The Day I Fell Off My Island Read online

  We didn’t see our mother again until the following day, when, having scrubbed ourselves raw and dressed in our new clothes, we were invited to join her in the Hall. As we hoped, she’d brought lots of presents, which were separated into small piles, placed on the bed a few inches apart. She gave us all water and food canteens with straps around them, so that we could carry them like bags. The boys got underwear, socks, schoolbooks and a geometry set each. Patricia and I were given packets of panties with the days of the week emblazoned on the fronts. My sister was also given an elaborate crinoline underslip with layers of yellow and pink taffeta. I got a more traditional half-slip of white calico with narrow red and blue satin ribbons stitched around it. It was the kind of slip that every girl in the village had. I tried not to show my disappointment, while promising myself that I’d do whatever it took to get a few wears out of my sister’s slip. Mother also gave us long pink and blue satin ribbons along with matching socks, which she told us were to be worn with our new dresses for our photographs. Finally, she gave us girls a packet of white handkerchiefs with little flowers embroidered on each corner. We all thanked her politely for our gifts, although none of us had received any of the things we’d wished for. What was important was that we now knew that we had a real mother. That was all that mattered.

  Grandma’s gift was a long brown crêpe dress with perfect pleats. The dress hovered just above her ankles and made her look very stylish. She was well known in the village for finding a reason not to go to church – most Sundays remembering that she had either an animal that was about to give birth, or one that had wandered off that she had to go in search of. But on the Sunday after my mother had given her the new brown dress, Grandma topped off her new outfit with an elaborate beige hat and set off for church. Grandpa, on the other hand, had little interest in clothing. My mother brought him a bottle of good white rum and a bottle of blood-red syrup, which he sometimes used as a chaser. She might have lived away for a long time, but she hadn’t forgotten her father’s favourite drink.

  It was Monday morning, and Mother had been with us for a whole week. The house stirred into life at around four in the morning, when Grandma Melba hurried out us out of bed with uncharacteristic haste.

  ‘Come, pickney! All of yuh fi get up now. Yuh figet a today yuh mada a tek yuh to get yuh picture dem.’

  In truth, we’d all stayed awake most of the night overcome with excitement.

  ‘Erna, gallang with Patricia fi get de water, an mek sure all a yuh wash yuhself good.’

  It was to be our first outing with our mother, and the longest bus ride we’d ever been on, as the photographer lived a long way from our village. Grandma made herself busy in the kitchen, where she prepared saltfish fritters and bammies for our lunch.

  ‘Mi a beg yuh fi get mi two pound a parrotfish and two pound a goatfish,’ Grandma said to our mother, who was checking how the breakfast was coming on. ‘Dem should be nice an fresh caus de market nuh soh far fram de sea.’

  Grandma reached down the front of her dress and removed a knotted handkerchief. She untied the handkerchief and handed two shillings to Mother who studied them for a moment before handing the coins back.

  ‘Don’t worry yourself, Miss Melba, I can take care of that,’ she said.

  Grandma put her two shillings back in her handkerchief, tied the knot and stuffed it back somewhere in her clothing. ‘Mek mi go finish wit de food soh yuh kyan mek yuh way.’ Grandma disappeared for a moment, but in no time she returned with a wicker basket wrapped in a blue-checked tablecloth. ‘Plenty food dede to feed all a oonoo fi de whole day,’ she said.

  ‘Thank you, Miss Melba, for doing all that,’ my mother replied.

  Cousin Petra was waiting to comb our hair. She parted mine into fat bunches and made three plaits, one at the front and two at the back. Then she cut a pale blue satin ribbon into three pieces and tied a bow at the root of each plait. Patricia’s short hair meant lots of small plaits with a pink ribbon wrapped around her head and tied in a large bow at the front. The boys had had their usual haircuts from Grandpa on the Sunday. We were all dressed in our finery, except for our shoes and socks, which our mother told us we should carry with us – so we set off for Preston wearing our rubber sandals that were made from discarded car tyres and would keep the worst of the red dirt at bay. Mother packed a rag, for cleaning our feet when we reached the photographer’s house; only then would we be allowed to wear our fine shoes. Mother herself was wearing a navy skirt with a matching jacket and a white blouse. In a bag she carried her lovely white shoes that also matched her blouse. She looked every inch a beautiful black princess.

  We walked to the bus stop in silence, all concentrating on making sure we didn’t catch any part of our clothing on the roadside brambles. The bus was due to make one of its stops directly opposite a provision shop owned by Mass Julius and his wife Miss Ethel. We were relieved after our long walk to find half a dozen upturned Coca-Cola boxes intended for seats lined up along the shop’s verandah.

  We made a beeline for the boxes, but a sharp rebuke from our mother stopped us in our tracks. ‘Wait!’ she shouted, before producing two whole tablecloths from her bag, which she spread across the boxes before we were allowed to sit down.

  Moments after we sat down, the loud continuous tooting of the approaching bus shattered the quiet of the morning – the cacophony was the only way villagers had of knowing that the bus was actually on its way and not broken down somewhere.

  We clambered aboard the bus ahead of our mother and it continued its journey along the rough tarmac road, which went from one end of the island to the other. The island’s many mountains meant that the road curved and wound its way like a meandering river. Every so often the battered old bus chugged up a seemingly impossible hill, its passengers loudly willing it on with shouts of ‘Yuh kyan do it, driver! Wi kyan mek it!’ And as it hurtled down the other side, the more nervous passengers jammed their dusty sandalled feet to the floor as if their actions would somehow assist the braking. The journey was long and uncomfortable. The dirty scraps of cloth still visible on some of the old sprung seats made it impossible to imagine a time when the bus was spanking new, with seats covered in gleaming upholstery. Children were not expected to occupy any of the seats while there were adults who could fill them, so while Sonny got to sit on our mother’s lap for the very first time, the rest of us were jammed between the legs of any willing adults. Sonny sat there looking like a little king, with his belly sticking out and a satisfied smile on his face.

  Since there were no official bus stops, the driver was constantly braking to a shuddering halt for embarking and alighting passengers, wherever they chose to be picked up or dropped off – on the very edge of a deep gully, or even in the middle of someone’s front yard. The rule was that if the bus could be seen it could be waved down, and if a passenger needed to get off at a particular spot then someone just needed to shout, ‘One stop, driver!’ and this would be followed by a screech of brakes and loud engine noises, with the very same passengers who had requested the stop now shouting, ‘Easy nuh, driver! Tek it easy, man! An nuh dead wi waan fi dead. Wi jus waan yuh fi stop de bus!’

  I’d travelled on a bus less than a handful of times and I mostly enjoyed the experience, but I’d also caught sight of a couple of those so-called ‘jolly buses’ that had left the road with their passengers before ending up in one of the island’s many gullies. Now, I distracted myself from my worry by eavesdropping on people’s conversations and counting how many men, women and children I saw along the sides of the road as the bus sped through the countryside. Often, people boarded the bus who knew each other, and loud friendly chatter soon developed among the adults; children, as usual, spoke only if spoken to – unless they needed a toilet stop.

  ‘Marning, marning. A nice marning it is!’ Talk was often interspersed with a story about some recently dead relative. ‘Is how long now Mass Isaac dead?’ asked one woman, who seemed to have addressed her question to everyo
ne on the bus. She continued speaking without waiting for an answer, ‘Im was a good man, doah, and im did reach a respectable hage. De Lard giveth and de Lard taketh. Mi sure seh im will get plenty a Jehovah blessing. Im had such a lovely send-off. Everybody in di village did dede. People did love de man, yuh se! Dat is owcome dem did nickname him Beauty, because im did ave a beautiful spirit fi true.’

  ‘Praise de Lord, sista! A truth yuh a talk. Praise him,’ all the adults chorused.

  A little while later, a woman who’d been quietly turning the pages of a well-thumbed King James Bible piped up, ‘Yes, fi true! Mass Isaac lived a whole tree score year an ten, an im live a good life. Nuh like Mass Sylvester. Im nuh even sixty and de stroke tek im weh. Mi nuh seh im was a bad man! But a plenty people pon di island a dead sudden from dis stroke an pressure sickness.’

  ‘Yuh mighta put yuh finger right pon de problem, Miss Lily,’ another woman said. ‘Mi wonder if dem a transport dese disease tings from Hamerica!’

  Miss Lily, who clearly hadn’t finished continued, ‘Cause we nuh did ave dese kinda sickness pon de island. Tek fi mi mada and fada. Dem dead long time, but dem dead of ole age. Dem nuh dead of nuh kind a sickness. An di Bible seh a soh people fi live and dead. Yes, sah, tree score years and ten. De Lard word tell us Harmageddon a come, and mi sure seh it nearly deh pon us. Yes, sarh, we living in dark days.’ Miss Lily drew in a deep breath and shifted uneasily on her seat. She was a large woman, fatter than anyone I’d seen in the village, and it had taken a lot of energy for her to make her speech. Sweat crept out from under her plaid head-tie and trickled down her pleasant, round face. She waited until her entire face was glistening before pulling a rag from her basket and dabbing it roughly about her face.

  ‘Praise de Lard, sister!’ chorused a number of the passengers in response to Miss Lily’s statement. ‘Never truer words said. Praise de Lard. Praise him. God bless yuh, sister. God bless yuh!’

  The door at the back of the bus was badly damaged and couldn’t be opened. This left the entrance beside the driver as the only one for exiting and entering the bus, and that entrance was missing its door. This meant that the conductor had to forcibly prevent waiting passengers from pushing their way on to the bus before those wishing to alight could get off. He had his work cut out. He was tall with very long arms, which he stretched across the doorway. This mostly worked as a deterrent, but occasionally a fight broke out and the driver reacted by revving up his engine and setting down passengers a little further up the road. The waiting passengers then ran towards the bus and entered in a much calmer state, knowing full well that if any further fights ensued, they’d be left by the roadside and their only hope for another bus would be the next day at roughly the same time. I couldn’t guess the conductor’s age, but thought he had the face of an overgrown schoolboy. His eyes set deep in his face had very black irises, giving them the appearance of two glowing black balls surrounded by only a little white matter. He wore a matching khaki shirt and trousers, which shone from being ironed too many times. I watched as the muscles in his arms swelled when he lifted oversized bags, which he skillfully placed on his head before climbing up the little ladder on the back of the bus so he could deposit them on the roof. He was a calming character who greeted every passenger with a cheerful ‘Good morning’ and a flash of perfect teeth. It was the first time I ever fell in love.

  As we neared the end of our journey, Mother began her preparations to get us to the front of the bus. She used her bottom to push her way down the crowded aisle while holding on to Clifton and Sonny. Patricia and I followed closely behind them in case the path got closed off. I was the last off the bus and my feet had barely touched the ground before it lurched forward, rounded a corner and disappeared from view, its horn warning the next set of passengers of its imminent arrival. I watched the bus disappear mostly with relief, but mixed with anticipation that I might see the conductor again on the return journey. We remained standing in the spot where we alighted while our mother took a good look around.

  Suddenly, we heard a loud scream. Further along the dirt track, two boys were having a ferocious fight. In a split second the shorter, chunkier boy, brought his taller, skinnier opponent crashing to the ground with a well-placed kick to his back. Without saying a word, our mother ripped a slender low hanging branch from a nearby tree, scraped back the leaves in a single movement and marched towards the boys. Neither boy saw her coming, until the short boy felt the sting of the whip around his lower legs. The boy on the ground sprang to his feet and within seconds both vanished into the bush. Mother returned with a slight smirk of pleasure on her face. It was normal practice on the island to deliver a good beating to anyone’s child caught in any kind of wrongdoing. The child would then likely be dragged home to parents, who often drove home the point already made by the stranger with a further beating. Nevertheless, we four children stared at our mother with renewed respect. Clearly, she was not someone to be messed with.

  The photographer’s house was tucked back from the road on the opposite side to where the bus dropped us off. It was only a few minutes’ walk from the fish market, which we smelt long before it could be seen. Mother knew the area as it was in fact not too far from where she and Uncle Lambert had their tailoring business. Once the photographer’s house came into view, Mother instructed us to sit on a nearby wall. She produced the piece of cloth and soaked it with water from her canteen. Then she told us to remove our rubber shoes and clean up our feet.

  ‘Come, children, let’s go,’ she said, as soon as we had our new socks and shoes on.

  We found ourselves walking down a path lined with fruit trees. Ripe mangoes hung heavily on their branches and the ground was hardly visible under a sea of rotten and recently fallen fruits. Coconut trees bowed regally above the other trees and here and there the odd fallen coconut sat intact on the festering carpet. We reached a spacious front yard that was littered with discarded plastic bottles, old tyres and a small mountain of rusty tins. A man and a boy of about ten years were making their way down the path away from the house, talking in an animated fashion, the boy stumbling as he looked up at his father. The man was clutching a brown envelope tightly to his chest. As we drew level, my mother and the man stopped, exchanged greetings, and quickly got into a conversation.

  ‘Looks like we’re on the same mission,’ my mother said.

  ‘Yes, yes,’ the man replied. ‘Young Albert and I are moving to Florida, in America.’ The man spoke with a clear, precise town accent. It seemed, like our mother, he’d lived away from the country for some time.

  Young Albert shifted uncomfortably from one foot to the other, his face wearing a grimace. He obviously wasn’t happy with the plan.

  ‘My wife’s been there for the past seven years,’ the man continued. ‘She filed for the two of us and it’s a good thing, too, because being mother and father to young Albert is not easy at all. Not easy at all,’ he added, looking at his son with affectionate concern. ‘That’s not to say he’s a bad boy in any way. In fact, he’s a most obedient child. It’s just that not a day go by when he doesn’t ask about the mother. I know he miss her. But I also know he is not one hundred per cent sure about leaving the island, either. But you will soon get use to it, son,’ he said, looking at the boy again. Albert nodded his head very slightly. ‘My wife says Florida is gigantic, but apparently it’s just one small section of America. And she tells me it’s hot too, just like here, and that she even has mango and pear trees growing in the back yard, and that they bear good fruit. Her only complaint is that the place is flat like a bammy!’

  I thought the man was never going to stop talking. It was as if this was his first opportunity to talk to anyone about their upcoming trip.

  My mother said nothing until the man finally closed his mouth.

  ‘It’s my husband who filed for me,’ she told him. ‘We hope to make enough money to come back to the island and set up a little business for ourselves in five or ten years.’

 
None of us quite understood this thing about ‘filing’, but we knew that the word was somehow connected to people from the island travelling to foreign places. It was obviously a different kind of filing from what Grandpa Sippa did when he was sharpening his machete or the hoes we used on the farm.

  This was also the first time I realised my mother had a husband. Somehow this fact had never been relayed to us children. My mother had a husband! I couldn’t stop thinking about it.

  Mother and the man exchanged a few more pleasantries and then bid each other farewell and God’s speed for their travels. We continued along the path until a large, dilapidated house came into view. The white paint had flaked off its exterior and red roof tiles lay scattered on the ground around it. We walked up five concrete steps to a wide verandah that jutted from the front of the house. The verandah was lined with large terracotta pots filled with flowers we called ‘Joseph’s coat of many colours’. A few larger pots were planted with lush ferns. There were two round metal tables with two low-backed chairs tucked underneath them, and the thick layer of dust that covered them suggested that neither had been used for some time. Mother moved towards the door and we followed. She took hold of the bulbous doorknocker and banged twice.

  We waited in silence for a little while, until an old man, with crumpled white skin and a shabby suit, opened the door. He stretched forward a scrawny hand with dirty, long fingernails. I watched for Mother’s reaction as their hands met. A cursory smile moved across her lips.

  ‘I am Mr John, the photographer,’ the old man said. ‘I hope your journey wasn’t too hard? The road here is rough and is particularly bad close to town.’ He dragged his words out as he spoke. Everything about Mr John was crumpled and aged, except his eyes, which sparkled like dancing stars. They were eyes that somehow you knew could see beyond the ordinary.

  Mother mumbled something about the journey being ‘not so bad,’ then complained that the driver allowed too many people on the bus. Mr John nodded; he clearly understood all about bus journeys on the island. He turned and led us through the hallway down a narrow passage towards the back of the house. The inside of the house seemed vast and mostly shrouded in darkness, the only light coming from the windows at the front. I counted the doors as we walked past and there were ten in all, five on either side of the hallway. Mr John showed our mother into the very last room and waved at us to follow, all the while clenching a half-smoked cigar in his left hand, which clearly hadn’t long gone out, as the heaviness of tobacco smoke still hung in the air. Then he left us alone in the crowded room for a few minutes.