by Penny Dixon
He don’t understand the tightrope we walk on this island. They tolerate us because we skilled and we cheap. But as soon as anything go wrong they lay us off first. We the ones they blame for all the crimes here; they ready to tar every GT man with the same brush. They accuse us of taking they jobs and they women. They don’t ask themselves what we give to they women – or consider how we work twice as hard as a Bajan for half the money. They don’t think about how we get harassed by the police when they bored and have nothing to do.
I just getting ready to go and look for him when he come through the kitchen door. I so tight with anxiety, so relieved when he come in that I grab him by his shoulders and push him against the wall.
‘Where you was Darron? You know what time it is? Why you don’t answer your phone? You know what time you suppose to be in this house. Where you was till now?’
He looking scared, real scared.
‘You hurting me Daddy.’ That’s when I realise that my fingers digging into his shoulders. I let go of him and look at my hands. The last thing I want to do is hurt my son, but I so scared for what will happen to him. Everybody will think I fail if he get into trouble. So many people think a man can’t raise children without a woman. I look at him and look at my hands again. I never want to see that look in his eyes again.
‘Where you was, Darron?’
‘I stayed over at Bungee’s to finish my science project.’ His voice shaking.
‘Why didn’t you tell me?’
‘I send you a text Daddy.’
‘My phone’s off. Why didn’t you answer when I ring you from Mel’s phone?’
‘My battery dead.’
I look at him, thinking what I can say without losing face to him in front of Mel. I’ve fucked this one up badly. I know it and they know it.
‘Just don’t do it again.’ I go and sit back down in front of the TV.
‘You want some food?’ Mel ask him.
‘I had dinner at Bungee’s.’
He goes to his room and Mel goes to ours, like the two of them avoiding me. I hate what I doing to the two of them. I need to get some regular money soon.
When I switch my phone on in the morning I see the text from Darron, a missed call from a number I don’t recognise and a missed call from Josi. I pick up two messages, one from somebody called Len, a friend of Sammy, and one from Josi. I miss two important calls for fear of getting one I don’t want. I’m going to have to make it up to both of them. I tell Darron I’ll be home tonight and we need to have a talk. I want him to come straight home. If he need help with his work I will help him. He not too happy about it but he agree.
I go outside to the car and phone Josi about four or five times. She don’t pick up. I leave a message telling her how sorry I am for missing her call last night and ask her to phone me. I put a bag with my shorts, towel and a few magazines in the car. All the way taking Mel to work I expect to get a call. When she don’t ring I decide to go straight to the beach, see if she there.
She walking with a man when I get there. Must be one of her running partners. He look older than her. I watch their backs till they turn round and start coming toward me. She deep in conversation with him and it take her a while to spot me and come over. She don’t look excited to see me like last time. Maybe she mad because I don’t call back last night.
‘Hi.’ She standing a good two foot from me. She look stiff.
‘Hi, you been here long?’ I smile, trying to appear light but the signal I getting from her is definitely cold.
‘Yeah, just cooling down. I’ve got another five lengths to go. Karl’s doing them with me.’
I don’t know what to say. She treating me like a stranger.
‘Can you wait till I’ve finished?’
‘Yeah, I guess.’ I don’t have nowhere to go so I might as well wait.
‘OK, see you in a bit,’ and she back off to Karl.
I sit at a table and turn my back to them. I don’t want to watch her with another man while I’m sitting here. I see the way he looking at me, like I was taking something that belong to him. He look more than just a running partner. I have a magazine open but I can’t concentrate on it. I just look at the pictures and turn the pages. Then I start at the front again.
When she come back it’s to tell me that her friend having some business problems and she offer to help him with them. Do I have anything else planned for the day? Can I wait till eleven? I want to ask her who the fuck she think I am waiting round while she go off with another man, but I remember I don’t have any claim to her. And anyway, I don’t have anything else planned. She was my plan for the day.
‘Yeah, I guess I’ll wait.’
‘Thanks,’ and she run back to Karl.
Although I have my back to them I can feel her presence and I know exactly when they leave the beach twenty minutes later. I’m just thinking how fucked up my life is when I get a call from Roxanne. Sophia want to know what my decision is. She not going to wait forever. I tell her to give me another week. Josi will be gone by then and my head will be clearer. Of course I don’t tell Roxanne about Josi, she’d be mad as hell. I can hear her now. ‘Grant, can’t you keep your dick in your pants for a few minutes?’ She don’t appreciate it was minding its own business for a long time. Now all of a sudden three people want a piece of it. No, I correct myself. Two people want a piece of it and it want a piece of one person, and she run off down the beach with someone else.
I feel a hand tap my shoulder.
‘Sammy!’
‘Morning Grant.’ He sit opposite me and swing his legs under the table.
‘What you doing down here so early?’
‘Somebody tell me this is where you hang out in the mornings now. Where is she?’
‘Who?’
‘Whoever bringing you down here at this time a morning.’
‘Don’t know what you mean.’
‘Come on; is a GT man you talking to. You not down here for you health.’
‘OK, OK. She not here now, she coming back later.’
‘Anybody I know?’
‘No.’
‘Maybe you can introduce me.’
‘Maybe.’ It’s the last thing I want to do.
‘Anyway I don’t come to talk about your woman. How come you don’t call my friend back last night.’
‘My phone was off.’ No lie.
‘It leave him in a spot.’
‘Look, Sammy. I do you a favour because I know you. I don’t know your friend.’
‘Is not a favour you doing me. It’s a job. I pay you.’
‘Well I don’t really want to do this for anybody else. I have a son to consider.’
‘Exactly. Len can pay you well. Help you take care of your boy. Can’t be easy right now with the construction industry being…’
‘Sammy. I managing. I don’t want anymore of that kind of work.’ I might have to ask Roxanne for another loan and put up with her going on about Sophia but I don’t want to get any further in with Sammy’s crowd.
He spend a long time trying to persuade me, using all kinds of arguments and then tell me to leave it on the table, think about it, don’t close the door yet. I’m hoping he leave before Josi come back but he still here. I feel obliged to introduce them.
‘Are you OK for later?’ she ask me.
‘Yeah, sure. You want me to pick you up?’
She nod. ‘See you later.’
Sammy watch her as she walks across the beach to the road.
‘Classy. How you manage that?’
I’m flattered but I don’t answer.
He swing his legs out from under the table, stand up and put his fist up. We touch. ‘Anyway, think about it. And if that little Bajan chick stop subbing you, give Len a ring. He can give you more than you getting from her… moneywise. Look like you have someone else to take care of the other side.’ He throw over his shoulder as he walk away.
I go
back home and put on one of my favourite bright shirts, a Hilfger Roxanne give me last year, and a pair of shorts that match and head straight out to Josi’s. She’s in grey and cream and look pleased to see me. She smell of white musk and excitement. I’m glad she back with me. I need to make sure she stay here and not go off with anybody else. Even though I want to bathe her with my tongue, let her know how ravenous I am for her, I breathe in deep and I kiss her gently. I know she feel it because she shiver and it’s not cold. I wonder if she can feel me shivering too.
‘What you want to do?’
‘Can we go to St Lawrence Gap?’ She want to eat. It’s not cheap at the Gap but at least she just want snacks. She don’t look like she’s a big eater, but you can’t always tell. Some skinny girls can drain you bank balance on food. All the way there I find myself thinking about what she did on the beach, how she went off with somebody else like I don’t matter. After we order and the waiter gone, I have to ask her.
‘How is your friend? Did you sort him out?’ I try to sound like I’m just making conversation but I really want to know what was so important.
‘Not really, just the same old issues, he’s not looking for a solution, just wanted a moan.’
‘So he book an early appointment with you?’
‘No, he just turned up, he had a hunch I’d be on the beach.’
She don’t know what a blow that is. This other guy don’t arrange to meet her and she give him preference over me. I want to tell her how jealous I feel that she was so deep in conversation with him, that she don’t notice when I get to the beach, wasn’t looking out for me, wasn’t happy and smiling to see me. I want to tell her how much I mind when she ask me to wait till later while she go off to talk about his business. What about my business? She could help me with that.
I want her to know I was so embarrassed when she just brush me aside that I didn’t know if I should get up and leave or style it out and pretend I don’t mind. She don’t know I wasn’t reading a word in the magazine and that I had to use all my will power to keep my back to them so I couldn’t see their heads so close together. Couldn’t see that they so tight they not taking notice of anybody else, including me.
I feel the resentment building up in me as I ask her, ‘So is it first come first served with you?’ I don’t mean it to sound like that, don’t mean to make her sound cheap, just want her to feel a bit of what I’m feeling. She don’t miss my meaning. It’s in her eyes.
‘What do you mean?’ It’s like she got a vice round her voice, squeezing it in. I feel if we was somewhere less public she would scream at me.
‘Oh nothing,’ I try to brush it off.
‘No, what did you mean?’ She not letting it go.
I try to explain that this Karl guy didn’t book any appointment with her and yet she choose him over me, even though I tell her yesterday I want to see her today.
‘You were supposed to call me last night,’ she say in that voice that make me know she don’t want to discuss it anymore. Is the same voice my mother use when the subject done as far as she concerned. Then she carry on about how she hate unreliability, how I didn’t phone, didn’t text. What did I expect? Was I calling her a prostitute?
Thank God the waiter bring the food, and stop to talk to her when he hear her accent. I make a note that I have to be on my toes with her. After the waiter gone, she lean forward and ask me why they think she know all their friends and relatives who live in England. I’m glad the attention off me.
‘Tell me about Guyana,’ she say out of the blue. I’m on safe ground here, I can talk about home all day. I tell her about the place as the tourist know it, but when she want to know why I leave I tell her about the in-fighting among Guyanese, and how most people can’t wait to get their degree so they can leave. Is a real shame the government training people for export.
She want to know about my family. I tell her about my mother, brother, sister and about my kids. No point hiding them away. All the time she looking at me like I’m some big politician and every word I say is important to her. She make me feel really special. When she open her eyes wide at something or other I say – like some child at Disneyland – I feel my cock stirring, waking up, trying to stand to attention but restricted by my underpants.
‘What do you want to do now?’ I ask her. I want to go somewhere I can hold her close. A pity we can’t go home to her place or mine. She don’t really mind. That’s when I think of Dover Beach. When I hold my hand out to her she take it easily, like we been like this for years. I can’t wait to get somewhere private to kiss her, and feel her tremble in my arms. My cock stiffen even more.
‘Let’s go,’ I tell her. I don’t trust myself.
All the way to the beach I’m conscious of her scent, her heat next to me. I want her pressed up close to me, want to feel the full length of her against the full length of me. When we get there she all excited because there’s a river and it remind her of England. The place empty apart from a man, look like him eating his lunch. Later on it will fill up with couples who want to hide. We sit on a bench and I feel the sparks between us. We not saying much but I know she feel it too. I suggest lying on the grass but she afraid of insects and worms. Good thing I always have some mats in the car. As I roll them out for her I feel like I’m spreading a bed.
‘This is a place for lovers,’ I tell her.
‘Do you bring all your women here?’ What is it about women, that when you only think about them and the situation you in, they have to bring in other women. Even if you not thinking about any other woman they put the idea in your head.
I tell her the truth – that she’s the only one I bring here because I only just discover it. She have her head lean to one side, looking at me like she trying to decide whether or not to believe me.
‘Come and lie down,’ I tell her.
As soon as she lie down I start kissing her. Hardly give her time to catch her breath. I want her to know she with a real man. I don’t want her leaving me on the side again. I pull her on top of me.
‘Can you feel how much I want you?’
She slide her hand down to my cock and rub her hand hard on it.
‘I want you too.’
‘What? You do?’ Is she just teasing me again?
‘Can’t you tell?’
No I can’t tell, I want to say, because it’s the same vibes she was sending out to me last time when she turn round and tell me she not going to have sex with me. I know women but for this one I need a fucking degree in mind reading.
‘You change your mind? How come?’
‘It’s a long story,’ she say. That’s it, no explanation, just ‘it’s a long story.’
Anyway, I don’t care what the story is as long as the ending lead to me and her getting it on. I pull her closer and rub my cock against her front, against her pussy mound. Might be good to strike while she hot, while it still fresh on her lips that she say she want me.
‘You want to just slip it in?’ I try my luck. She think I’m joking, look and sound all surprised.
‘What! Here?’
‘Nobody will see us.’
She point out the man sitting on a bench. I know she not going to do it because she tense up as soon as I suggest it, so I decide to just play with her.
‘He eating his food, he won’t notice us.’
‘And the couple over there?’
‘The look deaf to me.’
When she laugh out loud, I know she relax again.
‘Look how you drawing attention to us. Just quietly slip it in. Go ooon Josi. I want you sooo much.’
‘What’s your HIV status?’ she whisper.
That’s the last question I expect. This woman something else. She probably the type that want you to get up and brush you teeth in the morning before touching her. I tell her of course I’m negative. I don’t tell her I’ve never had a test, but I have three children and all of them all right. She say she negative too,
so I suggest she should just slip it in. I still teasing her but when she ask if I have a condom I think she might be changing her mind.
I pull the condom out my pocket and offer it to her.
‘You never do it outside before?’
‘No, and I’m not starting now!’
‘Live dangerously Josi, slip it in.’
I think she giving in when she sit up and straddle me. She start opening my shirt and I feel my nipples tingling, sometimes I wonder how they so sensitive. That’s why I know what to do with a woman’s nipple because I feel it too. After she move from one to the other she sit on my cock and the only thing between us is a few thin pieces of cloth.
‘Come on baby, look how close you are. Nobody going to see.’ I really hope she change her mind. ‘Slip it in baby, slip it…’
My phone ring. It’s Mel. That’s when I remember the time. I’m suppose to pick her up. She always ring to give me half hour notice. I try to explain to Josi that I have half hour before I have to go but she not interested anymore. She climb off me and wrap her hand round her knees.
‘Sorry babes, thought I’d better be honest. You not jealous are you?’
In a strange kind of way I feel like I get a little revenge for this morning. At least she know what it feel like.
‘Why should I be?’
I’m about to tell her she don’t have to be when she say, ‘Let’s go.’
I ask if I can see her tomorrow but she don’t seem interested. On the drive back to her place I push through all her excuses till she agree to meet me at two o’clock.
All the way to pick up Mel I think about how close I was to making it with Josi. She want it now. She say she change her mind. I just need to find the right time and place before she change her mind, because if there’s one thing I realise about her, is that she can flip from one side to the other without any warning. I want to catch her while she still hot for me, before something else get in the way.
I can’t do anything tonight, especially as I tell Darron to come home early so I can help him with his maths project. I feel trapped and Mel’s irritable, complaining because I’m ten minutes late.
