The White Woman on the Green Bicycle (4 page)

George clicked the buzzer. The gate slid backwards and he drove through. The big sandy ridgeback dogs woofed and jumped up at the doors to greet him; they wagged their whole bodies with delight, trailing the truck.

‘Good evening, boys,’ he greeted them, taking each by the muzzle and rubbing it down, rubbing each dog, especially his favourite, Henry, into a shambling stooping ecstasy. ‘Good, good dogs, that’s right.
’
They crowded him as he entered the courtyard out front.

The television was on too loud, as usual, blaring American cable TV. Sabine lounged on a sofa, the back of her head to him. Her hair had recently been clipped to an inch of her skull, because of the heat, she said.

‘Hello, dear,’ he called.

Sabine turned, dabbing her face with a tissue.

When, when did this Sabine materialise? Her face so clammy, her skin diseased. Chocolate-brown flecks, eruptions of melanin, splattered her forehead, her cheeks, her shoulders, too. Large brown spots on sun-ravaged skin. Bumps had clustered on her once enticing cleavage. Her face and chest were scourged, mapped with crevasses.

‘You’re late,’ she said, turning back to watch the television. She smoked, nursing a rum and soda. Katinka flopped next to her, head buried in Sabine’s lap, eyes rolled upwards as a form of greeting.

‘I’ve seen Ray,’ he said, tucking the tag of her dress back in. ‘I’m going to interview Brian Lara.’

‘This is incredible, what’s going on!’

‘What is?’

‘
Who Wants to Be a Millionaire
?’

‘Oh.’

‘This man is two questions away from winning a million dollars.’

‘Good.’ He checked his watch, 7 p.m. Time for the local news. ‘Can we turn over?’

She shrugged.

‘Please.’

Sabine flicked channels reluctantly, stroking her lapdog. The animal lifted its tiny glossy head and yawned.

CNC came on. George sat down in his armchair. The newscaster, Carla Foderington, spoke in posh creole tones. She was a starchy-looking, well-dressed black woman whom he rather fancied.

Sabine rose and disappeared into the kitchen. The little dog jumped off the sofa and trotted after her, also bored by what was happening in Trinidad.

George pressed his fingers along the line of his brow.
Hello, my love
, she used to say.
Hello, my love, my loving love-cup, my darling-heart. How was your day?
Once, she’d glowed when she saw him. She would throw her arms around him, reach up to kiss his cheek. Sometimes she would pull him into the bedroom.

Sabine returned with a two-foot canister of Flit, blasting a thick mist of insecticide ahead of her, crop-dusting the once expensive Spanish rugs. If the sun was her primary enemy, mosquitoes were a close second. George tried to watch the news but she stood in the way, spraying. Mist everywhere. A newly lit cigarette was clamped in her other hand.

‘Darling, one day there’ll be an explosion.’

‘What?’

‘I can’t see.’ He waved the mist away, coughing. ‘Could you move over a bit?’

But she was now engrossed in the local news, too, watching with an air of impatience.

‘Oouf. Another murder,’ she snapped. Even her tone of voice had changed. It made him ashamed of himself. Sometimes, when she spoke to Jennifer, it was in Jennifer’s way. She steupsed just like Jennifer, and
eh, eh, ohoed
. Her third language, after French and English. Sabine was an excellent mimic. Her French was Parisian, her English like the Queen’s, her Trinidadian dialect, whenever it emerged, was bold and rhythmic.

The news stories of the day:

Basdeo Panday, the leader of the opposition, in court on charges of corruption.

The murder toll had reached a hundred in a hundred days.

Thirty-nine police officers were flying to the island from Scotland Yard to help with the kidnapping epidemic.

A shoot-out in Laventille, the infamous slum of Port of Spain. Images of a man lying dead in a gutter, thick black blood pooling from his stomach. Laventillians standing around watching.

The Soca Warriors in training.

Sabine disappeared in disgust, still Flit-ing, mounting the stairs, bent on poisoning the entire house.

 

Later, she brought out two trays with plates of microwaved leftover goat curry. They ate on their laps, watching the weather report. Then Sabine flicked over to watch ice-dancing, dabbing her sweat-damp face and feeding titbits to Katinka. After game shows, Sabine mostly glued herself to foreign events, watching hours of figure-skating and tennis; always a tournament on, always something big somewhere else.

George heard a familiar whistling from the opposite sofa.

‘Darling?’

Sabine sat in a half-fallen position, the ballast of her swollen stomach keeping her from toppling completely. Her lips billowed, reverberating, the sound like a small puffing engine. He rose quietly and went over to her, kneeling next to the sofa. He liked to look at her while she slept, so unguarded. His eyes wandered over her, picking over the bulges and sloping lines of her form. He’d caught sight of this body, here and there, in mirrors, in the bathroom. Under her house dress, her stomach looked like an uneven pile of red clay. Her breasts had grown slack, pendulous, running to her waist. Her arms were thicker, the tender white underskin yellowed and doughy. Her legs were pudgy now, marbled with blue-purple veins. Her toenails were dry and papery. No trace of her former beauty; the sun had taken it.

Sabine stirred. Her eyes flickered sleepily, then flew open. ‘Oh.’ She jumped awake.

‘What’s wrong?’ she asked accusingly, as though he were an intruder.

‘Nothing, my love.’

‘What are you doing?’

‘Looking at you.’

‘You frightened me.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘I was dreaming of the
Cavina
.’

‘Were you?’

‘The day we arrived. Laventille Hill, remember that? I thought we’d live
there
.’

George nodded. ‘You were nervous, weren’t you?’

‘I was . . . sick with nerves.’

George gazed at her. How he still liked to look at her, puzzle at her face, how it once was, how it was now. He smiled, daring to put out his hand, look into her eyes. She watched his hand as he placed it on her belly. These days it was like trying to touch a wounded bear, which made caressing his wife somehow more thrilling. Sabine’s eyes were suddenly full, expectant.

‘What are you thinking?’ he asked.

‘My green bicycle. Remember it?’

‘Yes, of course.’

‘Arriving from the hold. People laughed when they saw it.’

‘Yes.’

‘I travelled everywhere on that bike – at first. Didn’t I?’

‘I remember it well.’

Often, Sabine would arrive at the dock to meet him after work. Her shorts revealed long, slim, honey-coloured legs. A halter-neck top, Dior sunglasses. Blonde curls. Every man behind her stopped dead in their tracks to watch her pass.

‘Riding round the savannah, I liked that.’

‘Holding up traffic with those legs.’

‘I saw Trinidad on that bike. You know . . . saw the sights.’

‘And you were seen, my love.’ George smiled. ‘Don’t we still have that old thing, somewhere?’

She nodded carefully.

‘Where?’

‘I don’t know. Somewhere.’

In the morning, Jennifer was sobbing in the kitchen. She was hot-faced, salt tears flowing down her cheeks. She gushed out pieces of a story, something about her son Talbot, about a mobile phone, the police beating him up.

‘Sit down, sit down,’ Sabine soothed. ‘I’ll make you some tea.’

Jennifer nodded, blinded by tears.

George asked her to start again, to try and get it all out in order.

‘Las week,’ Jennifer began through her sobs, ‘Talbot go to a fête. Der was a roadblock on de way. He get search by de police. One o’ dem fine his mobile phone and tek it from him, fer himself.’

‘Bastards,’ Sabine spat.

‘Then what happened?’ George pressed.

‘Talbot have a girlfrien who in de police force. He tell her what happen and she say she know de policeman who took de phone. A real badjohn name Johnny. De girl den went to dis policeman, tell him to give Talbot back he phone.’

‘And?’

Jennifer began to cry again. ‘Dis Johnny police fella come fer Talbot two night ago. He bring tree odder policemen wid him. Dey take him up de hill, up Paramin Hill, Mr Harwood.’

‘Right up there?’

Jennifer started to cry again. ‘Yes. Dey give Talbot licks. Dey mash up his face, break his nose. Brek his
ribs
. De policeman who took de phone vexed wid him exposin’ what he did. He treaten Talbot. Tell him if he ever see Talbot again and Talbot alone, he go make him dead.’

‘Where’s Talbot now?’ George asked, thinking fast.

‘He by me, he at home.’

‘Has he seen a doctor?’

‘No. I come here first. I cyan drive. Chantal cyan drive. Route taxi doh come up by us.’

‘He’s been lying two nights with a broken nose?’ Sabine gasped.

‘Yes.’

‘Oh, Jennifer! Why?’

‘Furs night he stay up on de hill. He cyan come down, he too weak. Nex mornin somebody fine him, all mash up. Dey bring him dong by me. I ent fine him till ah reach home after comin’ from here.’

‘He needs to go to casualty, Jennifer.’ George squeezed her hand. ‘Immediately. We need to take him there now, before his bones start to set. Come on, we’ll go now. I’ll take him.’

‘I’ll come, too,’ Sabine decided.

George didn’t fancy his chances crossing her. ‘OK. Let’s bring the camera.’

Music boomed from the house across the road from Jennifer’s home, domineering reggae of the most pastoral and sober kind,
conscious
music they called it. Jennifer’s teenage nephews played it night and day, peace piped over the poorest of neighbourhoods. Jennifer hated it. Restless buggers, they limed out on the street ambling around in circles, trousers hanging from their arses. They shot George and Sabine looks, bad looks from their bleary black eyes.

‘What wrong wid you,’ Jennifer scolded them. They steupsed and walked away, but not far enough.

Jennifer’s home stood amongst tall grasses. A miracle. Her Aunt Venus had lived there, too – their whole family, in fact. Seven generations. An ancient slave chattel house, it was rust brown all over and had a much-patched galvanized roof; even so, it still bore a faint trace of grandeur with its gingerbread design. It stood of its own free will, walls leaning against each other like praying hands, the nails having dropped out long ago. Holes dotted the wood and, where one or two nails remained, they were orange and withered. The shack loomed there up on the hill, to the left of a treacherous bend in the road, surrounded by a wire fence. It stood on columns of rubble and furniture and pillars of flat river-stones. It always looked down on George, or so he felt.

‘Can we go in?’ he asked, tentatively.

Jennifer nodded, still scowling at her nephews across the road.

 

Inside, it was darker and it took a few moments for his sight to adjust. George was always awkward coming here, which wasn’t often. He tried not to glance around, not to notice the familiar objects in the house, their cast-off armchairs, their listing sideboard, the kitchen appliances. Sabine had fallen morbidly silent. They followed Jennifer straight to the room at the back of the house.

Talbot lay on an iron-framed bed, the thin mattress covered in bald winceyette, his face to the wall. The room was airless, the walls patterned with brown shadows. Stained pyjama-striped sheets hung for curtains; their worn sheets. Talbot groaned, turning his head.

‘Dear God,’ George muttered.

Sabine gasped.

Jennifer began to cry again.

The bruises were so bad it looked as though a butterfly had settled on Talbot’s face, a curious blue-green, purple-yellow butterfly. His eyes had exploded, so damaged they were gooey, leaking a clear glistening fluid. One of them was bloated, lopsided and sealed closed. His nose was smashed and swollen and the jagged break loomed through the skin. Talbot’s bottom lip was still encrusted with gems of congealed blood.

‘Jennifer, I’m so sorry!’ Sabine whispered under her breath. ‘Talbot,
who did this
?’

Talbot made no attempt to reply. His eyes were vacant; he was past caring. George felt his bile rise, a flush of pure hatred spread outwards from his gut. Talbot lay bare-chested, his ribs grazed; his torso appeared as if it were smudged, bruises over bruises on his young pearl-brown skin. The breaks were plainly apparent, where the lines of the bones underneath didn’t meet. George worried that Talbot’s lungs might puncture if they moved him hastily.

Sabine put an arm around Jennifer. ‘It’s OK now, it’s OK. We’ll get help. Shhhhh.’