The Final Passage

by Caryl Phillips

  Table of Contents

  Cover Page

  About the Author

  Also by Caryl Phillips

  The Final Passage

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  The End

  Home

  England

  The Passage

  Winter

  About the Author

  * * *

  Caryl Phillips was born in St Kitts and now lives in London and New York. He has written for television, radio, theatre and cinema and is the author of three works of non-fiction and six novels. Crossing the River was shortlisted for the 1993 Booker Prize. In addition to this he has won the Martin Luther King Memorial Prize, a Guggenheim Fellowship and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize, as well as being named the Sunday Times Writer of the Year 1992 and one of the Best of Young British Writers 1993. His most recent publication was the novel A Distant Shore.

  ALSO BY CARYL PHILLIPS

  Fiction

  A State of Independence

  Higher Ground

  Cambridge

  Crossing the River

  The Nature of Blood

  A Distant Shore

  Non-Fiction

  The European Tribe

  The Atlantic Sound

  A New World Order

  THE FINAL PASSAGE

  Caryl Phillips

  This eBook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

  Epub ISBN: 9781409002499

  Version 1.0

  www.randomhouse.co.uk

  Published by Vintage 2004

  2 4 6 8 10 9 7 5 3 1

  Copyright © Caryl Phillips 1985

  Caryl Phillips has asserted his right under the Copyright,

  Designs and Patents Act, 1988 to be identified as the author

  of this work

  This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher's prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser

  First published in Great Britain in 1985 by

  Faber and Faber

  Vintage

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  ISBN 0 099 46858 1

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  A people without history

  Is not redeemed from time, for history is a pattern

  Of timeless moments. So, while the light fails

  On a winter's afternoon, in a secluded chapel

  History is now and England.

  T. S. ELIOT

  For my Mother and Father

  * * *

  THE END

  Leila pulled the baby boy even closer to her body. He was hungry and tired but she could not feed him here. Like the hundreds of others ageing patiently in the procession, he would have to wait. A uniformed young man (he looked scarcely more than an adolescent), sat imperiously at their head. He held the key to the gate through which they would soon pass. From there they would go down the slipway, into one of the small launches, then out to sea where they would transfer to the SS Winston Churchill. When exactly they would begin this first part of their journey Leila, like everyone else, was unsure. But, like the others, she felt it would be soon.

  She and Calvin were near the front of the queue where they had been for nearly five hours. They had arrived around 6.30, anxious to secure a good place so they might get the cabin they had paid for. Rumour had it (and her mother had always told her there was a little truth in every rumour) that despite the markings on their tickets people just took whatever cabin they could find. If they could not find one they had to resign themselves to living on deck. Leila had paid for a cabin so she was making sure.

  At 6.30 the harbour had been a blaze of colour and confusion. Bright yellows and brilliant reds, sweet smells and juices, a lazy deep sea nudging up against the land, and looking down upon it all the mountains ached under the weight of their dense green vegetation. Leila watched as the women sold their food, cursing, pushing, laughing. She listened as occasionally a tired voice still found the strength to soar.

  ‘Come nuh, man, who want to buy peanut from me?’

  As usual nobody did, and the woman fanned herself with a straw hat, her old, sun-blackened face gleaming with sweat. A small, angular boy stopped to tie up the frayed laces in his worn-out tennis shoes. Out of the corner of his eyes, he concentrated on the fresh peanuts scattered on her tray. Then her voice disturbed him.

  ‘Well, boy, you want some or not?’

  He smiled shyly, his white teeth a little too large, and a few too many, for his young mouth. The old woman pursed her lips and tossed her head.

  ‘Boy, you want one?’

  He pulled the fancy bows tight and stood up in such a way that the sun formed a halo around his head. He grinned at her, hesitated, then skipped away, his hacked-off oversized shorts brushing lightly against his thighs.

  Then Leila watched as the fishing boats came home; and the fishermen quickly folded up their nets for the night before heading down-town to Jumbies rum bar. On the quayside somebody unhooked the ‘Cruisers for charter’ sign. (Every day around this time it looked as if it was ready to fall down of its own accord. Some day somebody would find another rusty nail and hang it up straight.) Then night approached and began to drain the sky of colour, and the sun laboured badly. And the battered suitcases and cardboard boxes began to appear, names scribbled on them in shaky white paint, their hopeful addresses pitched aimlessly at a point somewhere the other side of the world. In the gathering gloom the mosquitoes began to sing their high piercing tunes, and in the distance the bad dogs began to bark wildly with neither rhythm nor harmony. It became darker as night, undisturbed and confident, crept on.

  ‘ALPHONSO EDWARDES, SLOUGH, NEAR BUCKS, ENGLAND, GREAT BRITAIN’.

  ‘MRS H. O. S. SIMMONDS IN THE CARE OF L. J. SIMMONDS ESQ. OF SHEFFIELD, ENGLAND, YORKSHIRE’.

  ‘PROPERTY OF LARRINGTON SEVILLE. TO BE HANDLED WITH CARE. DESTINED FOR LONDON COLLEGE OF LAW STUDIES. LONDON. ENGLAND. THANK YOU’.

  Leila watched the darkness drop, and she listened as the noises of the day gave way to the noises of the night.

  Michael had still not turned up.—The young woman in front of Leila turned around and began to talk. Leila did not listen. She tried instead to imagine what Michael was thinking about. Last night,
before he left for his grandmother's house, he had talked briefly. For the first time Leila had heard an almost candid apprehension in his voice.

  ‘Leaving this place going make me feel old, you know, like leaving the safety of your family to go live with strangers.’

  Leila stood by the table and watched the back of her husband's head. He sat in the doorway looking out across the rest of the village, and he spoke as if confessing to something.

  ‘I met Footsie Walter's brother Alphonse in town last Saturday when I went in to carry the yams. He don't make it sound bad or nothing, but he make it sound a bit different from how I did imagine it.’

  ‘Which is like what?’

  ‘Better, I suppose.’

  For a moment Leila had thought she must be mistaken. She wondered if Michael was consciously trying to create this mood or if he had really forgotten himself. Either way she went forward and put a hand on to his shoulder.

  ‘I know things between us don't be so good at times,’ he said, looking up at her, ‘but it's like you're putting a chicken into a cardboard box. The thing bound to start jumping about a bit and loose off a few feathers.’ He had laughed, then scraped back his chair and stood up. ‘I'm beginning to sound like a preacher man.’

  The young woman in front of Leila stopped talking. She pulled on a light blue cardigan over her sleeveless white dress. Leila had already anticipated the chill that would be coming in off the sea and had wrapped her mother's bright orange shawl around her shoulders. She trapped Calvin in the warmth between her breasts. Her red skirt brushed freely against her skinny legs, and she curled her toes up in her sandals to try and keep her feet warm. The two of them, one with child, like matchstick figures in a large tapestry, stood together in silence. A little way offshore a flock of birds swooped and fell together as if held by invisible strings. They banked away out of sight.

  Leila looked behind her and saw that the line meandered around the corner of the customs house. Some were standing, others sat on their boxes or suitcases, some sat on the concrete resting their backs against their luggage or each other. They were deep in thought and, at this late hour, spoke either in whispers or not at all. Relatives who had come to see off the voyagers were tired. The drink having been drunk, they had been told to go back home. Some had left, but those who stayed dozed off to sleep with unburdened minds. For Leila and everybody else minutes were hours and hours seemed like days and they were all waiting, still and alone, each silent with concentration as if posing for a famous sculptor.

  Leila turned back around and watched as the young man with the key disappeared through the gate, locked it behind him, then came back through and locked it behind him again. He did this three times, then sat and looked at nothing in particular. The woman in the light blue cardigan touched Leila's arm.

  ‘Your man not show up as yet?’

  Leila shook her head, glad of the excuse to talk with someone.

  ‘I shouldn't worry if I was you. He bound to show up. He can't forget a thing like going to England. I mean, how it going look tomorrow morning when he wake up and have to explain to people that yesterday night he get so drunk that he clean forget he supposed to be accompanying his wife and child to England. How you think he going feel if he have to do that?’ She sucked her teeth. ‘I tell you how he going feel. He going feel like a fool and there don't be no man yet born who can deal with feeling like a damn fool.’

  Leila smiled, but she worried. She could feel her heart stabbing against her ribs. Sure that it must be keeping Calvin awake, she held him off slightly. The woman in the light blue cardigan took this as an invitation to liberate the child from his mother's arms.

  ‘Why you not tell me the boy making you feel tired? Here, let me take him and you just sit yourself down.’

  Leila hesitated, then crouched, naked without child, on the elegant brown leather suitcase (no address being advertised) that she had bought especially for the journey. She watched as the woman hugged her son too close and rocked him too violently, but she avoided Calvin's abandoned stare. She was happy to be relieved of his weight, if only for a few minutes, and she closed her eyes. Her head began to feel heavy and inattentive, and despite her worries Leila could feel herself falling asleep. All she could do now was hope that her son would be safe.

  This morning the seemingly restless sun had risen particularly early, or so it had seemed to Leila. She had left Michael asleep in bed and begun to do the packing. She washed and changed Calvin and made him something to eat before Millie arrived. Then she woke Michael up and got him out of the house so that Millie and herself could start packing up the things in the bedroom. Leila felt tired and she was unable to disguise it from Millie. In fact she did not even bother to try. They left the bedroom and went into the other room. Leila paused. She was perspiring like a cane-cutter.

  ‘You feeling alright?’

  Leila did not answer.

  ‘You should rest up a minute.’

  Leila peered over her friend's shoulder and out through the almost permanently open door. Across the road the naked children bathed under the rusty stand-pipe which dribbled water on to their boneless limbs. They splashed and played the best they could. It was already a clear, hot day.

  ‘What happen if you get sick on the ship, or boat, or whatever it is you going on?’

  Leila wiped her forehead.

  ‘I'm just tired, that's all. It'll be alright.’

  ‘It'll be alright,’ mimicked Millie. ‘It'll be alright when you done kill your arse dead.’

  Leila turned and withdrew to the bedroom. Millie sighed deeply, then followed her.

  The sun burned furiously and high. It was afternoon. They both moved back into the front room where it was cooler. Millie found less and less to do, so she stayed relatively quiet and held the sleeping Calvin as if he were her own child. And Leila packed then unpacked the new suitcase, unable to decide exactly what it was they would need in England. She stopped and thought. Millie had made up some soft drinks, and Leila opened two bottles and passed one to Millie. Millie drank and spat. She did not like grapefruit. She had brought the grapefruit drinks for Leila to take on the ship. Leila said nothing. She reached for a lemon drink, opened it and passed it over. Millie tipped up the bottle to her mouth, swilled it around, tested it thoroughly making sure it really was lemon, then swallowed and spoke.

  ‘Why is it that white people do behave so funny?’

  Leila heard the question. ‘Do they?’

  Millie paused for a moment. ‘But I don't know for real though, do I? It's just what I seeing around these parts.’

  Leila picked up a light cotton skirt. Millie looked at her.

  ‘You mad at me for I don't mean your father, you know.’

  Leila folded the skirt and somehow managed to press it into the suitcase. She took the child from Millie. Calvin had a powerful grip and he clung tightly to his mother's blouse, pinching the shallow skin around her breasts.

  ‘Of course I'm not mad with you.’

  Millie avoided her friend's eyes. She reached out, picked up the wrong bottle and took a drink. This time she did not spit it out. She swallowed hard.

  By the time Leila had finished the packing, and the one suitcase was full, it was past five o'clock. They sat together on the doorstep and searched for a moment's peace. They could see the clouds quickening as they moved across the mountain tops, and all around them life in the usually noisy street seemed prematurely spent. The night before, Leila had decided that if England was going to be a new start after the pain of the last year, then she must take as little as possible with her to remind her of the island. What she left Millie was to have. What Millie did not want would be left in the house for the new owners to do with what they wanted. And now it was almost time to leave. Leila had spent the whole day packing just one suitcase, trying to define an old life and a new one within the pitiful confines of three feet by two feet by nine inches. She felt sad and stole a sideways glance at Millie. This afternoon they
had talked, but not about anything of consequence. They had both felt time's pressure dull their conversation.

  Leila stood up. They looked at each other, then at the suitcase, then at each other again. They did not want to reminisce. That would exclude the future. Yet they could not speculate together about what was to come, for, at this moment, their lives seemed destined to take radically different paths. Best friends, closer than sisters for all of their nineteen years, this final afternoon they had almost become strangers. In the brightness of the morning, with the departure still far enough away for this day to be like any other, they had talked. Leila's tiredness, her fears for her mother's health, Millie's pregnancy, white women in England; but now the arched movement of the sun had built a gate through which only one of them could pass.

  They fed the suitcase on to a small wooden trolley and began the journey together, with Leila carrying the baby and Millie pulling the trolley. Above them they heard the rusty, troubled cry of a small flock of gulls.

  The late afternoon was still hot, and the heat rose up causing the air to shimmer and the people and houses to vibrate. They walked the two hundred yards around the bend in the dusty road and stood out of sight of the village. They were alone, and they waited like refugees fleeing from the front-line of some war-torn country. Millie played nervously with the trolley. Beneath her feet she could feel the dry baked earth full of yawning cracks. She kicked at a little dust and watched with infantile fascination as the cloud settled and coloured her foot a lighter, sandier brown.

  Leila looked across at the lonely structure of Frances Gumb's house. She smiled sadly to herself, seeing the sign of a Christian-inspired endeavour. Beside the house someone had tried to scratch a garden into the dust, but the baffled shrubs lay rootless on the beaten hardness of the ground.

  When the bus for the capital arrived, the driver and another man who was sitting near the front loaded on the suitcase and trolley for them. The journey continued. The bus crashed down the narrow lane, veering crazily like a drunk. As always, Leila had the sensation that the brakes had failed, but today she did not mind. The speed at which the outside world passed by the window reduced life to a blur; this reflected her own desire to erase from her mind all memory of the last year. Nothing was allowed to remain in focus, all was either too distant or too close, unrecognizable, soon past and forgotten.