by Inia Jardine
I relate the whole story, all the while being like an outsider, seeing this play in my head like a movie, with just one central thought: that of Jonah.
‘Mrs Hibbert, your husband is calling for you.’
I run towards the ICU and quickly put my protective coat and disposable slippers on.
‘Jonah my love, oh Jonah I am so relieved to be able to talk to you. I missed you so much. I love you in case you ever forget. I love you I love you I love you.’
‘Lilia, I can't feel my leg?’
‘Jonah I couldn’t care less about your leg; it is you I love. With or without a leg.’ I whisper...’as long as they left your 'you know what' intact...’
‘Lilia, you will never ever change. Here I am fighting for my life and dignity and all you can think of is my dick. What a shame. But you are my shero for sure. Thanks for saving me.'
'And you are my life. With or without. Does that mean you won't miss it?'
'Maybe a little?' Luckily I hear the smile in his voice and I know that we will be fine. He needed my reassurance and for once my clowning around is the right thing to do. Now he knows that I don’t mind. It is true though, as long as he can still hold me and be with me everything is fine.
‘We can get the best care for you that money can buy and we are selling the land immediately to the highest bidder, anyone but these V, L & F assholes. I refuse to go back and live there again. Please tell me that you agree! Where shall we go this time?’
‘Lilia no, we must not let them drive us away from our place, granted, it might not be Xanadu for us anymore but we were happy there for most of the time.’
‘They want to mine there Jonah, for some rare plutonium thing. They will never leave us alone.’
The detective interrupts us with ‘Sorry to disturb, but if you mean V, L & F, Vatjer and Forsten were locked up together with their two compatriots Carl Tomlinson and Herr Leibenstein. Mrs Hibbert, the guy you shot is his son. Oh, and Marcia Vatjer won’t be pressing charges now that she knows what her husband subjected you two to. The fact that her husband’s girlfriend (Mrs Leibenstein) was locked in with her at your place and shared some intimate information, also seems to have lessened her sympathy for him.
Don’t worry too much about the whole deal though, we know now that you were pressurised into doing what you did. A routine court appearance with the correct lawyer should suffice to sort the matter out legally.’
‘That won’t give Jonah the use of his leg back, though.’
‘No, that is the really sad part of this saga about greed.’
'We have to interview Prof Hibbert now but we will be quick. Sorry, it is procedure.'
After the thankfully short interview the detectives leave and a nurse comes in. 'Ms Samir just wants to come and say hallo, are you up to it?’
‘She is my other hero, of course. Jonah, you should have seen Bella she was so masterful. She took control of the captives while I looked for you. Howie helped too. They were epic.'
‘Hi Jonah, I am glad to see you but sorry about your leg. Wish I got to Vatjer before the police did.’
‘Bella, thanks so much for helping Lilia, I owe you big.’ Jonah is starting to mumble and I think the painkillers must be kicking in.
‘We can talk about that later; I am sure you have to rest. Lilia, I will go and feed the cats, I can even take them home with me until Jonah gets out of hospital. But you have to go and see Kiki at the animal hospital, she is not doing well.'
‘No thanks Bella, I need the cats at home with me right now. As soon as Jonah sleeps I will go home to scrub myself clean. The bad guys are locked up. I will fine but lonely until Jonah and Kiki can come back. Kiki will get better I know, I just have to go to her. She needs me. And they took my revolver, I wonder if I will ever get it back. I will see Kiki as soon as Jonah falls asleep.’ I mumble nonsensical things as my mind is all muddled up from the stressful events of the past day.
‘Here, take this’ a nurse hands me what I presume to be a calming tablet.
Jonah closes his eyes and I kiss him. ‘Coming back soon for you Big J, you just sleep, recuperate and wait patiently. I’ve got your back’.
He smiles and whispers ‘Thanks Lilia my shero, I have seen that. Thanks for not giving up on me and finding me in time. If it wasn’t for you I would have died. I love you more than life itself.’
‘Now there is a little bit of me inside you after the blood transfusion, so your feminine side may show more...’
‘You are looking for trouble Lilia; I can’t wait to show you my male side is still in charge. Having some of your blood may make me kick ass like you did! You were masterful. I'm sorry you got hurt’ he mumbles and tries to reach for my face but pain makes him pull back.
'Oh Jonah. Just lie back and sleep. I will be fine; my face is already ugly - a few trenches won't be much worse. But if I lost you I would have been finished. No one but you could ever want me again.'
We share a soft kiss and a smile and I think to myself that this might be our saving grace. Our deep love and collective sense of humour. Then I rush out to go and support Kiki. My lovely dog, what have they done to you, please be okay.
16
Back at the place previously known as Xanadu the reality of our situation slowly sinks in. Jonah, my beautiful strong Jonah lying so sad in hospital, now has only one fully operational leg, and the other one just sort of drags along. At least they did not have to amputate it. He won't be able to dance or run or carry me any more though. I wonder if he will be able to ride his bike? It hits me like a sledge hammer and I start bawling my eyes out.
Nothing will ever be the same, why did this have to happen? I am lonely, I miss him and I just sob and sob as my cats and my Kiki dog snuggles up to me to try and console me. Thank goodness Kiki came through her ordeal intact. Her broken leg is just starting to heal and she is doing much better at home than at the surgery. The cats are very loving towards her and they all snuggle together tenderly. She is very protective of me and the house now, growls at the slightest noise.
I have closed the B&B with immediate effect, paid back all deposits and stopped public access to the crater site with rolls of barbed wire. I have locked myself up like a hermit. I still want to leave this place and never come back but Jonah says that he wants to come home eventually and try to make a life here again.
The past few days have taken their toll on all of us and I suddenly feel like giving up.
But I can’t, Jonah needs me now. I must be strong as I promised to love him in sickness and in health. I do, I really do. We have that very rare and special bond called love. Love, the most misunderstood and misused word in any language.
But not in our case.
I get so mad when people speak about love when they mean infatuation. Love is real, love is very deep and love is the way you feel when no other earthly thing means as much to you as the one you love. When you are willing to go beyond what you thought you were capable of for the one you love. The hardest thing about love is being so vulnerable. Your beloved gets hurt, you hurt too. Sometimes hurt even worse.
A few days later Jonah has improved sufficiently to be discharged. We have an appointment with the person who is going to give him physiotherapy and try to get some functionality back into his leg. Even though it is still very painful Jonah is determined to get as much done as soon as humanly possible in order to resume a life resembling our normal day to day. He is practising walking with his cane under supervision of the physiotherapist at her rooms while I page through magazine after magazine.
Suddenly his mobile phone rings. Jonah and I keep no secrets from each other, so I answer the call. It looks like an international number, but not one that Jonah has in his phone memory.
‘Jonah’s phone, Lilia Hibbert speaking.’
The caller disconnects immediately. How strange?
A few minutes later it rings again.
‘Lilia here. Can I help you, Jonah is not available at present?’
&n
bsp; I hear a female voice with the very recognisable Jamaican accent on the other side. ‘Can you ask him to call me back at this number please?’
‘May I say who to call back and in connection with what?’
‘No, it’s OK. I should not have phoned. On second thought, just leave it. Bye.’
With that she disconnects the call. A few possibilities of ladies who may know Jonah from the old days, pass before my mind’s eye. From an old girlfriend called Hope to an ex-colleague but I am intrigued by the awkwardness in her voice.
As Jonah returns to the waiting room I take his arm. ‘Hey, you look tired. Is that ogre woman hurting you?’ His therapist is a big Swedish woman, a veritable Amazon with no mercy.
‘That ogre, Lilia, is the one who is going to give me my life back, we just have to make peace with it. Although the pain gets so bad sometimes that I want to cry, I will not quit or let it get the better of me.’
Duly chastised I help him into the Range Rover and drive back to Xanadu.
‘It is times like these that I am extremely thankful for your tenacity in insisting on a pool heater, I cannot wait to get into the tranquility of the courtyard rock pool. My leg is weightless when I am in there and I can just hang about in the water. Are you going to come and join me?’
‘Of course Jonah, I love being in there with you. I can lock the doors and lock the world outside. Some of our best memories were made in that pool and it’s a Jamaican original.’
That memory suddenly reminds me of the phone call.
‘Jonah, have a look on your phone, it is in my bag. There was a call for you from overseas, but the lady did not want to leave her name. I am intrigued.’
‘Lilia it’s most probably just another old student or colleague, you know that lots of them have enquired about my health. The press went crazy over this damn business with V, L & F. It has put Rocky Point and the Caribbean Institute back on the map!’
‘Must be, but she didn’t want to give her name nor did she want to talk to me and I was very nice to her. Not bitchy or jealous at all.’
‘Yeah right, Lilia protective Mrs Hibbert, I believe you. She must have heard about you shooting all those people. You have been like a mother rhinoceros with me your baby since the ‘incident’.’
‘Sorry Jonah but I can just imagine how you would have reacted if it was me and not you who got hurt. Heavens above. Vatjer, Leibenstein, Forsten, Tomlinson and the rest would have been dead and you in jail for multiple murders!’
‘Granted my darling, for sure. Anyway, she will call back if she actually has something to say, let’s go swim. This leg is genuinely hurting after all the exercise.’
‘Will you be able to get your costume on yourself or must I help you?’
‘Just let me be Lilia, I must learn to do this myself. You cannot help me with everything, I will never be independent that way.’
‘I just mean well my darling, meet you in the pool.’
I cannot bear to see Jonah struggle like that, it breaks my heart. Even changing clothes is an issue.
‘Thought I’d spare myself the effort and go commando’ he quips as he hobbles towards the pool on his one leg and his crutch, stark raving naked.
The sight is one that pleases me very much. Jonah always had this idea that lust is the outward manifestation of internal admiration. His admiration is showing very pointedly at present.
‘Yaay! It still works! Bring it over here Jonah, I will rub it for you.’
‘What.’
‘Your leg of course. What did you think I meant?’
‘Yes Lilia, and if I fall for that I will fall for anything. I just thank the Gods that they left me my dick because if it went instead of my leg - you would surely have left me too.’
‘How can you say that Jonah, I sincerely hope that you are joking because if you are not, I am offended. You know I love you more than life itself.’
‘I know you love me almost as much as you love this my darling’ he paddles over to me and presses against me. He kisses me passionately and proceeds to pull my costume off. In the water he is the old whole Jonah. Supple and healthy.
‘Jonah, you are wicked. But I do love you, and I’m glad that you are still able to show me how much you love me. Just take care not to hurt yourself.’
‘To tell you the truth Lilia, if I lost this thing here I would have killed myself.’
‘We would have found a way, we always do. It is what is inside that counts. Someone said true words once, the most important sexual organ is the brain. There are ways and means and toys, but nothing is like the real thing.’
The buoyancy of the water and Jonah’s liberation from his need relaxes both of us and we play around in the water like kids together with Kiki for a while. She just loves swimming with us.
‘We must decide whether or not we want to up and move out Lilia, I love it here but you said that nothing would be the same again after the ‘incident’.
‘How do you really feel?’ I ask as we lay back on the lowest step of the pool with the lukewarm water just touching our chins.
‘I am not sure. The crater will not go away and now that everyone knows what is to be found there we will not have much rest from geological and research people. They don't even know about the Roman mosaic shards yet.
How about us subdividing the land, keeping the waterfall and river frontage of course, but let the crater – and only the crater - go to the highest bidder.
We have the right to specify improvement or God forbid, mining conditions, so that our land would not be polluted or disturbed by anything except very low key extraction. Mineral rights I feel we should keep. Then we always have some form of control over it. We can, as a courtesy, ask Sir James but I am sure the old guy would not mind anymore.’
‘As long as we do it responsibly.’
‘Of course. If it threatens to get out of hand, then we revisit the situation. We can even lease the land to the National Trust.’
‘Let’s get out of the water, I am starting to get wrinkles all over from being in here so long.’
As we sit down to a lovely dinner of mashed potatoes and Thai stir-fry veg, Bella's speciality which Howie brought over, the ‘you’ve got mail’ icon on Jonah’s laptop blinks over on his desk.
‘I have just turned this thing on for the first time in days, and look at this, two hundred and seventy messages! Mostly for penile enlargement products and the Lottery of course, I have won it so many times...why do people send me such crap. Did you register any complaints about my size Lilia?’
‘More than happy Big J, more than happy. Anything interesting?’
‘There is a lot of forwarded mail from my University server, I will have to sift through it. Would you mind if I just scan through them quickly? There might be something of importance.’
‘No problem, just don’t be too long. The dessert will be fine as the oven is still hot. It's tapioca, your favourite.’
‘You spoil me and I love you for it. Look at this Lilia, do you recognise this pregnant woman? The attachment is labelled Solange and Armand, August 2013. It was definitely taken in Kingston Town though; I recognise the hotel in the background. I wonder who they are and why it ended up with my mail.’
‘Maybe an admirer that you forgot about but why would she send you photo of her husband or boyfriend though? Maybe an ex-student?'
‘She is posing with her man so it seems innocent but I must add that she is very lovely.’
‘Well, reply to them and ask why they sent us the photo. Who does it come from anyway if you look at sender?’
‘Solange Belmore. Does not ring a bell.’
‘Scroll down, maybe there are others.’
As we get to the mail of a week ago, the sender repeats itself, another mail from Solange, the first one.
Jonah opens it and we exclaim together.
‘Good Lord Almighty. Who would go to such extremes of lying to ruin my life?’ Jonah’s dark skin turns almost white. He sinks deeper
onto the chair behind the desk.
