‘I need a cook and someone to iron my husband’s shirts. Maybe do a little cleaning, too. But, as you can see, this flat is minuscule.’
‘Yes, Miss.’
‘What can you cook?’
‘Callaloo, macaroni pie, curry crab. Plantain. Anytin. I learn from mih granny.’
‘What’s her name?’
‘Seraphina.’
‘Good heavens.’
She giggled. ‘Yes, Miss. Granny a heavenly woman. I de younges. Only gyals in de family. No bruddah.’
‘How old are you, Venus?’
‘Twenteh.’
Five years younger than me. But she could have been any age. Eighteen, thirty-five.
‘Do you live far?’
‘Just up so, in Paramin. I walk here. I does like to tek a walk. It good fuh de blood system. Good to keep slim.’
‘I ride my bicycle.’
‘I see you, Miss. Everybody know you already.’
‘Who?’
‘Everybody. I tell dem I go fine a job with de white lady on de green bicycle. Nobody believe meh. But is true. I see you ride pas’ every day. With de basket in front.’
I blushed.
‘You is famus, Miss.’
An impish expression crossed Venus’s face. At any moment she’d giggle again and this was infectious. I didn’t know what to think of this information: that I was being watched. So, these people
did
look up. On the sly. I’d never noticed anyone looking at me on my bicycle. I hadn’t felt uncomfortable, yet. Within minutes I liked Venus: positively
liked
her. She was the first black person to speak more than two words to me, the first black person to make me feel welcome. Perhaps she would make me understand things better.
‘Can you come three mornings a week?’
‘Yes, madam.’
‘Then come tomorrow, at eight o’clock. Dress as you are. I pay what Miss Irit pays. I will give you lunch, too.’
‘Thank you, Miss.’
One afternoon, I cycled round the savannah, marvelling at the trees. The yellow pouis were just coming into bloom, the dry season arriving. On my bike in shorts and plimsolls, with the sun beating down, I soon found myself down in Frederick Street and then weaving into Charlotte Street, before cycling abreast of an open-air market.
There were people everywhere, hawking their wares on the streets: sugar cane and green bananas, fish and mountains of yams and sweet potatoes. The market resembled a mass of bees swarming, the air thick with the smell of forest honey and coconut oil and human sweat. The sun shone and polished the black bodies. At last, life ‒ I had been so cut off in that tiny flat. I knew I was missing out, missing this: the thrum of the population, out here, in the street. I sailed by, a white ghost in their midst. My heart beat hard in my chest; many of the traders looked up and stared, silent and curious. Instinctively, I knew it would be wrong to stop, let alone roam in the market without a guide. My face flushed with the embarrassment of not knowing the rules. I smiled and broke into perspiration.
Then, something caught my attention: a white man standing on a street corner. A white man holding a shopping basket in one hand; in the other, he held the hand of a black woman. She was smartly dressed, not one of the market women. A white man with a black woman, walking down the road, clearly together, buying vegetables. I stared. Another white person amidst all the black people. What seemed impossible, was then, fleetingly, possible. The sight disturbed me, stirred my imagination. I almost rode straight into a lamp post. I cycled on, past the market, dizzy, dizzy with the idea that these two people could be together, might even be in love with each other.
Very quickly, Venus became my closest companion, my educator. I had so much to learn from her, and yet so much went unspoken between us. Venus was a secret. She gave easily and concealed everything. But often I felt I asked the wrong questions. I had no idea of Venus, of who she was or where she lived, of her ambitions. She talked to me and didn’t; it was a given that we spoke only on one level: of the shopping, the cooking, the house, the life of women. Her silence, when she chose to be silent, was impregnable. I left her to her silences. She divulged what she wanted, taught me what she thought I ought to know.
It was Venus who got me cooking. She introduced George and me to creole cuisine, which she called
blue
food: sweet potato, eddoes, cassava, yams.
‘Good old-fashioned stodge,’ George called it.
Venus brewed up drinks, too ‒ a red cordial a bit like cranberry juice: sorrel. Another, from the bark of a tree: mauby, a green liquorice-type medicine we choked back. In months, our diets had changed for ever. Venus devised our menus. Instead of reading the cookbook, I hung around the kitchen.
‘What are you doing?’ I asked, peering over her shoulder. She was stripping down the stalks of some large leaves.
‘It dasheen bush.’
‘What’s that?’
‘For callaloo.’
‘Can’t you just chop them up and put them in the soup?’
‘No.’
‘Why not?’
‘You hadda take out dis vein furs.’
‘Why?’
‘It trouble de throat. Make it itch.’ Her eyes shone.
I stared. Venus nodded and smiled, suppressing her amusement.
‘And what’s
that
?’ I asked. At the end of the callaloo-making process she took a tiny crinkled-up red pepper and popped it into the mix.
‘Doh ever let dat buss,’ she advised.
‘Why not?’
‘Den de whole ting spoil. You cyan eat nuttin at all if de pepper buss.’
‘Really?’
She steupsed, as if it was such common knowledge it was hardly worth mentioning.
‘No man can eat dat pepper when it buss, boy.’
From Venus I learnt the necessity of seasoning: how to spice the poor cuts of meat, often the only cuts available. Venus taught me what to do with dried salt fish, how to souse pig’s trotters, how to make root vegetable fritters.
We gossiped, too, tentative with each other at first. We had a mutual curiosity. Even though I knew she carefully selected and edited what she said, I was grateful for what she allowed. I looked forward to her stories of Granny Seraphina and Glory and was shocked to learn she lived without running water or electricity. I couldn’t imagine her home up in the hills of Paramin. It could be cold up there at night, Venus told me. Cold?
‘So how do you bathe, if there’s no water?’ I asked.
‘From de stanpipe by de road. I does pour a bucket ovuh mih head. Tek a showa every mornin.’
‘But you’re so tall!’
‘Ah does use many buckets, madam.’
‘And Granny Seraphina?’
‘She a natural lady, she tek only rain bath or sea bath. Or she bade in de river.’
‘Where?’
‘When we does tek she to see she friend in sout.’
‘But what about every day?’
‘Granny proud. She doh like to bade in de road.’
‘I don’t blame her. I wouldn’t like to either.’
Venus nodded. ‘Granny a big women, she have big brain, yes.’
‘Like Mr Harwood?’
Venus snorted.
‘Like who then?’
‘Like Eric Williams.’
‘Who’s
he
?’
‘Granny’s boyfriend.’ She laughed.
‘Granny has a boyfriend?’
‘Yeah, man. She love de Doc.’
‘What does this Dr Williams do?’
‘He already a famus man, Miss. Granny love him. He have a big brain, too. He go save de contry.’
‘Then maybe Granny would like Mr Harwood, no? He has a big brain.’
Venus erupted into laughter at the idea. But I didn’t mind; watching Venus laugh brought me pleasure and made me laugh, too, even though sometimes I wasn’t sure why. When Venus laughed her eyes lit up, her black skin glowed phosphorescent. Why didn’t she hate me as the others did? What made her happy to be my friend? Because we were of similar age? Because we were girlish, foolish, secretive together, compulsively talkative ‒ maybe. Venus and I were not long past our teens, women in the making.
George joined a cricket team. The team was mostly light-skinned men, many fellow expats. They played for hours on the savannah on a Sunday or travelled south to play in San Fernando. He adored playing against the local island teams because, of course, they played much better than those who’d taught them. One afternoon I went to watch him play on the savannah in Port of Spain.
Those green sloping hills were all around, the sky blazing a Holy Virgin’s blue. Far off, above the eastern slums, corbeaux spiralled. The grass was pale and crisp. Men dressed in white, men both dark-skinned and light. My husband amongst them, his skin sizzling, his too-long auburn hair hanging like a flag. Most wore hats to ward off the sun. The air was heavy with itself, so full of moisture it caused a slowdown of movement, of the senses. I sat with the other wives under the pouis trees. I watched George as he walked out to bat.
The bowler was tall, straight-backed and coal-skinned. He and George nodded, only just perceptibly, at each other. They took their places at either end of the pitch. For a moment they almost bowed. Then the bowler turned his back and walked slowly in the opposite direction: ten, maybe twenty paces further away from the designated spot.
A fast bowler
, someone muttered. My stomach trembled. A murmur went up amongst the spectators. But George stood eager and braced.
‘Poor man,’ said one wife.
‘Dear God,’ said another.
The bowler began his run, slow and loping at first, his steps somehow halting in the air, his feet light when they touched the ground. They went invisible as he quickened his pace. His arm flew back and his whole body arced with the curl of his right arm. The ball was released while the bowler was still airborne. The throw was like a javelin hurled, like an act of war being committed.
‘Oooooh,’ came the gasp from those watching. People stood up from their chairs.
George turned the right side of his body to meet the ball and smashed with all his might, sending it far into the centre of the park.
Smack.
‘Yesss!’ came a roar of relief from the onlookers.
A fielder tore after it. Two others followed. Mayhem erupted on the pitch.
Blind in the heat-haze, I clapped as George made four, five, six, seven runs. Moisture ran down my face, trickled between my breasts. The men in white blurred before my eyes.
‘Well
played
,’ said a wife.
I sat down in my chair and fanned my face. ‘Well played,’ I whispered, breathless. I knew nothing of cricket, hadn’t even known George was so interested before we arrived. But I saw his reason for loving the game that day, playing it there, of all places on earth, on the savannah in Trinidad.
Trinidad had its own rules. I spent those first months learning them fast. One afternoon, I spotted Helena on her balcony. We’d developed a strange balcony-only friendship, chatting most days while we waited for the postman. Now that George and I employed Venus I felt more confident as a hostess. I wanted George to meet Helena and her husband, was sure that they’d get on.
‘Will you and Gabriel come over for dinner?’ I asked one morning.
‘We’d love to.’ This broke her from her reverie. She smoked on her balcony a lot. Distracted, glacial.
‘I’ve employed a maid. She’s teaching me so much. Her name is Venus. I’m no longer losing weight ‒ we’re eating like horses. I’ll ask her to make something nice.’
Helena looked troubled.
‘How is Gabriel enjoying his job?’ I hedged.
‘Well enough.’
‘George loves what he does. England was so dreary for him. He’s settled right in. The men have something to do.’ This was it, I’d guessed. ‘You must miss working.’
She nodded.
‘What kind of legal work did you do?’
‘I worked for a small private firm. We worked on social welfare, housing, domestic issues for women.’
‘I see. Will you work here?’
‘There’s no such work here.’
‘Couldn’t you work with Gabriel? Or start your own practice?’
Already I was asking too many questions. In trying to make conversation I’d glided, in moments, onto thin ice.
‘I could never work with my husband and we don’t have the capital for me to set up on my own.’
I could tell she was bored and needed cheering up. A refreshing Bentley cocktail would do the trick.
‘I’m going to the Club. Will you come?’
Her eyes blazed and her body stiffened. ‘Which club?’
‘The Country Club. It’s very nice. There’s a pool, a bar. We could walk.’
‘Sabine, I can’t go there.’
‘Why not?’
‘I’m not the right colour.’
‘What do you
mean
?’ I exploded, laughing. Then, in a moment, realisation came.
‘They don’t allow coloured people in,’ Helena said, stonily.
‘They mean
black
people.’
‘I’m of colour. Gabriel is a dark-skinned Indian.’
‘But they don’t mean
you.
’
Helena looked incredulous.
‘Don’t be silly. Come with me, I’ll get you membership. Half the local French Creoles who go there aren’t exactly
white
. It’s very flexible.’
‘Even if they did let me join, Sabine, I couldn’t go.’
‘Why not?’
‘Its membership policy is derogatory. Racist.’
I’d never heard the word before. I was shocked.
‘Trust me, they wouldn’t let us join.’
My cheeks flushed. ‘I don’t understand.’
‘Sabine, it’s no different to anywhere else in the world. The US was just as bad. Haven’t you noticed?’
Helena shot me an impatient half-smile.
‘But n-not everywhere has a colour bar,’ I stuttered.
‘Sabine
, everywhere
has a colour bar. There are places for you and places for everyone else.’