A Trip to the Beach

by Melinda Blanchard

  Health inspections for restaurants in Anguilla were vastly different from those at home. When we started to build, we had asked about codes, regulations, and other hygiene-related requirements. We were told we needed a bathroom—that was it. Bob, Marcus, and I were prepping in the kitchen one morning when we heard a voice.

  “Inside. Inside,” a man called.

  Bob poked his head around the back door, and a handsome young man holding a small ice cooler introduced himself. “Good morning. My name Oliver. I work for the Health Department.”

  Bob tensed, assuming we were in some sort of trouble. Our kitchen was all stainless steel and would certainly pass any inspection back home. But what if there was an obscure island rule we had missed? Would we fail some test?

  Oliver came in through the kitchen door and continued his introduction. “I Lowell’s cousin. I live right up in Long Bay. I just come to give you some fish.”

  “Fish?” I asked.

  His cooler was about the size of a six-pack. He flipped open the lid, and inside were a dozen tiny fish swimming in a few cups of water.

  “I come to put fish in your cistern. Where the cistern be?”

  “Are you serious?” Bob asked. “You’re putting fish in our water?”

  “That’s right,” he said. “You won’ have to worry anymore. These fish eat bacteria.”

  We hadn’t been worried about our water before, though we never considered using cistern water for anything but cleaning. Our staff thought it silly, but we insisted on using bottled water for everything to do with food; we weren’t about to take any chances.

  Bob escorted Oliver to the dining room and lifted the cover camouflaged as part of the floor. I could hear their voices boom with an echo from the cavernous cistern below. Oliver scooped out three fish from the cooler and dropped them into the vastness.

  “There,” he said as he covered his cooler. “You all set for a while.”

  Three little fish now swam around in our 7,500-gallon cistern, protecting our water supply. No chemicals, no filters, just three little fish.

  Chapter 9

  Disaster struck on January 15 at 7:12 p.m. Our dining room was packed, and I had a full set of orders in front of me. Shabby’s grill was covered with lobsters, veal chops, steaks, snapper, dorado, and shrimp. We were in full swing.

  Without so much as a sputter, the main generator for the island shut down, plunging all of Anguilla into total blackness. My stomach flip-flopped as all my orders and the food on the ten-burner stove disappeared from sight. The orange glow from the grill and the blue flames on the stove were suddenly our only sources of light. As the exhaust fan in the hood coasted to a stop, the temperature rose rapidly, and thick smoke from the grill began to fill the room. Just as my eyes were adjusting to the eerie flame color of the kitchen, a curtain of smoke descended around us, and Shabby’s muscular frame disappeared into the purple haze.

  “Mel, I can’ see,” he said.

  “Me either. Do we have a flashlight?” I remembered seeing an impressive display of flashlights and batteries at Anguilla Trading and wished I’d taken the hint.

  Bob’s voice came out of the smoke. “Is everybody okay in here?”

  “Yeah, man. Irie. We jus’ here in a cool,” Clinton answered.

  “We okay,” came several other voices. Lowell and Miguel brought in candles from the dining room, and within minutes, through the flickering lights, I could make out a few forms moving through the smoke-filled inferno. Garrilin was attempting to assemble two Caesar salads, Ozzie was still dancing, and Clinton was humming some melody, keeping time by tapping on his worktable.

  “Anybody have any idea what happened?” Bob asked. “Everything is dark outside, too. No streetlights anywhere.”

  “Gotta be Anglec,” Clinton said. “Anglec been havin’ trouble with the big generator. Current gonna come right back on, man. Don’ worry. We better plug out the fridges. When the current come back on, she sometime have a surge an’ it can mash everything up.”

  Lowell came in from the bar. “Current ain’ comin’ on for a while,” he said. “I jus’ call Anglec. They blew somethin’ serious at the plant and they say it could be all night.”

  My mind wandered for a split second, remembering long-ago visits as a tourist to Anguilla. Power outages were never part of those vacations. All the hotels have big backup generators that turn on instantly during a blackout. The lights might flicker for a second or two, but that was it. No standby generator was going to kick on at Blanchard’s, however, and I wasn’t sure how I was going to turn out all these dinners in the dark.

  “Where’s Bug?” I asked, realizing he hadn’t shown up for work yet. He was often late on Saturdays. Returning from his weekly trip south to St. Martin, he sometimes got deeply involved in a domino game at the ferry dock. “Anybody heard from Bug?” I repeated. “I need bowls washed!”

  “Bug in St. Martin,” Ozzie said. “I wash up some bowls for you, but I gotta have some water in the sink. Pump ain’ work without current.”

  “Ozzie, come,” Clinton said. “Bring a couple clean pots. We gonna get some water outta the hot-water heater.” They disappeared out the back door with a flashlight, and I contemplated my stack of clean dishes, trying to estimate how long they would last.

  The steady trade wind was helping to move a little of the smoke outside, but without the exhaust fan the temperature was easily 110 degrees. As Shabby and I tried to figure out which orders we had on the grill, I was aware that Bob was surrounding us with more candles. I grabbed a small flashlight, placed it firmly between my teeth, and began slowly arranging dinners on plates as they were done.

  “Melinda, should I flip the steak above?” Shabby asked. “I can’ see if it done.” The two of us juggled orders as best we could, but the smoke was stinging our eyes. Ozzie washed dishes with very little water, and the waiters took orders and cleared tables in the dark. Clinton worked on his appetizers more by touch than by sight, and Garrilin groped in the dark for the cheesecake as dessert orders began to pile up.

  The night seemed to last for days as we turned out dinner after dinner in the heat, smoke, and darkness. Meanwhile, Bob managed to appease most of the guests, even if their meals did take longer than expected. In fact, the customers loved the adventure. The dining room was even more romantic in the dark, with no music, no electric lights, just the sound of the sea and the flickering of candles. The first round of early guests left, making room for the more fashionable nine o’clock reservations. Only one table lingered over their cognac and coffee, oblivious to the fact that another party had been waiting almost an hour for their table.

  “I’m sorry it’s taking so long,” Bob said to the hungry foursome waiting for their table to open up. But a very proper British gentleman in a navy blue blazer, white trousers, and a shiny new pair of Cole-Haans was losing his patience. “Precisely how much longer must we wait for our table?” he demanded.

  Bob managed to convince the lingerers to let him buy them a round of drinks at the bar. Their table was cleared and quickly reset, and the foursome was ushered in at last. When Bob went over to take their order, he noticed an unusually large puddle developing next to their table. On extra-hot nights, the wine buckets dripped continually from condensation.

  Before Bob had a chance to explain that without electricity we had no baked Brie bundles (they required an electric oven), the man announced they were ready to order.

  “We’ll start with four orders of baked Brie bundles,” he said. Bob’s face went white in the candlelight as he started once again to apologize, but the man’s patience had reached its limit. He slapped his menu down on the table, pushed his chair back, and announced they were leaving. But as he stood to make his exit he stepped backward into the puddle of water. His well-shod feet slipped out from under him, and the gentleman fell flat on the floor. Bob stared in horror.

  In utter silence the guests, the waiters, and poor Bob watched the man rise to his feet, his blazer drippin
g. But when he became aware that everyone in the restaurant was watching to see what he would do next, somehow his mood shifted. He removed his wet jacket, broke into a big smile, opened his arms wide, and said, “Ladies and gentlemen, there’s no charge for the entertainment.”

  The entire restaurant burst into applause, with many guests standing to get a better view. As Bob’s visions of lawsuits began to fade, he helped the man back into his chair, offering to pay for the dry cleaning. Patting himself dry with clean napkins, the gentleman ordered four Caesar salads to start, and lobsters for the table; Miguel poured a bottle of Dom Pérignon, on the house.

  The table of four was the last to leave, and after they thanked us for “a truly unforgettable evening,” taxi man Teddy took them back to their hotel. Our entire crew collapsed into dining room chairs with a collective heavy sigh. We sat staring at the full moon as exhaustion swept over us. “I wonder what the temperature is in the walk-in cooler,” I mumbled, and Bob got up to check.

  I looked at the kitchen staff through my sore and swollen eyelids; together we had managed to turn out ninety-two dinners in the dark. “Nobody can say to us, ‘If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen,’” I said.

  “The temperature in the walk-in is fifty degrees,” said Bob. “I’m going to St. Martin tomorrow to buy a generator. Clinton says you can get one for twenty-five hundred dollars.” Suddenly a generator seemed like the most wonderful machine ever invented, and I agreed that he should take the night’s proceeds and be on the first ferry to St. Martin in the morning.

  Ba-boom, ba-ba-boom, ba-boom, ba-ba-boom—it was the familiar sound of an approaching car outfitted with giant woofers. Ba-boom, ba-ba-boom came louder and louder; then headlights and a cloud of dust appeared. It was Bug, only seven hours late.

  “Bug, where have you been?” I asked.

  “I stuck in St. Martin,” he said with a grin.

  It was hard to get too angry with Bug. He had, after all, come to work at eleven-thirty at night to attack a mountain of dirty dishes by candlelight.

  Water was no problem for Bug, who not only had come to work but had come prepared. From his car he produced a five-gallon pail on a rope, which he proceeded to lower into the cistern and pull back up full of water. “We ain’ need no pump,” he said.

  We boiled buckets of water on the stove so Bug could clean up. “This more fun in the dark,” Bug said in his crazy falsetto.

  Uncle Waddy’s morning visits had become a regular part of our day, and I looked forward to seeing his smiling face as we traded recipes for cornbread, johnnycakes, and chowder. He always came with his rolls of sea bean, the large, purple flowers wrapped up in the long vines, having gathered them on the beach for his goats. Though he never asked, Bob usually loaded the greens into our car and drove Uncle Waddy and his bush, as he called it, up the hill to his house. He insisted the exercise was good for him, but at eighty-five years old, he also never refused the ride.

  As he had told me, Uncle Waddy walked the length of Meads Bay every day. He marched up and down the beach, swinging his arms high in the air and taking long strides, as if he were a man half his age. But over a few months his visits became a little less frequent. We saw him sitting on his porch one day and stopped by to say hi. We could tell from his soft voice that he wasn’t feeling his usual energetic self. He refused to see a doctor, arguing that several neighbors had gone to the hospital and never come home again.

  Uncle Waddy’s health deteriorated quickly. His eighty-five years suddenly caught up with him, and each day he looked years older. He came into the kitchen one morning and, after refusing his customary fresh orange juice, announced he was going to the hospital. We never saw him again.

  The funeral was held in the historic Methodist church in South Hill, and it looked as if the entire island had come to pay tribute to John Waddington Hodge. The church was built from stone in 1878. A survivor of hurricanes and a revolution, it had Gothic arched windows that opened to the breeze drifting up from the harbor below. Standing in the churchyard, we were afforded one of the most spectacular views in Anguilla: Sparkling Road Bay was filled with fishing boats and sailing yachts, and beyond we could see Sandy Island, its tiny tuft of palm trees sticking up in the center.

  Bob and I stood in the doorway along with the rest of the crowd that couldn’t squeeze inside. We peered in and spotted Lowell and his family, Elbert the goat herder, James, Bennie, and many other familiar faces. Everyone sat quietly waiting for the service to begin; the only sound was the swooshing of paper fans moving back and forth across hot, sad faces.

  A car with the license plate CM pulled up in the yard, and the crowd parted to make way for the Chief Minister and his entourage, who filed into the reserved pew in the front row. The Chief, as he is referred to, is an elected official and, along with his executive council, administers the legislation of the government. Once they were seated, the minister began the eulogy.

  We listened as Uncle Waddy’s life was recounted. We heard about his courageous role during the Anguilla Revolution. He was credited for improving education on the island as well, and the youth of Anguilla were urged to follow Uncle Waddy’s example of exercise, diet, and healthy living if they wanted to live to be eighty-five.

  A neighbor from Long Bay played guitar and sang hymns with two other men, and tears rolled down my cheeks as I remembered Uncle Waddy’s bundles of sea-bean vines lying next to my kitchen door. We joined the procession of cars, led by Ozzie driving the old white hearse, to the cemetery in West End. John Waddington Hodge was put to rest overlooking Meads Bay, where he had walked, swum, and gathered vines for nearly eighty years.

  Back in the kitchen, I stared at the empty doorway. A younger generation was replacing the Uncle Waddys of the island, and I felt sad that some of the traditions of old Anguilla had just been buried at Meads Bay.

  I hadn’t seen Joshua and Evelyn for several weeks, and losing Uncle Waddy inspired me to pay a visit to Rey Hill. In a pensive mood, I drove extra slowly, taking in the smoky breeze from a smoldering coal keel where someone was making charcoal along the way. I breathed deeply, savoring the old ways still remaining in Anguilla. Two boys were working on a boat in their yard. An older man, perhaps the boys’ grandfather, sat in the shade of a flamboyant tree, watching. The art of boatbuilding was being passed on to a new generation. In South Hill a man wearing a faded T-shirt and a New York Mets baseball cap pushed two white pails in a rusty wheelbarrow through the bush. Presumably he was hauling water from the government pipe nearby. His house must not have had a cistern.

  Farther along I passed a little wooden cottage with a huge pile of wire fish pots in the yard. Only a very few of these wooden houses had survived Hurricane Donna in 1960. An old-fashioned vernacular of wooden shingles and bright shutters had given way to the practicality of flat concrete homes that could withstand a severe storm.

  I turned into the labyrinth of roads that led to Joshua’s house and passed a group of schoolchildren walking home. Two older girls were holding the hands of little ones who couldn’t have been more than three or so. They had to take two steps for every one of the big girls in order to keep up. I found Joshua and Evelyn sitting in their living room, listening to a radio that looked as though it was from the 1940s. It sat on the bookshelves between two porcelain dolphin figurines. A framed picture of Evelyn standing under a palm tree hung on the wall next to the radio. We had taken the picture five years earlier and sent it to them for Christmas.

  Evelyn eyed me up and down and said, “You comin’ nice.”

  I just smiled.

  “You comin’ real nice,” she said again, hoping for more of a reaction.

  “It’s nice to see you,” I said, knowing it wasn’t quite the right answer.

  Joshua helped me out. “She mean you put on a few pounds. You look good.”

  “I don’t think it’s nice. I feel fat,” I said as I patted hips that were a little plumper than I would have liked.

  “No, you
ain’ fat. You healthy.”

  Had I been visiting my own grandmother, I’d be getting advice on weight loss. She’d tell me of the latest diets she’d heard about on TV and list my options: high protein, low protein, high carb, low carb, ignore calories, or count calories, with, of course, all of the diets promising I would never be hungry again. If worse came to worst, I could always go to a spa and hide out until I was presentable again.

  Evelyn, I was sure, had never heard of a spa and would never consider going to one even if she had. Why would anyone spend money to be skinny?

  We talked for a while about Uncle Waddy and about traditions lost and times gone by. Evelyn explained that in the old days, when times were less prosperous for Anguilla, you hardly ever saw heavy people. Sometimes fish was the only thing to eat, since long droughts were common, and the already meager crops would die. “It hard to get big with only fish to eat,” she said.

  Driving to The Valley was a daily challenge made infinitely more interesting by the various obstacles encountered along the way. There were animals, speed bumps, tourists forgetting to keep left, and, just like everywhere else in the world, a younger generation of hot-rodders.

  Rawldy, on the other hand, drove too slowly. Top speed for Rawldy was 15 mph, and his rattletrap station wagon could often be found at the head of a long line of cars. Rawldy was Anguilla’s own traveling salesman. He drove around with a selection of handcrafted brooms made of gnarly sticks and palm fronds tied to his roof rack. From the back of his car he offered mangoes, sweet potatoes, bananas, christophines, coconuts, and papayas.

  Prospective customers would hail Rawldy, and he’d stop in the middle of the road to discuss a potential sale. With his tailgate open, entire neighborhoods would gather around his car to squeeze mangoes or inspect brooms for weight and balance. Meanwhile traffic piled up behind him. Sometimes cars would inch around, but usually everyone just waited.