’re leaving the day after tomorrow. On a big ship. We’re all packed. Miss Irit is coming to live here.’
Lucy stood like a statue over by the sink, motionless. Mountainous.
‘Lucy, don’t cry.’
She wiped tears from her eyes with her apron.
‘I go lose mih job, Miss, lose Miss Pascale. I go lose you and Mr Harwood, and Venus. It not easy to fin’ a work at my age, Miss.’
‘Lucy!’ I went over and hugged her. ‘I’ll pay your wages for the next six months. I’ll tell Miss Irit you’re here, too, to look after the house with her. You’ll be a team. You’ll like her.’
‘OK, Miss.’
‘I’ll write and ring when we get to England. Pascale will write, too, and we’ll send you photos and keep in touch with you and Venus. Have you heard from her?’
‘No, Miss.’
Her good eye was roving, trying to keep up with events.
‘Lucy, we have to go. People like us, we’re not wanted here. We’re part of the problem. Trinidad is changing. It must change.’
‘Oh gorsh . . .’ She sighed heavily.
‘All those tonics you’ve given me, eh? I’ve been unhappy for a long time, always because of the way things are. You’ve helped me, but Trinidad’s problems won’t be fixed with one of your tonics.’
‘No, Miss.’
‘I’ll miss you.’
‘Yes, Miss.’
It was a day of goodbyes. The phone rang constantly. Jules came over at midday, already drunk. Freddie and his wife came over, too. Other neighbours heard we were leaving and rang the doorbell. They brought rum and Scotch, buljol and Crix. A fraught, chain-smoking lime started up round the bar. Trinidadians are impressive this way: they can lime under any conditions. Ol’ talk, make jokes. Soon we’d migrated to the swimming pool, drunk on nerves as much as alcohol, recounting stories about Molotov cocktails and offices set on fire. Freddie’s textile shop on Duke Street had been badly hit, too.
‘Dey say Williams in a state. Dis hit him hard,’ said Jules.
‘But of course,’ Freddie replied. ‘He hated by everyone now. De poor blacks and de business community. Dis a disaster for de country. Set us back ten years. We back where we started. Damn, blasted Africans.’
George was bleary-eyed, utterly overcome. ‘I met Williams once, you know, at the Hilton. I liked him. Very bright man. Sabine has always . . . found him interesting, haven’t you, darling?’
Heat rose in my cheeks.
‘She attended his lectures in Woodford Square, didn’t you, darling ?’
‘Jesus Christ, you went der?’ said Freddie. ‘Yous one madwoman.’
‘Woodford Square, man,’ said Jules, sozzled. ‘Alla dat lecture bullshit. Williams can kiss my ass.’
I went quiet. I didn’t like that George had exposed my secret. That I had seen him talk. George didn’t know, he hadn’t witnessed the man in full flow. I was there. Granny too. Even though he didn’t merit sympathy I couldn’t help but feel sad. Williams in a state. I was disconcerted by this news. It’s a woman’s curse to love bad and foolish men, even when they fuck up so miserably.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
THE GREEN BICYCLE
I slept heavily that night. I dreamt of corbeaux, spiralling in the sky above our home. They picked at me, but no flesh came off my bones. One by one they flew away, leaving me whole. In the morning, more news came over the radio: Granger had been captured that morning, while eating black pudding and fried eggs in a snack bar in Couva. The coastguards were escorting him to Nelson’s Island, another rock-like prison island in the Gulf of Paria; it would be hot there, the rock would be arid, barren of water. The government was locked in negotiations with the army. Port of Spain was still patrolled by riot police.
‘The ship is still there, isn’t it?’ I asked, nervous.
‘Yes, of course. It leaves tomorrow.’
I decided to take Venus some ice. I hadn’t seen her for days but knew she had been hiding in her home up the hill. I was worried. I thought about Granny: up to no good. Bless Granny, bless her soul and let her get on with it, with the business of burning down town. She wanted me gone, dead and buried and gone. What had Granny been up to?
I didn’t tell George. He’d never let me go up there alone, not then. But Venus was stuck, too, she might need provisions. I could give her a lift to Chen’s when it opened, or bring her and the children home. I stopped and parked the car several yards from the old creole house.
‘Venus,’ I said aloud before realising she couldn’t hear me from the road.
‘Venus!’ I called her name as I approached, my voice thin and somehow ludicrous, a false voice. ‘Venus,’ I called again, noticing a face at the window of a house near by, another face at an open door.
‘Venus!’ I called. Damn. I’d left the ice in the car, in a cooler.
‘Venus.’ I was closer to the house. The gate was closed. Granny Seraphina appeared on the top step. Her hair was unleashed, sprays of grey and white flames. She nodded minutely.
‘Granny, I came to see Venus. Are you all OK?’
The old woman stared past me, down the road.
I turned slowly, trying to see what she could. Nothing at first. No sound and this struck fear into me; no sound. The afternoon was still, mute with heat. I turned back to look at Granny again but
she continued to stare past me. Like a cat stares into the night, hearing sounds in the shadows, except she stared into the sheets of heat, down the empty road.
‘Granny,’ I whispered.
Then, the faint clatter of voices. Brown figures danced into view; a crowd of people, twenty or so, appeared at the bottom of the hill. They had come from the main road, from down by the petrol station; they were excited and talking loudly and fast, fists and voices raised, all returning from the savannah. Sticks held aloft. In the heat they were slow, far off. But my limbs were heavy and sluggish. I saw men and women and children advancing up the road, melting together. They were coming towards me and had sealed off the road behind them. I wanted to get on the other side of that tall flimsy gate into Granny’s yard. I shot Granny a pleading look.
But Granny’s face was vacant, glazed with concentration. My car blistered in the sun, halfway down the street, halfway between me and the crowd.
The voices grew louder as the throng approached.
Clive, I spotted Clive in amongst the crowd. Bernard, too. They were excited and shouting chants against the PNM. Venus’s children, little boys I knew. I didn’t see Venus. I shook, holding onto the bars of the gate.
‘Please, Granny. Let me in!’ But she was in some kind of trance, a fascination. I closed my eyes, wanting to sleep, wanting to end it all. They could have me, tear me limb from limb. I was sick of being scared.
‘Eh, eh,’ I heard.
The crowd had spotted me. Clive spotted me. A jeer went up and the throng surged forwards.
The first stone stung my leg through my dress. The second was bigger, falling harder, a sharp grazing blow on my stomach. I grasped the gate shouting God knows what but Granny didn’t move. I was pinned there, flat to the gate of the old shack and there was no escape. More stones, people in the crowd bending to pick stones from the road, from the gutter and then more stones flew, hitting me, a hail of stones and I held my arm up to my face, clinging to the gate.
‘Granny,’ I shouted. ‘For God’s sake!’
I saw a child bending down to pick up a stone. Clive. I saw him bend and stare me down, a smirk on his face as he took aim and hurled it at me. Clive, an eleven-year-old boy, jumping for joy when his stone found its target. The crowd jeered.
I gasped and cried out, pleading. Clive’s eyes met mine.
‘Clive!’ I shouted. ‘Clive, stop that, it’s me, it’s me!’ But he didn’t care or even seem to hear. He picked up another stone, hurling it like he was shooing away a dog.
Clive was shouting and laughing and running to pick up another stone. I closed my eyes.
Those big black birds, those big black birds, finally descending to pick me over. The crowd squawking and fighting one another: who first, who first, which one to gouge out an eye. The carrion-crowd pecking at me, stones hitting me, those black birds closing in to scrape at me. I was the rotten waste, the dead meat of Trinidad. I was no longer scared, only relieved. Finally they were coming.
Granny Seraphina. I was aware of her at the gate, her hands on me.
‘Clive, get inside.’ Her sharp brittle voice. ‘Allyuh move, leave she,’ she said to the crowd. ‘Allyuh get away. Move, nuh. Stop dis nonsense.’
Clive fled past me.
Then, no sound.
My flesh stung. Granny put her calloused hand to my forehead, briefly, as if to feel for fever.
‘Wait a while,’ she said. And I waited: moments, minutes? I don’t remember, only that she helped me to the car.
Clive was just a boy. Excited, swept up in it all. I drove home, shaking. And took a shower straight away. I bathed my grazed skin with witch hazel. Nothing broken, just my pride. How stupid had I been to go up there? Break the curfew. I didn’t tell George about what happened. I lay down on our bed and turned on the air-conditioning and prayed to the Virgin. Marie, pleine de grâce, gardez-nous. Nothing mattered any more. Nothing mattered. We were leaving Trinidad.
Later that day, I went out again. I decided to visit the home of Eric Williams. I knew where to find him; everyone did, at the official residence in St Ann’s. The house would be heavily guarded, but I decided to go anyway. I’d no plan, not even a hope of a conversation. I went to pay my respects, or maybe to gawp, to make some kind of pilgrimage. I was tired and my skin still stung from the stones.
The famous street was cordoned off and so I parked some way away and advanced on foot. I spoke to one of the soldiers in a tin hat who was guarding the house, making a point of sounding officious yet urgent.
‘Please tell the Prime Minister that Mrs Harwood is here to see him.’ The guard looked a little shocked. I smiled prettily. He came back with a nod and I was swiftly taken into the spacious home of the Prime Minister. Three soldiers flanked me to the door.
A silent maid in uniform showed me to a cool dark room with few furnishings which looked out onto the patio and a garden. I went out onto the patio and sat on a white garden chair. The house had the feel of a place already deserted. None of the gang was there, none of his cronies puffing on Benson & Hedges cigarettes and drinking Black Label rum. I had expected a cell in disarray, the debris of men’s talk, of the business of revolution and of the chaos out on the street. But the house was quiet. It had been cleared of such matter. There was no hostile atmosphere, but no tangible feeling of anything else, either.
Eric Williams appeared quietly, unannounced, through a glass sliding door. He came over and shook my hand, then sat down opposite me and put his glasses on his head. His eyes were red raw and his suit crumpled. It had clearly not been removed for days. He lit a cigarette and the maid arrived with coffee. I didn’t say anything at first. When the maid left us, he rubbed his eyes and yawned, looking at me. He poured the coffee and I felt awful, truly awful watching him. Still we didn’t speak. No ideas or reasons for my visit came to me. He knew nothing of my letters, of my thoughts and feelings, of my misery, my imminent departure. And yet he’d let me in to see him. He looked trampled upon, like he’d given in. I wondered about his dead wife Soy, about her not wanting him to go into politics. I still had a million things to say. A whole gamut of emotion; I wanted to pelt him with stones, wanted to kick him in the shins, speak to him with anger, talk to him calmly, too.
‘Thank you for coming to see me,’ he said.
‘I don’t know why I came, really. We’re leaving. Tomorrow.’
‘You must be pleased to go.’
‘Yes. I am.’
‘On that big cruise ship still in the harbour?’
‘Yes.’
‘You must feel vindicated.’
‘Not really . . .’
‘You must feel like I’m the fool, like you were right about me.’
‘I don’t seem to feel anything.’
‘I’ve thought about what you said from time to time.’
‘I’m no politician.’
‘You saw me in Woodford Square.’
‘Yes.’
‘I can’t remember those days any more.’
‘I can’t remember either.’
‘You must be vexed.’
Tears came. ‘I have been.’
‘De whole of Trinidad vexed.’
‘Yes.’
‘Burn de place down. I ent know what to do right now.’
‘It will blow over; my husband says so. You could start again.’
I looked at him, knowing that this wasn’t possible. He had run onto the rocks, run aground on himself. He was a ruined man and intelligent enough to know it. He would not learn from this, or pull himself together, pull together another PNM. He had successfully silenced and locked up the opposition, his political son, Geddes Granger. It would be so easy to spit on him, spit in his face. George was right. I was naive. This was the way of things.
‘I’ll continue to think of you . . . from time to time. On that green bicycle.’
‘You gave me quite a shock.’ I smiled.
‘Gave me a goddamn heart attack.’
‘I’m sure I�
��ll think of you, too. From time to time.’
‘In Woodford Square.’
‘Yes.’
He steupsed and took a slug of coffee.
‘I was there, by chance, with my husband, yesterday.’
He hung his head. He looked like he might fall asleep right there, fall off the chair.
‘I must go now,’ I said, standing.
Williams stood to shake my hand. A small man, even smaller that day. I saw grief in his eyes. A man close to his own death.
I didn’t let go of his hand. Instead, I pulled him towards me and he fell in close. I put my arms around him and held him tight, unhappy for him and for myself and for all that had happened and knowing no words to bridge the gap between us. Nothing as simple as a few well-chosen words of condolence; I had nothing to say to him. I held him close for moments which felt like minutes. I pressed my lips to his neck and felt him shake. When the maid came in we parted. I said goodbye to him and he sat down and I left as quietly as he had come.
The next day was to be our last in Trinidad. The garden bragged: whorish moussianda flirted their open-bloused petals to the earth. Chaconia flounced and waved their long scarlet candles. The tough savannah grass crawled across itself. The berries in the palms oozed, bringing birds squabbling onto them, spitting the stones onto the ground.
The dogs’ graves had lost their freshness, leaves dropping onto them, the soil dry and crumbled. Their two collars, though, were still wedged into the mango tree; their plaits of ginger lilies turned crisp. Pascale visited the graves every day, reading out her poem. There were a hundred phone calls still to make: banks, accountants, lawyers. Standing orders to cancel, bills to pay, names to be transferred on accounts. Phone calls to Sebastian’s school, to George’s family in London, to friends there, too. A nest of nerves in my stomach. George hadn’t shaved in days. I drew him a bath, handing him a shaving stick, razor, comb, glass of rum. I couldn’t eat. I smoked.
The White Woman on the Green Bicycle Page 34