A Trip to the Beach

by Melinda Blanchard

  “Mel,” Shabby said. “That’s salt.”

  “Salt?”

  “Haven’t you seen salt ponds all over the island?” Clinton asked. “Until ’bout fifteen years ago, they harvest salt outta the ponds and ship it all over the Caribbean—even England. It was how everybody earn a living here before we had tourists. When you see the foam it mean the pond ripe for pickin. It mean there’s plenty of salt.”

  “What did they do, collect all these bubbles and dry them out?”

  “Mel. You wanna hear about pickin’ the ponds, you gotta talk to Mammy. She work in the ponds for years, and she love to talk.”

  Just then Mac stopped by in his taxi to ask if we could find a job at the restaurant for his girlfriend, Garrilin. When I told him to bring her by, he said, “She right outside in the van.”

  My first “interview” thus took place on a pile of lumber. Garrilin and I talked easily—more about our families than work experience or references. I could tell by her stories that she had the gift of gab—in a matter of minutes, I learned her sister was about to get married in Nevis and her little niece was getting straight A’s in school. I showed her the menu. “I ain’ know what most a this stuff is,” she said, “but if you show me what to do, I can do it.”

  Still curious about the salt ponds, I asked Garrilin if she knew Mammy.

  “Yeah, man. Everyone know Mammy. You wanna meet her? We go see Mammy together. The onliest thing is I can’t go today. How tomorrow?”

  Garrilin gave me directions to Mammy’s house and told me to meet her there at ten o’clock the next day.

  Clinton stopped hammering and stroked his chin as if deep in thought when I asked where we could find fresh fish. “Mel,” he said, “Island Harbor. That where the fish be.” He chugged some water out of a nearby Evian bottle. “The fishermen all be up there every afternoon. You go Island Harbor four o’clock and there be all kinds a fish. Ask for Cleve—he a big-time fisherman. He caught the big fish you see hangin’ in the airport.”

  Later that afternoon we drove the island from west to east, tip to tip. We always loved this little excursion. The eastern end was wilder, less developed. There were no hotels, no real landmarks, just an occasional sign denoting the tiny villages: Water Swamp, Little Dix, Shoal Bay, Canafist. Most villages had a church, and we passed an occasional grocery store and other home businesses where signs read LICENSE PLATES MADE HERE, ALTERATIONS, and the most popular, ISLAND TOURS. As unhurried as life was in our western end of the island, here it slowed even more.

  Island Harbor is the quintessential fishing village: small boats painted bright primary colors and varnished to a glossy sheen, little boys helping their fathers unload the day’s catch, women haggling over the price of snapper, clear green water ribboned with white foam where the coral reefs broke the surface.

  There was much to see, though the scene was not a flurry of activity. The fishermen were calmly going about their routine, unaware of the romantic picture they painted. Cleve wore no shoes, only a hat and old shorts, and like the other fisherman, he was anchoring his boat for the night. When Bob asked him about fish, he introduced us immediately to his brother. Between the two of them, he assured us, they could supply us with all the fish we wanted. Wahoo, tuna, snapper, mahimahi—as soon as we gave them the word, they’d deliver fish to our door.

  “Success,” I said as we drove back to the bustle of the west end. “Fresh fish anytime we want, and delivered to the restaurant.” I was eager to start cooking.

  Garrilin and I pulled into the parking lot of the old clinic in South Hill just before ten o’clock. She nodded toward an older woman hanging shirts on a clothesline at the house next door and said, “That Mammy. She gonna tell you all about pickin’ the pond.”

  Mammy Garrilin and I sat on the porch. Soon Mammy’s sister joined us, explaining that she too worked in the pond. I wasn’t sure where to begin, so I asked how many years they had picked the salt.

  “I mussa wen’ in the pond from twelve years,” Mammy said. “Me and my mother, we used to get caps on our fingers. The salt done burn, ya know. It cut your hands. We tie pieces a old bicycle tubes on our fingers or sometimes we wrap our hands with cloth. Anything to keep the salt from burnin’.”

  I winced at the description but by then Mammy and her sister were enjoying the memories.

  “Me and my mother,” Mammy continued, “we walk down the hill to the pond at Sandy Ground. It too hot in the sun, so sometimes we go down from midnight and make day. We work all night long. I had love the fun of it. We walk out in the pond and the water come up over my hips when I was young.”

  Mammy’s sister continued. “We scoop up chunks of salt with our hands and puts ’em in a basket and carries ’em over to these big wooden boxes. We call ’em flats. Inside the flats they had maybe eighteen small barrels line up.”

  Mammy interrupted. “We rinse off the chunks a salt in the water and a fella would liff me up so I can throw ’em in the barrels. Some flats have up to nine, ten, eleven people working on ’em, and we share up the shillings for the work when done. I remember when I make nineteen shillings for the week. The salt would cover my skin. And man, you couldn’t sit down in the pond. If you fall down an’ the salt get all through your body, it burn you up. Sometimes when we fall we have to run to the sea to freshen. If it real bad we run all the way home to wash it even more.

  “Once the flats was full with salt, I done put a cutter on my head and carry the barrels out to the salt heap onshore.” Mammy’s sister could see I had no idea what a cutter was and dashed into the house for a visual aid, returning with an old threadbare towel she twirled expertly into a series of concentric rings. It looked like a terry-cloth coil. She placed it on her head, demonstrating how they used to tie it on with string, and patted the top, showing me how it protected her from the weight of the barrels.

  “The salt heap would get high, high, high, and we shovel it into bags and sew them closed. Then we put the bags on our heads and walk out into the sea. There was no wharf back then, and we had to take it out to the boat that would carry it away. Oh, yes, we had fun. Sometime we get no sleep a’tall. We walk back up the hill from Sandy Ground and jus’ go home, rinse our clothes, bathe our skin, and walk to the pond in West End. Then we fill more flats the same way again.”

  Garrilin enjoyed the history lesson as much as I did. After we left I pulled out a towel from my car, twirled it into a cutter, and placed it on top of my head. Garrilin put a book on the towel, and I walked around balancing it carefully and imagining carrying a heavy pail of salt instead. “You could do it, man,” she said. “You could work the pond with Mammy.”

  September 10 and it was time for Jesse to go back to school. He and I spent the morning together, packing and talking at home.

  “Mom, I know this probably isn’t the best time to say this, but I’ve been thinking about transferring. I’m not sure Whitman College is really where I want to be.”

  “Now? Don’t classes start in a couple of days?”

  “I wouldn’t be able to do it this semester, but I just don’t know if it’s the right place for me.”

  “Is there some problem that I don’t know about?” I was starting to get worried.

  “No. No problem. There just aren’t any classes I want to take except art, and I think I might be happier at a bigger school.” His voice was soft and quiet, and I could tell he was upset. This was no minor issue.

  My heart sank, and my stomach was tied in knots. We had spent the past three months together every single day, but Jesse hadn’t mentioned school until now, just hours before his flight. It was as if he had been waiting for exactly the right moment, and when it never came, he finally just blurted it out.

  I felt like the worst parent on earth. Jesse had devoted his entire summer vacation helping us get our new Anguilla lives in order, planning and building. Bob and I had been totally consumed with the restaurant and hadn’t realized Jesse was going through his own crisis. We sorted his cl
othes and packed in silence for a few minutes until Jesse changed the subject. “Let me know how the opening goes,” he said quietly.

  And then it hit me. Tears trickled down my cheeks as I realized we would be far away from each other. Jesse had adored the summer’s adventures, learning to build with Bob and exploring this wonderful little country with me. I could tell he was sad about leaving.

  “The opening is still weeks away,” I finally said. “We’ll talk a lot before then. Jesse, we can’t let the distance change how close we are. You can call us anytime, day or night, about anything whatsoever. And I’ll keep you posted on everything that happens here. I promise.”

  We had already agreed that flying from Walla Walla to Anguilla for Thanksgiving would not be practical. The connections were bad, and by the time Jesse got here it would be almost time to leave. It would be our first holiday apart, but he assured us that he wouldn’t be alone and would have plenty of invitations from friends for turkey dinner. Being so far away was going to take some adjustment for all of us. Jesse was growing up, and our moving to Anguilla didn’t make it any easier.

  Jesse and I picked up Bob for the trip to the airport and drove without much conversation. American Eagle took off, and I cried hard. Bob and I went home for the afternoon and spent the rest of the day tracking Jesse’s journey. First San Juan, then Chicago, then Seattle; finally, twelve hours later, he called to say he was safe and sound in his room at school. “Say hi to Clinton and Shabby and everyone for me,” he reminded us.

  “Call us tomorrow,” Bob said. “We want to know what classes you end up getting.”

  “Okay. I love you.”

  “We love you too. Sleep well.”

  Bob and I anguished over whether we had made a hasty decision moving to this remote island, so far from friends and family. We’d get through it, but I was still fighting back tears as I fell asleep.

  Chapter 5

  A rooster crowed in the distance, and I woke feeling empty and far away. Jesse would be fine, I told myself; he was in college and Walla Walla, Washington, would seem just as far from Vermont as it did from Anguilla. I knew I wasn’t a bad parent—just a protective mother. If I could only shake this damned guilt. Bob returned to work with the Davis brothers, and I had plenty to keep me busy.

  From the outside, Scotiabank looked like any other building in Anguilla. Inside, I was transported to another world; it could have been a Chase Manhattan branch on Lexington Avenue except for the two barefoot fishermen filling out deposit slips. There were sleek gray counters, orderly lines of customers, and even air-conditioning. I was immediately aware of the repetitive thud of rubber stamps, as tellers whomped every piece of paper that crossed their path—I had discovered a new Caribbean rhythm.

  The morning sun angled in through a window, highlighting the two women in customer service. Ruth was tall and slender, with her hair neatly pulled back into a French braid and a stunning gold necklace displayed over her red uniform. Carlyn could have easily been a model had she not chosen to help people open bank accounts. They jumped into the stamping rhythm, manually applying an account number to each one of my checks.

  There was a charisma about Anguillian women that was almost startling, I thought, looking around the bank. They walked slowly, with exceptional posture. They had high cheekbones, smooth chocolate skin, and smiles that illuminated the room around them. One young girl had her hair braided in what must have been a hundred strands gracefully hanging down to her waist. Another had long fingernails intricately painted with tiny gold stars that shimmered as she counted out money for a customer next to me.

  Anguilla has always been an offshore tax haven. Though money laundering is against the law and the source of any large deposit is closely scrutinized, substantial sums of money from all over the world do pass through the handful of banks here. A customer service person has to be quite knowledgeable about international banking and foreign currencies. It is common for them to handle wire transfers and bank drafts in U.S. or E.C. dollars, pounds, francs, guilders, or marks. It was a sharp contrast between this cool, sophisticated Scotiabank and the simple, less complicated world outside. A bank job in Anguilla was like a bus ticket out of small-town Kansas. It wasn’t vanity that made these women beautiful, it was pride.

  From Scotiabank, I went to open accounts at Caribbean Commercial Bank and National Bank of Anguilla. Unlike Scotiabank, which was based in Toronto, the others were locally owned and operated, and every bit as refined and professional. We needed accounts for the restaurant in all three: one for Visa, one for MasterCard, and the other for American Express. They each had their specialty. I preferred doing business in the local banks, feeling it supported the island economy that much more. As it turned out, everyone, including locals, has accounts in more than one place. Barclays Bank was there as well, but four accounts seemed like overkill, given that we hadn’t earned anything yet.

  I was getting nervous about money. Though I had diligently recorded our expenses, I had not yet taken the time to calculate how much was left. The day of reckoning had come.

  I was surrounded by receipts, and the columns in my green ledger book filled up quickly. Lumber, freight, and duty topped the list, but dozens of other expenses added up to alarming numbers. Thousands of dollars went to Cable & Wireless and labor for the Davis brothers. Little Joe the electrician and Charles the plumber were no bargain. Deposits on the house, hurricane insurance, buying the car, and countless other expenditures brought us to a grand total of $260,000. We were left with under $10,000. That was it.

  I suddenly needed to get away from the adding machine and put my feet in the water. On the way to Shoal Bay I couldn’t resist a group of schoolchildren, not more than five or six years old, who flagged me down for a ride home. They stood on the side of the road in their tiny pink uniforms with huge backpacks that hung down past their knees. “A lift,” they called out. “A lift. A lift.” Our little Suzuki barely held four adults, but by the time everyone was settled inside, eight children, backpacks and all, were crammed in. It was like the circus Volkswagen filled with countless clowns. The biggest boy claimed the front seat and put a little one on his lap. The backseat held four across, with two more on top. They had trouble closing the doors, but after much squirming and wiggling, they succeeded and off we went.

  Just as the giggles and teasing started distracting me from my troubles, the real laughter began. I was so preoccupied that I neglected to slow down for a speed bump, and wham—everyone’s head hit the roof of the car. My small passengers were having the time of their lives. “White lady hit the bump,” I heard from behind. “Do it again,” said a little voice next to me. I couldn’t help but join in the laughter.

  You loves Anguilla, don’t you? Joshua’s words echoed in my head as I dropped my tiny friends off in Blowing Point, turned around, and went straight to the restaurant. It’s only money, I said to myself. It will work itself out once we’re up and running. I spent the rest of the afternoon upholstering bar stools. Hard work is good therapy, I reasoned.

  The restaurant was coming together. The Davis brothers worked from nine to four, but Bob and I continued to work killingly long hours. We stopped to eat sandwiches, and I frequently ran up to a little grocery store for candy bars and cold drinks. I looked forward to my daily visits and loved to chat with Christine, the owner. Christine was cut out to be a shopkeeper even though she had worked for thirty years at the Mars candy factory in Slough, England. A very large woman, her benefits had undoubtedly included plenty of samples.

  “You work too hard,” she would say, eyeing the paint and dirt that usually covered my clothes. “Don’t you ever take a rest?” She’d then shimmy her shoulders with a large, sexy wiggle and say, “Mrs. Blanchard, we all need to get out and dance a little sometimes.”

  “Christine, do you ever take a rest?” I would retaliate, knowing the answer. She, her daughter Sandra, and her niece Pat were in that store from six in the morning until eleven at night. Always happy to
see me, Christine had become my confidante. We exchanged war stories, hers of candy bars, mine of salad dressing. While we talked, little children clutching fistfuls of coins came to buy whatever candy they could afford. Christine would help with their math, while I marveled at the selection of goods for sale: cod liver oil, ginseng extract from China, rum, condoms, cakes, and canned goods.

  Our kitchen staff was taking shape. In addition to Garrilin we had hired Shabby as a grill cook, and Clinton had said, “I could try a little thing in the kitchen too.” They were planning to continue doing construction with their brothers during the day and work with me in the kitchen each night.

  With only three weeks to go until opening, we were grateful when people began stopping by looking for jobs. It was a simple process compared to back home—no advertising, no applications, no formal interviews, and no references. When the restaurant started to look presentable from the road, people appeared daily in search of work.

  Dressed in khakis and a light blue oxford shirt, one of our first applicants came with the obvious intent of making a good impression. He was surprised to see me, the boss, splattered from head to toe with pink paint. I immediately felt as if I were the one being evaluated when he asked if I’d been in the restaurant business before. He handed me a resumé and explained that he had worked in dining rooms in New York and Miami. He could run the whole restaurant, he assured me, and was certain we would never find another Anguillian with such a strong professional background. Perhaps not, I thought, but it felt unsettling to hire someone whose innocence had been lost in New York and Miami. I ended the conversation with a simple, “Thank you, we’ll give you a call.” I hoped we could do better than that.

  I was wrestling with a thorny bougainvillea when a white jeep pulled up and a tall, wiry young man hopped out and offered to give me a hand. After we had the plant safely in the ground, he continued to follow me around, helping in the garden. Lugging burlapped root balls of hibiscus, small palms, and lime trees, we set them beside their respective holes ready for planting and talked nonstop as we worked. I learned his name was Lowell Hodge and he lived right up the road in Long Bay, near Christine’s shop.