The White Woman on the Green Bicycle (15 page)

‘Whenever I try to pray my head goes blank.’

‘Sometimes you pray by accident. In passing. A wish, a hope. A thought.’ Sabine smiled at her son and blushed. She wanted to keep her son here with her, in Trinidad, her good handsome clever son; have him enrich her life, make things better, just like George did once.

‘That Joseph is starting to get to us, Mum,’ Sebastian joked.

‘Yes. Let’s get this over with.’

 

Our Lady of Lourdes was light and airy. The church had a high bowed wooden ceiling, like the innards of an upturned pirogue. The floor was a mosaic of tiles. The slim arched windows were interspersed with woodcuts of Christ’s passion, iconised; the Stations of the Cross. The images were grainy, roughly cut into wood. They made Sabine sadder than usual, somehow ashamed of herself. Ashamed of what? She wasn’t sure. They sat down and watched as the pews filled slowly. Little black girls filed in wearing white nylon tights and red ribbons like butterflies settled in their hair. Teenage boys with wet hair slicked back, wearing oversized jeans and oversized Caterpillar boots. Old thin black women in flouncy sherbet-coloured Easter bonnets. Old thin white people, speckled with chocolate flecks of melanin, their skin like an advancing leprosy. Everyone standing. Backs straight, eyes forward, waiting.

Facing the congregation were two pews for the choir. Six or seven black men and women stood there, peering into hymn books. A little boy stood among them, his clean white shirt tucked into ironed black trousers. He clutched a tambourine to his chest, his eyes large and bold and serious. The boy was familiar, yes. George had once picked him up in his truck; they were on their way into town. She rarely travelled with George in that rusty old thing, but her car had been in the garage; George had stopped abruptly. ‘Hop in,’ he’d called out to the boy. There was a familiarity between them she didn’t expect, a small friendship. Sabine had felt hurt. George had never even mentioned this little boy, and yet they seemed to be friends. Maybe George had lots of friendships he never shared with her. The little boy and George had been comfortable together that day; they had chatted easily. She had felt envious.

‘My guardian angel,’ George had remarked, casually, when they had dropped him off.

 

The choir began to sing the first notes of the opening hymn, the adults taking their lead from the boy, his high pure voice holding the other voices up. The organist joined in, a man on a guitar, too. The boy shook his tambourine, crooning, his voice filling the entire cavern of the church, right up to the rafters. It seemed to fill Sabine, too, entering through her spine and filling the cavity of her chest, warming her insides. The boy’s voice made her skin tingle, her scalp prickle; it made her feel self-conscious.

A flock of priests in pastoral green proceeded up the aisle, standards held aloft. Altar boys wafted smoking bombs of frankincense to the left and right.

‘Hi there.’ It was Frank Farfan. Uncle Frank, patriarch of a large local white family they knew well. Dear Frank.

‘Can I share your pew?’ Frank was six foot five and singed to a crisp, his skin papier-mâchéd to his bones. His eyes were small brown polished balls, twinkling with mischief. Sabine squeezed his hand and moved up to make room for him.

Frank stood erect, gazing at the priest, absorbing every word. This was how Trinidadians behaved in church: alert, composed, peering respectfully at the altar, awaiting a miracle. Carnival and Lent. Bacchanal and guilt. Trinidad in a nutshell. This was a nation of sin-loving people who made a point of praying for forgiveness.

‘I don’t like the look of
him,
’ Sabine whispered to Sebastian.

A man had wandered in. He loitered by the open side door a few feet away. His body was sinewy and well-muscled, black as earth. He had short gingerish dreadlocks and his eyes were drug-bleary and red. He was glancing around, surveying the congregation.

‘Eh, eh, who does he think he is?’

‘A local badjohn,’ Frank whispered back.

The badjohn stood his ground and the mass continued. Father Andrew proselytised about peace. Peace handed down from on high, peace and love to our neighbours. Peace for Easter. The man was goat-eyed, his dreadlocks like stubby horns. A hundred parishioners ignored him and prayed for his sins. Sabine stared him down. He stared back. What had he come for?

The man stood by the door throughout, not listening to a word, eyes scanning the pews. Minutes ticked by. Sebastian had his eyes closed, trying to pray. Then there was movement in the aisles, as the congregation prepared themselves for the collection. Old black women, bonneted, grim-faced, scattered through the church, hovering at each aisle with a collection basket on a long pole. In the central aisle, a few feet away from the badjohn, a large flat basket lay on a table, awaiting the entire cache.

Slowly, the old women emptied their collection baskets into the main basket until it contained a hill of red, blue and purple banknotes.

The badjohn glared at the hill of money.

The church glared at the badjohn.

The badjohn rubbed his chin.

The woman guarding the basket peered down her nose at him. To get to the money, he would have to knock her down. But she would howl and kick him and bite his ankles. Then he’d have to deal with hardman Frank Farfan, seventy-two and mad and wild and passionate about his God, and the black man in front of Frank, the one with the big muscles and the small baby in his arms.

The badjohn stared at the money. Sabine’s stomach twisted; she was sure there was about to be an ugly fight.

Dignified and slow, the woman turned her head and cast her stern eyes in his direction. Facing him, asking him, with cold and furious intent, just what he had planned.

The badjohn didn’t move.

Sabine felt faint. She saw herself that day, with the man the whole country had rejected. A man crushed, the streets in flames. A man who had come to the end of things. Eric Williams, his head hung in bitter shame. Was it wrong of her to care, to put her lips to his neck?

The woman picked up the basket.

The badjohn glared.

The woman dared him to try and steal the money. She steupsed and clicked her throat.

The rest of the church turned away.

The badjohn licked his lips, his throat dried, his soul parched.

The woman carried the money up to the altar with small measured steps.

It was time to give peace. Frank reached for Sabine’s hand, holding it high like a trophy as Father Andrew commenced the blessing. The entire congregation raised up their hands in a form of salute, arms stretched across the church in a long row of Ws. Sabine looked across at the door. The badjohn stood there, clearly confused.

‘Let us offer each other the sign of peace,’ Father Andrew intoned.

The congregation went on the move, shaking hands, giving peace, chatting, exchanging hellos and Easter greetings. Hugs, kisses. Handshakes. Blessings.
Howyuh goin’?
Everyone was aware of this man in their midst. The man was outnumbered, outpeaced. The church shifted, moving together like a shoal of fish.

A young black woman, a baby in her arms, approached the goat-eyed man with an outstretched hand.

Sabine wanted to shout:
Get away from him
.

‘Peace be with you,’ she said, offering the badjohn her hand. Her baby gurgled.

The badjohn whispered something in reply. He shook her hand cautiously. The young woman moved on.

The badjohn looked around.

Uncle Frank stared him down.

Sabine stared him down.

The badjohn vanished.

Sabine sank to her knees. She crossed herself and prayed:
Marie, pleine de grâce
. She was sorry, sorry for her sins, mostly for the way she’d treated George for so long, for the way she was so distant with him, for the way she’d come to look at him like she looked at the man with the goat-eyes. When had her innocence left her? In those years when she had been writing to Eric Williams, when she was pleading and young and confused, just like the badjohn? Back then she had been hopeful. Look at the little boy up there, his big black eyes full of belief, full of love. Where had she disappeared to? She hated coming here; why had she come again? To please her son. Her son who couldn’t pray. She had stopped trying to pray years ago. She wished the boy would stop looking at her so, like he knew something. Go away. At least her son was here, thank God. She would try, try to be nice again, try to find her former self ‒ how, where? Those black birds, corbeaux, circling overhead. The day they pelted stones at her. Did she die then?

Not only had Ray loved the Sparrow interview, he’d gone big, running it as a spread in the main paper. He loved the exclusive on the calypso. Unexpectedly, on Easter Sunday morning, he rang George again.

‘Lara just named Captain of de team again, man!’ He sounded excited. ‘We want another scoop! Lara arrivin’ in two days, Tuesday mornin’. I want you do de interview. Get him to talk about what he’ll do different, for God’s sake, how he gonna turn de team back into champions. Or is it just a PR job before de cricket World Cup in 2007? Aks him tough questions, man.’

‘Of course.’

‘None of de usual tra la la.’

‘No.’

‘We need the story by Friday.’

‘You’ll have it.’

In the office, George saw that his file on Lara had been recently excavated from the heap of other files, left on top of the desk for him to find. Brian Lara ‒ so famous on the island he was common, he was everyman. Lara was thirty-seven. Finally, ripe for the captaincy. At eighteen, he was way too young, but now he stood on the mountain of his career, primed for leadership. Everyone knew the stories: Bunty and Pearl Lara, his parents, had eleven children, a house in a village in Santa Cruz. His brother Rudolph had carved Brian his first cricket bat. As a child, Brian had played cricket with an orange.

On the file, George saw a note, a white envelope with his name written on the front in Sabine’s hand. Years since she’d left him a note. A feeling overcame him, like he was ridiculous and out of his depth; this was the feeling he’d nursed for some time now, with his wife. She’d got the better of him, over the years. He opened the envelope and unfolded the single white page inside, hoping that it might say something of love. On it was written in Sabine’s unmistakable slant:
Can you ask Mr Lara what he thinks of the blimp?

 

Fifteen minutes by car from Paramin to the Hilton Hotel, which clung to Belmont Hill. The hotel overlooked the savannah and the district of Laventille. Once, a great house had existed on the same spot, occupied by the early governors of Trinidad; the governors had held court, overseeing the city, discussing the price of cocoa. The hotel was in some ways still a fort, perched up above it all. George was early. He made his way down to the pool area. Behind it ran a glass balcony with a view across the city.

George recognised Brian Lara instantly, even though Lara’s back was turned to him. Lara stood on the balcony, talking into his mobile phone, peering out over Port of Spain. The clean-cut clothes, the voice. Lara was five foot nine at best. That was him all right. George felt a surge of relief: excellent, excellent, this was an amiable setting for an interview.

George coughed. Brian Lara turned.

‘Hello, Mr Lara,’ George said, coming forward. ‘Seems like we had the same idea. I’m George Harwood from the
Guardian
.’

Lara’s face relaxed. An imp, a Puck, bearing the wide, capricious smile of a boy of ten. His eyes, though, held a halting quality, flashing with a seriousness of intent, of responsibility.

George joined him at the railing, switching on the tape recorder in his pocket.

‘Some view, eh?’ he ventured. Port of Spain was spread out before them, right out to the Gulf of Paria. The savannah was dry, threatening fire. The sky was white. The blimp hung about in it.

‘Apart from that thing.’ Lara pointed.

‘Yes. What do you think of it?’

‘I hear it have a bar up there. That they mix great cocktails.’

George laughed.

‘It have rooms and a dance floor, and a setta beautiful women, man. And the bes seats for all the matches at the oval and the stadium. Bes place to watch the Peru match when the Soca Warriors come.’

‘Who’s up there, then?’

‘Manning. The government. That’s where they spend de day.’

‘Maybe you’ll get invited up.’

‘I already have!’

‘I have a friend who’d like to go up. A little boy. Can you fix it?’

Lara’s eyes twinkled. ‘Yeah, man.’

George stared out at the hills surrounding the city, the green, voluptuous hills.

‘My wife . . .’ He blushed. ‘My wife wants me to ask you a question.’

‘Oh yeah? What?’

‘What do you
really
think of it?’