The White Woman on the Green Bicycle (46 page)

But Granny’s face was vacant, glazed with concentration. My car blistered in the sun, halfway down the street, halfway between me and the crowd.

The voices grew louder as the throng approached.

Clive, I spotted Clive in amongst the crowd. Bernard, too. They were excited and shouting chants against the PNM. Venus’s children, little boys I knew. I didn’t see Venus. I shook, holding onto the bars of the gate.

‘Please, Granny. Let me in!’ But she was in some kind of trance, a fascination. I closed my eyes, wanting to sleep, wanting to end it all. They could have me, tear me limb from limb. I was sick of being scared.

‘Eh, eh,’ I heard.

The crowd had spotted me. Clive spotted me. A jeer went up and the throng surged forwards.

The first stone stung my leg through my dress. The second was bigger, falling harder, a sharp grazing blow on my stomach. I grasped the gate shouting God knows what but Granny didn’t move. I was pinned there, flat to the gate of the old shack and there was no escape. More stones, people in the crowd bending to pick stones from the road, from the gutter and then more stones flew, hitting me, a hail of stones and I held my arm up to my face, clinging to the gate.

‘Granny,’ I shouted. ‘For God’s sake!’

I saw a child bending down to pick up a stone. Clive. I saw him bend and stare me down, a smirk on his face as he took aim and hurled it at me. Clive, an eleven-year-old boy, jumping for joy when his stone found its target. The crowd jeered.

I gasped and cried out, pleading. Clive’s eyes met mine.

‘Clive!’ I shouted. ‘Clive, stop that, it’s me, it’s me!’ But he didn’t care or even seem to hear. He picked up another stone, hurling it like he was shooing away a dog.

Clive was shouting and laughing and running to pick up another stone. I closed my eyes.

Those big black birds, those big black birds, finally descending to pick me over. The crowd squawking and fighting one another: who first, who first, which one to gouge out an eye. The carrion-crowd pecking at me, stones hitting me, those black birds closing in to scrape at me. I was the rotten waste, the dead meat of Trinidad. I was no longer scared, only relieved. Finally they were coming.

Granny Seraphina. I was aware of her at the gate, her hands on me.

‘Clive, get inside.’ Her sharp brittle voice. ‘Allyuh move, leave she,’ she said to the crowd. ‘Allyuh get away. Move, nuh. Stop dis nonsense.’

Clive fled past me.

Then, no sound.

My flesh stung. Granny put her calloused hand to my forehead, briefly, as if to feel for fever.

‘Wait a while,’ she said. And I waited: moments, minutes? I don’t remember, only that she helped me to the car.

 

Clive was just a boy. Excited, swept up in it all. I drove home, shaking. And took a shower straight away. I bathed my grazed skin with witch hazel. Nothing broken, just my pride. How stupid had I been to go up there? Break the curfew. I didn’t tell George about what happened. I lay down on our bed and turned on the air-conditioning and prayed to the Virgin.
Marie, pleine de grâce, gardez-nous.
Nothing mattered any more. Nothing mattered. We were leaving Trinidad.

 

Later that day, I went out again. I decided to visit the home of Eric Williams. I knew where to find him; everyone did, at the official residence in St Ann’s. The house would be heavily guarded, but I decided to go anyway. I’d no plan, not even a hope of a conversation. I went to pay my respects, or maybe to gawp, to make some kind of pilgrimage. I was tired and my skin still stung from the stones.

The famous street was cordoned off and so I parked some way away and advanced on foot. I spoke to one of the soldiers in a tin hat who was guarding the house, making a point of sounding officious yet urgent.

‘Please tell the Prime Minister that Mrs Harwood is here to see him.’ The guard looked a little shocked. I smiled prettily. He came back with a nod and I was swiftly taken into the spacious home of the Prime Minister. Three soldiers flanked me to the door.

A silent maid in uniform showed me to a cool dark room with few furnishings which looked out onto the patio and a garden. I went out onto the patio and sat on a white garden chair. The house had the feel of a place already deserted. None of the gang was there, none of his cronies puffing on Benson & Hedges cigarettes and drinking Black Label rum. I had expected a cell in disarray, the debris of men’s talk, of the business of revolution and of the chaos out on the street. But the house was quiet. It had been cleared of such matter. There was no hostile atmosphere, but no tangible feeling of anything else, either.

Eric Williams appeared quietly, unannounced, through a glass sliding door. He came over and shook my hand, then sat down opposite me and put his glasses on his head. His eyes were red raw and his suit crumpled. It had clearly not been removed for days. He lit a cigarette and the maid arrived with coffee. I didn’t say anything at first. When the maid left us, he rubbed his eyes and yawned, looking at me. He poured the coffee and I felt awful, truly awful watching him. Still we didn’t speak. No ideas or reasons for my visit came to me. He knew nothing of my letters, of my thoughts and feelings, of my misery, my imminent departure. And yet he’d let me in to see him. He looked trampled upon, like he’d given in. I wondered about his dead wife Soy, about her not wanting him to go into politics. I still had a million things to say. A whole gamut of emotion; I wanted to pelt him with stones, wanted to kick him in the shins, speak to him with anger, talk to him calmly, too.

‘Thank you for coming to see me,’ he said.

‘I don’t know why I came, really. We’re leaving. Tomorrow.’

‘You must be pleased to go.’

‘Yes. I am.’

‘On that big cruise ship still in the harbour?’

‘Yes.’

‘You must feel vindicated.’

‘Not really . . .’

‘You must feel like I’m the fool, like you were right about me.’

‘I don’t seem to feel anything.’

‘I’ve thought about what you said from time to time.’

‘I’m no politician.’

‘You saw me in Woodford Square.’

‘Yes.’

‘I can’t remember those days any more.’

‘I can’t remember either.’

‘You must be vexed.’

Tears came. ‘I have been.’

‘De whole of Trinidad vexed.’

‘Yes.’

‘Burn de place down. I ent know what to do right now.’

‘It will blow over; my husband says so. You could start again.’

I looked at him, knowing that this wasn’t possible. He had run onto the rocks, run aground on himself. He was a ruined man and intelligent enough to know it. He would not learn from this, or pull himself together, pull together another PNM. He had successfully silenced and locked up the opposition, his political son, Geddes Granger. It would be so easy to spit on him, spit in his face. George was right. I was naive. This was the way of things.

‘I’ll continue to think of you . . . from time to time. On that green bicycle.’

‘You gave me quite a shock.’ I smiled.

‘Gave
me
a goddamn heart attack.’

‘I’m sure I’ll think of you, too. From time to time.’

‘In Woodford Square.’

‘Yes.’

He steupsed and took a slug of coffee.

‘I was there, by chance, with my husband, yesterday.’

He hung his head. He looked like he might fall asleep right there, fall off the chair.

‘I must go now,’ I said, standing.

Williams stood to shake my hand. A small man, even smaller that day. I saw grief in his eyes. A man close to his own death.

I didn’t let go of his hand. Instead, I pulled him towards me and he fell in close. I put my arms around him and held him tight, unhappy for him and for myself and for all that had happened and knowing no words to bridge the gap between us. Nothing as simple as a few well-chosen words of condolence; I had nothing to say to him. I held him close for moments which felt like minutes. I pressed my lips to his neck and felt him shake. When the maid came in we parted. I said goodbye to him and he sat down and I left as quietly as he had come.

 

The next day was to be our last in Trinidad. The garden bragged: whorish moussianda flirted their open-bloused petals to the earth. Chaconia flounced and waved their long scarlet candles. The tough savannah grass crawled across itself. The berries in the palms oozed, bringing birds squabbling onto them, spitting the stones onto the ground.

The dogs’ graves had lost their freshness, leaves dropping onto them, the soil dry and crumbled. Their two collars, though, were still wedged into the mango tree; their plaits of ginger lilies turned crisp. Pascale visited the graves every day, reading out her poem. There were a hundred phone calls still to make: banks, accountants, lawyers. Standing orders to cancel, bills to pay, names to be transferred on accounts. Phone calls to Sebastian’s school, to George’s family in London, to friends there, too. A nest of nerves in my stomach. George hadn’t shaved in days. I drew him a bath, handing him a shaving stick, razor, comb, glass of rum. I couldn’t eat. I smoked.

Then, a noise out by the gates, the sound of them dragging open. No dogs bounding out to investigate. I peered from behind one of the pillars in the courtyard. A black figure passed up the driveway; I caught a glimpse of black legs. My heart pounded: dear God. Then, a voice I recognised.

‘Venus!’ I ran towards her. ‘Oh Venus.’ I was hysterical, jumping up, not quite licking her.

Pascale flew out, too. ‘Venus!’ she squealed.

Venus’s face was grave. ‘Oh gorsh, Miss, oh gorsh, I hear what happened, I came straight away. Oh gorsh, ah sorry yes, ah sorry. Oh gorsh, my boy Clive. He doh know what he do. He a little boy. Oh gorsh,’ she sobbed.

‘Shhhh.’ I didn’t want to know. ‘It’s OK, Venus. Yes, he’s a little boy. He got caught up. It’s OK, it’s OK.’

‘Oh gorsh.’ She blew her nose. ‘He get licks, Miss, he get licks for what he did.’

‘I’m OK, I’m fine,’ I reassured her.

‘No, Miss, it not OK. He by me, Miss, and when tings die down he go come to say sorry.’

‘Venus, come inside.’

We sat her down at the kitchen table, gathering round. Venus had come undone. Her hair was unbraided and plucked up in frizzy clumps. Her beaming face was misted over. Her eyes were larger, the whites whiter and wet. Tears leaked from them, slipping like hot silver down her black cheeks.

‘Why, Miss? Why all dis trouble? Why dem Black Power fellas go trouble up tings so. Oh gorsh, oh gorsh.’ She held her head in her hands. ‘Granny get de boys into all kinda mischief. She get dem into all kinda trouble. I sorry, yes.’

Pascale hugged her.

Lucy clicked her throat.

‘The dogs died,’ Pascale informed Venus, climbing onto her lap. ‘They ate green bananas and got bellyaches.’

Venus looked at me, her mouth pulled down.

‘Venus. We’re leaving tomorrow. On a boat. Miss Irit is coming to live here. You can stay if you want. Lucy is staying.’

‘You goin’?’

I nodded.

‘When you comin’ back?’

‘We aren’t coming back, Venus.’

Glass droplets bulged and broke, falling in lines down her face, down her wide snubby nose, dripping from her chin. ‘You ent comin’ back?’

‘No.’

Pascale’s face was pale and expressionless.

Lucy turned away.

I couldn’t cry. I had no feelings.

 

Night fell. Venus had brought pigtail and dasheen bush and pumpkin. She made callaloo and we ate it with white rice and fried plantain. We sat in the kitchen. The radio buzzed. The government had given in to the army’s demands, had reinstated Colonel Joffre Serrette as Commander in Chief. The hostages were released. A tight curfew was still in place.

Lucy and Venus didn’t go home. Both insisted on staying with us.

Bats whistled through the house. I lay in bed next to George but all my nerves had fled upwards. I couldn’t think. A flurry of voices competed, conversations taking place; banks, bills, getting up in time, leaving on time. George was awake, also unable to sleep. We hadn’t spoken much all day. He was avoiding me. Things were blowing over, as he predicted. The hurricane had passed. The damage had yet to be assessed. I went to the study and took a pen and some paper, sitting down to write to Eric Williams for the last time.

I signed this letter with my name and put it in a stamped envelope knowing this would be the only letter I would ever send to him.

 

The keskidees woke us at dawn, squawking over the berries in the palms. We’d moved together in the night and lay for several moments, limbs entwined, holding hands. Pascale came in to us and joined our knot. On the bed we were dozy, dopey, not ready for the hours ahead. I fingered her afro of bubble curls, her cheek on my stomach, her lazy eye wandering. Pascale was honey-skinned, skinny as a crab. George looked at me, speculatively. I smiled. He kissed me on the shoulder.

‘Time to get up,’ he said.

Venus cooked us bacon and eggs, toast, brewed a pot of coffee. We sat at the round table out on the porch, eating in silence.

The taxi arrived at 7 a.m. Freddie insisted that his guards escorted us to the dock. They drew up in a beaten-up ex-police squad car. The men loaded the suitcases into the vehicles. Some bags were strapped to the roof.