Dancing Lessons (39 page)

“At that time, it was still the politicians running the show, you know, not like now when it's the drug posses. Junior was nothing but the politicians' lackey, their bagman, off to Miami every minute to launder the loot or pick up fresh clean dollars. I'm sure he and Michael thought they were part of the inner circle. Then the Americans stepped in and said, hey, this has got to stop. At that time they were willing to play ball with the government—loans, all kinds of aid and fancy promises. But they also said, no more funds, no more loans until you deal with the drug trade, never mind it was all American youth buying the stuff. You must remember that time, G? How they suddenly started to bomb the little airstrips all over the island so the ganja planes couldn't land and they were spraying the ganja fields from the air or sending in soldiers to burn the crops? There were always these pictures in the papers of these bags and bags of ganja going up in smoke. Everyone for miles around getting high from the fumes. Men, women, and children. Even the parson, people used to joke. Well, the whole thing was all a big poppyshow. But some of the foot soldiers had to be sacrificed to make the government look as if they were serious about rooting out the drug barons, the ‘Mister Bigs.'”

She took another sip while I chopped up the rest of the salad.

“Michael was one of the first to go. Remember how he was blown away and everybody said it was a drug deal gone wrong? Remember all the strange killings of prominent individuals around the same time? Some little boy was always arrested and some spurious motive for the killing provided by the police while the rumour mills ground out that another ‘Mister Big' has been taken out. So everyone was pleased that the police were finally doing something. But it was all part of the same scenario, nothing but a purge and some scapegoating by the real big men for the benefit of the Americans.”

Celia came over to where I was standing and took a piece of celery from the bowl, dipped it into the dressing I was mixing, and bit it. The casual way she was acting when making these revelations was unnerving me, but she just carried on.

“You know, G, Junior is lucky to be alive today. His name was on that list. But he got a tipoff and dived deep underground. He must have had his escape route well prepared by this time, for he just vanished. He had already met Dolly by then, which is probably why he ended up in Canada.”

“How much of this did you know?”

“I didn't know anything at all about it while it was happening. It's only recently that Junior's been willing to talk about it. Or even been willing to come back home. He's been running scared all these years. Can you imagine?”

“But did you know Junior was into the drug trade and all that?”

She sipped again and made a face, as if she had to consider this.

“Yes and no. I mean, there were always rumours, but if I tackled him he always denied it. But in my heart I knew that he was mixed up in something. Like you, I found Junior secretive. Herman was suspicious of him, too, although he liked him as a person. Herman himself was a bit paranoid at the time, and he thought we shouldn't have too much to do with him. I kept in touch because of Shirley, really. He was my only connection to Shirley.”

“So he is the one who told you?”

“Yes, but not until long after. Junior actually skipped the country before we knew anything had happened to Shirley. I had no idea where he had gone to. Of course I went crazy when Michael got killed and I tried to contact Junior—only to find out that nobody knew where he was. After that it was like waiting for a bomb to go off. I honestly expected any day to hear they'd found Junior's body. Then I got a strange phone call one day. At my office. The person just said in this whispery voice, ‘Junior's okay. Don't worry.' That was all. Then she hung up. It was a woman with what sounded like a foreign accent—and in those days of course we couldn't check to see who had called. But at least that took a load off my mind.”

“Celia, this is getting to be like something out of a thriller,” I couldn't help saying, rather sourly I'm afraid, for I was beginning to find the whole thing a little unreal. I found it hard to believe I knew the people Celia was talking about.

“It gets even more like a B-grade movie plot. Next thing—well, some months later, actually—I got this letter with a Canadian stamp, I couldn't make out the postmark, and the letter was just a few sentences scrawled on this sheet of paper—no address, no signature, but it was Junior's writing, and he told me to burn it as soon as I'd read it. The only letter I got from him, actually, for many years, and believe me I was so frightened I did take a match to it.”

She laughed and took a sip from her glass and stood there turning the stem round and round while I stopped what I was doing to watch her, impatient for her to go on.

“So, what was the letter about?”

“Telling us what had happened to Shirley, how her body had been identified. Of course, we had no idea she was missing. Herman used some legal contacts he had to verify that the story was true, and it was after that that we came down to tell you she had died and—I'm really sorry now—I made up that stupid story for you. Junior had this one friend in New York whom he trusted, or maybe Shirley trusted, to this day I don't know who this person is. But he used this person to keep an eye on Shirley and it was he—or she—who let him know what had happened. It was this person who identified her and buried her too—Junior sent money for the funeral, but of course he dared not go. He believed that Shirley had been killed as a warning to him, or to draw him out of hiding, but I'm not sure that was really so, because why would they dump the body without
ID
? Another scenario floated was that Pinto had engineered it because if he was ever arrested, he was afraid she knew too much about his dealings. Who knows? Of course, Junior didn't tell me all of this in the letter, I got it out of him much later.”

We broke it off then, and I was glad, for Herman appeared, followed shortly by Ashley, and we realized that it was time for dinner. All the time we were putting the food in serving dishes and getting it on the table I felt again as if a great band was compressing my chest. I felt better when we all were seated at the table and began to eat. We talked about inconsequential things, and Ashley chattered about her friends. I'm proud to say that when it came to the dessert, Celia let the first taste of my devil's food cake with the caramel topping melt in her mouth before she declared it a triumph. Take that, Mrs. Reverend Doctor, I thought, not at all ashamed of my childishness.

THE WEEKEND AT CELIA'S
was supposed to be for relaxation, but that last evening after dinner I sat on the couch downstairs pretending to read. I was feeling restless and dissatisfied. I now had answers to some of my questions, it is true, as to what had happened to Shirley and to Junior as well—or at least it was all in the open now—but I couldn't stop asking myself why these things had happened. To my children. Why both Shirley and Junior had chosen to go down that path. I think Celia sort of dismissed Junior's days in the drug business as youthful folly, greed, laziness, just following the path laid out by his friends, the path to an easy fortune without any thought about the consequences. Though it seems he had ended up with nothing for his pains, for he had had to run and leave it all behind. Some of it anyway. Good! I thought. I hope he suffered. I was still feeling some resentment towards Junior, and I knew that he and I had a lot to work through.

Celia had vanished after dinner to catch up on some work, but now she came and sat beside me and we chatted idly about this and that until we inevitably turned to the main topic of the weekend, which was Shirley.

When she described Shirley as the adventurous one in the family I'd agreed, she'd always been the first one out there to do anything on a dare or to try something new, she always wanted to travel, to find out what was over the next hill. But then Celia said, “Shirley's adventuring wasn't so much in search of something new as to recover something she felt she had lost. Or never had in the first place. She told me so once. She wanted to find something to fill a permanent ache inside her. Like a black hole, she said. Only she didn't know what would fill it.”

“Shirley?” I was taken aback, for I'd never thought of Shirley in that light. She was always the happy-go-lucky sunshine girl. “Well, something must have happened to her after she left home,” I said. “That doesn't sound like the Shirley I knew.”

Celia didn't answer, she started to study her nails, looking at both her hands as if the answer was hidden there. The silence got uncomfortable, and I began to remember some of the things she had said in anger to me not so long ago, how indifferent I was to my children, how I acted as if I didn't care. Was that the impression I had given to all of them? Certainly not to Shirley!

“She felt this way from when she was little, all right,” Celia finally said. “We used to talk about it the times when I came home to visit, before I went away to the States, so we would have been in our early teens then. You know that's the time girls talk about feelings, that sort of thing. Papa must have been at home still, for I don't remember visiting when he wasn't there. At least not until I came back from university and came down by myself. I'm not saying that Shirley used those actual words at that time, but she always talked about feeling this great emptiness. I mean, I wasn't feeling so hot myself, but I thought I knew what I had lost. She didn't.”

It was on the tip of my tongue to ask, “And what had you lost?” but I thought better of it. Instead I asked, “So she never said why?”

“No, but I think that from when she was little she felt left out. She always said nobody loved her. She had it in her head that you loved me best, Lise was Papa's girl, and Junior as the only boy was everybody's eyeball. She was special to nobody.”

“Oh, nonsense,” I said. Perhaps a bit sharply.

“Maybe. But there was something else. And this you will say is nonsense. But Shirley came to feel that it was because she was the darkest one in the family.”

“For heaven's sake, Celia. You know she wasn't treated any differently. If anyone could lay claim to that it is Lise. She is the one who got teased for her looks. Remember all those names the kids used to call her? Quaw. Mus-mus. Redibo? Even Junior and Shirley did it.”

“I know.”

“I'm really distressed to hear that. Shirley was special to everyone. She certainly had the most attractive personality of all you children.”

“G, you know that how we perceive things as children is more important than the reality of our lives.” She gave a funny laugh then and said, “For instance, I always thought you had given me away as a child because you didn't want me. How do you think that made me feel?”

“Oh God,” I said.

“It's okay. It's okay.” She reached over and patted my leg. “I think I understand now. But I'm talking about the child's perception then.”

I sort of screwed up my face, trying not to get entangled in this one.

“So all I am saying is that is how Shirley felt.”

“But something must have led her to feel that way.”

“Well, I don't know. It's not something you should get upset about at this stage. It's too late anyway.”

“I'm not upset. But how would you feel if you suddenly learned that your children were thinking such terrible things about you?”

Celia laughed out loud then. “Oh my God, you should hear that Ashley sometimes. The things she says. I'm the worst mother on earth! Gabriel was a little more subtle. When he was small and he got mad at me, he used to tell everyone that his real mother was going to come in a helicopter and take him away and it would serve me right.”

I smiled then, but I knew it wasn't the same. I decided to hold my peace. I was learning that too much talking could sometimes be as bad as silence. We sat, saying nothing, but this silence was making me uncomfortable, so I asked about Lise, for we hadn't talked about her at all. I was curious to know if she had seen Lise recently.

“Oh, Lise,” Celia said in a tone that made me relax. “I haven't seen her in ages, but we've been talking a lot on the phone lately. I don't know, I guess we are just at that age where family is beginning to mean more to us. I'll dig out some pictures later to show you.”

I said I'd like to see them and asked what Lise was doing.

“You know Lise, always getting her own way. She ended up in Houston of all places. Went into real estate, buying and fixing up old property, now she is quite the landlord. Lise is doing okay, let me tell you.” And she rubbed her thumb and forefinger together.

“And her children?”

“Amazing, when you think of it. All turned out fantastic. Doing brilliantly at school. She might end up with two doctors, and I think the third one, the girl, wants to be an architect. Don't know how she managed it. Wish mine would do as well. And she raised them all as a single mother too. Just couldn't be bothered to marry any of the men in her life—and there have been plenty, I can tell you. Still attracts them like honey, from what she tells me. Knows how to love them and leave them.”

Just like her father, I thought sourly, for certain things I still couldn't swallow. Celia must have noticed my expression. I don't know how she read it, but she surprised me by saying, “Promise me you won't be hard on Junior. I think he is trying to make amends. For a lot of things. Just try and love him, Mom, and not say anything. Forgive him. For Shirley's sake. You know what she was like. Not a mean bone in her body.”

I had to think about that for a long long time. So many loaded words embedded there. Making amends. Love. Forgiveness. Shirley.

Shirley and her beautiful smile. I had never really mourned her. Because I never knew the cause of her death, it had left me in a kind of suspension. As if I was waiting for her to come in slamming doors as she always did, dumping her school bag on the table. Turning somersaults. Noisy, irrepressible Shirley. And now, now that I knew the finality of it all, I still didn't know what to think.