Goodbye Bay E-Book

Jennifer Rahim

• Herausgeber: Peepal Tree Press
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Seitenzahl: 479

Beschreibung

It is 1963, one year after Independence, and Trinidadians are beginning to wonder what they can expect. Anna takes a temporary post at a remote post office in a small coastal town, hoping to escape a failed relationship, and the drama, pressures and politics of her city life. But neither time or space is granted, as the life of Macaima passes through the post office, and Anna reluctantly begins to take on the villagers' stories – which prove to be just as complicated and enmeshed in the social, cultural and political issues that divide the nation as her own. Long before the year is up, Anna has been immersed in an intense seasoning in Macaima that will change her for ever. Macaima is a magical place of intense and unforgettable characters, which Jennifer Rahim draws with exceptional psychological subtlety. And Anna herself – flawed, a little prickly and sometimes too ready to jump to conclusions – is a complex narrator whom we ultimately trust and care for. As an historical novel it asks probing questions about the nature of the means and ends of the project of Independence and its failures with respect to race, class, gender and sexuality. Goodbye Bay is simply one of the very best Caribbean novels to have been written, and not just in recent years. Written in a seamless mix of sharply observed realism with moments of rich humour, and of numinous poetic intensity, it tells a gripping story with room for surprise, humour, tragedy and redemption.

Leseprobe

CONTENTS

1. An Arrival

2. A Name. A Place

3. A Shadow on the Trace

4. Looking Around

5. A White Envelope

6. A Case of Fleas

7. Look Trouble

8. Brenda’s Battle

9. Bones

10. A Golden Thread

11. Equal Place

12. Same Rider

13. Face the People

14. Writing on the Road

15. A Return

16. Monday’s Child

17. Storm Warning

18. Under God Armpit

19. Revelations

20. A Woman in the Room

21. Inside

22. A Certain Kinda Miracle

23. Ritual

24. The Stage Comes Down

25. A Departure

26. … For the Sake of Love

27. No Quiet Revolution

28. Warnings

29. Dog Star

30. To Play-A-Mas

31. A Request

32. Maria’s Parang

33. Thanksgiving

34. Beginning again…

The common end of all narrative, nay of all poems is to convert a series into a whole: to make those events which in real or imagined History move in a strait Line, assume to our Understandings a Circular motion – the snake with its Tail in its Mouth.

— S.T. Coleridge

…every day / something has tried to kill me / and has failed.

— Lucille Clifton

CHAPTER 1 – AN ARRIVAL

I arrived in Macaima in September, 1963. Petit Careme season. The island was one year a nation, free to practice what it meant to have a flag to hoist and an anthem to sing. We had a prime minister, a government sitting inside the Red House; our Governor General became a citizen. That year, too, we had retrenchment in the oil sector and disgruntled sugar workers triggered a series of union-led strikes not seen since the Water Riots. The PM, in an effort to take control, ordered a Commission of Inquiry to sniff out subversion in the ranks of the trade union movement. That September, four girls died in the bombing of a Baptist church in Birmingham, Alabama, and hurricane Flora mashed up Tobago. In October, Mandela went on trial in South Africa; Cuba was in the midst of the missile crisis; nine Vietnamese monks were killed for flying their Buddhist flag; Martin Luther King delivered his I Have a Dream speech at the Lincoln Memorial; John F. Kennedy was assassinated; C.L.R. James published Beyond a Boundary; the Mighty Sparrow was crowned king of Carnival with “Dan is de Man”; the Beatles and Doris Troy had number one hits with “Love Me Do” and “Just One Look”; Elizabeth Taylor starred in Cleopatra; a woman was arrested and released without charge for selling souse and black pudding on a pavement in San Fernando; and a man was murdered on his hospital bed.

It was Sunday, midmorning. The village was deserted. I had no clue what I was coming to, but Macaima was where I had landed the job as temporary postmistress. People from town would be quick to ask: Macaima, where on earth is that? No place on this island call by that name. Maybe so, but I was there. See me, Annabelle Bridgemohan, who had spent all my life in bright-lights Port of Spain, waiting on a junction for a Mr Elton, whom I had never met but who had promised to get me settled in the rental where I would spend the agreed-upon year.

I had done a three-year stint at the Port of Spain head office, though it seemed like an age. I needed more than a change of scenery or pace; whether Macaima would give it I hadn’t a clue. Life is a decision to live my mother said to me when I told her I had accepted the Macaima post. She collected maxims like that. Maybe she had discovered what they meant. I did not want to live her life. When I landed the job at head office, the first thing I did was to rent a one-bedroom apartment on the edge of the city; small, but it was my space.

Until my arrival on Macaima Junction with nothing but my two suitcases, I hadn’t realised that those words were still mine to learn. I was twenty-four and adrift. My relationship with my boyfriend Miles had come to a painful end; he had become increasingly bitter about my decision to end things between us and what he considered my unforgivable crime in choosing not to have our baby; my friend Thea had left the island for graduate school in the States and I could no longer put up with the conspiratorial climate in the office as management tried to fend off unionisation with divide and rule tactics. When I arrived in Macaima, I felt no more real than a ghost left over from another life.

*

Neville, the driver I had hired for the trip, pulled up alongside a shop on the Macaima junction and parked under its eave to escape the sun. He stretched in his seat, pushing against the backrest so much that I had to shift my legs sideways. He glanced back with slight amusement, his arm extended along the backrest.

– Miss, yuh sure is here you suppose to wait for… What he name again?

– Mr Elton. Yes. He said the shop on the junction. So I guess this is it.

– Well it look like he forget. This place deader than midnight grave.

– Give him a few minutes more. He said he would be here.

The repeat was more for my benefit than Neville’s. He looked doubtfully at the empty road ahead and then at me.

– Okay, but I have to head back.

I sighed.

– Doh stress. I operate professional. I not going to leave you here stranded. Where is here again?

He didn’t wait for an answer and seemed happy to fiddle with his radio. Static crackled. It was not long before he gave up and dozed off. With nothing else to do but wait, I tried to map Macaima’s layout from what I could see. The junction was not a full crossroads, but a Y, formed by the arm of the road that broke off from the main road and travelled up into the hills. It was obviously the hub around which everything was arranged: shop, hardware, warden’s office, post office, police station, and school – all sporting weather-beaten string pennants in the national colours, leftovers from the Independence Day celebrations. Everything looked, as you’d expect, closed for the day, including Johnny’s Shop and Bar. The signage was sprawled across wooden, double doors and competed for visibility with all manner of advertisements: Coca-Cola, Guinness, Bata, Nestlé’s Sweetened Condensed Milk, Trinidad Orange Juice, Holiday Foods, Solo – so the shop name could only be read when the doors were closed. Maybe it didn’t matter. Competition can’t have been a concern.

Everywhere burst with the verdant green of the wet season. Dog-bark and cockcrow, a ground dove’s mourning call, tree-speak, river and sea-wash produced the sense of being looked at and listened to. I focused on the deserted road ahead, drawn to the point of light at the road’s turn, where it disappeared. From the distance of the shop, you couldn’t be sure whether the road curved inland and continued on or came to an abrupt end. At that point, the sky brightened so intensely it both attracted and disturbed the eye. The village was coastal and its elevation drew the eyes to the sea’s expanse, a borderless zone that gave the illusion that the land was continuous with sky.

I did not see when the man appeared at the junction. He leaned against the dazzle of galvanized sheets that partitioned a gateway at the side of the shop, apparently waiting for something or someone. It was not long before I discovered what: a package passed through a square opening cut into the sheeting. The man put some bills into the hand of whoever had served him and said something as he stuffed what looked like a flask wrapped in newspaper into his back pocket. The exchange awakened Neville, who assessed the scene from his rearview mirror and slapped the dashboard knowingly.

– Big Sunday, but he too thirsty to wait!

Neville turned so that he could face me with that slight glow of amusement on his face I had come to recognise. He tapped his wristwatch. Time was up. The face of the shiny silver Timex with a black band was gently rubbed clean on the sleeve of a cotton shirt, densely populated with colourful parrots. Along with his black slacks, it was no doubt his self-prescribed uniform. I had learnt, on the way in, that he also worked the airport. Money was good driving tourists to and from their hotels for greens.

– Time to head out, Miss. I on the clock.

I looked about the junction. The man who had made the purchase was casually looking our way.

– Is not my business, Miss, but I hope yuh didn’t come quite here to take flambeau to see in daylight what already in plain sight.

He grinned sheepishly.

– Why would you say that? You don’t know a thing about me.

– Is only joke I joking.

Neville shook his head and focused all his attention on wiping, yet again, the Morris’s already immaculate dashboard. I had overreacted, but I didn’t want to give him the impression that he could voice his assumptions and opinions without rein. One thing I had learnt from Thea was to draw the line when it came to what she called protecting the sanctity of your soul case. And she was right. I second guessed all my gut reactions – a symptom, she joked, of unclear politics. Already I missed her, but the plans she had for her life meant leaving the island to further her studies; and I had been, at the time, committed to my relationship with Miles.

The man who had been at the galvanized gate was now perched dangerously on a broken chair he had propped up against the shop, making himself a brazen spectator of our waiting. Neville was growing restless. The plush crimson fabric of the seat-cover, which had irritated my legs and arms for the entire journey, was fast becoming intolerable. I shifted to the opposite side of the car. Neville noticed and ventured another more cautious question.

– You want me to ask if he know about your concern?

He indicated the man on the chair. I looked at the man, now clouded in exhaled smoke.

– I sure Mr Elton will be here.

Neville checked his watch. I was pushing my luck but I had picked up that Neville was not unreasonable.

– Okay, but five minutes is all I have.

*

Punctuality was important to Neville’s service. His newspaper ad had offered in bold type: Prompt, Reliable Transport. Any Place. Any Time. As promised, he arrived exactly at ten o’clock and parked his black Morris at the front gate. When I emerged from the house and shut the door behind me, I could see his curiosity piqued as he moved briskly to relieve me of my luggage, making sure that I was well settled into the backseat before taking his place at the wheel. He glanced at the front door expectantly and then back at me.

– Like yuh travelling solo, Miss?

I nodded. He bounced the starter and then turned to fix his gaze on me as if to be sure I was committed to my departure. I focused on the road ahead and he followed my lead, adjusting himself in his seat before manoeuvring the car onto the street. We drove towards the arc of the Queens Park Savannah. Traffic was Sunday morning easy. There were a few joggers and strollers. Most people were probably in their houses, post-church, post-market. Maybe they were reading newspapers, preparing for the midday meal, packing a car for the beach.

We passed the line of mansions, the Botanical Gardens, then the Governor General’s house where pennants in the national colours flapped in the breeze. Later that evening crowds would gather for the special independence celebration concert. Maybe Miles, Yolanda, James and the rest of the gang from the office would be there. My stomach had cramped as Neville negotiated the roundabout to the Lady Young Road and climbed the mountain through Morvant after passing the spot called the lookout.

Miles had once parked there to show me the city at night. It was breathtaking – the pulsing lights, the silver platter of the Gulf where ships from all over the globe sat waiting their turn to offload at the port. I knew so little of the world, those places that the island was connected to by years and years of trade, and how trade was what began us as a place.

As we travelled south, the realisation that I was shifting worlds sank in. I had left nothing behind but the empty rooms where I had lived for the last three years; all my ghosts were with me. Macaima was the future, or so I tried to reassure myself. Mrs Bailey from Appointments had handled my transfer and provided what she could as a general guide to the village. She had never been there herself but was certain that we would find it with little trouble. The village was on the southern coast, closer to the eastern peninsula, but had to be reached from the western end. On the eastern side, the coastal road through Mayaro and Guaya came to an abrupt end long before it reached Macaima, so the only access by car was from the west. Her help for getting me settled there included making phone contact with this Mr Elton. He was a friend of a friend who would be able to assist me with a decent rental for the year. She was right. Mr Elton, who was the warden in the district, was more than willing to help and had promised to meet me at the junction on the day of my arrival.

The trip to Macaima was a welcome challenge to Neville and, although it was his first time there, he didn’t seem to need directions. He drove instinctively, making good time by first heading south towards San Fernando, then cutting through Ste Madeleine and Princes Town, not seeming to mind the winding roads, the potholes and the endless terrain of green, broken only by a few villages and scattered farms. He talked with enthusiasm about cricket, politics, religion; he whistled plaintive songs I could not name – or listened to the radio, upping the volume whenever a calypso aired.

Neville needed no audience. His own enthusiasm was entertainment and affirmation enough. I didn’t mind. He kept my thoughts at bay. As we were breezing through deep country, and the road stretched on and on, he adjusted his rearview mirror so that I was in full focus. He had a question:

– Miss, who yuh running from? I go come myself and brace him. No joke!

He posed so playfully and so poignantly that a laugh burst from me. He winked knowingly into his rearview, and with no more than a breath, moved on share that his father used to help prepare the pitch at the Oval, and that he could still get him a free pass to any match.

– I know all-dem fellas: Sobers, Worrell, Kanhai… Nevo is how they call me.

I let him run on as he skipped through anecdotes that included his last daughter, Ria. He told with unrestrained pride how she loved water and that he was teaching her to swim.

– She is a little fish. Smart too bad!

He explained, too, with enough detail to wake up hunger, the correct way to cook curry duck.

– Plenty people make mistake and think coconut milk or chadon beni is my secret ingredient. All dem thing important, but that is not it. Is not even pepper – though scotch bonnet is essential. How to cook a good curry duck is to slow-stew yuh pot. If yuh have to add water, use only spring. Fresh. Nothing else.

He glanced back.

– Guess where I learn that from?

He didn’t need a response.

– River lime.

He laughed good-naturedly, enjoying his own narration, and reached into the glove compartment. That was the first appearance of the neatly folded orange dust-cloth, which he slid almost lovingly along the already oiled dashboard.

– I bet you cyah guess why my car so nice-an-shiny?

Before providing his answer, he worked his way with a single, uninterrupted swipe from his side to the passenger’s, following the contours of the surface, then folded the cloth and put it away.

– River water. No chlorine to leave spot on yuh vehicle. Now listen to this one. Is good advice. Drink cocoa tea, pure ground when nighttime come. That good for any heart condition and yuh sleep like baby.

His revelations, I felt, was his way of saying his place had taught him what he needed to know.

*

When my five minutes grace was up, Neville again indicated that he was ready to leave. We both knew that his remark about my being forgotten by Mr Elton had unmasked my earlier efforts to sidestep his questions about my move to Macaima. He sighed deeply and scanned the junction once more.

– Miss, I going to have to leave you here.

I got out of the car, perhaps too abruptly. He had been more than generous with his time but I was anxious about being left alone. He went to the rear and removed my luggage from the trunk. The lid held shut after two forceful slams. He noticed that I had jumped at the noise.

– Lock problems.

I managed a smile as he deposited the suitcases close to where I stood.

– I have to make tracks – wedding in Carapichaima. I driving for some aunties and I done get warn not to be late. I drive them maticoor night, too. They not easy. Yuh ever went – maticoor?

– No, I haven’t.

He feigned disbelief.

– Nah, Miss. Bacchanal fuh so! Yuh should go one. It guarantee to relax yuh stress – so I hear. Anyway, Miss, I gone. Things go work out.

He cleared his throat.

– Yes, they will, Neville. Safe trip back.

He hopped into the driver’s seat.

– Call me whenever yuh ready to leave inside here. I go be on time, and on spot.

To the man seated on the broken chair, he hailed jovially:

– Soldier, watch-out for d-lady. She waiting on somebody.

The man saluted and the radio in the Morris, which had lost and regained the station’s signal countless times on the way in, suddenly came alive. Neville upped the volume. The speakers blasted – Dr. Kitch, dis is terrible… He howled with delight.

– Oh LAARD! Dat is tune!

– Play it Mr Dri-VA. Play I-T.

Neville complied. The request came from a woman who had entered the junction balancing a heavy load on her head. She carried herself with a straight back, her neck long and perfectly aligned, and even in clumsy tall tops she walked with sass, moving easily into a rhythmic chip, waist turning, shoulders moving as she went on her way, but not before her comeback:

– Bring it Dr Kitch. I more than A-ble!

Neville bawled again and made a perfect U-turn along the road that had brought us into the village, leaving me at the junction with the lyrics of “The Needle” playing on.

CHAPTER 2 – A NAME. A PLACE

The strangeness of the place intensified as the car disappeared. I was alone and conscious of being quietly observed by the man seated on the chair. I was wondering what I could do apart from asking this stranger for help, when a question shot at me.

– You Miss Bridgemohan?

– Who wants to know?

– Warden send me.

– Oh, you mean Mr Elton. Why didn’t you say so?

– I see you in conversation with yuh mister. I know my manners. Elton busy so I here to settle you.

The mention of Elton’s name came as such a relief, I let his presumption pass about my relationship to Neville. In one motion, he sprang to his feet. Released of his weight, the chair landed lopsided.

– Franco is d-name.

His manner was abrupt, though he touched the rim of a fedora that was a sun-bleached shade of sand.

– We going down so to Beach Trace. Not too far from here.

He gestured vaguely in a direction beyond the shop, along the road that disappeared at the bend. With his still-wrapped purchase safely tucked into his back pocket, he eyed my bags.

– Yuh travel light, Miss Bri.

– Call me Miss Bridgemohan, thank you.

His face grew stern. Eyes steeled.

– No problem.

I could see he was assessing me in the pause he allowed himself.

– No offence intend.

I did not miss his tone of exaggerated deference that told me my reaction had amused more than unsettled him.

– None taken.

– OK. Is jus bad habit we have in here. Quick tuh put name on people or shorten what is theirs. Like Franco is not my name. Franklyn is how I christen, but people find I talk my mind straight. Here in Macaima, we not so particular.

– I think names are important. That is all.

– Yuh father must be proud of he name for you to want to hold it up.

– It’s my mother’s name.

– Oh-ho. Look at that. Then let we go, Miss Bridgemohan.

– Sure. Lead on, Mr Franco.

Without another word he walked east, occupying the middle of the road, my suitcases higher and lower on each side, like unequal scales. I followed disconsolately, disappointed that Mr Elton had not kept his word, or had felt that sending Franco in his stead was as good as keeping it. The hot asphalt sank under my feet with every step.

It was not the best of beginnings, but I consoled myself with the thought that the year would soon be over. I was to replace a Mrs Gomez who had fallen seriously ill and succumbed rather suddenly. The job, though, had come just when I needed it. I had not as yet figured out my path, but the idea of spending my days sidestepping Miles in the office – along with the soured relationship between staff and management – was spur enough to leave. I knew, too, that office gossip travelled quickly. So it was good that the vacancy meant beginning right away. One year was the plan. I would pick up my life after that.

At first Franco wasn’t disposed to talk. He seemed blunt, almost indifferent to my questions about where I was to stay and his relationship to the warden. I tried to shift his mood by asking questions about the village. He relaxed enough to point out that Macaima was much more than one village. What I had seen at the junction was merely a gathering point. The hinterlands were more populated because of the cocoa estates. He did admit, but without explanation, that people were leaving the interior, gravitating towards the main road or moving out of the district to pursue different kinds of work. When I asked why, he grunted as though I had asked the obvious. Cocoa was in decline.

The district, he said, comprised Railway, at its entrance on the western end, and Salvador somewhere on the northern face of Macaima’s mountains. He pointed out the main buildings, including the post office, which I had already spotted, but added a few interesting details. The modest wooden structure had been a private dwelling, then set up as an independent enterprise, not run from someone’s house or shop as in most country towns. It sported the familiar French-style hip-and-gable roof which extended to cover a walkway to a flight of about six steps. The eaves were trimmed with gingerbread lattice work. What used to be an open veranda had been partially enclosed and glass-louvred windows had probably replaced wooden jalousies. It had been, Franco told me, the house of the original owner of the estate, Francisco De Valremy, before his grand manor had been built high up on estate lands.

The district had been a big producer of cocoa, and having a post office of its own was a sign of an importance now lost. The police station I had seen on the way in. The warden’s office, a newer building, judging from its utilitarian design – a rectangular wooden structure with a gabled roof – faced the post office. Both buildings sat on the road that climbed gradually uphill. The sign said L’Avenir Road, although Franco called it Mountain Road. It was the main access to the estate which Franco pronounced Ave-near. I supposed he meant L’Avenir, the future. The translation came easily, thanks to Miss Allister, the French teacher at the convent school, where my mother had never tired of saying I was lucky to be, thanks to Mr Henderson’s generosity. He was my mother’s employer, for whom she worked as the live-in maid. We had our own place in the maid’s quarters – an annex in their backyard.

I remembered how ave was a greeting that doubled as a welcome and a farewell. On the day of Miss Allister’s departure, she had included that observation in her farewell speech to the class. She was saying goodbye to us but was herself being welcomed by the nuns. Maybe for her the move seemed a natural transition. We never saw her again but that was not because she had stayed cloistered in the convent that adjoined the school. We heard other things. She was sent on mission somewhere, and left the order to marry a parishioner. It was great gossip during lunchtime when we sat cross-legged on the cool terrazzo eating lunch. None of the sisters mentioned Miss Allister except Sister Thomas who, rather grudgingly, taught us Home Economics, irately thumping our backs for forgetting never to sprinkle cooked eggs, poached or otherwise, with salt and black pepper. For an entire term to Christmas, every mention of Miss Allister was a tangle of wonderment: Imagine that! The woman get up and get. We had a good laugh among ourselves that Miss Allister had decided she preferred her eggs garnished.

I thought about this as I surveyed a building that Franco said was the church-school. The boys were housed in the front portion and the girls occupied the back. They all shared a common playground behind the school. On Sundays, the building apparently served as a chapel, a temporary arrangement that had become permanent. On the far side of the school, where the bush thickened as the road ascended, was a large but disused cocoa house. Beyond that structure, the road disappeared into the hinterlands where the cocoa estate lands were concentrated.

Macaima’s air spoke of nearby moving bodies of water. Although the river could not be seen, it could be heard behind the buildings on the western side of the road, tumbling down to the narrow strip of beach below. Franco didn’t know the river’s name, but said ole-time people called it Wa-she. He could say nothing of its meaning and didn’t seem interested, other than to say that the river was the life blood of the estates around Macaima. The river emptied into Goodbye Bay. Los Valientes Bay was the official name but it had been dropped long ago by the villagers.

After a fifteen-minute walk that seemed an eternity, we reached Beach Trace, which turned out to be Church Street, according to a worn sign obscured by a tangle of love vine. Most of the road’s asphalt surface had disappeared, leaving a sloping track of compacted gravel. We passed the stone ruins of a church, partially hidden by overgrowth. Franco didn’t give the structure so much as a glance, but its derelict condition explained the current church-school arrangement. He deposited my suitcases before the house that was to be my home for the year and beckoned me to follow him.

He wanted me to see that the beach could be reached by the footpath at the end of the trace. The plan had been to extend Macaima’s main road to connect the south coast to the east coast, by way of Guaya, but that hadn’t happened. Another river further along from Church Street cut across the road. A bridge was required and the foothills would have had to be cut through. As the district declined in importance, the plan was shelved.

Through the greenery that curtained the bay, I could see the ocean’s silver eyes blinking as the breeze disturbed the leaves.

– How far is it?

– Maybe half-a-mile down that track. Since ’33, when storm hit, we lose some coast.

– What storm?

– Hurricane. What age you have? You look like you born with Hitler war.

– Maybe I brought it on.

I thought the quip might help repair the tension between us. I had been unnecessarily defensive about my name. The idea engaged him more than I anticipated.

– Doh call bad on yuhself, Miss. Hitler war was pure wickedness. He is no company to keep! Anyhow ’33 was a blight year. Sea come straight in like it take special aim for Beach Trace. Nature give account to nobody.

Apart from the remnants of the church, my rental was the only house on the road. Built to suggest rustic simplicity, the structure was elevated on pillars that were high enough to provide a clear view of the bay. It seemed to stand sentinel over the track that led down to the beach. Franco explained that the lumber used for the construction, mostly mora and teak, had been extracted from De Valremy’s land. The lower floor was an open area, bordered by a low wall on the southern side – perhaps an incomplete project.

– Elton will check on you later; but before I head back, Miss Bridgemohan, take a little friendly advice.

– Sure.

– Ease yuhself. Doh look so frighten.

– Frightened – who me?

– Yeah. People go think yuh carrying guilt or yuh fraid to live.

I laughed, but without warning felt my stomach drop. Beach Trace vanished.

CHAPTER 3 – A SHADOW ON THE TRACE

Things are never quite what they seem. From my very first evening in Macaima, a meeting took place that to this day I cannot fully explain. After it, I had fallen into a heavy sleep. Time had slipped away. When I finally woke, the slow pulsing shadows of softening light, along with a cooling breeze perfumed with the tang of salt and musky earth, told me sunset was nearing. I lay riveted to a mattress, drifting in and out of sleep. I had never known such exhaustion, possibly the culmination of the last two months of decisions, ruptures, departures – loss. I had no recollection of how I had gotten onto the bed, or who had brought my suitcases into the house. I knew nothing past the fact that one minute I was standing on Beach Trace and the next moment I was no longer there.

Through the haze of a mosquito net, my eyes trailed the hypnotic to and fro of gauze curtains. Back and forth they sailed like delicate wings, or gently fanned mist. In the near distance, the broad swash of waves kept up a shuffling turnabout metre that held me on the threshold of consciousness. A voice intruded.

– Anybody home?

I strained after a note of recognition.

– You inside, Miss Bri?

A name finally emerged: Franco. I heard him moving about the yard, first along the side, then at the back of the house. Booted feet clobbered, disturbing what sounded like gravel strewn under the eaves. The property, I remembered, was not fenced. I held still. Wind rustled leaves. Water washed over the beach below. The silence told me that he, too, had paused, listening. There had been something unsettling about his manner, a confidence that verged on brashness, coupled with an appetite for provocation. There was something more. Just under the surface, I had sensed an instinct for guardedness. Why the disregard he had shown for the derelict church, walking straight by the ruins as though the lot were empty? Surely the church was important to a place like Macaima? Was it just an innocent omission – a sign of familiarity? I sensed something more deliberate. He purposely did not take notice of the structure; he did not want to tell its story.

He was calling:

– Upstairs – anybody there? A body in yuh yard, Miss Bri.

Boots crunched as he moved to the front again. I managed to get myself into a seated position. The room tilted like sand in an hourglass. I stumbled barefooted towards the veranda, my limbs feeling bound by invisible cords.

– Ah-ha, I see you up-an-about, Miss Bri. I bet sea breeze make you sleep like baby. How yuh head?

A hand instinctively reached up to the sore spot at my right temple.

– Did I fall?

– You could say so. Coulda be worse.

– Must have been the heat.

– Could be. Big rain near, I sure.

The late afternoon sky was cloudless.

– Rain – really?

Franco ignored my question and went on to explain why he had returned to the house: to deliver a message on Mr Elton’s behalf.

– Bossman say Monday morning he go check on you. Business keep him outside. De-tained.

He stretched out the last syllable until his mouth broadened to a grin. I tried to receive the news blankly, unwilling to show any sign of dashed expectations. But Franco clearly enjoyed having to relay his messages, and I sensed a dynamic that was interesting. Perhaps Mr Elton did have a legitimate emergency that needed his attention. I was certainly not a priority. Yet the main part of his promise had been honoured. The house was ideal. Even so, I was curious about the man that Franco seemed so eager to serve – and he felt obliged to say more about Mr Elton’s absence.

– He tired-tuh-dead after d-service.

– Service – is he some kind of priest?

He paused, as if to savour my puzzlement, then moved on to other things. I guessed that this was his way of demonstrating that withholding information was a privilege he not only valued but enjoyed.

– As I say, Monday he going to catch up with you. I have something for you. D-lady send a parcel.

I was not sure whether he meant his lady or Mr Elton’s, but assumed the former.

He handed over a canvas-handled bag and stepped back to observe my reaction. Carefully tucked under a warm kitchen towel was a flower-patterned enamel bowl. The aroma of cooked food greeted me. I was truly grateful. Some crackers and guava jam were all I had brought to tide me over until I got settled.

– Please be sure to relay my thanks.

– Look-an-see what inside.

In the enamel bowl was a neatly arranged meal of rice, a slice of macaroni pie, red beans, callaloo and stewed meats of some kind. The day’s disappointments paled a little.

– That is curry-stew yard-fowl and gouti I hunt myself. Macaima is wilemeat country.

He beamed at his revelation and maybe saw my cringe.

– You have to have belly for hunting. Is not for everybody but when pot cook is another matter. Everybody eating.

He stared provocatively at the bowl.

– Maybe so. But is this hunting season? I read something a while ago about October to…

Franco had clearly anticipated a more enthusiastic response. A deep frown was etched on his brow as he jerked his head towards the lush mountains that climbed steadily from the coastal road.

– I know law pass, but plenty beast roam Macaima forest. Hunting season is any time in my book. I have my own law: I doh kill animal with young. Never once!

He spoke bluntly, but I felt compelled to hold my ground.

– Well, there must be a good reason for the law. The animals must suffer so much – being chased.

– Miss, animal hunt animal every day. Hunting is no different. Nothing rush my blood like when I track down dem beast.

– Being hunted by a human being is hardly the same as what animals do to survive in the wild, but I suppose, in one way or another, we each get a turn to know what it means to be both – hunter and hunted.

I wasn’t sure exactly what I meant.

– You full with correction today, Miss Bridgemohan. If a time like you talk about ever reach, I going to have my gun ready. Survival, balance-a-nature, is bush law, and I doh see you objecting to eating what kill.

Maybe my question had come off as judgemental. I smiled and he saw my retreat and moved to claim the last word.

– Different strokes for different folks, right Miss Bridgemohan? So how yuh like d-place? I prepare it myself. Doh fraid to say your complaint. Me-an-Elton go back far. I could talk to him direct. His place fix with telephone.

I registered the prestige that went with the possession of a telephone here. I supposed only government offices and a few private residences enjoyed the privilege of having one. Franco was evidently nudging me to enquire further into his boss’s whereabouts, but though my curiosity was stirred, I held back.

– Since you ask, the house is a little out of the way, don’t you think? My only neighbour is that derelict church. What happened to it, anyway?

– Yuh find down here too lonely?

– I meant isolated, not lonely. They’re not the same thing.

Something that bordered on a tease played in his smile. After all, I was a woman alone, a stranger taking up a job in a remote village. He must have thought me an oddity.

– Nobody will trouble you, Miss.

I tried another approach.

– So, does the Valremy family still own the house?

– Yes. Elton in direct contact with him. Thomas is boss now, but he doh come inside here too often. He in construction. Is new times. Cocoa days done.

So, Franco’s real admiration was for this Thomas De Valremy. Mr Elton was only his surrogate. I wondered at his connection to the family. He needed no encouragement to continue.

– All these lands belong to De Valremy. Up Mountain Road and down to Salvador side is cocoa, coffee, plenty timber. My granpappy plant over fifty acres with crop; little good it did him.

– Why so?

– He make contract with De Valremy. Perez was his name – everybody know him.

– You mean your grandfather planted lands for a price?

He lifted his hat and scratched his head.

– That was how cocoa business went. He dead poor like church rat.

His voiced drifted away.

– Did De Valremy cheat him?

– I never claim so. All I say is he only had small change to show for all dem years he work. I build up my place on a little plot he leave when he pass. He was from Vene, and he meet up with De Valremy over by Cedros side. Was the time when Spanish start coming over to work cocoa lands.

– I suppose that was Thomas’s grandfather.

– Yes, d-one-an-only Francisco.

He scoffed and spat.

– Was he also from Venezuela?

– Nah. He travel down from somewhere up-island and decide here is where to make his start. You could say that he catch scent of a future when he meet up with my granpappy. He teach De Valremy all he know about estate work.

Franco’s eyes glazed over. He had made an unplanned detour and seemed to surrender to its current.

– From cane people out in Railway is where he find his lady.

– Your grandmother?

– Yes. Ten she make. My mother was lagniappe. Now she old, she make me see trouble. Sugar. Cataract. Blind like bat going on five years. She don’t want to bathe or change clothes. She don’t want priest or doctor, like she holding protest against this world.

– Blind – goodness! I hope she has someone to help her.

– Fourteen years she was when I born. I was first. She like to say I turn over a whole century. From day one, I was everybody salt-fish. People call me Lil Cisco.

A confusion of emotion swept over his face much too quickly for me to untangle its meaning. I caught, though, a shift from a proud facial uplift to the downturn of what seemed hurt. A story was in the transition and I instinctively reached for it.

– Why?

– Foolishness. Anyhow, change start when De Valremy get his marrid wife. He was smart and had brains to make money grow. French creole mostly own estate lands. He slip in with some Marseille people from over by Sando and reap big when Venes come to work; but all fall down when blight reach. Kill off everything.

– Maybe one day the crop will make a comeback?

His eyes brightened for a second before he spat hard and ground his spittle into the dust as one would a cigarette butt.

– So what happens on the estate now?

– Nothing much.

– Did the first De Valremy have only one son?

– Well, let me put it proper for you: he wasn’t shy with skirt-tail.

He laughed heartily at what he considered his effort at tact but couldn’t resist making himself plainer.

– Up to when he dead, he was troubling people girl-chirren.

If I recoiled, he didn’t seem to notice.

– I meant did Francisco De Valremy have more children with the woman he married?

– Every one count.

– Of course. I was asking about the immediate family.

– He make Joseph with his church-wife, Marie. Joseph make Thomas. Second is Julien. He settle up in Canada. He doh set foot here again.

– How come?

– Life must be nice where he is. Like I say, Elton in control. Bossman say what he want done. Elton put everything in place.

– And you – what’s your role?

His face hardened.

– I never work one day on Ave-near. Now Thomas say he done with estate. I glad too bad.

– Did Joseph have any siblings?

– Like I say, plenty could claim him as pappy, but I know for sure they never do right by all. Before he dead, first one he make inside here, he call a Judas.

– Why was that?

It was a puzzling back and forth between father and sons.

– I cut my own path. Estate wuk not for me.

– Really, why not?

– Scorpion. I get out from in there soon as I able.

He showed me his right shoulder. I saw nothing but understood that he meant it was the spot where he had been stung.

– Dry rafter is where they like to res. One night he drop down – and WHAM!

Like a ghost reaction his arm swung up and slapped his shoulder as though he had been freshly stung.

– Worse bite in this whole blasted world – excuse my French.

– Should I be worried – about scorpions?

– House-an-grounds clean out and spray good. I use diesel; but still watch out. I was sick fuh days from that one sting. Up to now I suffer from bad-bad headache. I stay far from forest. Everyday I tend my animals. Do my maintenance work. I have no complaint.

Franco took off and replaced his hat. I noticed the uneven line of perspiration that ringed the crown. The hat had evidently become part of his self-expression, like a language.

– No more bushlife for me.

– What about your hunting?

– That different.

He scratched his shoulder and looked away.

– Like I say, Miss Bridgemohan, any problem let me know. Elton will take care of everything. De Valremy trust him – hands down.

I asked nothing further, but saw that Franco was not ready to leave. He told me that my rental had once been used by the family as a holiday house, their getaway from L’Avenir. Now, only occasional friends from town and foreign made use of the place. The trace, he said, was once far busier than now.

– I suppose the church was in use back then too.

He eyed me uneasily, perhaps recognising I had picked up on his reticence about the building. Maybe not.

– Everybody come to hear Mass at Our Lady of Victory. From as far as Salvador. That was until storm mash it up.

We both looked towards the structure. Although blackened by sea blast, I could see the statue of the Virgin from where I stood. It remained surprisingly well preserved in what was left of the grotto.

– No joke, Miss Bri, nature is boss. Hurricane then witchbroom show De Valremy who stronger. Lands in here see plenty trouble. I live to see Ave-near come to nought. One time gov-ment send agriculture people to give cocoa estate injection, but it didn’t take.

He laughed and swept off and replaced his hat, enjoying, I thought, his allusion to the calypso that Neville had left us with earlier that day. He went on side-glancing me; I pretended not to get the reference.

– So why wasn’t the church repaired?

– Too much wrong in that foundation from day one.

– What do you mean?

– Older folks say a woman get rape over so.

He gestured to the church site.

– A setta-dem Carib-people from church-mission fight back, kill priest and then hightail. That happen long time back. Who didn’t drown in Goodbye get send back to d-mission. Is better they dead.

– Why did they run this far east?

– Doh know. That is longtime history. Maybe soldier block off sea access over so.

He pointed southwest towards Cedros where the crossing was shorter.

– Some get trap inside Macaima. Nowhere to run. Anyway, big official decide to build church to mark the place. Our Lady of Victory is how they call it.

– It certainly wasn’t a victory for those who ran.

A cough caught in his throat as though he realised, for the first time, the irony of the naming.

– Some see it different.

His tone was sharp. I didn’t want to agitate him more by pushing the point further.

– Did anything happen, other than the storm?

He cast me a suspicious look.

– I mean to the church?

– Like I say, Elton will pass early Monday morning. A pleasant good night to you, Miss Bridgemohan. I have my animals to bring in.

*

Now that I have the time, I do a great deal of remembering of that first day.

The more I remember, the more light shines in, though memory is a tricky business. I can only tell it as I lived it on that first Sunday. I had watched Franco walk away up the darkening trace, and always wondered what he remembered of that evening. He had not gone far, for he must have seen me fall and returned to help me. True, it was almost dark. Beach Trace had no streetlights, but he must have seen the woman cross paths with him as he was leaving to pen his animals. I never put the question to him, but I often wondered whether he had seen the woman go right up to the grotto, put some flowers by the statue, then blow what looked like smoke into its face. Or had he passed her without noticing, in the way that happens when something becomes familiar or as indistinguishable as shadows?

The light wasn’t good. Her head was covered with some sort of veil or mantilla so I couldn’t see her face, but when she left the grotto – and this I will never forget – she paused on the far side of the road, turned towards me and said:

– Welcome, Miss Anna. Time finally reach to settle.

That was all. The voice was clear as day. My blood ran cold. I could offer no response. Who was she and what did she mean? More than that, she had used the name by which I was usually called – not Annabelle, but Anna. I didn’t know the lady from Adam and I had never before set foot in Macaima. She moved away, lightly, like a shadow on the trace.

CHAPTER 4 – LOOKING AROUND

On Monday I rose early to watch the day begin from the veranda. At first, dawn eased awake, quietly shifting shades rising to soft yellow, until light speared out across the bay like the opening of shutters. The riptide became visible then. Waves, as if not satisfied with their arrival, reversed themselves to keep an appointment with an over there, before they returned to shore again. The waters of Goodbye Bay touched the South American mainland; towards their northeast was the Atlantic. You could say that Macaima had its eyes set on two bodies of water, two shores, at the same time. It neighboured a channel that funnelled an entire history into the island.

So many people cross your path, but few really stay with you, find a place in you. Thea was one. She was many things, including our in-house historian. Once she had joked that Columbus must have pissed himself when he saw land on the left and right of him, that day of his arrival. He was so desperate to prove himself right, he must have thought, To hell with them! I find my China. Discovery, she said, was always a misnomer. All anyone could hope for was to encounter what was already there. Otherwise, she said, we risk becoming trapped in misdirected narratives and the horrors suffered by the lost.

One day remains with me because we had been chatting during the lunch break, just days after the big Chaguaramas march when the chorus, Uncle Sam, give we back we lan, still echoed around the country. We had gone as a group to hear the speeches in the Square. The Premier was expected to speak. That was in ’60 – April 22nd. Thea was from accounts. Yolanda and I worked the counter and Miles was in the sorting room. Miles called her a highbrower, but she wasn’t like that at all. It was the first time we had met. That day she wore black, bell-bottom slacks and a loose, multicoloured kaftan-style blouse; her hair was like a full moon and two beautiful silver hoops hung from her ears – all against dress-code regulations. The Americans had to go home, the Premier had insisted, and the entire Square was one with that call. The war was long over and the military bases were no longer necessary. It was also about the inauguration of the West Indian Federation. Chaguaramas was to be its capital, so the march encompassed the future of the island and the region.

We had linked arms – Miles-Me-James-Yolanda-Hamid-Kimberly-Horace-Thea – marching in the rain, telling the Americans to take up their business and go home. We were telling England the same thing: Give we back we lan’. From Woodford Square to Chaguaramas, James-Yolanda-Horace-Me-Thea-Miles-Kimberly, all of us marching side by side. We were one body that day, connected to the ground beneath us. When the sun came out our bodies glistened like some marvellous wonder come up from the deep to breathe. After the march, splitting-up was a quiet sadness, the kind I had felt the previous year when, for the first time, I had played mas with George Bailey’s Relics of Egypt. For two days I was Cleopatra, chipping royal behind Invaders steel band, with Miles, Horace and Yolanda. When the sun began to set in the Gulf and the band started to disperse, when every one was spent but happy, and carrying the conviction that here was home in truth, I had wanted to embrace the whole place, so instead I had hugged Miles, and he kissed me. After, we had danced in a circle, with Horace and Yolanda joining in, singing into the dusk: Dis mas cyah done! Now I know that sunsets can nest ironies.

At that April march in the rain, all of us were together again in the open street. That same year, we had played in Ye Saga of Merrie England just to so we could wine down on all that history. So when the march to Chag started to move through Port of Spain, we marched with what we had found together, thirsty for the transition that would confirm our right to determine our future, together.

In the weeks that followed, Thea spoke cautiously about where we were with what we sought, even as the raw promise of it had glowed as much in her as it did in the rest of us. She moved in political circles, we knew that much, and she would have been aware of the tensions that brewed beneath the surface of the day’s protest. They would eventually destroy the dream, but in those post-march days, we rode a current of optimism. A lunchroom meetup began, almost spontaneously, to chat about politics, Federation, the Americans on the Base, independence, the unions. Sometimes tempers flared, but people listened to Thea, even if they disagreed with her. She had an unsettling way of stripping away the dross. Her resolve was that the Americans should go, but her argument, I thought at first, was ambivalent, until I grew to understand its core: Yes, they must go, and yes this long England saga must end. For me a flag, when we get one, signals our presence and participation in this world of neighbours. This thing about you over there, I here; you this, I that, is secondary nonsense. Difference or nationality, call it what you want, is not a divider but a shape of the whole of who we must be, together.

Maybe that was what she meant by home. The Americans had to leave to reset the terms of our relationships. Her hope was for the unification of the islands. No more small-island-big-island foolishness. The region would be one nation. It was a season of dreams and the woman could preach! The Chag march always returns to me. It had introduced me to who I was, and with so much else going on, I needed time to work it through. I owed that much to myself. Those early days in Macaima, I kept those thoughts at a distance, the way one returns to a treasure – captivated, allured even, but not at all sure about what should be done with it.

*

Having some time to spare that morning, I decided to explore the property before heading up to the post office. The De Valremies’ vacation house was not large, but it had been carefully designed to make the best use of its space and surroundings. The interior was in perpetual shade because of the wooden finish, a tall gable with its rafters exposed and, of course, the deep veranda that bordered each side, except at the back of the house where the kitchen was located. A staircase allowed access to the backyard. There was only a latch to keep the door shut – clearly no fear of intruders. I asked Franco about putting in something more secure. After all I was alone on the trace. But Franco had insisted there was nothing to worry about.

I appreciated most that the space was uncluttered. Furnishings were bare essentials, which gave the rooms a pleasant airy, even austere feel. The house was not intended for long-term stay. Double doors and louvred windows opened onto the veranda. A framed picture of the Sacred Heart hung over the front entrance, the only decorative feature. That same sparsity marked the undercroft, though that space seemed unfinished. The floor was raw concrete; a crocus-bag hammock hung in the cooler northern section and there was a wooden table covered with a plastic tablecloth patterned with bunches of intensely purple grapes. Two benches stood on either side of the table. Brown stains on the untiled floor and wire hooks attached to the rafters suggested that produce had been stored there and left to ripen. All in all, the house had an air of intentional simplicity that counterpointed the fact that the De Valremy family was no doubt the wealthiest in the district.

I returned to the veranda to look at the surrounding area. There was nothing accidental about the house’s construction. It was aligned so that it commanded a panoramic view of the bay and Beach Trace. Its structure, though, stood aslant in its plot, so I felt that in spite of the expansive view it offered of the bay, it mapped an incomplete story – the same way you can look at a photograph and find yourself straining to see what is off the edge of the picture. There was the story about what had happened on the trace and down at the bay that I wanted to ask more about. Perhaps Franco had told as much as he knew, but there were others and time enough to learn more.