The Final Passage Read online

  Once in the capital they made their way down to the quayside where the queue for the midnight ship had already begun to form. Leila took her place behind the young woman who would later put on a light blue cardigan. The woman stood by a huge cardboard box which was covered over by a white linen sheet. Even though the address was not visible Leila knew that beneath the shroud some anxious hand would have already painted on the destination.

  The ship lay offshore, waiting. She had lain at anchor a week and presumably she had rusted a little since then. Leila watched as she rusted a little further and waited for her cargo.

  ‘It looks quite a nice ship,’ observed Millie.

  A shiver ran through Leila as the sea breeze pierced the humid air.

  ‘Big. It's big,’ added Millie.

  Leila felt Calvin's forehead. He was sweating lightly. She wrapped her mother's bright orange shawl around her shoulders and trapped Calvin in the warmth between her breasts. She looked down at Millie. They were entering an autumnal phase which was painful for them both. Millie, small, black, radiant, a woman living in a little girl's body, smiled and her eyes shone out into the night. Millie began to talk incessantly to stop herself crying. Her best friend was leaving. Eventually Leila touched her.

  ‘I'll be alright now. Michael will soon be here and you better be getting back to collect Shere.’

  Millie's lips parted but her mouth would not work. Leila did not want them to remember each other as embarrassed by the other's presence. Millie seemed to understand and needed no persuasion. She fought hard, trying not to blink so that the tears in her eyes would not spill out on to her cheeks. She hugged Leila tightly, then Calvin softly. Feeling uncomfortable, they merely stared at each other. Then Millie spoke.

  ‘Till whenever, then.’

  ‘Till whenever, Millie.’

  ‘Say so long to Michael for me and tell Bradeth I'm waiting.’

  Millie hovered dangerously. Leila could not answer. She smiled, and after another pause Millie broke the spell and left. She was crying bravely and openly.

  An hour later the woman in front began to talk to Leila and tell her all about her husband in England. Leila tried not to listen. Behind her more people joined the queue and it disappeared around the customs house.

  Leila opened her eyes and took her son from the woman in the light blue cardigan. The woman said nothing and her face just ached with a desire for sleep as Leila's must have done an hour or so earlier. Leila felt guilty for leaving Calvin with her for so long. Then the young man with the key went through the gate and came back to sit, whistle and stare. This time he stared directly at Leila with the malign benevolence of a judge about to pass sentence. She looked upwards and away. Against the deep blue-black sky the African breadfruit trees towered, sunburnt in the daylight, charcoal-black at night, proud of their history. They were brought here to feed the slaves. They were still feeding them. They would not feed Calvin.

  The light breeze dropped, stiffened, then changed direction.

  It was almost midnight when Leila heard their voices, loud and discordant, like a brass band at a wake.

  ‘I know it's the boat, man. I can see it, you know. I got two eyes in me head which is more than I can say for the arse who umpire the game last year. How a man can give me out leg before to me Bradman stroke?’

  ‘Leg side ball, man. Leg side,’ confirmed Bradeth.

  ‘They too much cheat. Too much frigging cheat.’

  They were at the customs house end of the queue.

  Leila turned away and watched as the young man again opened the gate. This time he did not go through. He whispered something to the young couple at the front and made a sign to the rest by waving his arms. In the scramble to pick up luggage and shake off sleep there was a smaller scramble as Michael and Bradeth spotted Leila and pushed their way towards her.

  ‘I see you get a good place,’ began Michael.

  Leila stepped forward but said nothing. She left the suitcase for Michael to carry.

  ‘Lemme take the thing, nuh,’ offered Bradeth.

  ‘So what happen? You coming England too?’

  Bradeth pulled at the suitcase. ‘Not this trip, sir, not this trip.’ He was out of breath. ‘But you all going be seeing me soon for I coming to seek me fortune.’

  Michael rescued the suitcase from Bradeth's tentative grip, then he dropped it on his own foot.

  ‘Me arse!’ he screamed.

  ‘No man, you is arse,’ observed Bradeth, ‘and arse is arse, but is you foot you drop the thing on.’

  Leila moved out of sight, and Michael had little option but to follow. He was in danger of losing the place he had never really claimed.

  ‘I check you soon, man,’ shouted Bradeth.

  ‘Not if I check you sooner.’

  Michael left, and Bradeth hopped from foot to foot, wanting to cry. It had all happened too quickly.

  On the way out to the ship Michael and the suitcase sat at the opposite end of the small boat to Leila and the baby. Leila managed to get Calvin to close his eyes and she looked across at Michael. Like his son, he seemed ready to sleep. She looked past his head and back towards the island of their birth. The bright semi-circle of the capital was reflected in the water like an elaborate candelabra. But she was leaving all this behind. While the dew prepared to dampen the earth and the crickets cried out, she was leaving. And a hundred yards from the shore, in the already greying attic of her West Indian mind, the island was beginning to look small.

  Once on board the ship she helped her drunken husband lie down in the small metallic cabin. He cleared his throat and scratched his nose like a dog having a bad dream. Then she laid Calvin on the top bunk. Leila tried to peer out of the porthole but could see only half the island. She moved quickly. The fluff and dust swirled across the floor.

  On deck she saw the ferry boats were still carrying their emigrants. But soon it would all be over. This small proud island, overburdened with vegetation and complacency, this had been her home. She looked, feeling sorry for those satisfied enough to stay. Then she stiffened, ashamed of what she had just thought. Then she relaxed again.

  In the distance she imagined she could make out the figures of a woman and a small child. She knew it would be Beverley and the baby, but it did not matter now. Leila went downstairs to her cabin and undressed in the darkness so as not to disturb her husband and her son. Then she climbed up and lay down beside Calvin and waited.

  Hours later, while the others slept, it happened. The ship lurched forward, then backward, then forward again, towards England. But Leila was still awake and worrying. She listened to the useless tune of the sea and thought of her mother.

  * * *

  HOME

  ‘Michael?’ asked Millie, her voice shrill with disbelief. ‘On time? You sure we talking about the same man?’

  A year earlier Leila had stepped down into the evening gloom. She looked left, then right, but there was no sign of either of them approaching. Behind her the wooden offices which made up the Government headquarters, a two-storey verandahed building, always freshly painted and well-maintained, had long since closed for the night. Leila worked in this impressive structure which, given the one-storeyed ubiquity of the capital's other buildings, towered new, a monument to progress.

  Millie, small and spidery, scratched about at the top of the steps. She looked bored and restless as if sheltering from rain, and as ever she wore a plain white skirt and a green khaki shirt (two or three sizes too big). Her choice of colours seemed to make her already black skin look even blacker. And the day's heat left a shiny gloss on her body which would, as the night darkened, first catch, then reflect the light from the moon. Millie, with her bushy-up hair, which to comb posed problems similar to those of a man trying to erect a tent in a hurricane, was more attractive than pretty. A small black girl-woman.

  ‘I don't know why you acting so worry for. You know where the two of them going be.’

  Leila listened, then pushed her
hands deep into the front pockets of her apron-like skirt and shrugged her shoulders. Michael had never pretended to being the punctual sort of man but Leila's mind could not come to terms with the irrationality of expecting him to be so. Like a teacher trying to cajole a gifted but wayward child, she wanted him to care about such things more than he actually did. Leila continued to wait patiently, but Millie could take no more.

  ‘I sure if he get Santa Claus job he not going turn up till February done and gone.’ She sucked her teeth. ‘And Bradeth just the blasted same.’

  Leila moved, and her slow shadow lengthened and crossed the street. Millie came down the steps towards her.

  ‘Well come, nuh. Let's go. There's no point in standing here like it's World War Three we waiting for.’

  Michael and Bradeth had been sitting and drinking for hours. They were both tired. Bradeth drew a line in the dusty road with his big toe but it was not the straight line that he had hoped for. He could not be bothered to try again. He lay back, hands behind his head, and rested against the cool but bumpy wooden slats which made up the whitewashed façade of the Day to Dawn bar. Michael watched him do this. Then he looked at the crooked line and saw that his friend had failed. He could not complain. He would not be trying himself. He wore shoes.

  It was after five and still hot and humid; people shuffled and ambled their way up and down the main street. Michael took his eyes from them and again he looked across at Bradeth who had secretly taken the precaution of pulling down a straw hat over his face to block out the sun. His gawky body jutted out from all directions and it was clear why many saw Bradeth as more giraffe than man. He did not sit, he collapsed. And when he walked he strode. From his elbows outwards and from his knees downwards, all coordination, all bodily harmony, seemed beyond his powers of control. Yet there was a loping beauty about his unique body, the head small and pecking like that of a bird, his eyes bright and restless. A dog hopped over Bradeth's legs and without looking back it skipped on carelessly up the street and around the corner and out of sight. It seemed to know where it was going.

  Michael tipped up a bottle of beer, drained it in one and tossed it away to his left. He straightened his bright pink shirt and tucked it into his pants. Even when there was no reason to dress up well he liked to maintain a neat and tidy appearance. Being of medium height and build, he was lucky in that almost everything fitted him. However, if a shirt was too short in the sleeves he would concentrate hard so as to remember not to lift up his arms away from his sides unless it was strictly necessary, and if the sleeves were too long he would carefully turn back both cuffs, just the one fold. He leaned forward and his right hand found the black leather shoe on his right foot. For a few moments he worked away, vigorously scraping off some dried mud from the heel, then he licked his fingers and cleaned up the smears. If Bradeth had bothered to put on some long pants instead of his usual shorts, he would have polished up the shoe against Bradeth's trousers and risked waking him up. He could not subject his own pants to such treatment.

  A school bus crept down the road and the children pressed their round, faces up against the windows. Michael stared back at them. Behind the bus a cloud of slow dust, seemingly disinclined to rise up from the road, began to mask the lingering sight. Michael watched as the bus eventually disappeared from view.

  ‘Man, you sleeping or what?’ he asked, without turning his head.

  Bradeth remained motionless. He waited a moment, then replied, ‘Who you calling sleeping?’

  ‘Who you think if is I calling sleeping? King of England?’

  ‘Me not sleeping, boy. I just resting up me head a little.’

  ‘So what happen? You can't take your beer?’

  Bradeth sucked his teeth and spat. The transparent globular mess nestled down on the surface of the road. It vibrated slightly. Unlike water, it was not going to evaporate. Michael eyed it suspiciously before stretching out his foot and grinding it into the dust so that only a damp brown patch remained. Then he turned to Bradeth.

  ‘Maybe you should take up your arse and go back to work.’

  Again Bradeth sucked his teeth.

  ‘Who you talking to about work? The day I see you take up a job is the day you can talk with me about going back to work.’

  Michael listened, then thought for a moment, then spoke, as if trying to convince himself of something.

  ‘I has a job for I thought you and me was partners for true.’

  Bradeth chuckled, his face gently parting to reveal his white teeth. His shoulders began to ripple in comic disbelief.

  ‘Partners?’ he asked. ‘You and me, partners?’

  Michael opened another bottle of beer and Bradeth went on, his whole body now shaking with laughter.

  ‘You do a few deliveries for me round the back of the island and that make you a partner?’ He opened his eyes. ‘You know I never did understand you, man, for sometimes you do act funny and say some damn foolishness.’

  Michael turned away and took a silent drink. He looked across the street at nothing in particular, just a row of wooden planked shop fronts, now all closed up and bolted for the night. In the bar behind him he heard somebody punch a quarter into the machine and an old calypso began to play. Unconsciously they both began to follow the tune and they switched off from each other. Then, like Michael's, Bradeth's eyes also drifted across the street, searching first one way, then the next, eagerly awaiting signs of early evening life.

  The tune ended and they listened as the disc clicked back into place. The barman switched on the radio. Bradeth brushed up against Michael as he gestured towards the unopened bottles.

  ‘Pass me one of them nuh, man.’

  Michael tossed a bottle to his friend.

  ‘Thank you, man.’ Bradeth took a deep swig. ‘Ahh! Life can be good.’

  Michael turned to him. ‘You think so?’

  Bradeth held back from taking the next swig.

  ‘What it is eating you up, man?’ He paused for a moment then went on, ‘We can't really classify as partners for it's me who do all the work. You just run a few deliveries on your bike and that is all.’

  ‘I not talking about partners still,’ snapped Michael.

  He stood up and felt his bones creak. He stretched, pushing his arms skywards, and rolled forwards on to the balls of his feet. Then the tension rushed from his body and he fell backwards and flat on to the thin soles of his shoes.

  ‘I have to piss.’

  Michael moved around the side of the bar and propped himself up, one palm resting against the zinc fence. He encouraged his urine to thunder noisily against the metal.

  ‘What I'm talking about is the goodness of life. You say life is good.’

  He carefully dripped himself off and strolled back around the corner to take up his place. He shuffled as he sat, trying to rediscover his exact position. Bradeth let him settle before resuming the conversation.

  ‘Well, what is wrong with you, man, for you having a nice time sitting out in the sun, drinking beer, listening to music and talking. What else it is you want?’ Bradeth took a drink and carried on. ‘And you have motorbike standing up there that everyone admire you for.’

  Michael sucked his teeth and in one swig emptied his bottle. He threw it to one side.

  Bradeth continued, ‘And in two days you going be marrying to one of the finest looking girls on the island and you questioning me about if life can be good. Beer done lick you down?’

  Michael looked up to where the stars would soon be.

  ‘It's not that easy, you know. It's not that easy.’

  Bradeth put down his now empty bottle. ‘You mean because of Beverley and the child?’

  ‘Maybe,’ said Michael.

  Bradeth went on, ‘I sure she know about that. Women not stupid, you know.’

  He paused, then Michael spoke. ‘I don't think it going make no difference anyway, so I'm not worrying.’

  Again Bradeth spat. ‘So what it is you moaning about?’
r />   Michael shrugged his shoulders. They sat together in silence, depression rolling in over them. Whatever they said they now seemed destined to argue.

  Michael went back inside for two more bottles and they drank them. Then, in the twilight, they fell asleep, slumped up against each other. The dust in the road was allowed to settle as fewer cars and even fewer bicycles passed by. Only the Day to Dawn bar, and Jumbies rum bar down the other end of the street remained open. Those who persisted in town were inside one of the two bars and only a few stragglers and fishermen hung about outside. In the distance the sun slipped unobserved and lonely into the cold sea.

  Leila, the taller and lighter of the two girls, obediently followed her friend as they walked purposefully to the end of the street and around the corner by Jumbies rum bar. There they both faltered and listened to the smoky noises leaking through the closed shutters and underneath the crooked door. Outside a drunk body lay bulky in the road, like a sack of sugar that had inadvertently slipped off the back of a lorry. They walked on.

  Even from this distance it was clear that the men were both asleep. They approached, Leila feeling much the more foolish for having encouraged Millie to spend a hopeful, wasted hour outside Government House while knowing in her heart that neither Bradeth nor Michael would come. She lagged behind a little.

  Millie pushed Bradeth's shoulder and he shook himself away from Michael. Then Michael's somnolent head fell quickly, but he woke before it made contact with the ground.

  ‘You both have a nice sleep, then?’ asked Millie, her hands firmly on her hips.

  The men rubbed their eyes and stretched. Bradeth explained, ‘We just decided to take a nap and check out what a bit of peace and quiet feel like, but it's not looking like we going finish the test.’