The White Woman on the Green Bicycle (43 page)

Venus and Lucy glanced at each other.

George winced into his rum. ‘Oh, really? Where will you go?’ ‘Back to England. I’ll live in Kent. Near Sebastian’s school. He can live with me, no longer board. Pascale will go to school near by, too.’

‘And money?’

‘I’ll work.’

‘You won’t get far on one wage.’

‘Education is free in England. If need be they’ll go to a state school. It won’t be the end of the world.’

‘So. You have it all planned.’

‘Come with me, George.’

He shut one eye and peered into his glass as though into a long tunnel.

‘Now’
s
the time,’ I pleaded.

‘We’ll see.’

‘I mean it, George. With or without you. I’m leaving Trinidad, as soon as possible.’

 

I began to pack. I pulled down old suitcases and trunks from the tops of cupboards. Dust flew up all over the house.

‘Oh gorsh,’ muttered Lucy in disbelief. She stood behind me, watchful, silent.

‘Lucy, stop staring!’ I shouted. But she didn’t move from her spot behind me. Everywhere I went, she followed.

‘I’m
leaving
, get used to it.’ I choked back tears. But she only stayed closer to my side, sat on the bed and watched. I didn’t want to look at her, couldn’t look her in the eye. I sang and hummed loudly as I rummaged from room to room. She followed me. Then Pascale joined Lucy. Both followed me round the house.

‘Mummyuh, watcha doin’?’ Pascale asked.

‘Packing.’

‘You goin’ on a trip?’

‘
We
are.’

‘Where?’

I stopped and bent so that we were face to face. ‘You and I are going on a trip. We’re going to see your brother. Wouldn’t you like that?’

She nodded.

‘Yes, I thought so. We’ll meet all his schoolfriends. You’ll eat strawberries and cream.’

‘Yippeee!’ She tore off round the house, dancing with glee.

Lucy clicked her throat. ‘Don’t look at me like that,’ I warned her.

Venus went silent and avoided me.

I stamped around. I opened cupboards, pulled out old clothes. I tried to give Lucy and Venus bundles to take home. Both refused. George sat by the radio and drank lots of rum. The house buzzed with hourly reports. A protest in San Juan. Bombings over the weekend at the US Vice-consulate. A march from Laventille to town. Throngs in Woodford Square. The PNM’s University had become the Black Power Movement’s People’s Parliament. Rallies were held there every day, a bulletin of events pinned up on the railings. Granger on the bandstand, the crowds in love with him, and no wonder: this well-educated young black man, this firebrand with connections to other black leaders, Stokely Carmichael in particular. All too familiar. The same man, all over again. He was dangerous. Dangerous to Eric Williams.

I wrote to Williams.

We no longer lived alone in the bush. A settlement had grown up around us, as George predicted. Others had built, mostly white or Syrian. All owned big dogs, had erected high gates. We phoned each other and kept in touch. No one dared go to work. We kept the front gate padlocked, the dogs loose. Children threw stones through the bars. Pascale wet her sheets one night and came in to us crying. We huddled on our bed as though it were a raft. George and I hadn’t spoken all day. Pascale was asleep between us. The air-conditioner had broken down. Those iron bars on all the windows were finally needed. A wrought-iron gate stretched across our private balcony like the doors of a cage. George opened the sliding doors for air. The night sky glowed, alive with stars. Crapauds burped, cicadas rubbed their legs together. We were far away from town, nowhere near the riots, and yet the air was full of trouble.

‘Don’t you feel it
now
, George?’

‘What?’

‘Guilt.’

‘No.’

‘I feel guilty for my sins. Like this is all our fault.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous.’

‘It won’t go away, George.’

‘What won’t?’

‘This anger and resentment. It’ll come back, again and again. No compensation for what was done to them. It’s all swept under the carpet. The British didn’t care. The PNM became like them.’

‘Oh Sabine, I’m tired of all this bullshit.’

‘Our love has changed, George. This is all too much for us. For me. You love it all more than me.’

‘No I
don’t
.’

‘I’m unhappy and you don’t care.’

‘I do.’

‘You drink, you block it out. I’m not happy, George. Not like this.’

‘I’m sorry . . .’

‘I feel heartbroken. Over us. Over Trinidad.’

‘Oh God, woman. You’re always so dramatic.’

‘You see? You no longer care for me. That’s why I’m leaving.’ I rolled over, my back to him. Pascale was fast asleep. How she looked like George, how strong and stubborn she was becoming. Her accent was bold and rhythmic. She was half George, half the island.

Then, a rustle.

Voices out on the road.

The dogs barking.

George pulled a baseball bat from under the bed.

‘Stay here,’ he whispered.

But I followed him out onto the front porch. George stood in the garden, in the centre of the grass, lit by the moon, his bat poised. The voices were out past the garden wall. How many of them there: three, four? Our dogs were massive beasts, pacing back and forth, growling like lions.

A hiss. The whiff of petrol. Over the wall, in a wide arc, against the petrol-blue sky, a bottle. Its neck stuffed with doused-up, ripped-up old T-shirt. Graceful as a shooting star.

It landed heavily on the grass, exploding into flames.

‘Come here, you
bastards
,’ George bellowed.

Another bottle flew over, this one on fire, exploding in mid-air, glass shattering and raining down on George. The dogs barked like thunder, tracking the voices along the wall. A patch of grass erupted into fire; George bashed at it. Then another Molotov cocktail revolved through the night, flames spinning from it. George swung, hitting the bottle, hurling it backwards so it exploded against the wall. The dogs went wild. The neighbour’s Dobermanns barked. Lights flicked on next door.

Freddie, our Syrian neighbour, rushed out into his garden in his Y-fronts. ‘What goin’ on?’ he shouted over the hedge.

‘They’re hurling bombs at us!’ I shouted.

Then, an engine. A motorbike starting up behind the wall. The voices stopped and we heard the peeling of tyres, the engine trailing off up the road towards Winderflet. Towards town.

George stooped.

I rushed to him. ‘My love, are you all right?’

We held each other tight.

‘Yes, yes, I’m fine.’

We began to pick up shards of glass. I switched on all the outside lights. A patch of white stuccoed wall was scarred black. A patch of grass was blackened, too. Glass in the grass. The stink of kerosene in the air, remnants of grey-black gauze all over the lawn. I called the dogs away, locking them in the back garden. Freddie appeared at our gate with his cutlass. We let him in. I was too shaken to cry, too nervous for nerves. He hugged me. ‘Dem arses. Dem foolish niggers.’

‘Why, why?’ I groaned.

Freddie’s face was murderous.

We sat in our kitchen with a bottle of rum, all of us smoking. Our faces were damp, shining.

‘We can hire armed guards,’ Freddie suggested. ‘I know some fellas.’

‘Black people to guard us from other black people?’ I snorted.

‘Dese Black Power people don’t have de support of de entire country. What we gonna do? Sit here like ducks, wait for more mischief? Nah! I gettin mih own personal guard. Nobody go help us. Not de police, no one.’

George’s eyes were bloodshot. Stupid man, out there on the lawn, guarding his castle with a baseball bat. What did he really imagine he would do? Break a leg? Smash a skull?

Venus had woken up next door. She appeared in the kitchen in her nightdress and dressing gown. ‘W’appen, madam?’ She stared sleepily at us.

‘Niggers, dat what happen.’ Freddie was drunk.

‘Shut up, Freddie,’ I snapped. ‘We had some trouble, Venus. Some men tried to frighten us.’

‘They did a bloody good job.’ George drained his rum.

‘Dis contry goin’ dong,’ Freddie added, maudlin.

‘They threw petrol bombs over the wall,’ I explained.

Venus gasped. She began to cry and mumble to herself, visibly upset. ‘Oh gorsh, oh gorsh.’ Tears fell heavily, wetting her hands.

‘Venus, what’s wrong?’ I asked quietly but she stood there trembling. For the first time in fifteen years I saw Venus, saw her for who she was. A poor black woman, a woman entirely dependent on us, but who, when the chips were down, bore no allegiance to us at all. Venus, wittingly or unwittingly, could harm us.

‘Venus,’ I whispered. ‘Did you
know
these people?’

‘I tink I know dem,’ she wailed. ‘Yes, madam.’

‘Jesus Christ.’

We all stared at her.

‘Yes, Madam. Mih neighbours. Dey know summa dem Black Power people. Dey want to know about white people, where dey live. I hear dem talkin’ once, but doh know what dey say. Dey know Granny.’

I glanced at George. His face was blank. He looked old, tired.

Freddie’s mouth had melted into a grimace, his eyes surrounded with dark circles. ‘Niggers,’ he said again. ‘You see dat? Livin in your own blasted house. Dat is niggers for you. Dey run de damn place, and den when dey cyan organise, dey blame de white people. Let dose young boys come again, man. Let dem come. I’ll be ready for dem.’

 

The next morning I flew up Morne Cocoa Road, right up to where the old shack stood with its superior air and lopsided grin. Granny was standing on the top step, waiting, as if she had been expecting me. I parked and stood at the gate. I sensed my own presence there on the hill, the whole neighbourhood watching me; a hard hostile stare, eyes scrutinising me from kitchens, from street corners. Granny standing up there.

‘Can I come in?’ I called up. I was miserable from the night before. I rattled the gate and a dog barked. Granny nodded, making her slow crotchety way down the stairs, one step at a time.

She arrived at the high thin gate and stared at me through the bars.

‘Granny, did you hear about what happened at our home last night?’

Granny didn’t move. She made no facial gestures, said nothing.

‘Two men came by on motorbikes and threw petrol bombs over into our garden. They frightened us.’

She clicked her throat; her yellow eyes were bold and clear, searching me, then beyond me. Finally, Granny was having her moment.

‘Venus told us you might know who came by.’

‘Venus say dat?’

‘Yes. She said you know some people round here, people ‒ involved in the riots. They want to make trouble.’

Granny inhaled a deep breath, resolute in her silence.

‘Did you know these people?’ I pushed.

Granny’s mouth pulled down into a grimace. She wouldn’t talk. I looked up at the old house behind her. It was treacherously old, carbuncular, hunched over.

’Granny, why don’t you let me and Mr Harwood help you? We can help fix the house. Get builders in, shore it up.’

The old woman glared.

‘I know why you’re angry. But meanwhile that old house is falling down the hill. It will collapse one day, maybe even with you all in it.’

‘Dis house nuttin to do wid you. Mine yer own affairs.’

‘It does have something to do with me. Isn’t that why those men came last night?’

‘Dem boys dong so, dey sufferin’. Dey sicka allyuh. Alluyuh go home. Comin’ here. Go home, nuh. What you doin’ up here? You come to offer me money?’ She steupsed. ‘Take your blasted money. I doh need it. I live here all mih life, all mih goddamn life. Dis house ent go brek dong. Not like you. You frighten too quick, man. An’ you ent see
nuttin
. Plenty hurricane comin’ soon, comin’ now. Alluh us plenty ready to mek change. To hell wid de PNM. To hell wid you. Keep away from us. I ent know nuttin about las’ night. I here in mih bed, alone. Clive, Bernard here, too. My daughter, she asleep in
your
damn blasted house. She sleepin’ in home wid water and stove and she cook and clean for you an’ she sometime forget us, forget we livin’ here. Now you come and tellin’ me you wan give us money?’

She smiled as she stared me down, enjoying her bitterness.

‘I’m sorry.’ And I was. I felt eternally trapped.

Granny turned and limped back towards the house balancing on rocks from the river below. I walked towards the car just as two young men came out from a house further down the road. One stared at me and whispered something under his breath. The second man laughed and looked me up and down. Sweat sprang from my palms. I found my keys and started the car, driving up and up and then over the hill, over and away, anything rather than drive past those villains.

 

The following days were full of violence. My packing intensified. I took some silver from the shelves, two candlesticks, a punch bowl. I wanted to show I was serious. I removed framed photographs, took pictures down from the walls. The others stared at me, as if at an actor. They didn’t believe me. I only just managed to believe it myself.