The Final Passage

by Caryl Phillips

  The cock stopped crowing and Leila eased out from underneath the damp sheet and levered herself, and the child she carried, up off the side of the bed. She stood crooked, thinking it too much trouble to get dressed for she was not going anywhere. She pulled on a dressing gown, stepped into her slippers and moved slowly into the front room. Leila tried to be as quiet as possible, for hearing neither her mother's cracked breathing nor her sinister coughing, she presumed her asleep. But as she reached down for the beaten kettle she noticed the envelope. The name on the front was in her mother's spidery writing. Leila picked it up and moved as quickly as the child in her belly would allow her to. She opened her mother's bedroom door.

  The bed had been stripped down and the linen sheets folded neatly at the foot of it. The caseless pillow sat at the head of the bed where it ought to be, and the room looked freshly dusted and cleaned. A tiny window had been propped open to allow the air to circulate, otherwise everything was still. It looked like what Leila had always imagined a cheap hotel would look like. Sterile and impersonal. Somebody had lived here once but they could not have been very happy. And they had left having made a decision. Leila tore at the letter, and the envelope circled its way to the floor.

  ‘Dear daughter, I think you know where I have gone to and why it is I . . .’

  Leila loosened her grip, then she tightened it again. Her eyes roamed over the words.

  ‘The doctor has advised me that . . . If there is a God somewhere . . .’

  By now she was gripping the letter so hard it was as if she was trying to squeeze the ink out of it. Her mother had left for England.

  ‘He said either I die here or I go to where there is . . .

  Leila sat on the edge of the empty bed and let her foot brush against the envelope. She listened to the children congregating in the street before being sent off to school. She listened to their anxious mothers, to their impatient fathers, to their own hectic voices, and her mind hissed and she could tell she was skirting the edge of a deep depression, for England seemed so far away that she could not believe her mother would ever come back from such a place.

  There was a knock at the door and Leila jumped. She waited a moment, but whoever it was had decided not to knock again. Leila left her mother's bedroom and made her way to the door. She saw Bradeth first, his long legs like two burnt matchsticks, and behind him stood Millie holding their baby girl, Shere. Millie spoke first, the morning light catching her face.

  ‘Well, here I am.’

  She came forward and delivered Shere into her godmother's arms with care and affection, almost ceremony, much as a child would offer a favourite doll to another child. Bradeth picked up the bags by his side and carried them into the room. He set them down lightly in the middle of the floor, then pulled up a chair and turned to Leila.

  ‘Leila, take the weight off your feet, nuh.’ He took his daughter, leaving Millie to guide Leila into the chair.

  They smiled nervously, close friends acting like strangers. Then they were quiet. Millie broke the silence.

  ‘Remember last week when I tell you that my Aunt Toosie don't like the idea of no unmarried woman and child round she shop?’ Leila nodded. ‘Well, since Shere born she practically stop talking to Bradeth, so maybe it's as well your mother gone to England and I can move in here. Save me breaking up with my aunt. I can also help with the baby when it come.’

  ‘I see,’ said Leila. ‘I understand.’

  They fell silent again, and the noises from the street died away as the children finally made their way to school. The atmosphere was wrong. Bradeth knew he should never have knocked on the door. He and Millie should have just walked in like they usually did, as if nothing was the matter. For a few moments he played with his daughter, then he looked up and saw that both Millie and Leila were watching him, seemingly absorbed in his every movement.

  ‘I have to get to town now for I have a big order that I need Michael to deliver.’

  He stopped there, realizing what he had just said. Millie's small face hardened and Bradeth caught her look. He would not say any more. Drawing himself to his full height, he garbled a final sentence. ‘I better go now before I miss the bus back to town. I going drop in on you both tomorrow.’

  He kissed his daughter and passed her to Millie. Then he pressed his lips against Millie's forehead, smiled at Leila and disappeared briskly through the open door.

  Millie passed Shere across to Leila. She stood and poured her a glass of coconut water, then she poured one for herself and sat back down. It was not yet nine in the morning. Leila began to cry. Millie leaned over to take Shere, but Leila held on. Millie put down her glass, knelt and slipped her short arm around Leila's shoulder.

  ‘What is it?’ asked Millie, but Leila cried without moving a muscle, as if out of consideration for the child on her lap.

  ‘You can't tell me what it is?’ Leila's trickle of tears became a stream and she could not talk. ‘Don't worry,’ Millie reassured her. ‘There's two of us now and we'll both get by. We'll manage.’

  But Leila sat with a vague and detached gaze, her mouth like a jagged cut.

  *

  The following week Leila gave birth. It was early evening. The shadows of the sloping trees had begun their stretching across the road, and the sister wood in the houses creaked and snapped, cooled down and joined in the long wait for the moon. The unbridled wind cantered down the road, turning bits of litter, creeping in every backyard, rustling every leaf. In one hundred darkened rooms one hundred darkened hands reached out and turned up their kerosene lamps, knowing full well that night would soon fall and a naked flame would be their sun-substitute till the morning.

  Inside the house Millie held a pan of hot water with both hands. She looked on helplessly as Leila, horizontal, legs hitched and parted, as if someone had thrown open a pair of light brown double doors, strained mercilessly. In the background a fan buzzed, but it merely turned over the heavy air and it settled again. Bradeth, feeling awkward and out of place, stood back and tried to find more shadow. A lone cricket cried out. Overtures and beginners.

  The white nurse, sweat pouring from her spinster's brow, encouraged the young girl. ‘Just once more, Leila.’ She paused. ‘That's it, just once more, dear.’ The nurse talked with anxious concentration.

  In the fading light Leila twisted and tried to force the unborn child from her body. One hand was folded, redundant, behind her head, the other clung to the metal frame on the side of the bed.

  ‘Just once more, Leila, just once more, dear.’

  Millie hovered, water in pan, wishing the pain would leave her friend's body. Then the nurse took the pan of hot water from her. Millie, physically unburdened, crossed her fingers and continued to urge Leila on, her own small frame eager to share some of the pain. Then, as if it were the most natural thing in the world, Leila began to moan, at first softly, then louder, as the child began to ease its bloody way out from between her legs.

  ‘Nearly there now. Nearly there,’ said the nurse.

  Leila, her lips bunched, her forehead knotted, snatched for breath and lay back even further, pushing her body down into the mattress as if she wanted to disappear from sight.

  The nurse lifted the crying boy clear of Leila's body and she wiped his skin. Millie uncrossed her fingers and came forward.

  ‘You alright?’

  Leila did not open her eyes, she just nodded.

  ‘Sure?’ asked Millie again, her mouth hanging loose.

  Leila opened her eyes. ‘I'm sure.’

  The nurse spoke with well-practised awe. ‘It's a boy. A healthy-looking boy of about eight pounds.’

  Leila's hands stretched forward to take the child, and the nurse willingly gave him to her. Then, with almost automatic ease, the nurse began to take off her apron and collect her utensils. For her the day was at an end.

  Millie pushed back the child's shiny black hair.

  ‘The child dark like Shere. Much darker than you.’

 
Leila looked her son in the face, his cheeks gleaming like small lumps of black coal. ‘I know,’ she said. ‘I can see that.’

  His eyes were tightly shut and his miniature hands fastened close as if ready for battle. Like his mother's his upper lip was split but his lower lip was slightly swollen, as though someone had already hit him. Leila peeled back his pocket-sized shawl and looked for signs of any marks on his body. There were none. He was clean and still and brown and he had finished his crying.

  Bradeth stood in his closely guarded shadow, having shown no emotion throughout the whole process. He had not been present when his own daughter was born, for Shere's had been a premature birth. When it became clear that Leila was almost certain to give birth this evening he did not return to the capital as he had planned. He followed Millie's instructions, borrowed a bicycle and cycled into Sandy Bay for the nurse. Then he had cycled back up the road with her as furiously as he could.

  It was almost dark now and Millie played with the newborn child, gently rubbing her girl's finger up against his tiny nose. The nurse had packed her bags and she stood ready to leave. She spoke to Millie. ‘I'll leave you to it then, if I may.’

  Millie turned to face her, but the nurse looked past her. ‘And I'll drop by and see you tomorrow, Mrs Preston.’

  The nurse hardly waited for an answer. She crossed the bedroom and managed not to see Bradeth. Then she moved into the front room and out into the warm evening air. They all listened as she mounted her bicycle and began to pedal her way back down the island towards Sandy Bay.

  Leila finished listening and closed her eyes. Millie slipped away to where Bradeth was standing and she looked up at him. ‘You know where Michael is?’ She spoke in a whisper.

  ‘Sandy Bay someplace.’

  ‘He should be here to give her some help and support.’

  Bradeth looked across at Leila. Millie went on, ‘The girl nearly sick with worry about her mother and now she have a child to think about and no man around the house.’

  Bradeth nodded and shifted uneasily. ‘I going talk to him. I don't know what it is he thinks he's playing at.’

  Millie looked quizzically at Bradeth, surprised by the bitterness in his voice.

  ‘I'll be here with Leila,’ she said. ‘I'll see you tomorrow.’

  Bradeth squeezed her arm. ‘You can manage till then?’

  Millie nodded and he let go. He backed slowly out of the bedroom, for he knew the longer he stayed the more angry he would feel.

  Bradeth climbed on the borrowed pushbike, knowing it would not take him long to cycle to Sandy Bay. He decided not to rush as there was nothing to rush for. He wanted to think. The winding road straightened out, now defined by the familiar wall of cane to his left, the hush of the sea to his right. Up ahead he saw the outline of the nurse, so he slowed down. He would not risk a conversation.

  Though Bradeth was too big for most bicycles they eventually got him to where he wanted to go, despite the swerves and jolts he hated having to endure. He extended his legs like long tired pistons and gritted his teeth as the wheels crunched over small objects in the road, bits of cane, stones and old boxes. The breeze beat fiercely into his face and he slitted his eyes. Then, as he looked up ahead, he saw the nurse had pedalled out of sight, so he pushed on.

  As he approached Michael's grandmother's house he braked gently. A lamp burned in the window, and trailing his sandalled foot in the dusty road, Bradeth slowed to a halt. He did not bother to dismount.

  ‘Michael! You home, man?’

  He waited, but his words hung eerily and unanswered in the night air. He shouted again, this time with greater anxiety.

  ‘Michael! You home or what?’

  But nobody answered and Bradeth made ready to swing the bicycle around. However, before he could raise one foot to the pedal, he heard the crackly voice he recognized as that of Michael's grandmother. It was as if the house was speaking back to him.

  ‘I don't see Michael for some time now. He must be up by his wife in St Patrick's.’

  Clearly Michael's grandmother did not recognize Bradeth's voice or she would have said something to him. Bradeth threw back a ‘thank you’ and cycled away.

  When he reached Beverley's house Bradeth got off the bicycle and leaned it against the fence at the back. He looked over into the yard that was always swept spotlessly clean despite its poverty. Hens, goats, fruit trees, a tank for catching water; only the paling fence needed a few repairs doing to it, but he could not imagine Michael ever volunteering to do them.

  Inside Michael sat by the lamplight, picking at his food with a clumsy fork. Beverley and Ivor sat in a corner. Beverley stared at nothing, but the child, now just over a year old, stared at its father, his small lips flapping open, unchecked by his mother's hand, pink on the inside.

  There was a light knocking at the door. It dissipated, rather than created, tension. Without moving a muscle Beverley whispered admittance. ‘Yes.’

  Bradeth stepped from the darkness into the room. He did not shut the door behind him, preferring to hover, like a man who has just realized that he might possibly be an unwelcome guest. Michael glanced up at him, his face empty, then he went on playing with his food. Bradeth looked around. He had never before spoken with Beverley but they both knew well enough who the other was, and how they each fitted into Michael's life.

  ‘I'm sorry to disturb you,’ he said nervously.

  Beverley let a smile run across her freckled face, then she looked down and cradled her son who stuck his thumb shyly into his mouth. Bradeth turned back towards Michael.

  ‘I've come to have a word with you about something.’

  Michael played for a few seconds, then let the fork drop down on to the plate. He pushed it away.

  ‘Talk, then.’

  He did not look up to face his friend, preferring to show him the top of his bowed head. Beverley gathered up her child and moved towards the curtain. Michael heard her move.

  ‘Sit down!’

  He had a knife in his voice. Beverley hesitated, then sat back down. Still standing, and feeling like a mast without a ship, Bradeth went on. He could feel his heart thumping faster and faster like an unrepentant fist in his chest.

  ‘But I want to have a private word with you.’

  Michael lifted his elbows off the table and slowly raised his head. He looked Bradeth straight in the face.

  ‘Anything you have to say to me you say to she too, you hear me?’

  ‘Well, then,’ said Bradeth, ‘Leila just born you a next son.’

  There was a long pause.

  ‘I said you have a next son. Your wife just give birth to a child.’

  Bradeth stared at Michael. He was unable to look at Beverley for he felt ashamed of what his friend was forcing him to do.

  Michael laughed. ‘My arse,’ he said, as if he had just been told a joke. ‘Come, let we go for a drink and celebrate.’ He pushed the chair back from the table and stood up.

  Bradeth looked at him. ‘What you say?’

  ‘I said, come, let we go for a drink to celebrate the child's birth. You say it's a boy child?’

  In his mind Bradeth saw the newborn child's face. He saw Leila's pain, and he forced himself to look at Beverley holding on to her son in the corner, seemingly unaware of what was going on. He looked back at Michael and for a moment he felt he wanted to punch him. But Bradeth's courage betrayed him. He turned and left. Michael sat back down and listened to the rattling of Bradeth's directionless pushbike. Then it was quiet again.

  *

  The night her son was born Leila did not sleep. The night after she managed only a few minutes, and the night after that a few minutes more. Despite her fatigue she had forgotten how to sleep. She would have to learn again, with Millie's help, though the noise of her son (whom she called Calvin) and Millie's daughter, Shere, only served to make this more difficult. However, as the weeks went by life became easier, and Leila began to sleep soundly. They were learning to live with each
other as friends, as women, as mothers.

  Another dawn seeped into Leila's room. It squeezed its way underneath the door and crept through the thin gap between the fluttering curtains. A weak ray crossed Calvin's face, his low-lying cot resting beside the bed. The same ray touched Arthur's unopened letter. Leila, awake but still numb with sleep, listened hard. She could hear no noise in the house though outside she heard the dead sound of a ripe fruit falling from a tree.

  She pulled at the sheet and Arthur's letter slipped neatly and unnoticed off the side of the bed. Then she rolled from one side of the mattress to the next, trying to find a comfortable position, either on the pillow or off it. But she could not get back to sleep. She listened again, and this time in her mind she heard her mother's voice. Her muscles tightened with fear.

  ‘So Arthur know anything about the boy from Sandy Bay?’

  Leila lied. ‘I've told him about Michael.’

  ‘And you tell him it's this Michael boy walking you out now and he mustn't expect to come back from America and find you waiting for him?’

  ‘I told him,’ said Leila. ‘And he understood.’ She paused as her mother pursed her lips in disapproval, then rubbed at her headscarf.

  ‘He understood,’ she said, mimicking her daughter's voice. ‘I take it you're happy with that?’ Leila dropped her eyes and shook her head.

  ‘I see, so you're not happy with that?’ Leila waited as long as she dared, then looked up. ‘I still like Arthur but two years is a long time and Michael . . .’