The White Woman on the Green Bicycle (17 page)

George still never knew what to say. He took himself out into the garden, where her sighs hadn’t spread, picking a hibiscus from one of the beds. Under the soil lay the bones of two dead dogs, the pets which had been poisoned by neighbours of that old slave woman. Sabine was right; they’d never been safe here. Now it was worse. He placed the flower in the crook of the mango tree above, just as Pascale had as a little girl.

I’m sorry about what happened with the ship, he said to the tree.

It’s not your fault.

Pascale’s fault. We missed it.

It’s not your fault.

She could have left. On the next boat.

She loved you.

I love her.

She still loves you.

Does she?

She is sick from loving you. Go to her.

She refuses me.

Take her in your arms.

Impossible. He re-envisioned the liner slipping through the First Boca, past all the green and rock.

She won’t have me.

Go to her.

George returned. Sabine lay in state, grieving. Her eyes were pooled. He hovered over her. Something small, he could say something small: dramatic and to the point.

‘Shall I warm up some leftovers?’ he asked.

‘I’m not hungry.’

‘You should eat something.’

‘Just leave me.’ Her voice was leaden.

In the kitchen he opened the fridge, took out a Pyrex dish of leftover curry and stuck it in the microwave. The dogs came wagging their tails to the kitchen door to see what he was doing.

‘Hello, boys,’ he whispered.

Their whole bodies wagged and they pressed their muzzles close to his legs. But they didn’t cheer him up. He left the kitchen with the bubbling curry on a tray and turned on the CNC news, watching Carla Foderingham present the latest about the Soca Warriors. The big match was the next day. Trinidad and Tobago versus Peru, the friendly game. He had tickets but he hadn’t mentioned this to Sabine. He looked over at his wife laid out full-length on the sofa. Maybe he should tell her about the lawyer. His articles, polishing up her green bicycle, nothing seemed to please her. The familiar reverberating sound started up, a gentle puffing sound, as Sabine began to snore.

 

Clock and George wore red T-shirts to the match. They arrived early, parking in the Movie Town car park opposite the stadium. George helped the little boy across the busy main road, a steady flow of football supporters straggling across it.

Everyone wore red. Flags hung from shoulders, faces were painted with the Trinidad and Tobago colours. Conch horns bellowed. Vendors greeted ticket holders well in advance of the entrance, hawking wristbands, T-shirts, whistles, car stickers. George and Clock dodged them, drifting up the main corridor towards the stadium entrance, stopping to buy cherry-flavoured snow cones. Four in the afternoon and the sun poured down. They climbed the stairs to the balconies, arriving at the top, gazing out onto the scratchy yellow-grass pitch.

The stadium looped around the pitch in a lazy oval of turquoise seats.

‘Wow. It like a big snake,’ the little boy gasped.

‘Let’s get a place to sit,’ George suggested.

The stands were filling. Supporters who had already gathered were buoyant, batting Carib, Stag. Picong flew, nerves and laughter in the air as the fans discussed the match: Trinidad’s possibility of success that day, let alone in Germany. Umbrellas opened everywhere to ward off the sun. The stands crawled with salesmen. Rastamen were pelting small brown bags of peanuts up the rows and red dollar bills were passing down in return on a chain of arms. Men roamed with plastic buckets of beer on ice. The air was a cacophony of calls.

George and Clock made their way down an aisle and across a row of seats. George opened his giant golf umbrella and they sat under it eating their melting snow cones and warm peanuts, watching a fat man dressed in a red satin suit and red cowboy hat goose-stepping around the pitch.

Clock didn’t know much about football, so George explained the rules. Then he explained the business with the Dutch coach, how he’d got the team this far. He described each of the players and their backgrounds: Shaka Hislop in goal; the wondrous Russell Latapy; how the white boy, Chris Burchill, often tried to score from the mid-field. How Latapy and Dwight Yorke cried on this very field when they lost to the Americans in a World Cup qualifying match sixteen years ago; how Trinidad was the smallest country to qualify for the World Cup.

‘Can we win?’ Clock asked.

‘No, we can’t.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because many teams out there are giants.’

‘David felled Goliath.’

‘But we aren’t David.’

‘Who are we?’

‘The Soca Warriors.’

‘They go fight and fête?’

‘Yes. That’s our basic strategy.’

The sun began to sink and the sky mellowed, blossoming to ibis pink, the clouds scalloped with heavenly gold. More spectators arrived in crowds of red. Calypsonians sang and pranced on a makeshift stage. Indian dancers shimmied, children in carnival costumes paraded around the pitch. A man in a chicken costume skipped around. The Carib Girls ran a chaotic circuit, waving their pom-poms, abandoning their routine. The Trinidad Cadet Force marched and farted out a tune on their trumpets and tubas. The Peru team trotted on in their white strip. Each player was announced by name and position. Then the Trinidad team appeared.

The crowd roared, rising to its feet. The Prime Minister, Patrick Manning, led a small band of dignitaries onto the pitch to shake hands with each player.

‘Asshole.’

‘
Booo
.’

Manning’s presence provoked jeers from those sitting around them. Then, a gigantic shadow fell across the pitch, across the whole stadium.

‘Jesus Christ,’ George muttered.

Above them, not so high up, was the dragon-like underbelly of the blimp.

‘How the fuck did it manage to sneak up on the entire stadium like that?’

‘It lookin’ like a space ship,’ Clock gasped, peering up.

The blimp was vast, sailing across the sky with stealth, with grace, not the plump comic bump in the sky seen from far off. Huge, hovering, it brooded in the air; it caused a feeling of guilt to spread through his veins.

‘Fuck off, you bastard,’ George shouted upwards.

Appreciative laughter came from all around.

Then the whole stadium rose to its feet to sing the national anthem. ‘��Side by side we stand, islands of the blue Caribbean sea . . .”’

The stadium lights banged on. The starting whistle shrilled. The spectators sat down.

Picong started up.

‘Dong de road. Dong de
roaaad
,’ men yelled.

‘Pressure. Pressure.’

‘Nah, man, look, dese Peru players cyan kick. Dat de
Macarena
.’

‘
Kill
de hafling!’

A very drunk Indian man in front of them with a Latapy T-shirt shouted, ‘
Olé, olé, olé
, barbeque.
Olé, olé, olé
, powder puff.’

The Powder Posse scattered white talc in the air. A Mexican wave started up, a red bulge moving across the stands. George and Clock stood up, raising their hands as it passed.

‘Again, again!’ Clock shouted. Skinny black girls in tiny red vest-tops shook their chac-chacs.

The Soca Warriors were awful.

‘We’re going to get our arses whipped in Germany,’ George cringed.

It was a friendly match, but the Soca Warriors played like saps, pissing about. They weren’t even showing off. They ran about the pitch like harassed bachac ants while the Peru players were professional, disciplined. When the Peru team scored the stadium went silent.

Half-time was called.

George took out a strip of aspirin from his top pocket.

‘You have a headache, Mr Harwood?’

‘A stinker.’ He knocked back two pills with the dregs of his snow cone. The hills behind Diego Martin twinkled.

‘It pretty over der,’ Clock marvelled. ‘Like a galaxy.’

The players came back onto the pitch.

‘Dong de
rooooaaad
,’ shouted the fans.

‘
Olé, olé
, cheese sticks,’ shouted the drunken Indian man.

Talc puffed and floated in the air. The whole stadium was on its feet. The Soca Warriors kicked the ball around like a bunch of fuckwits.

‘
Do
something, nuh, man!’

‘Dey dancin’ over you.’

George gazed across at the covered stand opposite, at the VIP section. Patrick Manning was watching, too. Same place, same time. Manning, son of Williams, son of the PNM. No one knew much about Patrick Manning. He had studied geology at university, become a career politician. He joined the PNM at the lowest rank, climbing his way up. He was unimpressive when he spoke, something foolish in his eyes, in his lopsided grin. Ears like the handles on a Toby jug. Like Williams, Manning had surrounded himself with cronies.

A hush fell. George’s vision blurred. He missed the scuffle on the pitch. His head thudded. He rubbed the back of his neck.
Dear Dr Williams
was tapping on the walls of his skull. The Peru players lined up in front of the Trinidad goal. A penalty shot. Who was taking the kick? He couldn’t tell. The line of players reeled.

The stand erupted.

A goal for Trinidad and Tobago.

People leaped up and down, hugging each other, whistling, shouting, the stands shaking with joy. Horns blew. Men were crying. Talc filled the air. The drunk Indian man waved an open bottle of water over his head and water looped above the crowd. Clock danced up and down on his seat. George hugged him; the noise of it all sang in his head. Whistles screamed. His vision blurred.

When the crowd contained itself, he sat down.

‘You OK, Mr Harwood?’

‘Yes. I’m fine. Too much waiting in the sun.’

He didn’t see the end of the match.

Everyone around was standing up, blocking the view.
Dear Mr Williams
knocking at the walls of his skull.
Dear Mr Williams
, the words an incessant thrum. George held his head. A swell of nausea surged up from his gut. He battled to keep it down.

The end-of-match whistle blew shrill. One all. Instantly, the stands began to drain. Clock sat down next to George.

‘I’ll be fine in a minute,’ George reassured him.

Clock fanned him with a styrofoam tray he found on the floor.

‘Come on, then.’ George pushed himself up. He stood and wobbled, looking around. His vision had sharpened. Slowly, they climbed the stairs back up to the balcony. Then down more stairs. George clung to the railings, his palms damp. He staggered over to a vendor, asked for a bottle of water and drank greedily from it, pouring water over his face.

‘Don’t you worry about me,’ George smiled.

The boy’s face was serious.

‘I’m fine. Let’s get out of here.’

 

They proceeded down the second flight and out through the open turnstiles. The red river moved slowly, flowing towards the road.

George jumped at a loud explosion in the sky. He looked up. The sky was alight with flowers of green and yellow and pink, sparks cascading. A war of fireworks in the air, bangs and flashes like machine-gun fire. The air cartwheeled, spilling smoke and sulphur. George clasped his hands to his ears and shut his eyes. Clock’s small hand was on his back, steadying him. The little boy clutched at him, stretching the material of his T-shirt, struggling to hold him up. George knew he was going. His legs buckled.

‘Mr Harwood, Mr Harwood!’

He heard the little boy’s shouts for help, the fizzing bombs erupting in the sky. The boy grappled and grasped at his T-shirt. George fell slowly and heavily to the ground, landing with a cushioned
thud
.

‘Mr Hardwood, Mr Harwood, wake up. Wake up!’ The little boy’s voice was pleading, desperate. George wanted to take hold of his hand.

‘Mr Harwood. Mr Harwood.’ Another voice, a woman’s, closer to his ear. Her face was blurred. Two men in uniforms hovered near by.

‘We need to get him out de way,’ the female voice directed.

‘Easy now. One, two, three.’ Hands lifted him to his feet.

George moaned. ‘Eric Williams. I’m going to talk to that . . .’

‘Mr Harwood, you fainted.’

‘Did I?’ He squinted, woozy. He recognised the woman, a friend of Pascale’s. Pretty thing. Maureen Boos.

Carefully, he smoothed the back of his head. ‘Did someone clobber me?’

‘You fell over,’ Clock explained.

They sat him down on a kerb, put his head between his legs.

‘Mr Harwood, you know me. I’m a friend of your daughter’s. Can I call Pascale?’

‘Oh no, please.’

‘She can come and pick you up.’

‘I’ll be fine. Just had too much sun. Drank on an empty stomach.’

‘Where’s your truck?’

‘Very close. Please don’t worry.’

George struggled to his feet. ‘I’m fine now. Please. Don’t look so worried,’ he said to Clock. ‘Maureen, this is my friend.’

Maureen stared with suspicion at the little black boy.

‘We’ll be fine.’

Clock put an arm under his and together they staggered off into the moving flow of red.

 

George parked the truck in its usual covered spot beside the kitchen. He didn’t get out straight away. He rested his head in his hands, elbows on the steering wheel.
Thud, thud, thud
inside his head. He couldn’t remember the drive home, only that it was slow and that the boy said nothing. The tiny Virgin Mary gazed expectantly at him, palms outstretched.

‘George?’

Sabine stood at the door of the truck. ‘I’ve been watching you from the kitchen window.’

‘Oh. I was just thinking about you.’

‘What happened? Pascale rang. A friend of hers said you fainted at the football match. You didn’t even tell me you’d gone.’