The Final Passage

by Caryl Phillips

  Her mother cut her short, her voice sharp. ‘I suppose to you two years must seem like a long time, but you can take it from me that two years is no time at all. No time.’

  Leila cleared her throat and tried to sound positive. ‘It wouldn't matter if it were ten years,’ she said. She spoke too abruptly. The rest of her words dried up. It was her mother who spoke first, and this time she did so quietly. ‘It probably wouldn't, would it? Two years, ten years, ten minutes, you done make up your choice and I suppose you just going to have to live with it.’

  Leila looked away but her mother continued, ‘You better get to your bed now.’

  Leila stood, leaned forward and kissed her mother lightly on the cheek, but her mother's skin felt unresponsive and cold with disappointment.

  Earlier that evening Leila had kissed Arthur softly on the cheek and he too had felt cold, but it was more the sea breeze than a decline in mood that had cooled his skin. However, the staleness of his response still ached on her lips. They walked on and together they watched the sea throw out her weary branches, stutter and recede to momentary stillness. Above them they saw the brown and green palms become warm silhouettes. Then they sat, Arthur's arm draped casually like an old and trusted shawl around Leila's shoulders. With his loose hand Arthur lightly twisted her hair and she smiled. The sand beneath them still held the warmth of the day's heat, and a few yards to their left a deserted towel sulked on the darker sand, the sea lapping up against its feathered edges.

  Arthur was a thin boy whose curly hair was clinically greased down, though the odd unruly curl spiralled away from the rest. His eyes were dark, his face narrow, and on his upper lip he had the shadowed outline of a thin moustache. His black-rimmed spectacles hung playfully on the end of his nose, so much so that he always appeared as if he was speaking from behind them, trying to cultivate an air of seniority. He gazed into the distance and forced a note of wonder into his voice.

  ‘By this time tomorrow I'll be on my way to America.’ He spoke carefully, as if awaiting a cue. ‘Tomorrow,’ he said. ‘Tomorrow.’

  Leila looked at him, but he continued to gaze studiously. Then, without announcement, he laughed, casually trying to change the tone of the conversation.

  ‘Land of milk and honey! Land of plenty!’ He turned to her. ‘You know they can only say that if there's somewhere like us, you know, somewhere like here.’

  He stopped playing with her hair and pointed his finger in the direction of the sand. Leila concentrated on concentrating on him.

  ‘What I mean is, that for there to be a land of plenty there has to be a land of nothing, right?’

  ‘Right,’ said Leila, her eyes wide, her head nodding in agreement.

  ‘Well, here it is. We living on it, or at least you still doing so, but all that can change, you know, but it's too dangerous to talk about it, especially not to them, my parents, your mother too. It's about us, our generation. There'll come a day when we can have the jobs in the town, when we can be making decisions, when we can run the country, our way! You, the brightest girl in the High School, you shouldn't be doing a clerical job, you should be studying, you should be coming to America too. You must be more forceful and make them realize how determined you are.’ Leila nodded. ‘I remember the time when you first tell me how you felt about this place but I bet you never tell anyone else?’ Leila shook her head. ‘You see what I mean? It's up to us, it must change. You must be true to your feelings about your country, no matter how critical they be.’

  Arthur pushed his spectacles to a safer point further up his nose and he looked out to sea. Then he sprang to life again, the moonlight trapping the odd bits of dust in his hair.

  ‘And you must understand how important it is that we get married.’ Again Leila nodded. ‘I mean, do you know the kind of future the two of us going to have when I get back from America? You know sometimes the prospects just frighten me. It's only two years, two years and I'll be qualified, and you'll have saved up some money, and after we marry we can have a baby, it's incredible. It's so straightforward, the future of these islands, this island, is in our hands, right here, now!’

  Arthur stood up.

  ‘There's a future here’ he said, beginning the short walk down to the edge of the sea. ‘A real future’.

  Leila watched his every step as the darkness poured on to his body, reducing him to shadow and outline. She wanted him to leave in peace for she knew she would never wait for him, never think of him again after he had left in the morning, for simple dreams cluttered his mind. It was why he had achieved so much so soon and why she knew that ultimately he would achieve so little.

  Leila noticed that Arthur's letter was now on the floor. They always looked the same in their long brown envelopes, his neat handwriting adorning the front, the carefully positioned stamp, always one stamp, in the top right-hand corner. What his letters lacked in variety they made up for in inaccuracy. ‘Miss Leila Franks’ always ‘Miss Leila Franks’.

  Millie came in and sat on the edge of the bed. She handed Leila a glass of water. Leila finished the water and Millie took the glass away into the front room. Leila wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and looked over the side of the bed to where the letter lay. His two years were almost up and he would soon be back. Two months, three months at the most.

  ‘Come, get up,’ said Millie, shouting through from the front room. ‘No point in just lying in bed all day, for you never stop thinking of your mother that way. Why you don't do something? The house needs painting, you know that?’

  Millie made Leila something to eat, then she and Leila sat on the doorstep. Millie held Shere carefully in her arms, a white cotton handkerchief protecting the child's head from the sun; Leila ate a large mango, the juice dribbling out and down the length of her arm. Leila was awake now and she tried not to think of Arthur's return: she had already thrown away his unread letter. Across the road and up towards the top end of the village, she saw two boys trying to kindle a reluctant afternoon fire in a square of charred bricks. Elsewhere she could see that others had been more successful as smoke rifled upwards from the many well-broomed backyards.

  At this end of the village some boys were stoning the guava trees for fruit. A stone flew astray and nearly struck a small girl who stood barefoot at the stand-pipe filling her chipped enamel pail. She bent quickly and threw back a smooth pebble which dashed one of the boys on the shoulder. Then she turned and ran, water splashing up in all directions. The boys gave chase. The people of St Patrick's ignored the pandemonium. They had slopped out their hogs, spread the corn for their fowl and now they sat and watched their goats cutting the thin grass which sprouted idly along the verges and out from between the large stones in the many crumbling walls.

  Leila heard the low buzzing of the bike. It became a roar, then a whine as Michael squeezed life into the brakes. Millie lifted her head from her daughter and squinted at him. Then she stood angrily and stared. She turned to go into the house but paused, waiting to see if Leila was going to follow. Clearly she was not. Millie stepped inside, closed the door and left Leila alone with her husband.

  Michael kicked playfully at the dust.

  ‘I come to see my child and to take him out for a ride in the fresh air if it's alright with you?’

  Leila looked up at him. The same stocky build, the same neatness, the same smile; it was as if he had never been away.

  Inside Millie stood, discarded. She listened hard, but there was a long silence in which neither Michael nor Leila spoke. Millie pulled Shere close and looked down at the sleeping Calvin, his mouth wet and dribbling, as if he was secretly eating something. His afternoon's rest was about to come to an end.

  Leila lifted an arm to block out the sun so she could see Michael better.

  ‘He don't going come to no harm,’ said Michael. ‘I just take him for a quick ride and come back so you don't have to worry.’ He paused. ‘It's my child too.’

  ‘He'll soon be hungry,’ said Leila.
/>   ‘I soon come back with him. It's just a quick trip.’

  Leila moved out of the sun and into the house. Millie was waiting, her feet stubbornly planted and splayed, Shere now thrown casually over her shoulder.

  ‘Leila, you going let him have the child?’

  Leila said nothing as she bent down and picked up Calvin.

  ‘Leila, it's nearly six weeks since the child born. He can't just come and take it like that. He don't have no right to do so.’

  Leila carried Calvin outside, wanting to get it over with as quickly as possible.

  Michael wiped his damp hands on the back of his trousers and stretched out both his arms to receive his son. He held Calvin awkwardly.

  ‘Please be careful with him,’ whispered Leila.

  Michael walked across the-street to where the bike stood. He reached down and picked up a blue cotton jacket from off the seat. Then he laid Calvin on the seat and placed one hand on him to keep him balanced. He wriggled into the jacket, fastened the zip up a couple of inches, then slipped Calvin into the pouch he had just created. He zipped up the jacket halfway, and still supporting Calvin with one hand, he flipped his leg over the bike. Leila stood framed in the doorway. Behind her Millie touched her arm. They both turned and went inside.

  When it had become clear that Michael had left her to live by Beverley, Leila had felt both relief and anguish. But in a place as small as St Patrick's it was her pride that had been hurt the most. However, those in the village looked upon her with sympathy and made it clear they knew she was in no way to blame for what had happened. If she ever wanted for anything she only had to ask.

  But she had Millie, and with her help Leila had been slowly trying to regain some confidence. Then Calvin had been born and she felt he would need a father in a way in which she had not needed one, for he was a boy. She felt there would come a time, perhaps sooner than she dared think, when he would ask questions she could never answer, and seek company she might never be a part of. Leila knew, with Calvin's birth, that at some point Michael would probably reappear, and today it had happened.

  He had a hold over her, and short of abandoning her son, Leila could see no way of correcting her mistake. Perhaps, as Millie had once said, she was a coward? Perhaps she had not made a mistake and things would sort themselves out? Perhaps, thought Leila, the same things had happened to her mother? As she began to cry, Millie hugged her. Then Leila's best friend wiped away a tear of her own.

  Michael rode quickly but carefully to the far end of Sandy Bay. He kept one hand underneath Calvin and one hand remained on the handlebars. For the first mile or so Calvin cried, but as soon as he got used to the noise and the dust he was quiet, as if preparing himself for the next disruption. When they finally pulled up outside Beverley's house Michael dismounted and fished his son out from the warmth and security of his jacket. He took him sack-like in his arms and together they went inside.

  No matter how bright it was outside, Beverley's house always looked dark. This made the furniture, which was uniformly wooden and chipped, look increasingly drab, especially as there was so little of it. Sometimes the room looked more like a discarded warehouse than a place for living in. As he came through the door the curtain at the far end of the room rippled gently. Behind it Michael could see that the bed was still unmade despite the fact that the afternoon was now full.

  Beverley, her straightened hair newly starched and stiff, sat at the crooked table encouraging Ivor to eat some diced fruit from off a small metal spoon. He ate slowly, his jaws moving rhythmically, and as he finished yet another laboured mouthful his mother turned around, her eyes tired and veined with blood. She saw the child. She turned back around and continued to feed Ivor. His fat mouth was dirty where his tongue had fought the spoon and spilled the fruit out on to his lips. It had slithered down his face to his chin where it lay plastered like a rich lumpy beard. Beverley licked the palm of her hand and shaved it clean. Her chest was numb with tension. As she scraped the spoon along the plate and pushed another hillock of food into her son's mouth she spoke, as if speaking to herself. ‘Who tell you you can bring another child in here?’

  Michael did not answer. Again she turned and looked at him as he stood in the doorway and played with Calvin's bare feet, the child's toes wriggling like small fish out of water. Beverley's breasts were too large for her body and any sudden movement created more movement. She saw little point in harnessing them in a brassière, and on days as hot as this one she simply opened her blouse and exposed her deep cleavage. She remained still, her freckled face tightening as her anger increased. Michael laughed quietly. ‘I just wanted you to see my son.’

  Having finished feeding Ivor, she stood and walked unhurriedly across to Michael, her every step measured, polite. She slapped him hard across the face, knocking him slightly off balance, then she spoke softly from between her teeth. ‘Take the child out of my house.’

  Outside a cockerel ran loose, the sun having stung its mind, and the untethered children laughed and fled. Ivor began to cry, but Beverley kept her eyes fixed firmly on Michael and the child. As Michael turned and left the house, his head still ringing, a scurrying, heat-blackened boy tripped headlong and fell at his feet. He looked up, his huge white eyes quickly filling with water, but Michael pushed past and left him basking in the dirt. The boy's knee was cut and bleeding and he began to cry. Beverley filled up a bowl with cold water so she could bathe the child's knee. Michael started up his bike. Again the crazed cockerel ran wild, but this time the bloodied boy did not flee. He pulled himself to his feet, then buried his wet face in his thin forearm and tried to keep the flying dust from Michael's bike out of his eyes.

  Millie and Leila were once again sitting on the doorstep. They both tried hard to look unconcerned as he got off the bike. He took Calvin from his jacket and Leila rescued her child. Millie stared hard at Michael who avoided her eyes. Neither of them said anything to him so he left, his gait for once clumsy and uncomfortable. As soon as the sound of the bike had drained away Leila began to examine Calvin as if convinced that she had been given the wrong child. Millie looked across at her. Leila stood up and carried Calvin inside, her cheeks hot with shame.

  When Michael got back to Beverley's house the door was, for the first time ever, locked. He knocked repeatedly, but short of breaking it down there was no way in. For a moment he thought, then he climbed on his bike and sped down the road towards Baytown where Beverley spent most afternoons selling fruit, or else sitting by the side of the road sewing some garment. But when Michael saw her she was walking. He roared past, braked to a halt, then slowly turned his bike around. Beverley walked towards him, stopped and sat calmly on the grass verge. She draped her tired son across her knees so he hung like a sagging washing line. Michael dismounted and stood before her. She refused to look up at him. Above them neither cloud nor bird stirred.

  ‘You lock the door,’ he said.

  Ivor looked up at his father, but his mother said nothing.

  ‘I said, you lock the door and I want to know why it is you done so.’

  Beverley would not look up at him. Then, as if from nowhere, a car skidded furiously around the corner and into sight. It sounded its horn as it passed by, riding the heat waves away into the country. Michael followed the car until it passed out of sight, but Beverley refused to look. Michael took an exasperated step backwards as if ready to leave. Then he paused and spat at her, but the spittle got caught at the corners of his mouth and just dribbled down on to his shirt. Beverley still refused to look up at him. Michael ran his shirt sleeve across his lips, then turned and walked back to his bike. He leaped on to it and rode away from her and the boy for good.

  The wind whipped into his face and his ears were blocked up with the noise of the bike. As Michael leaned first into, then out of the noose-like twists and turns in the road, he saw life flickering by like a speed-crazed movie. The braver children waved while the normal ones stood open-mouthed and watched. Ivor would be normal, l
ike her. He even looked like her. Sometimes he could not believe that such a blank child could have anything to do with him, its eyes dull, its movements already full of well-rehearsed sloth. He roared on, then in his anger he wrestled the bike to the side of the road and walked down the hill towards the sea. He stood and looked, as he had stood and looked many times before, and he tried to get Beverley out of his spinning mind, but he kept remembering.

  Beverley had sat in the doorway, her recently pregnant bulk preventing the sun from streaming in. He had sat at the table eating alone, as usual. Having finished his food he dismissed the fork with a rude clatter and stared at the woman's rounded back. Two days earlier he had seen the fat envelope by the bed, half-hidden under a glass jar clouded with cotton wool. He had picked it up, looked at it and seen that its postmark was from America, its contents American dollar bills. Clearly her husband had written to her, but Beverley had not mentioned it.

  As the afternoon slowed in deference to the day's heat, he had watched a thin line of dampness appear on the back of her loose blouse, closely following the slight curvature of her spine. Then, against his will, she slept. On awakening she immediately looked to see if Michael was still there. He seemed to her as though he was sleeping, but he must have felt her stare, for he glanced up and their tired eyes met.

  I have something in the yard for you,’ said Beverley, her speech slow and slightly slurred. I meant to give it to you earlier.’ Sure that he would follow, but in his own time, she stood and began to make her way around the side of the house.

  The bike was secondhand, but it looked like the sort of bike Michael had always wanted. He stared at Beverley, then at the bike, then back again at Beverley who was standing in the yard letting the flies walk about on her face, letting them lick her full lips and bathe in the corners of her eyes. She stood in a heat-induced misery, a tragically becalmed figure, offering Michael her gift of a motorbike like a naked mother offers her worn-out body to a drunken overseer. He had wanted to say something, but every time he looked from her to the bike, and back again to her, he became increasingly angry, for in her eyes, in every line of her face he could see the full confession of her servility. He had finally looked away, wanting to see neither woman nor bike. In the corner of the yard, and leaning up against a rusty butter tin, stood a blunt stave. He needed only to take the one step, bend forward slightly, and it was his; but the newborn child cried out from inside the house and Beverley flinched. She searched Michael's rigid face. Then a thought as quiet as a cloud crashed in her mind. She followed his eyes to the stave and realized he might beat her. Their child cried on. She tried to sneak away from Michael, but it was stupid, for she knew that he was aware of what she was doing. So she turned and walked back around the front of the house and slammed the door behind her. Then she pushed up a chair to the door and went to see the child.