On the way back down the hill I ask Ernesto to tek me to a public phone, which he do. But even though I let the thing ring and ring, and I hang up and ring back, there is no answer. I can’t imagine what Auntie and Esther doing that they nuh pick up the telephone.
When we get back Sybil fretting, sitting there on the little bed in the stifling alcove we sleeping in. So I say to her, ‘Just say it.’
She look at me with her hand resting over her mouth, and then she drop it and say, ‘Yu sure yu know what yu doing?’
‘Yu ask me that already.’
‘But I don’t hear no answer. What I see though is you going headlong into something. I not even sure yu know what it is.’ She pause and then she say, ‘Do yu know what it is?’
I think on it. ‘I never met no man like this before, Sybil. You ever? You ever meet somebody like this? Somebody that mek yu heart leap just to look at him or him look at you. Where it feel like electricity just to have him stand next to yu or rest his hand on the gearstick so close to yu knee. And all the time yu have to concentrate real hard not to let yourself reach out and touch him. Touch any part a him. Just so yu can feel the warmth of his skin under yu fingers. Yu ever feel like that about anybody?’
‘Gloria, yu head running away wid yu.’
‘It not my head Sybil.’
‘Well whatever it is, it need to slow down. We in this country for one more week and that is it. And if yu remember we come here to do something and it not this.’
I know she right. So I just get into the bed and turn off the light that not worth the effort anyway because the thing must be a ten-watt bulb it so dim.
When we laying there in the still, airless dark I say to her, ‘Yu ever think yu would want to get yuself a man?’
She laugh. ‘Yu nuh think I had enough men?’
‘No. Yu know. A man.’
‘Yu mean like Pao?’
‘No not like that. Or maybe. I don’t know. Someone regular. A regular man and a regular life.’
She nuh say nothing, but I can hear her mind working on it. Then she say, ‘I don’t think I ever wanted to have a regular man. To me, that is too much compromise. And as for a regular life, who got that Gloria, eh?’
We lay there in the quiet a time and then I say, ‘Or a woman?’
‘A woman! Yu joking? In Jamaica?’
‘I know. But did yu ever think about it? After all, you and Beryl been together all this long while?’
She quiet at first and then she say, ‘Yu need to go to sleep. We got another long day tomorrow.’
I got no idea when Ernesto going show up next, so when we get back from the mountain, even though I feel reluctant to be taking people for granted, I ask Matilde if I can walk down aways to ask Celia to use the telephone. And straight away she jump up and tek me by the hand and walk me outta the door.
Out on the street I see the horse-drawn bus going into town with the wooden cart it pulling and the long bench seats full in the back. The thing so packed there was even people standing up between the benches, sorta bent over because the roof not high enough for them to stand up straight. And because nobody know when the bus coming, which not that often anyway, there is people waiting on the road waving down any vehicle that passing to hitch a ride with them. Matilde say there not much gasoline and it expensive so everyone got to help their neighbour.
When I get through to Auntie she say they not there when I ring because she and Esther go on Saturday to the pictures at Harbour View and Prospect Beach on Sunday.
‘Yu mean the drive-in at Harbour View?’
‘What other pictures yu know out there?’
‘But how yu get there?’
‘Clifton come tek us.’
‘Clifton Brown the policeman?’
‘Same one. He come looking fi yu but yu not here so he tek me and Esther out for a trip.’
‘And who tek yu to the beach on Sunday?’
‘Clifton.’
‘Yu happy for the two a yu to just tek off with some strange man just like that?’
‘He not strange to me, Gloria. Anyway, he a policeman.’
When I talk to Esther she OK. She having a good time. She happy. And then she say, ‘Uncle Clifton was nice at the weekend, Mommy.’
‘He not yu uncle, Esther. He a policeman.’
All week we up the mountain and then back at the house dog tired for dinner and a restless sleep. And then two days before we going back to Jamaica Ernesto show up and say he come to tek us to his plantation because we not tasted his coffee yet. Sybil say she not coming. She and Matilde got business to do.
‘You have to decide whatever it is yu decide. Just remember what I say to yu.’
We didn’t get a hundred yards down the road before some woman wave down the jeep and Ernesto stop. After they exchange a few words he get out and ease up the seat so she get in the back. When we set off again he say to me, ‘She works at the botanical garden and needs a ride.’ So he drive, while the two a them chat and I gaze at the road and another billboard that say ‘
¡
Ya vencimos, y seguiremos venciendo!
’ with the people walking under it going about their business, strolling the street and catching the bus like any day in downtown Kingston. Almost like they unaware, or maybe overaccustomed to what going on over their head.
When we reach the garden she thank him and say she will get the university professor-turn-gardener to show us ’round because I am a visitor and she think it would be nice for me. And sure enough the professor come out in a creased floral shirt and dirty pants and some rubber slippers on his feet that make outta a old truck tyre just like they do back in country. And what he show us, marching up and down and through this garden, is the butterfly flower that smell like honey, and the orchid that smell like chocolate, and the toothpaste mint anthurium, and elephant ear cactus, and bird of paradise, and Japanese bamboo and the majestic Royal Palm that you see so tall and proud all over Cuba, and everything else on this used-to-be coffee plantation. All the time Ernesto standing so close to me I can hardly breathe. Leaning over my shoulder to smell a plant or touching a leaf with his hand brushing lightly against mine. And even though I was trying to smell the honey and the chocolate and the mint all I can smell is Ernesto, fresh, like he just step outta the shower.
And then it start to rain. Fast and heavy just like it do the last time we out together.
We run back to the shack, slipping and sliding over the mud, and we wait there while the rain hammering down and a heavy mist is settling as far as the eye can see. When it ease, Ernesto say we should try mek it to the plantation because the road will be turning to mud. So I say to him ’bout paying for the garden tour and he say, ‘That is a gift from Cuba.’
The further we go up the mountain the less and less like you travelling on any kinda actual road as such. In the end all yu got is a sticky red track that the jeep wheels spinning in. But I don’t care. The mountain might be falling down in a landslide for all I know. Because my mind only got one thing on it. Being alone with Ernesto. For the first time. And feeling the ease and the tension that go with that.
Ernesto house originally build by a French Haitian planter with brick and clay roof tiles. It little and cosy with one of everything. One kitchen, one bathroom, one living room and right next to that one bedroom with French doors just like the ones in the living room opening on to that same one terrace sitting up high over the coffee hills. He say we should tek off our wet clothes and I think he right. He give me a dry shirt to put on, which long and decent, and he tek my things to go hang out in what used to be, in the old days, a storage room for the coffee beans under the house. He say that was OK back then because the house didn’t have no kitchen and so the beans wasn’t anywhere near anything that smell. Ernesto put in the kitchen and bathroom himself when he come to live here five years back because nowadays all the drying and storing of the coffee beans happen away from here over the ridge.
I stand in the doorway and watch him fix some rice and beans and pork, which surprise me, the meat, but it welcome. He handy in the kitchen that is for sure. Washing the rice, stirring in the beans. He look comfortable at the stove, which is another surprise because I never see no Jamaican man busying himself like this before. Cooking the jerk pork over an open fire, sure. But turning down the heat under the rice, no.
After we eat, we sit there in the living room listening to the rain fall slow and steady.
‘You have a husband in Jamaica?’
‘A husband?’
‘Who you have to telephone?’
I laugh. ‘No, no husband. I have a daughter though. Nine years old this year.’
‘Your daughter she is called?’
‘Esther, after my mother.’ But then I think no that not true but I don’t bother explain nothing to him.
‘It is good of you to give your time to help us. Cuba is grateful.’
‘Is it only Cuba that is grateful?’
He think for a while and then he say, ‘I am not grateful.’ And he think some more. ‘I am overwhelmed.’ He stop and then he say, ‘Or perhaps that is not the right word.’ And he get up and walk inside.
Later when he come back he carrying a tray and say we should step on to the terrace since it stop raining. He pour out the coffee into two tiny cups and then he say, ‘Just a small taste of Cuban cane.’ And offer me the spoon and sugar pot. So I just take half a teaspoon and stir it in. And in truth, the coffee is good. It rich and smooth. It heavy on your tongue with a flavour almost nutty. It is truly lovely coffee. He just look at me sideways and smile, as we sitting there, the two of us on his terrace after the rain.
He sip slow and gentle from the cup and after some good while he say, ‘So is Jamaican coffee still the best coffee in the world?’
And I say, ‘Yu coffee come a good equal. That is all I am willing to say.’ And he throw his head back and laugh.
Ernesto say the road too bad to mek it back to town so we going have to spend the night. And in truth, that was the words my ears wanted to hear all evening. Next thing he go inside and come out with a cigar and sit down and light it.
Then he turn to me and say, ‘This is a celebration.’
‘What you celebrating?’
‘The same thing I celebrate every day. The revolution.’ And then he wave the cigar in the air and say, ‘Would you like one?’
And I say no because really I just happy to sit here beside him with the smell of the Cuban tobacco wafting over and seeing the smoke disappear on the breeze.
When I get into the bed the rain is coming down again and it is thundering and lightning. He come to the door and say to me, ‘You OK?’
‘I can’t sleep.’
So he leave the makeshift bed he got in the living room and get in next to me. When I turn my back to him, he say, ‘I will stroke you to sleep.’ And just as soon as he say it I feel his hand creeping under the shirt, caressing my back in long gentle lines and small tight circles. And then wider curves and wavy motions until every inch of my skin was being touched, all at the same time, by his one single finger. In all of my life, and after all the men I been with, I never feel anything like this before. Not even with Pao as gentle and caring as he is. Because what I feel now is a presence, a connection between two people who are both fully awake and fully aware of being here together. Present instead of absent. Engaged instead of detached. A bonding not just of the body, but of the mind, even the spirit.
And as I am laying there thinking this, I feel him reach round and start stroke my stomach with a hand that is moving so light and slow it is sending waves through me like I am riding the surf. And I am wondering how much further I am going to let this man go. And what it means that I am laying here letting this happen. And why I don’t just open my mouth and say, ‘No.’ But what I realise is, it not Ernesto that begin all of this. It was me. Because it didn’t just start now with his hand on my back. It started from the moment I ask Matilde, ‘Who is that?’ and the dressing-up I do that evening, and the way I let him smile at me over the dinner, and how I wash the dishes with a welcoming body standing next to him at the sink, and the stirrings I had standing under the rock in the rain, and talking to him on the terrace like I did so open and familiar, and telling him I couldn’t sleep, and letting him get into the bed with me. That was all me starting something, even if I never admit it to myself before now. And then I think about Pao. What loyalty do I owe him? Because even though he go marry someone else, that was a very long time ago and me and him still regular, and he still the father of my child.
But even as my mind is spinning on all of this, my body is moving in unison with the ebb and flow of this electricity that Ernesto is making with his fingertips touching alive every nerve in me.
When he move his hand to my breasts I realise there is nothing I can do. I am powerless. If I do not keep my mouth shut I will say yes, not no. So I lay there while I feel his hand moving down my stomach and round and round, until it stop between my legs, stroking my thighs and tracing the creases so dangerously close to the place where I am now aching for his hand to come to rest.
So I reach back to find where he is behind me. And just as I do it he pull his hips away, out of range, and say, ‘No. This is for you.’