Dare to Love (2 page)

‘That no matter. I no going too fast meself.’ He slips easily into my stride.

‘Yeah, sure.’ I’m struggling to keep my balance on the sand and wish he wasn’t watching me so closely, but I can’t think of a polite reason to say no.

‘How many laps you doing?’

‘I’m aiming for ten.’ I’m not good at running and talking.

‘What number you on now?’

‘Six,’ I pant.

‘How long it take you so far?’

‘Not been timing it.’

‘I’m Carlisle.’

‘Like the place?’

‘Is there a place name Carlisle?’

‘Yeah, near Scotland.’

‘Do you have a name?’

‘Yeah, sure. Josi.’

‘Hi Jooseee.’

I’m grateful when he’s quiet for a few seconds. It gives me a chance to increase my strides again. I’m too focused on my legs and lungs to take him in, but his strides are easier and smoother than mine.

‘You from England?’

‘Yeah.’

‘How long you here?’

‘Three weeks.’

‘How much longer you have left?’

‘Just got here two days ago.’

Another welcome pause. I’m on lap eight and wishing I hadn’t told him ten. My lungs are straining when he asks, ‘So what do you do in England, Jooseee?’

I debate whether to tell him what I do and waste precious breath or tell him I’m a teacher. I opt for the latter as I still have two laps to go. ‘What do you do?’

‘I’m a police officer.’

I slip him a sideways look. He doesn’t look like a police officer. I catch myself. What do police officers look like when they’re out of uniform? I don’t know any police officers socially and wouldn’t go out of my way to make friends with one. One of my clients had a very abusive police husband; it took her two years to leave him, handicapped by the fact that he knew the law, knew where and how to hit her so the bruises wouldn’t show; and, to add insult to injury most of their friends were in the force. She couldn’t face the embarrassment of being investigated by people she’d gone out with on social functions. How could she hold her head up if it all came out? Where could she go where he wouldn’t be able to find her? Who would believe her?

Her sister eventually managed to get her out of the house; found her a safe place. But she was too terrified to function. Couldn’t leave the house, became depressed, found all kinds of ways to blame herself for what had happened. That’s when she was referred to me. It took months of intensive work to help her rebuild the self-confidence he had so effectively eroded. Bit by bit, she began to believe in herself again. First by gathering the threads of her life from where they’d been scattered and then beginning the slow process of weaving herself a new tapestry; one that didn’t omit him but placed him where he belonged, a ragged thread of the past that helped her find a deeply buried strength. That awakening to new possibilities is one of the things that makes my work so rewarding.

I look at Carlisle again. How many times have I castigated others for stereotyping? Yet here I am summing up this stranger without knowing anything at all about him.

‘How long have you been a police officer?’

‘Twelve years.’

Long enough to be skilled at deception and abuse. I catch myself again.

‘Do you enjoy it?’

I’ve slowed to little more than a fast walk. Using mental energy’s draining my physical resources.

We’re just about to do the turn for the last lap. ‘Last one,’ he says brightly, ‘you want to speed up a bit?’

I give him another glance. Where does he think I’m going to get the energy from for a sprint?

‘No, just want to get to the end of this.’ He hasn’t answered my question. I’m curious, want to find out what kind of police officer he thinks he is.

‘Do you enjoy being a police officer?’

‘Well, most of the time I do, but the job’s changing.’ He talks about increasing lack of respect for the role, especially among the young, about the sophistication of technology-based crimes and the international nature of criminal activity on the island. As he talks, I recognise I’ve been harbouring another stereotype; police officers are uneducated and inarticulate.

We finish my last lap and he volunteers to do my warm down stretches with me. I have a better view of him as we stretch. He shows me how to do abs work using the benches. He smiles a lot, showing white even teeth. His lips part suddenly, almost without warning, a sunshine streak across his face.

Patting his little paunch, he explains he’s been fitter. ‘Need to shift this.’

‘Don’t you have a work gym?’ Doesn’t the police force provide the means for keeping its workforce fit? Why does he need to work out on the beach?

‘Yeah, we have a small one, but I like to come dun here cause I get to know people; can stop little tings becoming big tings.’ He still believes in community policing. He tries to keep fit so he can ‘chase dun a man an arres him instead of pull a gun a shoot him.’ Too many of the unfit officers go for the gun but for him ‘every man I shoot is somebody’s chile.’

I’m warming to Carlisle. He’s challenging my beliefs – shifting my thinking. I respect people who do that. When he asks if I want him to be my running partner to help me build my speed, I wonder again if he’s hitting on me. Are his questions about my marital status, length of stay, children (did I have any and how many) polite curiosity, professional inquiry or something else. I look into his deep brown eyes, see the smile spread across his face and say, ‘Yes, thanks.’ He’s easy on the eyes. I’ve just accepted a social engagement with a police officer.

Morning beach training with Carlisle becomes a regular part of my routine. I like routines. They help me know what to do next; steady me when my head’s scrambled. Order allows me to deviate. It’s one of the principles I work with. I tell my clients we need a balance of certainty and uncertainty. Too much certainty and life’s boring. Too much uncertainty and we can’t think straight, can’t make real plans, can’t follow through. Live in chaos. Most of them come looking for certainty in some part of their lives – career, business, children – but mostly they come looking for certainty in their relationships.

After the beach I go back to the apartment to shower and eat. Some days, when Celia’s working late, I go back to the beach in the afternoon, pay the ten dollars for a sun bed and lay on it reading till sunset. Sometimes men wondering if I’m looking for a little adventure stop by, sometimes others with big issues – usually they want to know why a woman is on her own. Other days I get a bus and do a little bit of sightseeing or shop and prepare a meal till Celia gets home.

Although Celia never mentions it, my silence about what had happened between me and Richard hangs in the air like a fine mist. There’s no pressure from her, but we both know there’s something to be said. It’s a wall we go round. It’ll be easier when I find an opening through the wall, or better still, when I dismantle it.

Celia finishes early on Friday. We go to visit an aunt in St Philip she wants me to meet, and to collect bagfuls of mangoes from the tree in the back garden. It’s a small house with a neat veranda which leads into the living room. A floor to ceiling display unit in rich mahogany houses all kinds of ornaments and crockery. Commemoration plates of Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer’s engagement, wooden carvings of African masks and figures, plastic and glass snow globes, glass ornaments of all kinds of animals. Models of the Statue of Liberty, the CNN tower, Big Ben. Vases displaying an array of plastic and silk flowers. And photographs.

The room’s a historical gallery. Sepia stills of stiff-lipped people posing with hands on vases of flowers or perched on the edge of a table. Women and girls in wide skirts, men and boys in suits or long-sleeved shirts and bow ties. All looking like a visit to the doctor to hear bad news is imminent. Around the walls are photos from all decades; black and white, sepia, washed out colour becoming more vivid, more vibrant, the subjects increasingly relaxed. There are photos of children in school uniforms in cardboard frames, others are beautifully framed. Someone’s taken great care to match the subject and activity to an appropriate frame. A small two-seater sofa sits opposite the display unit, a deep rich green velvet with cream lace antimacassars draped over the back and the arms. Beside that, a small table, also covered in lace, provides lodgings for a vase filled with freshly cut marbled crotons and rich pink hibiscus. On the floor, a simple multicoloured rush mat provides effortless sound proofing.

Celia’s scrutinising one of the photos.

‘This is new,’ she says almost to herself.

‘Your aunt must be well travelled,’ I observe.

‘Nope, never left the island. In fact, haven’t left St Philips that often.’

‘So what about all this?’ I wave at the display unit.

‘Presents from those more travelled,’ she smiles. ‘That’s why I want you to meet her. Aunt Enid is one of the most remarkable women I know.’

‘Well, she certainly keeps an interesting house.’

‘And raised eleven children from here.’

‘From here?’ I echo. There’s hardly room to swing the proverbial cat.

‘Another world, another time. These Chattel houses were once des res, I’ll have you know.’ She’s laughing at me.

‘Chattel?’

‘I’ll tell you another time. Here’s Aunt Enid.’

I turn, expecting to find someone who’s borne eleven children and lived almost all her life in the same village. Someone bowed by the burden of child-rearing, plump from being distended so often, and a little slow mentally from never having travelled. Instead I look up into calm brown playful eyes; a smile that reflects all over her face and percolates through her pores as bouncing happy energy, spreading out to embrace me and Celia. I imagine her doing that to anyone in her presence.

She’s the same height as Celia and as erect. Her slender body’s lost some of its hour-glass definition but is still lean and firm. Both women have their hair in buns. On one it gives the appearance of freshness and innocence, on the other, with its liberal sprinkling of grey, it’s distinguished, regal. Aunt Enid’s simple emerald shift dress is belted at the waist. Thin black leather to match her sandals, expensive looking like Celia’s.

I reach out to shake the extended hand. ‘Welcome to my house chile. You waa somein a drink?’ she asks in a heavy Bajan accent.

‘I beg your pardon?’ She repeats her question and I look at Celia for a translation.

‘Do you want a drink?’

‘I got some mauby. Yu waa dat?’

‘Mauby?’ Celia says.

‘Yes please.’ I’m not a huge fan of mauby but it can be refreshing when ice cold.

I understand ‘get it’ as she turns and leaves the room.

‘She looks fantastic.’ I’m incredulous.

‘Told you,’ Celia says smugly.

‘And you two look so alike.’

Enid’s back with the mauby in long glasses with gold flowers.
With translation, the conversation goes something like this.

‘How long you here for?’

‘Three weeks.’

‘You married?’

‘Yes.’

‘Children?’

‘Three boys.’

‘You strong woman.’ Generosity itself considering she’s got eleven. ‘Where you husban?’

‘At home.’

‘Looking after the children?’

‘No, working.’

I don’t add the children are old enough to look after themselves. The youngest is at university and no longer in need of babysitting.

‘What you doing here on your own? Looking for mischief?’

‘No, just need a break.’

‘In my view, when a woman need a break from her husban this far from home, she ready for mischief. You husban don’t mind?’

‘I don’t think so.’

‘He mind. He just saying that to make heself feel better.’

I don’t know what to say. Seems she has an answer for everything.

‘Be careful. There’s plenty Bajan man happy to get you into mischief. I have a little advice fo you. If you get into mischief, spare you husban de details.’ She winks at me. She puts her arm around my shoulders and leads me out to the back garden.

‘Whatever it is, a sure you can work it out. Life too short to be unhappy.’ Well she’s testimony to happiness. It isn’t just a word she uses, it’s in the tilt of her head, in the length of her neck, the straightness of her back, the sureness of her foot, the gentleness of her arm around my shoulder. I want to ask her what she would do in my situation, but I doubt my issue’s one she’s ever encountered.

‘You wa pick some mangoes?’

I hadn’t realised when Celia said we were coming to pick up mangoes that it was pick your own. There are two trees in the back. Walking past the croton hedges I see where she got her cut flowers. There are seven different types of crotons forming a colourful hedge around the house, a hibiscus and small frangipani trees. The two mango trees are laden with low hanging fruits. Enid produces two plastic carrier bags.

‘Take as much as you want,’ she instructs us.

‘Bags e the Julies,’ I say to Celia.

‘You can have them. I like the stringy ones better.’