Amanda Smyth is Irish-Trinidadian and was educated in England. Her first novel, Black Rock (Serpent’s Tail), won the Prix du Premier Roman Etranger 2010, and was selected for Waterstones New Voices in 2009. It was also chosen for Oprah’s Summer Reads for 2009. Amanda was awarded an Arts Council grant for A Kind of Eden. She lives in Warwickshire with her husband and daughter.
Praise for Black Rock
‘Amanda Smyth writes like a descendant of Jean Rhys. Black Rock is a powerful cocktail of heat and beautiful coolness, written in a heady, mesmerising yet translucent prose which marks Smyth out as a born novelist’ Ali Smith
‘On the very first page the quality of the writing grabbed me, and I spent the whole day reading it with the greatest pleasure. A novel really does have to be the real thing to do that to me, and this is’ Diana Athill
‘Her writing is as lushly beautiful as the landscape she describes—it’s the kind of novel that leaves your head filled with gorgeous pictures’ Kate Saunders, The Times
‘Set in the intense heat and vibrant lushness of the Caribbean, this compelling novel tells the story of Celia, an orphan with a prophecy hanging over her … it sings with life, texture and verve’ Victoria Moore, Daily Mail
‘There are hints of Jean Rhys’s Wide Sargasso Sea throughout Smyth’s hypnotic, eerie novel … Smyth writes entrancingly on tropical heat and light, indolence, vengeance and desire’ Catherine Taylor, Guardian
‘Certain novels are alive with colour. Written in lush, lyrical language evocative of its tropical setting … Smyth’s debut is an absorbing and morally complex read with a bittersweet twist at the end’ Melissa McClements, Financial Times
‘In painterly images, Smyth evocatively shows more than she tells … There are echoes of the archetypal “mad woman”, if not in an attic then in a marital room in the Caribbean … a vivid and compelling story, exploring the extent of our control over our destinies’ Anita Sethi, Independent
‘A damaged but irresistible heroine … Smyth’s story is a powerful, authentic one and Celia is an appealing, earthy, yet spiritual heroine who grows, wounded and embattled, through the course of the book’ Lesley McDowell, Independent on Sunday
‘A captivating read’ Aisling Foster, Irish Times
‘This beautifully assured debut is rich with the sumptuous vistas, poetry and spirit of the Caribbean … Clashes of culture, temperament, loyalty and love jostle together, with the dramatic events and quandaries woven together with lyricism, tenderness and sensuality’ Easy Living
‘A lovely piece of storytelling’ Waterstone’s Books Quarterly
‘A gripping story that transports you to rich, tropical climes … An impressive debut’ Holly Kyte, Sunday Telegraph
A complete catalogue record for this book can be obtained from the British Library on request
The right of Amanda Smyth to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
Copyright © 2013 Amanda Smyth
The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, dead or alive, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.
First published in 2013 by Serpent’s Tail,
an imprint of Profile Books Ltd
3A Exmouth House
Pine Street
London EC1R 0JH
website: www.serpentstail.com
ISBN 978 1 84668 813 3
eISBN 978 1 84765 804 3
Designed and typeset by Crow Books
Printed by Clays, Bungay, Suffolk
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
FOR MY MOTHER
Special thanks to: The Arts Council, Jill and Rupert Atkinson, Chris Cracknell, Ruth Petrie, Anna-Marie Fitzgerald and all the team at Serpent’s Tail.
And to my sharp-eyed readers: Sharon Millar, Mez Packer, Andrew Palmer, Monique Roffey, Paul Smyth, Lee Thomas, Tindal Street Fiction Group.
Thank you Saskia Sutton for giving me a room to write in, and Mez and Orv for allowing me to camp out in their living room.
Thank you, Barrie Fernandez, for always encouraging me.
I am very grateful to my editor, Rebecca Gray, for her insight and clarity. And Lucy Luck, my agent, for her brilliant, tireless support and commitment.
Thank you, Wayne Brown, always.
Huge thanks to my mother for travelling the Atlantic three times in one year to take care of our daughter.
And finally, enormous thanks to my husband, Lee Thomas, for being there through it all. You’re the best. Thank you.
They say it gets chilly here around December, almost like spring in England or in Canada. Although the days are hot, most evenings, right up until the end of February, it is cool enough to leave your butter out. Today he’d realised that wasn’t true, and he told her as soon as she had arrived, presenting her with the oily glass butter dish which she always complained about. Look, his butter has melted. So what do you want, she said. A medal? At which point he didn’t know whether to laugh or take offence. Then she tossed her handbag on the chair and kicked off her sandals—the flat tan girlish sandals she wore for work—and he knew she was okay; they would probably sleep together tonight.
Later, he looks up at the wooden rafters; there is just enough light from the passageway to see the shadows they make. Once, not long after they first met and they were lying naked, a cockroach fell and landed big and hard like a boiled egg. He shouted something, sprang from the bed and it scuttled over the sheet. Safiya laughed, and flipped up the sheet. Kill it, he said, kill it. But she lay there laughing, tears streaming down her cheeks. ‘You’re so English,’ she said, when she found him sitting at the kitchen table. ‘I had no idea I was going out with such a limey.’
He clicks on the small bedside lamp; she turns, and in one movement, tugs the sheet and rolls onto her side. He stares at the triangle of her brown back and the mess of her black hair on the pillow, the neck exposed. Her skin is shining and he knows she must be hot. She has never liked the air conditioner so when she stays he turns it off. But tonight he has forgotten to open the louvers, and the air is thick from their lovemaking. The last three weekends they had made sure to visit his favourite beach at Blanchisseuse. Although they kept in the shade of the trees and close to the rocks for most of the afternoon, they both came away burned. Now her skin is tanned to a delicious shade of tea. She pulls up her arm; her fingers curl against her full soft lips. When they first got together and he admired her lips, she told him, ‘Yes, I have a rude mouth.’ The gap between the nose and upper lip is short and it makes her look younger than she is. She looks quite different when her narrow, hooded eyes are shut.
A dog is barking now. It happens almost every night at this time. A gang of dogs gathers on the crossroads and when someone walks by they start and set one another off. He’s been caught a few times, thinking the road is clear, walking down to Hi Lo grocery or Ali’s pharmacy, and next thing they are rushing at him in a little pack. He is nervous of them: there is rabies here and a dog like that, the vicious little black one with slitty eyes like a pit bull, could rip your face right off. Some time ago, he saw a young man on the news lying in the street in a puddle of dark blood, his eye torn from its socket. ‘How can they show these things on television?’ he’d said to her. ‘What about the man’s privacy, his family?’ ‘Get used to it,’ she said. ‘This is Trinidad.’
It must be getting late. He wonders where they might eat tonight. Last week, he picked her up from outside her mother’s house in Woodbrook and he didn’t say where they were going. From her damp hair and sweet, soapy scent, he could tell that she was freshly bathed. On the radio, Supertramp’s ‘Logical Song’ made him think of his youth, and he cruised steadily along the west coast feeling, for no apparent reason, lighter than he’d felt in days; feeling as if he’d had good news, which he hadn’t. In many ways things couldn’t have been much worse.
They passed the shopping complex with its Showcase cinema—he had seen two films there, Shrek, and War of the Worlds—and her favourite Ruby Tuesdays restaurant, which, despite her protestations, he had never liked. Not just the décor—the American old-fashioned posters and traditional wallpaper, but the food: he was certain they used additives in the strong sauces—barbeque, honey glaze, garlic cream, Thousand Island—and they made his head feel peculiar. ‘It’s all flavour-enhanced,’ he’d said that last time, ‘like fake food. No wonder it’s tasty. It could only come from America.’ When he told her this, she rolled her eyes and said he was getting old and miserable; you shouldn’t have to worry about stuff like that at her age. ‘There’s nothing wrong with America,’ she said. ‘New York is a lot of fun. And nothing beats the shopping in Miami.’ At one time, he might have mentioned a string of shops in London: Harvey Nichols, Harrods, the whole of the Kings Road, but he knew it wouldn’t go down well.
After West Mall and the new Spanish-style condominiums, he slowed down. This was a wealthier part of town: you could look up at the soft dark hills and see the middle-class houses perched there, the glow of yellow lights. He had imagined everyone at home, taking a drink on the porch, getting ready for dinner, the evening news coming on; people with lives and aspirations. But then the road became narrow, dark, the houses more ramshackle and patched up. And as they drove through the shabby village before Chaguaramas, the village where only last week a man was shot twice in the back of his head while alone watching television in his living room, he wondered what Safiya was thinking about.
‘Penny,’ he said. She looked at him and he saw that she was sad. He pulled up at the far end of the car park. There weren’t many people here, and he was glad. It was better that way; she wouldn’t be in the mood to see anyone they knew. She was wearing a purple blouse, and dark tight jeans that he’d bought for her in Long Circular Mall. He liked that she dressed up like this when they went out. And he liked when she tied back her hair, wrapped it about her fingers and twisted it into a knot; it was like watching a magic trick. He took her hand, and she didn’t resist as she sometimes did, and they walked slowly and without speaking down towards the seafood restaurant where little white lights hung along the wooden balcony of the upper level.
To the right, the water was black and silky. It was night, and yet patches of blue sky were still out there towards the horizon; stars punctured the dark world above them, and he wondered if the curved line he was looking at was actually the Plough. And then there was a white curl of moon. ‘The moon’s like a scythe,’ he said, pointing, and he felt pleased that he’d thought of this. And he recognised how romantic this moment was, and how unlike him, or at least the him that he was used to and had known for forty-nine years.
They were shown to a table by the waterside, and from there they looked out at the anchored boats which came from all over the world. He had been here once in the day when it was busy with young people, at the start of his trip, and there was a boating regatta of some sort, loud music pumping out from gigantic speakers on a truck. At first he found it irritating, the pounding of the bass, the unfamiliar soca tunes. But then someone handed him a beer, and he realised that the only way to fully enjoy the regatta was to carry on drinking. He had never known people drink and drive like Trinidadians. There was talk of bringing in breathalysers from England. But the cells would be full in no time. Here there were no health warnings, no mention of units, and definitely no drink-driving laws.
‘So how was he?’
‘Tired. Scrawny.’ Safiya shook her head and then looked away at the water. ‘He looks like a hundred years old.’
‘He must’ve been glad to see you.’
She shrugged her shoulders, and he thought she might cry. Safiya’s father had been terminally ill for a while. The hospital had sent him home that day with a small supply of morphine; there was nothing more they could do. There would be no follow-up care, no health visitor calls, no Macmillan nurses, no telephone helpline. Safiya’s father had come home to die in the room he’d shared with his wife for thirty-seven years, except the bed had been moved and a new adjustable electric one was in its place. There was talk of getting a night nurse, and he had even offered to pay a contribution, but her mother was resistant—he wouldn’t want a stranger in the room.
‘It’s mom I worry about. She’s scared; I see it in her eyes. And she’s anxious about money. This whole thing has eaten up their savings.’
The first time he met Marjorie Williams he arrived for dinner with a bottle of Californian Merlot; she was pleased: how did he know she liked red wine? She took him straight to the kitchen to taste the salt fish fritters she was frying. He told her, ‘This is the most delicious thing I’ve eaten since I got here,’ and he meant it.
‘Thank you,’ she said, and to Safiya, ‘A sweet talker; he can definitely come again.’
At that point she didn’t realise that he was sleeping with her daughter, taking her back to his apartment at the end of the day; sometimes in the middle of the day, if their schedules allowed it. No, to her mother, Safiya had simply described him as a lonely old English guy she had met through work, no more than that.
He was surprised by the old-fashioned feel of the house: the olive-green Formica cupboards and the white worktop, the narrow gas stove where the big coal pot rested, and the large fridge covered with paper scraps, postcards, mementos. Safiya was born in this house, and apparently nothing much had changed: the same wooden floors, the ceiling fan in the living room, the cabinet packed with crockery and her grandmother’s cocktail glasses, the silver cocktail shaker. He’d noticed a line of blue glass bottles outside the swing door, and Marjorie said these were to keep away bad spirits.
Vagrants sometimes wandered into the yard and slept on the steps. Just a month ago, while going to lock up the gate, she almost tripped over a sleeping vagrant. He had long dreads—a headful of snakes—and no shirt on his sweaty chest; his trousers were held up with old rope. You could see his pubic hair sticking out. The vagrant cursed her for kicking him, and she told him she’d already called St Ann’s, the madhouse, and a van was on its way. Since she’d put the blue bottles out, he’d stayed away. Black people were frightened of blue bottles; Safiya said they are both religious and superstitious. If someone robs you, start saying the Lord’s Prayer and see how fast they run.
That night Marjorie cooked up a West Indian feast: rice with pumpkin and beef; she prepared a large salad with lettuce and tomatoes. There was garlic bread, cassava, fried plantain. They sat at the dining table, the oval mahogany table which she said her husband had made when they first got married in 1955. It was an easy night, and he managed to avoid discussing anything too personal about his life in England. They mostly talked about Trinidadian politics, the recent Miss Universe competition, and the appalling rising crime. He was always taken aback by how seriously Trinidadians thought about their ruling government; in England he could not imagine having a similar discussion about New Labour around the dinner table. When Safiya said goodbye at the door, he knew she was pleased; the evening had gone extremely well.
But a month later, when he went back to the house, Marjorie did not come to say hello; she stayed in her bedroom and watched CSI Miami. She had found a birthday card in Safiya’s bedroom. There was a poor choice of cards in the mall and he’d settled for a soppy American Hallmark. On the front was a cute Labrador puppy with a red bow around its neck: To the world, you may be one person. But to me, you are the world. Marjorie confronted Safiya, who told her, yes, they are having a relationship, and yes, it is complicated, and no, she isn’t worried about what she is getting herself into.
That night he waited to speak to her in the living room; Safiya made him a sandwich, brought him a cold beer. She wished that he would let it go, there was nothing more to say. But he waited, all the while listening to the American voices coming from her mother’s room. Eventually, when he got up to leave, Marjorie appeared in the doorway.
‘I don’t want you in this house again,’ she said, calmly. She looked as if she had been crying. ‘My daughter is all I have.’ Then, ‘An old man like you, you should know better.’
He drove away into the night, around and around the Savannah, until eventually he pulled into the car park at the Hilton Hotel where he shut off the lights, pushed back his seat. It was shocking to him, at his age, to be reprimanded by someone’s mother.
He steps quietly through his apartment, stopping to collect a beer from the fridge, to the back where his small veranda is in darkness. He unlocks the wrought-iron gates, and pushes them open. He dislikes the bars, but they are necessary. He has become less security-conscious in the last few weeks, and he knows that he needs to be careful. Just last month a woman in her fifties was found dead not too far from here. Someone had seen two men at her door, and she apparently let them in without struggle. She’d been renovating her house, extending her porch, and people were coming and going all day. No one noticed anything unusual. Later that evening her son stopped by and found his mother lying on the floor in the utility room tied up with a garden hose. Then he saw that one end had been forced down her throat into her stomach, and the pipe, like a giant green plastic noodle, was sticking out of her mouth.
Next door’s security lights are on, and he can see the glow of their L-shaped swimming pool through the fence. The couple are often away. He has met them a few times—at their house, when they invited him to a pre-Christmas party, and occasionally over the fence. They seem pleasant enough.
He is certain that the wife, Jeanne, has had breast implants; she wears them boldly, with tight shirts and tube tops. She is friendly, but in a self-conscious way, often adjusting her straightened hair or her straps while complaining about the heat or the rain. He wonders if she ever plays away. He has discovered that it’s possible, in a relationship, to present to the world a picture quite different from the truth. These days, when he meets other couples, he finds himself looking for signs; he contemplates, he speculates. Are they in love? Are they happy? Faithful to one another?
Yes, there is something about Jeanne that seems available, feckless. Satnam, her husband—immaculate, in long-sleeved shirts and slacks, works for the local airline. His senior position means they can fly wherever they wish, and that means mostly Miami, Florida, where she can shop, and where they own two houses.
It is curious to him—a steady, quiet person like Satnam, caught up with a woman like Jeanne. He has seen it before, and it doesn’t always go the way you think; time usually sorts things out. Yes, with time people reveal themselves. He’d put money on Jeanne trading in Satnam at some point down the road; cashing in the houses, the car, half of his annual income, which, by any standards, Trinidad or England, must be considerable. And swiftly marrying someone else; someone younger, more adventurous, better looking. Is this something Satnam ever worries about? Perhaps not.
The day they were leaving for Miami, he saw them in their black 4x4 Hyundai Tucson. Jeanne peeped over the blacked-out electric window, her long earrings dangling.
‘Any requests from Uncle Sam?’
And he had felt embarrassed, and without thinking found himself blurting, ‘I actually hate America.’
He knew by the way she looked at him that she was thrown.
‘Just kidding,’ he added. ‘Have fun.’ He seems to remember they are back on the weekend.
Ahead, he can make out the hills. It is incredible to him how quickly he has grown accustomed to sitting here in the veranda, on the ugly aluminum chairs with the plastic white straps. More than one of the straps has broken, and two of the chairs are more or less useless. Around the veranda is a little brick wall about three feet tall, and in the middle, a white plastic table. It is hardly luxurious. But he has grown to love these hills and the way they change colour; sometimes, particularly in the gentle morning light when he sits outside with his first cup of coffee, they are pale and blueish. By noon they are a hard yellow-green; and in late afternoon they are tinted with shades of violet and mauve. Now they are so very black.
He wanders into the yard. This tropical grass is thicker, tougher than the grass of his English lawn. The blades feel coarse and springy when you walk on them. Recently he has discovered something: he likes to feel his bare feet on the earth, particularly in the early morning when the ground is moist. In the rainy season it turns muddy, and the mud is reddish brown like clay. There is an old sink by the side of the apartment where he can wash his feet. He has to watch out for the tiny ‘ti marie’ that prick the skin. There are ants too, millions of tiny ants. According to Safiya there are twelve different types of ant in Trinidad. He has yet to see the gigantic leaf-cutting bachacs that live in the forests. One day, Safiya will take him there.
He looks out at the dark shapes, the shadowy trees, the small concrete shed, and he wonders about Fanta. Usually at this time, Fanta is sitting on the veranda wall, or sleeping in his wicker basket. He hasn’t seen him all day. Maybe he has things to do: a cat is a lion in a jungle of small bushes. Three months ago, he found the stray kitten curled up in a shady corner outside the supermarket. Small enough to sit in the palm of his hand, his ribs protruded and when he stood he had no tail. But his orange coat was pretty and surprisingly soft. Without thinking too much, he put the cat in a brown paper bag, and placed him in the back of his car. At home, Fanta slept and ate milk and crushed water biscuits. Before long he was strong enough to run about. Now he is used to Brunswick tuna and IAMS biscuits imported from America, and Safiya says he is spoiling him. She doesn’t like the name, either. He has explained to Safiya that Fanta is a fizzy English orange drink.
‘I’m hungry,’ Safiya says from the doorway, her voice a sleepy drawl. ‘Are we going out to eat, or should we have something here?’
She is wearing a long yellow T-shirt. She sits, and draws her knees up to her chest. ‘I could do Kentucky.’
In England he would never have dreamed of eating Kentucky Fried Chicken, but here everyone seems to like it. One evening, recently, on the way home from the beach, hungry, sandy and sunbeaten, and dressed only in their beach clothes, on Safiya’s insistence they’d picked up a twelve-piece tub of hot and spicy chicken from the drive-by in Maraval, and parked under the huge Samaan tree; he was surprised at how delicious it tasted.
‘I want to take you somewhere special.’ He squats down on the floor beside her. ‘Take your pick,’ he says. ‘Anywhere you want.’
There are a number of new restaurants on the long strip of road in the centre of the city. Since he arrived, Italian, Chinese and Mexican restaurants have all opened within a few weeks of each other. There is a bar that reminds him of a gastropub in England with its hanging lampshades and ambient music. Safiya likes it but he thinks it is pretentious, and a little young. It is also expensive. Everyone says the economy is booming; it occurs to him that Trinidad seems to be the only country in the world where this is so, where life is still ‘sweet’, as they say.
‘A zinger,’ she says, ‘that’s what I want.’ Then, ‘A zinger, fries and a large Coke.’
He understands why she doesn’t want to go out. In some ways, making a big effort on their last night together makes the separation more poignant, and he doesn’t want her to feel that this is in fact their last evening together. For two weeks, yes, but that’s all. At the same time, an intimate dinner in an expensive restaurant might leave her with a better and more lasting memory; while he is away, he wants her to think of him at his best: supportive, loving, generous. Someone she can have a good time with; someone she can rely on.
He has noticed, since her father’s decline, she is turning to him more and more. He has become a safe place to rest her troubled heart and he is pleased; he had hoped this would happen. The next two weeks will be critical.
They have overslept. Someone is tapping hard on the bedroom window; he hauls himself from a deep sleep and staggers out into the passageway. He can see a dark shape through the frosted louvers, and he is disorientated. Then he remembers: it is not a workday; he is leaving for Tobago, and he has asked Sherry, his housekeeper, to come today instead of tomorrow. She has arrived early.
‘Mr Rawlinson,’ he hears her high call. ‘Mr Rawlinson.’
She is holding up a plastic bag. ‘I pick up some nice oranges on the highway, right there by the turning. I’ll make a juice.’ He lets her inside, and she goes to the spare bathroom, where she will change into a work dress and an apron. There is a place for her to hang her clothes, and a small shower. It is familiar to her, and he no longer has to instruct her—the way he likes things, the basics. He is not used to taking care of himself, so things are often left undone, unwashed, in a heap. He has to be conscious, make an effort. It doesn’t come naturally.
He inherited Sherry with the apartment, and mostly he is grateful for her; to hear someone else making noises, the sound of the vacuum cleaner, the wringing of the mop in the big metal bucket, cupboards opening and closing, is reassuring. It’s only when she starts preaching that he finds himself feeling irritated. Like last week, when he dropped her off before heading to the beach. As she was getting out of the car, she told him she would pray for him at church on Sunday. ‘It’s too late for all that,’ he’d said. He is sorry that she has come while Safiya is here—what had he been thinking—and in particular, on this last morning that they will be together for some time. He suspects that she does not approve of his relationship with Safiya. Apart from anything else, he is old enough to be her father.
‘Sorry about the Kentucky boxes,’ he says, and moves the empty drinks cartons, the napkins and little tubs of tomato sauce into the black bin liner.
Safiya says there is no time for breakfast, just coffee; she will put on make-up at the other end. She shouts, ‘Morning,’ to Sherry, who is now in the doorway, broom in hand. She grabs her bag, sandals, comb—and asks if he could open the gates, pronto. It is the one thing he wishes he had insisted on, electric gates. Unlocking the chunky padlock, opening and closing the stiff black gates, has become something of a pain.
Next thing Safiya is in her shiny white Mazda 626, and the engine is running and there is music blasting from the radio. She rolls down her window and turns down the sound.
‘Don’t drive like a madwoman, okay. Alert today, alive tomorrow.’
She gives him a look he is certain he will never forget: her eyebrows raised a little, a half smile. He leans in to kiss her, forgetting he is wearing only boxer shorts and there are other people around. She usually complains that English tourists never know how to behave in the sun, that they have no decorum. He tends to agree.
He can see that she has not quite dried herself, the top of her blouse is damp, and where her wet hair sits on her shoulders—it makes him want to pull her out of the car and take her back inside. If Sherry wasn’t here he might consider it—to hell with the office, there are more important things. He had imagined them making love this morning, and he is annoyed that he slept so late.
‘Miss me,’ she says, like an order.
‘I already miss you.’ He kisses her again, aware of his coffee breath.
‘Don’t forget to wear plenty sunblock. You don’t always feel the sun with a sea breeze.’
‘That’s a very wifely thing to say.’
She puts on her Ray-Ban shades, reverses swiftly up the drive, and with her arm stuck out of the window in a kind of salute, Safiya zooms away. He watches her car disappear around the corner of the cul-de-sac. And everything is quiet.
The morning sky is clear and light blue. Two emerald parrots are sitting on the wire, silent; they must have escaped from the flock. They often fly in a crowd overhead and shriek like they are quarrelling. He can’t think of any English birds that make a noise like that, geese, perhaps, turkeys. They are quiet when there are just two of them, it seems. Safiya said parrots are like swans, they mate for life: a very rare species indeed.
From the old-fashioned American mailbox attached to the gate, he takes in today’s rolled-up newspaper, and wanders barefoot back into the yard. The ground is already feeling warm. At one time, he would have worn flip-flops to walk on the concrete because his feet were so soft; his entire life spent in shoes, boots, slippers and socks. But in the last year they have hardened, the soles have a layer of thickened yellowish skin, particularly on the heels, and he is pleased. Perhaps he is finally adapting to his environment.
Everything looks dry, and he knows that he should water the pots around the front area before he leaves. They are mostly ferns, and a couple of larger pots with anthurium lilies; their strange pink flowers look like ears, which he particularly likes.
Safiya has told him it will only get more dry as the coming months arrive. By June the yard will be begging for rain and all the plants and trees stooped like old people.
He finds it hard to keep up with the seasons. Safiya says there is only a dry season and a wet season, but it is apparently more complicated than this. What about the petit carême, a second spell of dry weather in the middle of the wet season? And then there is the hurricane season. Where does that fit in? In England the arrival of seasons is very clear, although they are less obvious than they used to be. It is one of the only things he misses.
Once a week, Vishnu, his gardener, cuts the lawn, clips the trees; there is a small mango tree and an orange tree, and the hedge with blue flowers that reminds him of forget- me-nots. In truth, Vishnu has transformed the garden; he has planted cassava near the fence, banana trees near the water tank, and it is Vishnu who has brought the lilies. Martin has told him he is making more work for himself. The place now needs a certain amount of attention. ‘Not so,’ Vishnu says. ‘Come dry season, it will need watering, but that’s all. You’ll see. I will grow you a little paradise.’
He is glad of Vishnu. He lives in Curepe with Shanti, an older, alcoholic woman who, apparently, makes his life difficult. Sherry says Shanti stays home all day and drinks rum. If Vishnu comes back late, she beats him with whatever she can lay her hands on: a broom, a saucepan, a piece of pipe.
Sometimes, Shanti shows up at the apartment. Once, while he cut the lawn, she lay in the shade of the avocado tree, her arms behind her head, her skinny legs stretched out. After an hour, she made a peculiar noise like a cat, and they disappeared into the shed, where, according to Sherry, they ‘copulate’.
Sherry was angry.
‘How they could do that while I right here in the house? It is disrespectful. Disrespectful to me and to you.’
‘Life is long, Sherry; the average person lives seventy years. Too long to go without fun. Surely Vishnu deserves a little bit of fun.’
Two years ago, he would have given Vishnu a proper ticking-off, but not now. As his mother used to say, Judge not yet ye be judged.
Sherry is stripping his bed, and throwing the sheets on the floor. Her arms are strong and thick; she has a paunch belly and small breasts. Today her black hair looks oily, and it is scraped back. He stands in the doorway and sips his freshly squeezed juice; it is delicious.
‘You’re looking forward to Tobago, Mr Rawlinson? Tobago nice and peaceful. They say it good for newlyweds or nearly deads. You won’t want to come back to this crazy place. Trinidad is a mess.’
Fanta slips in through the open door, his nose up and sniffing the air. This is a very good sign—a sign that the cat is taking ownership. Sherry is unaware and starts to gather up the sheets. The cat stops and looks at her, then turns and strolls out again, brushing his long orange body against the cool white wall.
‘Port of Spain is like Miami now without the police. All these high-rise buildings. Everybody keeps talking about first world, but there is nothing first world about our country. We should be ashamed.’
‘Everywhere, Sherry,’ he tells her. ‘It’s not just Trinidad. Things don’t always work smoothly in England, you know. There are bureaucrats everywhere and it’s impossible to get things done. It’s the same the whole world over.’
‘But in England you don’t have kidnapping like here. When police say they come, they come.’ She rearranges her arms to hold the white mass. It occurs to him how close her face is to their sheets. ‘I hope you teach the police here something.’
He doesn’t know what to say; Sherry has a point. The situation in Trinidad is not about to change anytime soon, if anything, it has got worse. The level of complacency, the resistance to any ideas for improvement have, at times, bewildered him. How often has he heard: That’s all very well, Mr Rawlinson, but it’s not how we do it in our country. They are at least forty years behind. But what can he do? It is what it is. When he first arrived he was determined to make a difference; he continues to do his best.
They stand there looking at one another for a moment, and he realizes that he is still wearing only his boxer shorts.
‘Trinidad has a lot of money, Sherry. You have oil, natural gas. You’re much better off than some of the other islands with only banana or nutmeg trees. Think of Grenada.’
‘Yes, but what are we doing with the money? Building mansions for the prime minister, buying private planes. Putting up skyscrapers. Plenty people don’t have water or a house to live in. And don’t talk to me about schools.’
The telephone rings, and he is relieved. It is Safiya reminding him that she will be in Mayaro for the next couple of days, and probably without a phone signal, should he decide to text.
‘Why aren’t you ready to leave?’ she says. ‘You don’t have long.’
‘Where are you?’ he asks, trying to conjure her.
‘In the corridor outside the office.’
He remembers the passageway lined with photographs of Trinidad Carnival Kings and Queens taken over the years.
‘They should have a photo of you up there. My Carnival Queen.’
Before he leaves for the airport, he rings the office. He assumes that Juliet has either left for an early lunch, or she is in the toilet. He tries again; the telephone rings and rings. The truth is, it doesn’t really matter if he speaks to her before he goes. But this is something that frustrates him about Trinidad; it is one thing to be laid back in your own time but not during working hours. Juliet should have put on her voicemail. A simple thing. He wants to remind her, when his renewal contract is drafted and ready, to send it out immediately.
He has grown fond of Juliet. She clonks around the office in old-fashioned lace-up shoes and thick nylon stockings as if she has all the time in the world. And yet somehow she manages to get the work done. It is not part of her job to organise his holiday villa, but Juliet did it without turning a hair—the villa (a friend of a friend at an excellent rate), a driver to collect them from the airport and a hire car delivered to their address. What more could he ask for. Occasionally she will bring him treats—homemade coconut cake, brownies, mauby. Last week, when he asked about extending his visa, she made a face.
‘Don’t worry, Mr Rawlinson,’ she said, ‘no one is throwing you out of Trinidad just yet. We need you here. You’re keeping our country safe. Even Raymond say so.’
He was flattered, especially the part about Raymond. He knew that Raymond was resistant to the UK recruits; Raymond thought Trinidad should sort out its own mess. It had taken a long time for Martin to feel accepted. Now, to his amazement, they are friends.
On his first day in the job, as part of his induction, Raymond took him to a lively pub in St James. They sat at the bar and watched the place fill while huge speakers thumped out a fast soca beat; the beer rushed quickly to his head—he hadn’t eaten, and he wasn’t yet used to the heat. He was soon feeling lightheaded. For the first time it hit him: he was in Trinidad; home of calypso and Carnival, according to the guide books, the melting pot of the Caribbean.
‘Take a good look,’ Raymond said, ‘these are the people we deal with. There are some in here who’ve killed eight or ten people. They not frightened of the law or anybody.’
Young men, couples playing dominoes, women in shorts, flimsy dresses, tight jeans, some of them already drunk, shimmying around a pool table. It was all going on. Everyone seemed to be having a good time, including the two of them.
‘You want to know why we have so much trouble? Drugs. Drugs are shipped all over the world—to the USA and the UK, Europe. Transshipment from Columbia to Trinidad is six hours. We’ve had cases where large ships were supposedly being refurbished in Trinidad, and then intercepted in Spain with a billion dollars of cocaine.’
Martin had heard about this.
‘Two months ago, we pick up a boat from Columbia. It was thirty-five foot long. Five engines on board, each one 150h.p. They all stacked in the back, and to the front of the boat is all the big parcels of coke and marijuana. The men are heavily armed, eight or ten guns, including machine guns. They come here, drop off the drugs and fly back from Piarco, leaving their guns behind. So now there is a proliferation of guns.’
Raymond was on a roll.
‘In June 1999, we hang nine people in the state prison gallows. You know how many murders there were that month? None. You know why?’ He thumped his hand on the bar: ‘Trinidadians don’t like hanging.’
Martin said, with a half smile. ‘Well, it’s a little barbaric, don’t you think?’