A Kind of Eden (14 page)

He is glad that Georgia is not with him; he would have to make a joke, and no doubt he would feel awkward. He has no idea what Georgia knows about sex; he hopes very little. There is something about her that seems remarkably innocent; perhaps because he would like to think her so. But then no one really loses their innocence; it is either taken or given away willingly. For now, Georgia seems to be intact. Long may it last.

He picks up coffee from a Vie De France café. It is surprisingly quiet; the world is still waking up. On the front of the
Express
newspaper, the headlines report on a family drowned at Toco. How does this happen? The photograph shows a young woman, the mother, kneeling and bawling in the road, and to one side four bodies covered with white sheets. Their feet stick out. A shocking and distressing image; it would never be allowed in an English paper.

He's heard about police officers using their mobile phones to photograph crime scenes and selling them on to the press.
It's a way of making extra money, of subsidising their low incomes. No doubt this is one of them.

The Internet café is open but there is no one inside. He waits for a few minutes, and eventually a woman comes in and, without speaking, points at one of the machines. He checks through his emails swiftly. Juliet has sent through a PDF copy of his new contract. He scans it briefly; apart from the date it looks almost identical to his last contract. He is surprised by how relieved he feels. Two more years in Trinidad—it will do for now.

There is nothing else that needs his urgent attention. Whatever is there can wait. He'd wondered if Safiya would write to him, knowing he'd check his emails, and he is disappointed.

He dials her number, and her voicemail kicks in. He tries again. If she gets this within the next half hour she can call him back. For now, he misses her
like the deserts miss the rain
.

He knows this is schmaltzy and later she will tease him, but it will also remind her of a happier time when they danced to the song in the platinum members' lounge, at Zen nightclub, Port of Spain, before he left for England.

They'd been drinking tequila shots, and it came on at the end of the night. When the song finished, he remembers kissing her deeply in a cloud of dry ice. A few people actually clapped. Later, Safiya was embarrassed and blamed the tequila. She never liked a public display of affection, and that night she'd given in. He'd told her, ‘It's good to surrender; the greatness of a man's power is the measure of his surrender.'

He is glad to be out; he feels like himself again. He likes this car, its size and solidity. It attracts some attention at the school
bus stop. He has noticed, rich or poor, children here are always sent to school looking immaculate. In their bright turquoise uniforms, the young girls stare; they think he is somebody important. Ha!

At Penny Savers there is new stock: oranges, pineapples, apples and bananas. Miriam will be pleased. He finds eggs, Milo, a powdery chocolate drink that Safiya loves. He is sure that Georgia will like it too. He picks up flour, cocoa, sugar, butter. Later, Miriam will bake a cake for Beth's birthday. It is what they do. It is what they have always done.

‘You must celebrate her life,' the bereavement counsellor told them. ‘Celebrate all that you loved about her.'

At the time, the idea of celebrating anything was incomprehensible, and he'd felt angry with the counsellor. But anger, she said, is an important part of the healing process; beneath anger is sadness.

‘You have to mourn losing, not just your daughter, but the person you were before she died.'

He remembers thinking, will I recognise the person I am going to become?

Meanwhile, Miriam was drowning in her grief; she was prepared to hold onto anything. At times she found it difficult to breathe, as if, she said, concrete blocks were pressing on her lungs. That day she lay on Beth's bed, her face red and swollen from crying. She said, ‘How is it that God could need her more than me?'

He was astonished. ‘God?'

Back then, he'd wanted to protect her from the outside world, the looks of pity, sad glances. It was bewildering to him how clumsy others could be.

A work colleague told him she could understand exactly how he was feeling; she had lost her beloved horse the same week that Beth died. A horse! And then there was Audrey Hanson, who worked part-time in the post office, and had come to know Beth over the years. Breezily she said, ‘After a storm the birds will sing again. Thank goodness you have Georgia.'

Would it have been easier if there'd been a sign or a warning? If they had known of a blood vessel growing big like a berry inside her young brain.

That Tuesday night when he got home late, Georgia was asleep, and Beth was watching an old episode of
Cheers
with Miriam. The room had recently been painted and the smell lingered in the house. She was wearing her Bart Simpson nightdress, and making popcorn on the stove in an old aluminium pan. He was irritated by the noise.

‘Sorry, Dad,' she said, and pulled a sad face. ‘It can't be helped; this is a matter of extreme urgency and importance.'

‘Are you being cheeky?' he said, pouring himself a whisky.

‘Maybe. You're working too hard. You know what they say, all work and no play makes Dad a dull boy.'

Miriam said, ‘I'm with you, Beth. Tell your dad to lighten up.'

‘The problem is, I have to earn enough money to keep my family in the luxury to which they have become accustomed. Some of us have expensive hobbies.'

Beth tipped the popcorn into a big plastic bowl, melted a tablespoon of butter and trickled it on top. She was excited; she was going horse-riding in the morning.

‘I hope it doesn't rain. I hate when it rains. I don't like riding in the rain.'

She sat on the velvet sofa between the two of them, feet on the coffee table, the bowl of popcorn on her lap. Then—and for no apparent reason—she said, ‘I love you both. We should tell each other more often. We should make it a house rule.'

Martin felt both embarrassed and awed by her confidence, her willingness to express her feelings. It was something he had never done easily. When they said goodnight at the top of the stairs, he told Beth that he was proud of her. And, yes, he thought this new house rule was an excellent idea.

At 5.30 she came to their bedroom and said her head was hurting; she started to cry. Miriam got up and followed her into the bathroom, where she was sick. She lay on the bathroom floor, sobbing and holding her head.

Georgia wandered in to see what was wrong; she had seen the light on the landing. Miriam ushered her back to bed. 'It's okay, George, go back to sleep. There's nothing to worry about.'

After a few minutes, Miriam came to him, her face long and pale. ‘Actually, I think it's serious. The doctors' surgery doesn't open for another hour. We should get her to hospital.'

They were going to leave Georgia with a neighbour, but she didn't want to be left. She started to cry. ‘I don't want Beth to die.' Until that point it had never occurred to him that she might.

Miriam quickly packed an overnight bag. By this time Beth had a high fever and was mostly incoherent. It was freezing; in the darkness he scraped ice off the windscreen. He lifted Beth and carried her out to the car. The roads were hazardous and
he had to drive slowly. The sun came up; the world was white with frost.

It was two hours before a young paediatrician consultant arrived. After a CT scan, they rushed Beth by ambulance to another hospital in Birmingham for emergency neurosurgery. She was bleeding into her brain, they said. Georgia and Martin followed Miriam in the ambulance. He telephoned his mother and asked her to meet them there.

In the private waiting room, the consultant said it was unlikely she would survive; Beth had suffered a cerebral aneurysm. She was brain-stem dead. Martin looked at the small, balding stranger with glasses, the bearer of this catastrophic news; he felt as if he was dreaming, his insides were cold.

‘It is extremely rare,' the man said, and he put his hand on Martin's shoulder as if they were friends. ‘You must know you did everything right.'

He remembers the organ transplant coordinator talking to them about donorship. Was Beth the kind of person who would want her organs used to save someone else's life?

‘Yes,' he told the woman. ‘Beth had talked about it only recently.' She'd asked her mother how to make a will. To the woman he said, ‘Do you think she had some kind of premonition?'

The woman smiled, weakly. There were forms to sign, documents to take away with them.

His mother arrived. She looked at him with such sorrow and pity he has never forgotten it. She took Georgia back to her house; Miriam and Martin sat with Beth in the hospital room. Her head was bandaged, but she looked strangely well, as if she was sleeping. They held her cool hands; they took turns to talk
to her. At one point, Miriam lay down next to her, and put her arms around her.

He had seen it over the years, particularly in the early days: murder, road traffic accidents, suicide. Like other parents, he had never expected this to happen to him. He was often the bearer of bad news, never the receiver.

The road back is clear. He stops off at Buck Buck Alley to pick up bread on Terence's recommendation. The bread is warm, heavy. Proper bread in a brown paper bag. Like the bread he buys from their local bakery on Saturday mornings in the village. He always arrived as the bread was coming out of the oven; he took it home to make bacon sandwiches for Miriam and the girls. And he realises—driving towards the crossroads, the field to his left where horses are grazing, dark and shiny like molasses, the vast blue open sky—he is slotting back into his role of husband and father.

Perhaps it will be easier for everyone if he carries on as normal. Why make things more difficult. Miriam is fragile, overwrought. In three days she will go back to England and he will have his life back. Does she need to know the details of that life. Does she need to know—right now—about Safiya? He has tried to visualise telling her that he is leaving her, that their life together is over, and he can't. Can't or won't? It doesn't matter. The truth is this: right now, his life with Miriam and Georgia in England is separate from his life in Trinidad; it is separate from his life with Safiya.

After breakfast, Miriam packs a cooler with drinks and fruit. Georgia wants to go to Store Bay.

‘Chop-chop, Dad.' Georgia is dressed, her hair is loose and wavy. The sun has made it lighter.

‘We want to get there before lunch. There's some great food huts. Where's your cozzie?' She kisses him lightly on his cheek. ‘You okay?'

He is sometimes astonished by Georgia's brightness.

‘You bet I am.'

‘Did you see Conan? Terence was looking for him; he thought he might be out on the road.'

‘No, not when I came in. I saw goats, horses. No dog.'

Georgia pulls back her hair and ties it into a knot.

‘We're leaving in five, okay?'

‘I'll be there or be square.'

‘Dad,' Georgia says, ‘that's such a naff thing to say. So incredibly uncool.'

‘I am un-cool, darling. I'm your father.' He puts his arm around her waist. ‘One thing you can be sure of, I will always embarrass you.'

‘Mum's cool. She doesn't show me up.'

‘You see,' he says, ‘this is what happens when we're all together. You start ganging up on me. It's a form of persecution. That's why I have to live in Trinidad.'

‘Not for much longer,' she says, over her shoulder.

With his coffee, he pads along the passageway to his room. He stops to watch hummingbirds feeding on the Antigua Heath. He has the same plant in his garden in England, only it is called Montbretia and the flowers are more orange than red. The tiny creatures stick their long bills into the mouths of the red bellflowers; their iridescent green feathers shimmer.
Safiya told him, the wings of a hummingbird beat sixty times a minute and their hearts a thousand. Or is it the other way around?

He checks with Terence to make sure he will he be there when they come back from the beach. He can't seem to find the gate opener.

Miriam brings the guidebook in the car. Birds, it seems, are the theme of the day.

‘Did you know the Scarlet Ibis is the national bird of Trinidad and Tobago? And they're on a one-dollar note.'

He wants to say, yes, and with Safiya, I've seen huge flocks fly into the Caroni swamp as they come back from feeding grounds in Venezuela.

‘And the orange-winged parrot, the most common parrot in Trinidad and Tobago, pairs for life.'

‘Every morning I hear them flying over my apartment. They sound like geese.'

‘Really, Dad, you have parrots in your garden?'

‘Parrots, kiskadees, yellow birds, blue birds.'

For some reason there are more cars on the road, and he wonders if a flight came in yesterday from England. The car park at Penny Savers is packed. It is Ash Wednesday; if Terence is right Trinidadians will be starting to arrive from carnival.

At the turning, tourists walk along the sandy road. They must be English. Trinidadian women lean back when they walk, hips forward, easy. Not like these clompy-looking folk. What is it about the English?

He drifts away to Trinidad, and his apartment, and he
wonders if Sherry has watered the yard, and if young Vishnu has come. He had told Safiya, while he is away, she is welcome to use his apartment whenever she likes. She might enjoy the independence, a break from home. Has she been there? He doubts it, somehow; it depends on how much she misses him. And what about Fanta—is he eating? Without him there, Fanta might run away. Curiously, the cat has become an anchor. It would be a bad sign if he left. He must call Sherry and check that she has seen him about the place.

Store Bay is lively, with music booming out from a nearby sound system. He recognises some old favourites: Bob Marley and the Wailers, Jimmy Cliff, the Police. Everyone is in a good mood, even Miriam, and he is pleased. There is no mention of Beth, which is probably as it should be. They buy lunch from one of the local vendors, curried crab with dumplings. Miriam thinks the crabs are awful, the look of their blue grey claws in the curry sauce and the rubbery white dumplings. To his surprise, Georgia likes them and tucks into Miriam's leftovers.