by Sharon Maas
I slipped my hand neatly from under his. ‘I’m sorry – I really am tired. Maybe later on.’
He nodded and drew away his hand. I walked up the stairs, fully aware of his gaze on my back. I reached the top landing and walked on to my room. I did not look down. But I knew he was watching.
For the rest of the day I stubbornly avoided any time alone with Thomas. We had a picnic on the beach later in the day when the sun had lost its fierceness, and everyone except me went into the sea for a bathe. Thomas tried to persuade me but I resisted adamantly; my bathing costume, in spite of the high neck and long arms, was embarrassingly revealing with its waist-length skirt, and even more so when it was wet. It just would not do to encourage that penetrating gaze of his.
So I sat on one of the beach chairs the servants had brought down for us and watched. And though I resisted as much as I can, it was Thomas who seemed to overshadow everyone else; playing with the children, throwing them into the air and letting them fall, screaming, into the water; letting them climb onto his back and swimming with them there, ducking them and chasing them and splashing them and laughing, laughing, laughing.
In a random thought it occurred to me that I had not seen George laugh once since that first day when he had sailed into our compound on his bicycle, weaving to and fro, waving an arm through the air as if he had not a care in the world.
It occurred to me that I had made George miserable.
It occurred to me that George bore not a laughing child on his back but an enormous burden – the burden of his race, his race’s history, his race’s future. And how much I had complicated a life that was complicated enough already.
A deep, wretched sadness opened up in me, an abyss that had no floor. A melancholy and sense of hopelessness that rose up and moistened my eyes, leaving a veil of tears that blurred my sight. Thomas and the rest of the company disappeared from my sight, from my mind. I thought only of George, and the happiness denied us.
‘What’s the matter?’ said a voice beside me and I looked up, and through my tears I saw Thomas’s smiling face, his concerned eyes, his hair, dark and wet now, clinging to his forehead.
I shook my head. ‘It’s nothing,’ I said, but he saw through the lie.
‘It’s something,’ he said, ‘but I don’t want to pry.’
Then all the children came running up the beach to smother him with their wet young bodies, and he laughed and threw them off and ran away with them to play with a ball.
I got my wish that day: I did not have a conversation alone with Thomas. But that did not lift my despondency.
‘Actually, he sounds perfect for you,’ said Sibille the next day after work. ‘I think you should take your time and let things take their course. If he can prise George from your mind, so much the better. You obviously like him, so what’s the problem? It’s not as if he’s some horrible suitor your people are forcing on you.’
‘But I don’t want him to prise George from my mind!’ I wailed. ‘I love George! I promised George I’ll wait!’
‘A promise he has not returned,’ said Sibille. At times she could be so cruel with her love of showing me the things I did not want to see.
‘George loves me. I love him. Together we can face everything.’
‘Oh, twaddle!’ said Sibille. ‘You have no idea. You’re looking at this whole romance through rose tinted glasses. You think you know what you’re letting yourself into with George but you don’t know a thing. You’ve got some kind of a God complex. You’re looking down at him and his life from your high horse and you’re thinking you can somehow spread some magic and wash away the problems, wash away all the obstacles. You have no idea. Girl, you have no idea whatsoever. George may love you but he can see right through your ideal vision of the future and he knows it is nonsense. That’s why he tries to push you away. You’re not fit for him.’
‘What do you mean, I’m not fit for him?’
‘I mean exactly what I said,’ she answered, and refused to say a single word more on the subject.
Two days later, I looked up as a customer entered the Telegraph Office. It was late afternoon; soon I would be tidying my desk in time for my nightshift colleague. The customer approached the counter, and I looked up. It was Thomas.
‘Hello!’ he said, removing his hat.
‘Oh! Hello!’
‘I want to send a telegram,’ he continued, ‘to a good friend in London.’
‘Yes, of course.’ I got up and walked towards him, handed him a pencil and a message form. ‘Each letter in capitals, please, and in a square. But I expect you know that.’
‘Oh yes; I’ve sent many telegrams in my life. But this one is special.’ He bent over the counter, carefully pencilling in the message. He pushed the form towards me. ‘Finished!’
‘Thanks.’ I told him the price, he paid. I took the piece of paper over to the machine and sat down to start tapping.I finished tapping in the address and got to the message itself.
‘Oh!’ I said again, and looked up – Thomas was still waiting, and watching, a cocky smile across his face.
I flushed, and looked down at what he had written, and my hand shook a little as I tapped in the message:
‘MET THE MOST WONDERFUL GIRL IN THE WORLD STOP THOMAS’
I looked up again; the smile had left his lips and he had the grace to look slightly worried.
‘Sorry. It’s just a bit of a joke. I needed an excuse to see you again, and, well …’ the sentence petered off; a new customer had entered the office and I turned away. There was a wooden bench along the wall of the customer section of the office; Thomas sat down and waited patiently till I had dealt with the new message. The moment the customer left Thomas leapt to his feet and returned to the counter.
‘What time do you finish work, Winnie?’
I looked up at the wall clock. ‘In about ten minutes.’
‘I thought so. Do you mind if I wait for you, and walk you home? I’d like to talk to you.’
‘Oh, well – yes of course you can wait, but …’
‘I won’t be a nuisance. Just go ahead with your work. We’ll talk afterwards.’
Fifteen minutes later we were walking in the direction of Miss Goode’s house.
‘I came into town today to do some investigations,’ said Thomas. ‘I’m looking for a job as a junior in a solicitor’s office and have been making the rounds. I’ve found a few possibilities, had a few interviews. It shouldn’t take long.’
‘So you – you’re moving to Bridgetown? Soon?’
‘Well, it will take a while till I’m settled, even after I’ve found a job. I’m with family friends in the meantime and then I’ll look for a place of my own, a flat or a house.’
‘Oh.’
I genuinely could not find anything else to say. It didn’t seem to matter, for Thomas seemed happy to chatter away all the way home without requiring any response from me beyond a nod or a smile or an occasional really?
‘I know of a place where there’s a magnificent view of the sunset,’ said Thomas suddenly. ‘Would you like to watch it with me? Sit down for half an hour?’
He was altogether so charming, so polite, so solicitous – how could I possibly refuse?
‘Yes – why not?’ I said, and so he lured me towards the shorefront of Bridgetown. There was indeed a magnificent view of rooftops before a vista of vivid blue sea sparkling in the waning sun. Several boats were moored in their docks, their sails lowered, bobbing gently on the water. Some were obviously fishing boats; they looked old, tired, their paint peeling away. Others were bigger, better, white and smart. Thomas pointed.
‘One of those sailing boats belongs to a friend of mine, Walter,’ he said. ‘He’s a member of the Yacht Club. Perhaps you’d like to come when we go out sailing one day? It’s great fun. You’d enjoy it. And you’ll make some new friends.’
‘Oh, I’d love to!’ I said before I could stop myself. How often had I watched the boats out at sea, their white sails fu
rling in the wind! Just looking at them skidding along on the water brought to me a feeling of immense freedom and space. How glorious, I had thought, to be aboard one of those! And now I had a chance.
That enthusiastic response was an invitation to yet more suggestions: a trip around the island, a visit to the old Fort, an invitation to the Royal Barbados Yacht Club New Year’s Eve Ball.
I agreed to all. I met his eyes and thrilled at the admiration in them. I laughed at his jokes. I relaxed. I completely forgot the time slipping away. Perhaps Sibille was right after all.
‘Well, where’ve you been, Miss Sparkly-Eyes?’ said Sibille the moment I walked into the door. ‘Left me to do all the cooking by myself – anyway, food’s ready.’
Over dinner I told her, and as I spoke the sparkle left my spirit and no doubt my eyes.
‘And now I feel so guilty!’ I wailed. ‘I feel as if I’ve betrayed George!’
‘Interesting,’ said Sibille. ‘And now you have two choices. One is to take that sense of guilt as a sign from your conscience that you did wrong, and to let Thomas know at the earliest opportunity that no, you can’t do all these wonderful things with him. Your other choice is to brush away that guilt and just enjoy yourself. You’re only young once and Thomas sounds perfect for you. Why not? You’ll never get the chance to go sailing and attend the Yacht Club New Year’s Ball with George. Give Thomas a chance. Maybe this is life offering you a hand to climb out of all your problems. Why listen to a boring sense of guilt? Why not? Go ahead, I say.’
‘Really? You really think it’s all right? Do you think George would be angry, if he knew?’
‘Maybe not angry, but hurt, for sure. But you know what? To hell with George. For one, he’ll never know unless you tell him. Second, George himself told you to find someone suitable. Here’s someone. You have George’s permission.’
‘True,’ I agreed. Secretly, I basked in her encouragement. She was validating my acceptance of Thomas’s courtship.
‘The thing is,’ I said, ‘it just feels so good to be actually courted by a young man, a young man who obviously admires me and seeks my company and wants to be with me and making the effort to please me and, and, well, just to be wooed for a change, instead of having to do all the wooing, all the persuasion myself. George is so, so … reluctant.’
‘Every girl likes to be wooed,’ said Sibille, ‘still, I want to stick up for George. He really doesn’t have a choice than to be reluctant. He knows, far better than you, how little you fit into his world. He knows the problems that lie ahead should you marry. How can he ever court you, woo you, propose to you, when all he can offer you is a life of humiliation and struggle and hardship? How can he ask you to step down from your privilege into that life? I don’t doubt he loves you – but the fact that he’s trying to protect you, to warn you off – well, it works in his favour.’
There it was again – this tremendous sense of guilt, descending on me like a big black cloud from the sky, spoiling all the pleasure of anticipation. I wished Sibille had not explained about George. I wished she’d continued to encourage me, to persuade me that yes, it was fine to enjoy Thomas and all he could offer.
‘I’m only young once,’ I reminded myself firmly, and with a hefty shove cleared my mind of all guilt, all sense of disloyalty, all thought of George. I was here, now, and so was Thomas. I liked him, he liked me. In his presence all the burdens I carried melted away. And after all, going sailing with him and to dances didn’t mean I had to marry him. I would live in the present, and enjoy my life.
The New Year’s Eve Ball was splendid. It recreated in real life all those stories Mama had told me about the dances and balls of Vienna and Salzburg – even if the setting was not a formal ballroom with chandeliers above and a marble floor beneath, but a spreading park with a wooden floor laid down for dancing, lined with waving palms, brushed by a balmy breeze, the stars twinkling above, the black sea glistening beyond the palms.
And above all, an orchestra. A real live orchestra! There were the violins, the cellos; the woodwinds, the brass, the percussion – everything Mama had once described with such longing – playing music that made my heart leap and swirl and swoon.
Thomas swung me around and we laughed, gazing into each other’s eyes; it was the Blue Danube. The Blue Danube! Memories of childhood days, Mama and Papa dancing to this very music, played not by an orchestra but improvised by Mama singing, Mama laughing and throwing back her head as she and Papa whirled around the room and we girls clapped. And further back yet, to a time before my existence, in a long-ago Viennese ballroom: Papa and Mama, young and beautiful, waltzing to this very music and falling in love.
‘If only you could hear a live orchestra,’ Mama used to say, and now I was, and it was better than a fairy tale. We laughed and waltzed and made the music our own, Thomas and I. It was Vienna in Barbados; my ancestors reaching across the ocean to claim me; my very blood surging within me to take wing. The magic of music and a warm breeze and the sea, and me swept away from earth in the arms of a weaver of a heart-capturing spell.
‘There you are,’ said Sibille when I described the ball to her, the music, and the dancing. ‘There’s your answer. Thomas is perfect for you. What more can you ask of a man, than music and dancing and nights under a moonlit sky?’
I looked at her suspiciously. ‘Are you being sarcastic?’
‘Not at all,’ she replied. She sat at the vanity, plaiting her hair into one long rope over her shoulder. ‘It’s the truth, isn’t it? He makes you happy, doesn’t he? All George has brought you up to now is grief and problems, and more grief and problems are waiting for you if you choose him. There’s no competition, really.’
‘Yes, but …’
‘But what? Where do all these ‘buts’ come from? Maybe because you can’t rescue Thomas like you want to rescue George? Maybe Thomas don’t make you feel like God, high up in the sky?’
‘Sibille, don’t be horrible! You make me sound like a witch!’
‘I just don’t understand your problem. Why you still lookin’ at me like that like if you’re not sure about Thomas, after a night like last night? Lookin’ at me with all that doubt in your eyes? Guilt? You don’t need to feel guilt. George knows he can’t marry you. You don’t need to worry about him. Just go ahead. What on earth you waitin’t for? My permission? You got it, girl. I not goin’ to blame you at all if you choose the white man instead of the black. That’s what you worried about, right? That you lettin’ down the side you think you should be stickin’ up for? That you not the heroine you thought you were? The great rebel?’
‘You confuse me, that’s all!’
‘You confuse yourself! You had a magical night. You just told me that, your words. Magical. Wonderful. What more you want?’
What more did I want? I couldn’t answer at first. I walked to the window and looked out over the back yard with its mango and coconut trees. They reminded me of home, of Promised Land, the land that wasn’t as Promised as I’d thought. Could I return to that world? Because that was the world Thomas offered me. Back into the fold of my own people, my own race, yet free of the scourge that Promised Land held: no cane fields, no labourers to worry about. Well-treated housemaids and garden boys. And I would be the kind mistress they all spoke well of. Dinners with select company, waited on by black servants in white gloves. The tinkle of fine glass and china. Carefree picnics on a lovely white beach. Memories of last night swirled through my mind, the laughter, the fun. Sibille was right. Thomas was a gateway into such a life, an honourable escape from the problems I had created. I could go back into my own world. The door stood open. It was as easy as saying yes. Yet still …
I turned around. ‘Love!’ I said.
‘What?’
‘You asked what more I want. And the answer is love. I know it now: I don’t love Thomas. Yes, last night was full of laughter and pleasure but it wasn’t full of love. Love is – something else. Deeper, more solid. Quiet. That’s what I have with G
eorge. It’s like a foundation, a rock that stabilizes my heart. Last night – yes, it was fun, but it was – a puff of magic. A mirage. Something that came and went, a puff. I don’t want a puff, Sibille, or even a series of puffs. I want love. I want George.’
Chapter Twenty-Nine
On a Saturday morning two weeks after the New Year’s Eve ball Thomas came to pick me up in the sparkling new car that had been his parents’ Christmas present. I had seen nothing of him since the ball; he had gone back to his parents to spend some time before starting work in February, for he had indeed found work with Littleton and Field, one of Bridgetown’s leading solicitor firms.
“You’re looking very pensive today,” he said as we drove southwards, out of town. “What’s on your mind?”
“Oh nothing special,” I lied. “Just a bit tired, that’s all. I didn’t sleep well last night.”
It was true, yet the matter at hand was far more urgent. I could no longer see Thomas. I had to put an end to it, and I had to do so today.
“I’m not sleeping well myself, of late” he chuckled. He reached out and squeezed my hand. “Too many thoughts. Nice thoughts, though, and all about you. I hope you’ve got a similar problem!”
I didn’t answer. Tears pricked my eyes and I looked away so he would not see, and a few minutes later he slowed the car and turned it right, driving into what looked like an empty field with a few cows grazing and a tangle of bushes at the further end. The field sloped gently down towards the sea. Beyond the bushes the sea sparkled, meeting the sky at the faraway horizon. A few clouds skittered across the sky, balls of white fluff against brilliant cobalt. A perfect day. He got out of the car, walked around to the passenger seat, opened it and held out a hand to help me out. Opening the back door of the car, he removed a canvas bag and slung it over his shoulder.
“Come,” he said, taking my hand again. “I want to show you something.”
