Though not a boy, Gwendolyn was raised from the day she was born to become the boss of a family that did not yet rule the affairs of Anguilla. The total control Gwendolyn held over the Stewarts went disguised by her benevolent disposition toward the well-being of her loved ones, but whenever a given situation called for a strong hand, no one on the island would stand firmer than her. It was perhaps for that reason, out of a combination of fear and respect, that none of her six siblings—five brothers and a sister—had ever dared to challenge her authority.
Under Gwendolyn’s guidance the Stewarts had expanded their range of influence from their homely quarters in Island Harbour to a wider, more national network around the island: the Stewarts had been part of the local government since the late 1960s, when Walter, the son of Gwendolyn’s oldest brother Fabian, had taken part in the revolution against the central government in St. Kitts; the Stewarts had recognized the potential of the tourism industry as soon as it began to be developed in the mid-1980s, actively participating in a number of projects; the Stewarts had been among the country’s most prominent voices advocating for the extension of the airport to make it suitable for jetliners in the 1990s, and had been the most enthusiastic investors in the island’s public water works when the company was floated in the early 2000s; the Stewarts were partners in the Indigenous Bank of Anguilla, they were involved in the seriously important business that was the golf course, they were connected to the people in charge of developing a public transport system on the island. In short, Gwendolyn had overseen the process that had watched the Stewarts go from being a relatively prosperous family in the flotsam village of Island Harbour to becoming part of the local aristocracy over the course of not quite fifty years, and yet throughout this long progression her general attitude had remained the same. Thus, Gwendolyn’s goodwill—now extended not only to the members of her family but to the friends of her clan—had earned her the nickname of Auntie Gwen. Everybody called Gwendolyn Stewart Auntie Gwen, even people who didn’t have the faintest kinship to her or any of the other Stewarts.
But since the days when Gwendolyn Stewart had first earned the name of Auntie Gwen, her hair had turned gray, her eyes had grown smaller, her cheeks had given way to the load of time, her back had hunched, her perky breasts had sagged, her wide stomach had grown wider. These days, Auntie Gwen’s overloaded knees struggled to hold the weight of her weathered body; these days, Auntie Gwen’s tired ankles clicked and cracked with every step she took, as if giving out a warning of their imminent expiry; these days, Auntie Gwen’s hips refused to turn, compromising her freedom of movement. Which all meant that these days, Auntie Gwen seldom abandoned the reclining chair in the backyard of her house just to the northwest of Island Harbour, overlooking the sea.
Nevertheless, on this specific morning Auntie Gwen had received the unexpected and, in plain terms, desperate visit of Tanika Percy, the youngest daughter of her sister’s son. Tiny little Tanika had spent many a wasteful night mourning in solitude or evading in bad company the wretchedness of her star for not allowing her to be with Antwan Thompson, the man of her dreams. The fourth son of former Chief Minister Rudolf Thompson, Antwan was madly in love—obsessed, some would say—with Sheila Rawlingson, the single most extraordinary woman he had ever seen and probably the only one who did not pay the least bit of attention to his tireless romancing. However, the ill luck that for so long had darkened Tanika’s prospects had suddenly been reverted by the appearance of an old white man who in a matter of weeks had taken full control of Sheila Rawlngson’s life. After years of if not chaste at least loyal waiting and courting, Antwan Thompson could not even contemplate the possibility of Sheila choosing an old white foreign man over him, the most eligible young man on the island, the son of one of the most powerful men in the country, so instead he chose to shield his pride behind the widely held opinion that Sheila was jus’ like any odder whore, you know, whoring behind the whiteman money, and he pretended he had never had any real interest in her in the first place, and he finally buried his ambitions of conquering Sheila Rawlingson so deep that he convinced himself they had never existed. The next best thing, the most readily available alternative to the breathtaking beauty of Sheila Rawlingson, was Tanika Percy, and Auntie Gwen’s niece had been more than willing and able to profit from the latest developments, finally capturing the attention of the man who for so long had denied her his favor.
So on this specific morning Tanika Percy had come together with Maria Brown, her best friend from school, to ask Auntie Gwen, her eternal benefactor, to intervene in the minor matter of the deportation of a seemingly indistinct tourist, who in fact was performing an enviable task at ensuring the happiness and stability in her idyllic relationship with Antwan Thompson. Were Sheila Rawlingson to be deprived of the company of the man who had so effectively monopolized her time of late, Tanika would again have to compete for the attention of her other half against the exuberant body of (a now single) Sheila Rawlingson, because whore or no whore, she knew every man in Anguilla dream at night of her freakin’ pum-pum. The threat posed merely by the thought of Sheila Rawlingson’s delicate frame sauntering along the streets of Anguilla, endangering her perfect relationship, was enough to send a stream of tears flowing down Tanika’s cheeks.
Gwendolyn Stewart listened attentively to the story, reassured her niece, sent her away with a smile. She grabbed the phone, made a few calls, asked a few questions. A matter as delicate as this could only be resolved with a bit of tact. Auntie Gwen spoke to Sheila herself. I heah you boyfriend wan’ get he visa extended. Sheila’s broken nerves found no reason to doubt Auntie Gwen’s goodwill, to question her intentions. I no wan’ no trouble wit’ Glen, you know, but if you promise to stay hush ’bout it, I can see wha’ I can do. Sheila never once revealed the name of the person who had enabled Nathaniel to stay on the island during those early days of primal love. And Gwendolyn never even had to ask for the favor. Just her presence in Akira Hart’s office at Immigration bought Nathaniel Jones another six months on the island.
IX
Nathaniel spent three of the six months he managed to secure through the unspoken favor of an unnameable friend exploring the geography, topography, and history of the French Antilles with his wife. But the weather in Martinique was lousy and Sheila Rawlingson-Jones’s mood deteriorated daily to the point where one day Nathaniel understood that the only solution was to go back to Anguilla to, one way or another, restore peace in the family he had wrecked with his presence. Three days later Nathaniel and Sheila’s honeymoon came to an end as they found themselves back in East End, retrieving the dusty corners of his rented house from the grip of the sea blast, the geckos, and the insects. Once in Anguilla, Nathaniel Jones kept from his wife the details of a plan she despised and he had already put in motion, until the day when he returned home after an informal meeting with the Honorable Franklin Howell, Minister of Communication and Infrastructure, to find his wife barely recovering from a new fit of sadness. Nathaniel was perfectly aware of the source of her affliction, but he also knew that she remained reticent about the idea of the airline, so instead of comforting her, and with no prior consultation, he simply informed her that he would set up a partnership in which she would control the 66 percent of the company required by Anguillan law to operate a business on the island, and if you’re stubborn enough to insist on refusing, I’m sure I will be able to find a different business associate.
The shock was enough to snap Sheila out of her sadness. She was enraged about Nathaniel’s own obstinacy, about the secrecy with which he had been pursuing his interest, about the touch of fantasy—of naivety, even—that clouded his reasoning. You ain’ know de first t’ing ’bout aviation. You ain’ even know de first t’ing ’bout Anguilla. How you wan’ make any airline business like dat? and Nathaniel’s That’s why I need you to help me detonated the full load of Sheila’s frustration: How kyan I help you understand anyt’ing when you ain’ even listenin’ to my first advice?
Sheila used reason to expose the flaws in Nathaniel’s plan, but he was blinded to the point where he saw in her arguments nothing other than stubborn opposition. Don’t be such a coward! He knew as soon as he uttered the words that the young woman who had gambled her uncertain yet promising future just for the sake of sharing her life with him would find his offense intolerable. The disappointment that brewed inside her brought back to her eyes the tears she had recently managed to control. Nathaniel felt guilty, if also assured that he had broken her obstinacy. He felt responsible for her sadness, but embraced the opportunity to make his proposition all the more persuasive. You can’t live in this crisis forever, Sheila. Nathaniel diverted the attention from his own blunder, made way for his final attack. If we can’t bring your family back to their senses, we’ll have to buy them into it. For the best part of an hour Nathaniel voiced—more to himself than to her—all kinds of ploys and stratagems, while she sobbed in the background.
Later that night Nathaniel sat at his desk, in front of his computer, writing an e-mail to his son, Dragon, summoning him to a godforsaken islet bustling with potential, spelling out further instructions regarding Jones Investments’ other interests. That was the beginning of a few hectic weeks of activity for Nathaniel Jones. While Dragon ordered his broker to sell all their shares on Petrobras, Nathaniel walked in and out of a million offices, taking it upon himself to comply with the requirements and abide by the rules of commercial protocol in Anguilla. Guided by his instincts, Nathaniel knocked on the door of Deianira Walker, reputedly the best lawyer on the island. I need an adviser. The considerable cost of every hour of Mrs. Walker’s time devoted to Nathaniel’s project was settled with a check from his personal account in the Indigenous Bank of Anguilla.
Mrs. Walker’s services could not just be bought—they had to be earned. But something in Nathaniel Jones’s appearance struck Mrs. Walker as extraordinary and she found his approach agreeable and she saw a lucrative promise in their collaboration, so she decided to help Mr. Jones with his plans to build a local airline in Anguilla, got hold of the Civil Aviation Rules and Regulations, and Don’t worry, you don’t have to go t’rough all of dis yourself. I’ll examine de document and give you my opinion next week. But Nathaniel would have none of Mrs. Walker’s patronizing, if well-intentioned talk: he took home the five-hundred-page Bible of the air, spent days and restless nights detailing the commandments spelled in it. When Mrs. Walker called him the following week to set up an appointment to discuss the steps to take to continue the establishment of his company, he declined because I haven’t finished with the regulations yet. When Nathaniel finally met Mrs. Walker a week later than expected, he showed up with a draft of his business plan and the charters of the future organization. Mrs. Walker read with interest: twenty to forty employees, mostly local; offices in several countries; linking routes to European destinations; further development and enhancement of the tourist industry; contribution to the integration of the member-nations of the Caribbean Community and Common Market (CARICOM) and the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS). Mrs. Walker’s clean, tidy dreads fell over her face. She lifted her head with a slow, deliberate movement, removed her reading glasses with her left hand. The large black eyes that scrutinized Nathaniel Jones hid partially behind a wince of inquisition. How serious are you about dis? Dead serious.
So the rumor which had already made the rounds in Parliament House after Nathaniel’s informal meeting with Franklin Howell found its echo in the private sector after he departed Deianira Walker’s office that afternoon, leaving behind a draft of his business plan and the organization charters for his lawyer to amend. By the time Nathaniel entered his application for a work permit, everybody at the Labor Office knew exactly what this one was about, but because no one from the government or the private sector had issued a specific recommendation (be it positive or negative) for the case, fiddly hands went through it in detail with curiosity and apprehension, holding on to it longer than was needed, as long, in fact, as was necessary to get explicit instructions from the powers-that-be. After three conditional rejections due to insufficient information, invalid references, missed deadlines, Nathaniel’s private account in the Indigenous Bank of Anguilla was finally reduced by the $3,000 fee that enabled him to be employed on the island for the following twelve months.
Sheila Rawlingson-Jones sat in silence and ignorance as Dragon pulled the plug on Jones Investments’ real estate interests, as Nathaniel reviewed the details for setting up their company in Anguilla. She sat in ignorance and silence, watching Nathaniel get carried away by a project she disliked but no longer opposed, while the perfectly happy household of idleness where they lived got infected with the disease of purpose, with the stain of disagreement. Sheila Rawlingson-Jones sat, watching in silence, as Nathaniel worked away on the intricacies of his little dream until the day when the phone rang and she heard the familiar voice of Uncle Glen on the other end of the line. Sheila’s first reaction was fear: she remembered Uncle Glen’s furious opposition to Nathaniel, feared he might still be plotting against her husband. After weeks of anger and frustration, she discovered she still loved the man she had—perhaps so rashly—married. As it turned out, Uncle Glen had heard the rumor that started around Parliament House before finding its echo in the private sector, so strictly speaking he was calling Nathaniel not his rogue niece, and he hardly acknowledged her on the phone, demanded almost immediately to speak to her husband.
Glenallen Rawlingson and Nathaniel Jones spoke for the first time as civilized human beings on the night when Sheila Rawlingson-Jones realized that the man she still loved was also an astute negotiator. Nathaniel fielded questions and depicted promising scenarios to Uncle Glen, while Sheila silently sensed her respect for the man she (yes, still loved but) had thought a hopeless dreamer grow by the minute. Nathaniel seemed comfortable finding the balance between the level of commitment he was prepared to show at this stage and Glenallen Rawlingson’s mounting expectations. He steered away from trouble with ease, dropping matters when they became overly contentious, making ambiguous comments that could easily be adjusted to a different situation later on.
Suddenly, Nathaniel saw a glint of interest shine in Sheila’s eyes. He adapted the nature of his performance immediately, complemented the measured tone of his voice, the composed nature of his speech, with a totally controlled attitude that replaced the frantic pacing of the room that had previously accompanied his conversation. His steps became shorter, the path he followed became regular, he moderated his gesticulation: his entire demeanor now glowed with the confidence of someone who knows exactly what he is doing. His intense eyes burned through Sheila’s defenses as he spoke to her uncle.
There’s just one more thing, Glen: you will never, ever hear from me again or have anything to do with this airline unless you speak to Sheila now. She had already surrendered when she heard him speak her name. It’s not about what I want you to tell her, it’s about what she wants you to do. Her heart jumped with fear, pride, expectation. You know exactly what I’m talking about. Sheila made her way to the phone with clumsy, hurried steps, and sat next to Nathaniel for the duration of her talk with Uncle Glen.
X
When Dragon Jones heard Nathaniel’s instructions he had to double check to make sure his father was not playing a prank on him. Pull out? I’ve been working on this for months! Nathaniel was firm, radical, unequivocal about investing in the Caribbean. I’ll send you an e-mail with the details of the proposal. A combination of anger and frustration delayed Dragon’s response. By the time he was ready to string together a sensible answer there was only silence on the other end of the line. The screen of Dragon’s phone was just the first victim of his fit of fury.
Nathaniel Jones had been away for a full year. During this time Dragon had taken the reins of Jones Investments. He believed in solid investments, long-term profitability, palpable projects; Nathaniel, on the other hand, relied on his (uncannily accurate) instinct and
his volatile character to take advantage of the most unstable markets, profiting from speculation. Over the course of that year, Dragon had progressively turned the company’s attention away from stock markets, concentrating instead on real estate. For months he had focused on a major deal that would become the largest in their portfolio, and he had engineered it from its conception, the first project of the kind he had worked on from scratch on his own. Just before the deal was sealed, though, Nathaniel made the call that cost Dragon his phone, sent the e-mail that derailed his plans.
To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Subject: Further Instructions
Dragon—
On the Way Back Page 12
