The Final Passage

by Caryl Phillips

  It took nearly a week before he dared to kiss her again, and when he did he tried to make it last longer, like it was a better brand of chewing gum. Leila wanted to giggle as he took her arm. He told her that he thought he loved her; they needed each other, and the island needed them. All Leila could remember was thinking to herself how she had been cheated out of a moment she had read about, a moment which had never been expressed as ‘I think I love you’ and had never involved anybody else, let alone an island. A week later Arthur tried to touch a breast. As his fingers brushed lightly against her blouse, so lightly that if she objected he could argue it was an accident, Leila threw out her chest, hoping he might take one and give it a small squeeze, or caress it, or do something with it. But he just let his hand touch and pull away, as though he had discovered an as yet uncharted region which would best remain unexplored.

  And that was when Leila began to first despise her body, to stand naked in her room as she got dressed in the morning, and as she undressed at night. She would squeeze her own breasts and pretend the hands on the end of her arms were, for five minutes, not her own, the tongue that flicked lazily around her mouth, not her own, the foot that rubbed deliciously up and down the inside of her bare calf, not her own. She grew to hate her body for this assault on itself, feeling that she ought to say something about it to her mother.

  Then, when Michael began to stare at her in the street, and the old man who reminded her of Earl gradually began to appear less and less, she stopped touching herself for again she could hope. But Michael took many months before he dared go further than the damp kissing and the touching through clothes after he had taken her back to St Patrick's at night. But when it did happen it was sudden and unexpected, for he appeared as though from nowhere, and demanded that she come with him to Black Rocks on the new bike.

  When he woke up Leila reached over to kiss him. He rolled her over on to her back and eased his weight on top of her. She had gasped with pain. His body was heavy and still leaden with sleep. She could feel him rubbing himself against her, his trousers bulging with something that felt to her like a live tree stump. But she did not touch it, or want to touch it, for it felt large and unpredictable. As Michael coaxed her pants down to her ankles, and as she heard him unbuttoning his trousers, Leila closed her eyes tight and prayed it would be like in the books. If it was she would be able to face her mother with a knowledge that she had gleaned before. Her familiarity would withstand any line of questioning and offset any future staring from old men.

  But now Michael no longer bothered to force himself upon her. It was as if she were a tunnel he was tired of passing through. Leila's fears as to why this might be had recently been proved true.

  Somehow she had always expected to smell a cheap scent, or find a letter, or notice a smear of lipstick on Michael's face, but it was a hair that she had found, a light hair curled delicately, a nest almost in itself, on the shoulder of his jacket. She must have rested her head next to his, cheek to cheek, and maybe they danced. Maybe it had been cold and he had given her the jacket to wear and keep herself warm as he walked her home one night, but Leila did not know. All she knew was the woman, or one of the women, was blonde, or had made herself blonde with hair dye.

  Although she had her ideas of what the woman probably looked like, although she wanted to meet her (though what she would say she had no idea), it was not this blonde woman who had occupied her thoughts as she carefully lifted the hair. It was Mary, nearly fifty, her hair greying in streaks rather than flecks, her bare legs nearly always sticking out from beneath an old skirt. She wondered, albeit for a second, if Mary thought the same things about Michael that the blonde woman did. What would happen if Mary were twenty years younger, or Michael twenty years older? Would Mary take the jacket and slip it around her shoulders as she walked along the Embankment by the Thames? Leila was, without even realizing it, making an enemy in her mind of the only real friend she had in England.

  And then she thought of Val who was suddenly both more and less of a threat, her age and assumed inexperience signalling innocence, her maturity to come, danger.

  As far as Leila could remember Mary had never said anything to her about any men, white or coloured, other than Michael and Harry. It was as though she was not interested in them, having long since outgrown seeing them as either something to be attracted to or repulsed from. Leila had always found this a relief, especially as she had been led to believe that all white women in England loved coloured men. Millie had once said to her, ‘It was like playing with tiger instead of dog but I bet you a few of them going get bitten.’

  Leila had laughed then, but, as the ambulance came and her first and last day at work on the buses ended, she found precious little to laugh about. When the ambulance arrived at Florence Road Leila felt no better.

  Mary rushed out to meet her, but Leila looked blankly at her. She walked into the house and sat down. Mary held her hand. Leila trembled and her mind drifted, cloud-like. Mary left her in the front room and went to put the kettle on. As they waited for the water to boil Leila bit her lower lip and tried not to look up. She felt pathetic.

  The next day Leila sat on the settee jn her dressing gown and drank a cup of coffee with Miss Gordon, the social worker whom the doctor had sent to visit her. Miss Gordon looked to Leila to be in her mid-forties. She dressed from shoulder to calf in wool and tweed. On top she gathered her hair into an unhealthily tidy bun, and she hid most of her freckled face behind a pair of black horn-rimmed spectacles. As she waited for Leila to answer her questions she kept crossing and uncrossing her legs. She sighed, then once again her sharp Scottish accent droned forth and Leila felt as though she was listening to a musical instrument being played out of tune.

  ‘So, Mrs Preston, everything with yourself and Calvin is alright today, then? I mean, there's nothing I could get done for you in the way of a bit of shopping, is there?’

  Leila shook her head as if keen to give up talking for good. Miss Gordon tried again.

  ‘Have you seen your husband lately, Mrs Preston?’ Her client was not responding, so Miss Gordon tried to make it easier. ‘Has he been around to give you any money lately? Yesterday, for instance?’ Leila smiled. ‘Has he got a job, Mrs Preston?’ Miss Gordon scraped stocking against stocking.

  ‘Has he been around here to give you money for Calvin and yourself, and for the extra food that you'll be having to eat if you're to look after the child in your tummy?’ Leila put down her coffee cup. Miss Gordon sighed.

  ‘You haven't told him, have you?’

  Leila looked down at the floor like a schoolgirl being chastised for turning up at games without her gym kit.

  ‘I haven't seen him.’

  ‘At all?’ asked Miss Gordon, feeling that at last she was making some progress. Leila felt this too, so she shut up. Miss Gordon changed the subject.

  ‘Would you like to come for a walk with me to put some flowers on your mother's grave?’

  Leila looked up at her as if Miss Gordon had just asked her the time, then she began to laugh and Miss Gordon knew that she ought to leave now. She stood up and began to fasten her coat.

  ‘Well, thank you for the coffee, dear, and I'll be seeing you again on Monday. If Mr Preston does call around, could you tell him that I'd like to have him ring me? You have the number, but if he isn't able to take it for any reason, then could you please try and keep him here until I arrive? I'll leave my card on the side just in case.’

  Miss Gordon took out a slim volume of cards from her purse and placed one by the telephone. Then she adjusted her collar and turned to the resting Calvin.

  ‘Now you be a good boy for your mummy, Calvin, and don't you be waking up in the middle of the night and disturbing her.’ Miss Gordon looked at Leila. ‘I'll be off now.’

  Leila glanced away and said nothing. She listened for the door closing. Then she heard Miss Gordon's shoes click against the sidewalk as she passed by the window.

  The thought of being p
regnant again filled Leila with something, though it was neither fear nor happiness. Resignation was the word she had come most often to use, for any question of disposing of the child was, of course, out of the question. Back home Leila had heard of women who did such things, and of women who did it to them, but these people were few and far between, not a regular part of the day-to-day circular life of the island. Her resignation caused her to think about Calvin and her long pregnancy with him, nine months which seemed to her about equal in length to the rest of her life put together, for her mind had been occupied not only with the child her body held, but also with the child of another woman.

  Beverley's child was a boy; nobody had actually told her this, but Leila knew, and she constantly wondered how it was he had been conceived. She was sure that Michael must have come to Beverley late at night, not because he was being secretive, simply because this would have been more romantic, and perhaps they had even talked first. Then Beverley, wearing only a light dress, would have come over and sat in his lap and he would have twisted around the ends of her spiky hair with his fingers until they curled and sprang of their own accord. Maybe this annoyed her a little, but she said nothing. Then, without turning down the gas lamp or blowing out the candles (Leila had never been in Beverley's house), they would have eased across the room and into the bedroom, leaving the door open so they could still see each other. They would have stripped off their clothes and lain together just touching, as if giving each other small electric shocks. This was how Leila imagined Beverley's child to have been conceived; but the most disturbing thing was she still managed to think of herself, at some time distant and unknown, with a man (she no longer entertained the possibility that it might be Michael), going through the same ritual. But she could not for the life of her imagine either when, or where, or how.

  Beverley must have looked at her child, Leila thought, and felt happy to see Michael's features in him rather than try desperately to pretend that they were not there. She must have looked into his eyes and seen his father's eyes rather than search for her own reflection; and when Beverley held her child she probably held him with her fingertips so that he was ready to be shared when the time came. Then, as her body shrivelled back to its former size, Beverley must have smiled, Leila thought, she must have smiled and shared a laugh with nature, knowing that her body would soon be full again.

  And now, in England, Leila climbed from her bed each morning and looked down at her body, which seemed to her like a dull balloon someone was slowly blowing life into. It would, over the months, expand and take its shape, and though she might feel as if she were going to burst, she knew nature would relieve the pressure at just the right moment. She knew also that Michael would not be with her when this happened, but she could not be sure of who exactly it would be. Perhaps Mary, perhaps Millie again, perhaps nobody. The one thing about which Leila could, among all of this, be sure was that her pregnancy was real. She felt the pain, and the aches, and the slowness, and she knew there was little for her to do but accept it: and this she knew she would do for, like the rest of her life, much of it revolved around this resignation and this waiting.

  It was early afternoon now, and Miss Gordon was forgotten. Leila panicked, suddenly afraid the woman might have taken Calvin. He was asleep by her side. Not only was he her son, he was also her best friend, and soon they would be three. Leila left him and went up to the bathroom. She bent over the sink and ran out some cold water into her cupped hands and splashed it on to her face. Then she took up her seat on the toilet bowl and again she tried to think of a time when she could imagine herself being happy in England with two children, and no father, and little money. Again she tried to imagine what it would be like if Michael put his hand on her shoulder, and said, ‘Sorry,’ and explained to her why he behaved as he did. Again she tried to imagine how she could live back home without her mother, but eventually she would always try and remind herself that she had retired from such sport, that an empty mind was the safest mind, continued speculation futile. She closed her eyes.

  Perhaps, thought Leila, she just wanted to walk across Michael's body like an English county she had never explored. Leila tried hard to picture what she looked like, sure in her mind that she would resemble the women at the bus stops, swathed in winter coats which hid bodies so shapeless it looked to her as though they concealed sacks of potatoes. And she was sure she would be like the other English women she had seen who always seemed to comb their hair when coloured men were around, or smile their crooked smiles, their lips like dried wood, as if they were trying to attract something. Leila did not understand these women, except as a threat to her, but what it was they were threatening she was not sure, for she had only one man, and she had barely held on to him even back home where the likelihood of a white woman taking her husband was remote and beyond consideration. But when she thought like this Leila knew she was lying to herself, for the thing that stopped her looking in the mirror on a morning was what was being threatened by these potato women. That was herself, and what she was. If it had been simply a question of Michael, then these women would have left her mind less troubled.

  Leila had noticed that a white person's face holds thin and visibly broken red veins, split and tired, scratched all over it like a map with only the smallest rivers marked upon it; it sports cracked thin lips drained of blood, and from the legs sprout small feet, even if the toes are big. In England Leila had suddenly found herself, her light skin starved of the sun, growing paler by the day. But she was more coloured than she had ever been before, and not shame exactly, but feelings of inadequacy prevented her from looking back into the mirror. These feelings were not entirely new for she had occasionally hidden behind a tree and watched the white women on the beaches toasting their skins in the sun, coating their bodies in the sweet-smelling oil and waiting until the sun made them coloured like her. But it was not until she reached her teens that she began to come to terms with the illogical desire behind their behaviour (but this was not until she had actually tried the lying down in the sun with the oil for herself). It was funny, though, but she could never remember any of the white men being brown. They tried, but at the end of the day their stubbornly white bodies peeled themselves clear of the beach, moist sand clinging to the backs of their legs and arms, their faces still drooping with flabby white skin. Like albino walruses they would follow their wives back to their hotel, burdened down with towels and unread books. Leila had looked upon these white people as if they were an endangered species. She spied on them, but here in England she saw them all the time, yet she still did not understand them any better than she did when she was a young girl. She did not understand them any better than she did her husband.

  Once, when Leila had wandered off after school on her own, she had spoken to an old white lady down by the quayside. She had noticed her glasses for they were round and made of wire, and to Leila they looked like gold so she came closer. The lady was dressed in a thick blue skirt with a blouse to match. On top of her head she wore an elaborate and gaudily decorated hat. At first she did not see the small girl who was edging her way around her, but when she did she smiled and held out her empty hand as if offering the child a sweet. Leila scurried forward but tried not to look cheated when she saw there was nothing in the lady's hand.

  ‘What's your name?’

  Leila scratched a hard line in the dust with the outside of her sandal.

  ‘Sally? Is that your name? Or Gertrude?’

  Leila began to giggle and she let her head fall to one side so she could look up at the lady better.

  ‘Don't be scared of me? Are you scared of me?’

  ‘No,’ said Leila, her high voice sharp and confident.

  ‘Good, you're a good little girl, aren't you?’

  Leila laughed, her eyes all the time fixed upon the lady. ‘Are you a witch?’ she asked in that trilling accusative voice that only a child has the ability to muster. ‘Are you a witch?’

  This time she shout
ed but the lady tried hard not to panic, her smile long since firmly sewn to her lips. Leila laughed again and skipped away to find the school bus, knowing she would not tell any of her friends of her adventure. It would remain a secret.

  That night her mother woke suddenly and heard Leila screaming. She dashed quickly from her room to Leila's bedside. She cradled her only daughter in her arms, rocking her back and forth, whispering for her to calm down. But when Leila finally settled again, and her mother asked her what was the matter, Leila said nothing. She would not tell in case she was smacked for behaving badly, and the conversation they should have had then was, like so many others, postponed until it was now too late.

  *

  Leila got up, made Calvin his breakfast, waited for the postman to bring nothing, thought of Michael, read a page or two of a book, walked in the cold to her mother's grave, came back, made Calvin something else to eat, then sat in the gloom waiting for it to get dark before going to bed. This was her life. Occasionally Miss Gordon would call but often she would pretend not to be in. When Miss Gordon did catch her in, the conversation was always the same predictable game of ‘Have you seen your husband, Mrs Preston?’,‘Is Calvin alright, Mrs Preston?’,‘You're only twenty, Mrs Preston’,‘Do you have any money, Mrs Preston?’,‘You know I do so adore coloured babies, Mrs Preston’. Leila would look at her, knowing that soon Miss Gordon might be wearing a uniform and waiting for trains to arrive at Victoria Station, that is, if coloured people were still coming to this country. She would feel as though she had something to offer. Perhaps she did, thought Leila, but not to her.