“Impropriety?” Eileen asked, as she unscrewed a hose and pulled a plastic garnish off the engine. She cocked her head to the side and uncovered the can. “Frankly, I see this as a company perk. You said you’d reimburse travel expenses and this helps with the upkeep of my vehicle.”
She pressed the dusty garnish into his hands. He looked at his soiled fingers and said in surprise, “Upkeep?”
“Yeah. Cover your nose.”
He didn’t have enough time to remove his pocket square before a thick cloud of insecticide issued from the nozzle into the car’s engine and filled the air. It stank to high heavens, and it was all Holden could do not to choke. He coughed and sputtered, and by the time he stopped, Eileen had put everything back to normal.
“The starting motor doesn’t work properly. Baygon gives it a little kick.” She winked at him. “Normally, I do it before you get outside, but you moved too fast today. Get in.”
Holden sniffed himself and sighed. He smelled like the exterminator with the heavy tongue who sweated too much and called him “Hoddeh”.
The engine wheezed and sputtered, rocking back and forth like a sick horse on race day. With a loud bang, the car shot forward across the gravel parking lot and straight into the busy street.
Holden held onto the door handle for dear life, clutching his pocket square to his chest as he muttered two curse words.
“Oh shoot, I sprayed too much,” Eileen laughed as the car tumbled across the road and mounted the sidewalk as traffic swerved to avoid them.
“Why don’t you get a new car?” Holden spluttered angrily as the car bumped its way off the sidewalk and back onto the asphalt as vehicles around them screeched and honked.
“Oh, please. You’re vexed ‘cause I’m stealing Baygon. How would you get on if I asked for a raise?”
Holden hated it when she was right.
* * *
WITHIN TWENTY MINUTES, they’d left the narrow streets of Bridgetown, driving past churches and rum shops before turning down a steep incline set among the east coast's renowned red clay hills.
On the way down the incline, Holden realized that Eileen’s brakes were less reliable than he had thought. His bowels almost helped him confirm that giving her a raise would be a worthwhile investment, but the road soon levelled out, saving his dignity from certain peril. He pressed his handkerchief against his forehead, dabbing away the sweat that dripped into his eyes. The drive was the perfect metaphor for his perception of Eileen: wild and unexpected and certainly never dull.
Up ahead, a wooden sign with cracked black letters pointed them to the small picturesque seaside village of Shorey Lakes. Chattel houses opened their back doors to a view of the Atlantic, their hinges weeping rust-coloured tears from years of exposure to salt-tinged breezes. Instead of cars in driveways, overturned Moses boats with weather-beaten hulls rested on sandy banks beneath lanky coconut trees that swayed to and fro.
Eileen turned between two houses onto a road which was little more than a sandy track split in two by scraggy crabgrass. She pulled to a stop next to a freshly painted boxed cart filled with husked coconuts. Up ahead, he saw three cars parked beneath the shade of an almond tree, including a sleek 1982 Chevrolet Camaro. He cursed under his breath. “Paul.”
Holden looked across at Eileen. Her face was impassive, but the look in her eyes didn’t escape his notice. He chewed the inside of his lip, blaming himself for tainting her view of Paul.
Sand crunched beneath his feet as he walked to the chattel house with the open front door. Holden was about to step inside when he bumped into an elderly man and two tall, hulking figures.
“Oh, dear,” said the old man as he peered owlishly up at Holden. “Young Davis, I should have known you’d be here.”
Holden smiled and gestured to the slim gentleman. “This is Dr Thorpe. He’s the government pathologist. He pronounces the time of death whenever a person dies outside of a medical facility. Dr Thorpe, this is my new assistant, Eileen.”
“Lovely to meet you, young lady.” He shook her hand loosely and said, “I mustn’t tarry; I’m trying to get to town for my pudding and souse before they sell out.”
“Uh…today isn’t Saturday, Dr Thorpe.”
“It isn’t?” He pushed his glasses up on his nose as he stared at Holden. “Oh yes…too much work and too little time, you see. Well, I’m going home then.” And with that, he bustled down the little lane hitching his pants as he went.
Out of the corner of his eye, Holden noticed Eileen checking her watch. It wasn’t even noon yet and Dr Thorpe was already clocking out for the day. Typical. “He’s…nice.”
“Yes,” Holden grinned. “He’s a little eccentric, but very nice. He was doing this since I was a little boy, so you can imagine just how long he’s been around. He’s retiring next month, so you may not see him again after today.”
Holden turned to the other two people and said, "And these are Dorothy and Lloyd Greaves, owners of Happy Home Funeral Parlour. This is Eileen."
Holden held back a grin as Eileen stared at the siblings; he knew the questions that would come later. Dorothy clasped Eileen’s hand briefly before she turned to Holden. Even without high-heels, Dorothy was as tall as both of the men. She leaned in and asked in a husky whisper, "Is Clifford with you?"
Holden gave a slight shake of his head. "He already came and went.”
Dorothy pouted. Lloyd's mouth soured as he tapped his foot and looked at his watch. “These country gizzards are broke and we're late,” he grunted.
Holden raised an eyebrow. “They’re my relatives.”
Lloyd didn’t seem to care. Without saying another word, he walked to a dark car, slipped behind the wheel and started the engine.
Dorothy sighed, her gentle disposition rattled by her brother's rudeness. "You know how he is." She wiped a smear of pink lipstick off Holden's cheek and smacked him playfully on his chest. “Tell Clifford to call me. I hope to see you again soon, Eileen," the older lady said as she put her handbag in the crook of her arm and carried her sturdy frame to the car.
“Are they twins?” whispered Eileen as she watched Lloyd steered the car onto the main road.
“No, they’ve just got their father’s genes. You can always pick out a Greaves from a mile away.” Holden pulled back the curtain and ushered her inside. “After you.”
The Rediffusion box hummed in the background as a small crowd gathered in the living room. Paul stood in the centre of the room pouring shots of brandy for everyone. His resemblance to Holden was undeniable, with the exception that he was slim for no good reason, making him look like a tall, dark egret. Holden eyed the crystal decanter with a lavish ‘P’ etched into a crest on the bottle’s neck and grumbled beneath his breath.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Eileen lift a shoulder and say, “You’ve got to admit it’s a nice touch. Liquoring up people to seal a deal is just good business.”
Paul’s eyes narrowed when he saw Holden looking at the decanter, but he took care to smile broadly as he said, “Oh dearest me, Holden came to offer his sympathies. Sit down, brother, and join us in a drink to send off Cousin Earl.”
Holden plastered on a smile identical to Paul’s and said, “Oh, I shouldn’t.” He turned to the family sitting on the chair. “But just know that I feel poorly about Uncle Earl’s passing.”
Paul smiled tightly. “He’s our cousin; he married Beryl who’s Mummy’s first cousin.”
Holden stared back. "And we call her aunty since she’s Mummy’s age, so obviously, we call him our uncle.”
“Cousin.”
“Uncle.”
“Jesus, two of you are worse than Cain and Abel,” Eileen muttered as she rolled her eyes.
Holden clenched his fist and was about to tell Paul just what he could do with his crystal decanter when he felt a gentle hand on his arm. Eileen stepped forward and addressed the family members who sat in a line on the three-seater chair. “We came to pay our condolences and see if there�
��s anything we can do to help.”
Holden sucked in a breath realizing how unprofessional it was for his assistant to have to quell the bickering with his brother. He had to take charge of the situation. “We’re here for you, Laverne,” Holden said to the plump young woman sandwiched between two old ladies. He leaned forward and hugged her. She sniffed and waved her handkerchief at the brothers. “It is the sugar, you know. He didn’t listen. Doctor said to cut out the sweetbread and the turnovers, but he would still eat them things.”
The brothers nodded in unison.
“After the foot was cut off, every morning he used to sit by the window and wait until I was gone to send the little boys to the shop to get him a rum and a Coke.”
Laverne wiped her nose and laughed at the memory. She turned her teary face to Eileen. “What kind of help you could give?”
“Tell us what you need.”
Laverne studied Paul and Holden for a moment before her eyes opened and her mouth hung open like a trap door. “Oh, yes…two of wunna is undertakers.” Fresh tears ran down her face and she raised her palm skyward. “Thank you, Jesus! Mummy was right: the Lord don’t come, but he does send. Two of wunna gonna bury Earl.”
The brothers glanced at each other and Eileen’s eyebrows knit together in concern.
“Well… not together, you see. Holden has his own funeral home and I have mine. Mine is fancier and has more hearses and better fridges, but it’s up to you to choose,” Paul pointed out.
“That is a matter of opinion, but I think it should come down to whom Earl had a better relationship with,” retorted Holden.
Their cousin bit her lip as she considered what they said. “That is true.”
“I saw Earl up to last week,” offered Holden, hopefully.
“Yes, but did he see you?”
“Just because the man was cross-eyed didn’t mean he was blind, Paul.”
“You do this every time. Always think you’re the smartest.”
“It’s smarter and, yes, I am.”
Laverne stood up, taken aback by their argument while she was trying to grieve. “Look, this don’t make any sense. We want the best for my brother.” She turned to Paul. “You say you got the best fridges and hearses, so you can deal with him.”
Paul tossed a smug grin at Holden and said, “Laverne, we’re going to give Earl the send-off of the century. Best flowers, coffin…everything.”
The two old ladies sitting in the chair broke down in tears again as Laverne threw herself on Paul and hugged him. “You is a angel. Knowing we ain’t got no money and coming all the way up here to let we know you goin’ pay for the funeral all by you’self.”
Paul’s grin disappeared. “Pardon?”
“Yes! I tell my mother that we need help burying Earl, and she called wunna, but I didn’t realize that you were going to pay for the whole thing.”
Paul coughed uneasily. “Uh, that’s not the message I got.”
Holden clapped him on the shoulder. “Paul, you’re a regular stand-up guy and Earl deserves the best. I’ll send a nice wreath as my contribution." He smiled at Paul. “It's the least I can do.”
* * *
THE DRIVE BACK to the parlour wasn’t as jubilant as Eileen expected. She thought Holden would gloat since he hadn’t been saddled with Earl’s funeral as Paul had been. But as the sun dipped, filling Eileen’s battered car with warm golden light, Holden mused quietly.
“What’s wrong?” she asked as they turned off the bumpy lane and onto a long country road lined with banana trees.
Holden smiled sadly. “Paul and I have been fighting since he was born and now I wonder if we’ll ever stop.”
Eileen bit her bottom lip but said nothing.
“Laverne said she wants the best for her brother and I’m trying to remember if Paul and I ever genuinely felt that for each other. The fact that I have to question it is sad.”
Holden looked at her. “I don’t want a full church and empty sentiments when I die. I’ve spent too many years in cold rooms with the dead and at some point, I’d like to enjoy the company of the living.” He sighed. “But sometimes… that feels like too much to ask.”
Chapter 6
Life on a Desert Island
The whistling frogs had clocked out and the roosters were crowing when Eileen’s phone rang the next morning. Though the sky was still the colour of acid-washed jeans, she shook off sleep and quickly dressed for work. She stuffed a pack of Sodabix in her bag as she ran down the apartment stairs, being careful to move quietly so she wouldn’t wake the mother and baby who lived downstairs. The two-story building was the tallest structure in Hampstead Village, a modest district crisscrossed with winding tracks buttressed by palings and barely wide enough for a person to walk through. Even at that early hour of the morning, she noticed subtle signs that the village was coming to life. Outdoor eaves sheltered bulbs that illuminated backyard bathrooms as some villagers eased into corrugated metal enclosures, tremulously testing the water with gritted teeth. Others rubbed sleep from their eyes as they ambled across congoleum-covered floors to open brightly painted jalousie windows and put battered kettles on stoves.
The blue Toyota was in its usual spot in the recess under the staircase. Since the police had announced the Cane Slasher’s presence, she had taken to locking the car every time she left it unattended. Now she muttered under her breath and looked over her shoulder at the overgrown field next to the apartment as she fumbled with the keys. She scrambled into the car and turned the ignition. As she drove and chewed a biscuit, she listened to the news with interest. The government pegged the next year as one for growth in several sectors; she prayed it materialized so she could find a job with better pay and better hours.
Just before she turned onto the main road, she saw two people at the bus stop. Despite not knowing them, but she knew bus fare could suck the life out of a low-income wage. That was enough to make her roll down the rickety window and ask, “Y’all going to town?”
They nodded and hurried to the car. Eileen leaned over and pulled the passenger door handle since it couldn’t open from the outside.
“Morning,” both of them chirruped to Eileen with a slight twang that squeezed the life out of the ‘or’ in the word. The man who introduced himself as Chris got in the front seat and the woman waddled around to the driver’s side of the car and sat behind Eileen.
In the rearview mirror, Eileen saw the heavy-breasted woman with the quick eyes and unruly mouth purse her lips. The woman took in the exposed springs that jutted out from the back of the front passenger seat and the long metal rods that dangled from the door’s cavity. Next to her, the broken window inched its down into the door every time Eileen drove over a bump in the road. The woman’s brow furrowed and she clutched her fake leather bag to her bosom as she met Eileen’s eyes in the mirror.
“I’s Debra. You’s the girl that just move into the apartment by the tamarind trees?”
Eileen could tell from the way Debra asked that she already knew, but Eileen still replied, “Yes.”
The woman nodded in a self-satisfied way and leaned into the seat with a huff. Eileen’s left eye twitched; she suspected that Debra had a running commentary on every and anything, adding flourish and supposition to every retelling. Debra seemed intent on confirming the theory when she said, “Well, I ain’t know if you know, but that apartment blighted.”
“Uh…that’s unfortunate, but thanks for telling me.”
“Ain’t nothing ‘unfortunate’ about it. Lock your doors and mind your business. That’s what I do and I already live longer than my grandmother.”
Eileen bit her lip. Debra didn’t seem like someone who minded her business. Her eyes challenged Eileen in the mirror. It was obvious that she was eager to reveal more details about the apartment’s blight, but refused to give them up without a half-hearted struggle.
After what Eileen suspected was an agonizing moment for Debra, the woman changed tack. “I’m surprised that a h
igh brown-skinned girl like you move into that apartment though. Your family ain’t got money?”
Chris’ shoulders hunched as he tried to fold in on himself while he kept his eyes on the road ahead and Eileen’s eyebrows almost touched her hairline. “I don’t have any family, so there’s no family money to have,” she said, trying to laugh off the woman’s intrusion.
“Hmph.” Debra seemed dubious about Eileen’s claim; she probably thought Eileen was a rogue daughter who ran off to slum it with the common folks as a way to punish her parents.
Eileen asked quickly, “Which bus station are you heading to? Lower Green or Fairchild Street?”
“Chris does go to Lower Green. I work at the supermarket on Buckworth Street.”
Eileen’s breath caught in her chest. The mere notion of running into Debra every day was excruciating. Luckily, Debra didn’t seem to notice Eileen’s wide eyes before she turned her attention to Chris. She pointed out her concern that Chris' newborn baby had a broad nose and drooped lips that resembled those of his pastor at The Newberry Tabernacle and she was “only looking out for Chris’ interest” as she put it. The look on Chris’ face was enough to make Eileen change the conversation to the prices of rice and corned beef, subjects which Debra weighed in on with great gusto until Chris reached his destination. A few moments later, Eileen breathed a sigh of relief when she deposited Debra just up the road from the funeral home. Holden had taken the short walk from his house and was waiting for her in front of Davis and Sons by the time she arrived.
Holden got into the car, his omnipresent ledgers and diary in tow. He gave directions before becoming engrossed in a tangle of figures, tallying and reworking numbers as the wind whipped the pages of his books.
Wicklow Gardens was a tidy row of houses on a narrow lane in a rural community. The James family lived at the end of the cul-de-sac in a small white bungalow next to a patch of grass where black belly sheep grazed for hours before walking two abreast back to their pen. Holden walked across flagstones to the verandah and rapped on the wooden louvres. Lydia’s mother came outside, clad in a pink housecoat that hung forlornly on her reduced frame. In a matter of weeks, she’d become an economical version of her former self, as though picked apart and reassembled using the least amount of material possible. Eileen’s heart sank when she saw what grief had done to Ernesta James. She waved at her through the window and asked how she was doing.
The Vanishing Girls Page 5