The Sea Grape Tree

by Gillian Royes

  “It’s fabulous, totally not you!”

  Penny was right, of course, because standing out had never been on Sarah’s radar. Ironically, it had been the very desire to melt into the background that had driven her to the opposite of her intention. She’d been sure—having experienced the vibrancy of Notting Hill Carnival more than once—that if anything would stand out in Jamaica, it would be her pallid and very temperate appearance. And the last thing she wanted was to look like a pale tourist, a target for beggars and con artists.

  To blend into a tropical country, she’d decided, she’d need to be a bit more colorful than usual, and she’d start with her hair. A likable sales assistant had talked her out of Topaz Glow and into Poinciana Passion, a more fashionable color, the girl had assured her, and, conjuring up images of exotic flowers, Sarah had taken the plunge.

  The instant she’d looked in the mirror after emerging from the shower, Sarah’s heart had sunk. Her first thought was that it looked like a fire had broken out on top of a five-feet-ten-inch pole. Her entire face looked different in contrast to the blindingly red hair. The pale skin had become paler, the lean face leaner, and the cheekbones more prominent and dramatic. Her long neck, which her mother had compared to that of a swan (and she to an ostrich), looked longer than ever. She’d stand out like a bloody sore thumb, she’d thought glumly. The hair would be the first thing everyone would notice, because Jamaicans didn’t have red hair—at least none that she’d ever seen. She would be the only person on the island with Poinciana hair.

  Retrieved from the dustbin, the dye box condemned her to a flaming future. Do not apply fresh color before four to six weeks, the instructions had read.

  Bad enough that she was going to live with total strangers in Largo, but now she’d be living with a face and hair that looked disturbingly unfamiliar for at least another month, maybe longer. The whole experience was beginning to feel bizarre, but it was too late to turn back. The agreement had been made and the ticket had been bought.

  Swallowing hard, Sarah returned to the last of her packing, adding several large sheets of paper in a plastic bag, which she fitted into the lid of the suitcase. On top of the clothes she added two pads, one for sketching and one for watercolor painting. (Jamaica, she’d known instinctively, would call for the hues and subtlety of water rather than acrylics.) A separate bag she started packing with her paints and new paintbrushes.

  “Aren’t you taking a swimming costume?” It was Penny, leaning on the door frame, her very existence filling the small room.

  Sarah tucked a lock behind her ear. “I don’t actually have one, come to think of it. The sun and my skin—”

  “Nonsense, I’ll lend you mine.”

  “I probably won’t wear it,” Sarah muttered, following Penny to her room. “I’m not a great swimmer, didn’t even get my twenty-five-meter badge. I’ll just sit in the shade.”

  “You can’t sit around in the shade the whole time you’re in Jamaica, you know. You’ll miss the point of going.” After digging in the bottom drawer of her dresser, Penny handed her a bathing suit. “Here, it’ll match your eyes.”

  “Not much to it, is there?” Sarah said, holding aloft what looked like three strings of vivid green, imagining her ample breasts spilling out of the top.

  “What do you expect? I bought it in the South of France last year to fit in.”

  It was a flippant remark, because Penny knew she always fit in and wouldn’t need a dye job to do it. Everyone wanted to be around her, attracted to the pleasurable ease with which she moved through life. Sarah had come to the conclusion that marketing people were successful because they had personalities like Penny’s that others wanted to buy.

  “I’ll put the kettle on,” Penny said, sashaying down the corridor. “When you’re finished, come for a cup of Rosie Lea.” Their name for tea, courtesy of Gladys, their sometime cleaning lady.

  The kitchen was the brightest place in the Camden flat, its mustard-yellow walls and potted plants making it a cozy gathering spot for whoever was around. It felt best to Sarah, though, when the two of them were alone together, sipping Earl Grey or cocoa, tattling about the latest man, always Penny’s, or the royals. That was the time when Sarah laughed the most, when the messy bathroom didn’t matter.

  When she’d moved in, the artist had hoped that some of her flatmate’s joie de vivre would rub off on her, but it hadn’t and she’d reconciled herself to being who she was—reserved, unwitty, a bit of a bore. And she’d become comfortable with that and allowed her art to speak for her.

  Departing her tiny flat in Maidstone and moving to London two years before had been a new phase of life for Sarah, who’d spent all of her thirty-two years in quiet Kent, south of London. At first she’d had minor panic attacks thinking about her survival (Suppose Penny gets married and sells the flat? Suppose nobody buys my paintings?), which had soon lessened. Thus far Penny had not found the right man to marry and didn’t even seem inclined, and a few of Sarah’s paintings had actually been sold by Eccentricity Gallery, enough, along with waitressing, to pay her rent.

  The fame and fortune that Penny had said awaited her had not appeared, but it was enough to be in London. There were galleries and museums to browse, hundreds of parks and public spaces to sketch in, endless churches to photograph, and people to watch. When she sat on the Tube, she’d count the number of races on the bench facing hers, examine the national costumes, eavesdrop on the languages. Her favorite coffee shop (with coffees from thirty-six nations) became her window on the behaviors of lovers and parents and students. It was an ever-changing scene, this city. She was at the center of things in London, she’d told her mother; one never knew what to expect.

  The move had been Penny’s idea. “You can’t stay here the rest of your life,” she’d said, licking lager from her top lip. It was early afternoon, and Maidstone’s oldest and largest pub was already occupied by the regulars.

  “There’s nothing wrong with it,” Sarah had replied, still in awe at Penny’s news that she’d bought her own flat. “I’m perfectly happy—”

  “But you haven’t gone out with anyone since John moved out, what, two, three years ago? I mean, really, Sarah.”

  “He wanted children, Penny, for God’s sake, and you know where I stand on that. We’re still good friends. I wish him the best, honestly, but it was a relief when he left.” Sarah took a sip of her beer. “I’m not in the mood to go out with anyone, to tell the truth. They talk about their jobs and their sports, and I start yawning. I must have dried up or something, it’s just not happening.”

  “They’re probably dull men, that’s all.” Penny played with one dangling earring. “Maybe your friends can introduce you. How many friends do you have here, anyway?”

  “I don’t really need friends. I just joined the—”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. Everyone needs friends. It’s not good to keep things bottled up inside, and you know you tend to do that.”

  “Leave me alone, Pen, I’m fine. All I need is my painting and a bit of cash, and I have that all here. Maidstone suits me.”

  “Nothing happens here,” her friend said, lowering her voice and looking around. “I mean, this place hasn’t changed in thirty-five years. It still smells the same!” Sarah couldn’t help but laugh, remembering them peering into the pub as children, sniffing the stale beer.

  “Look at you,” Penny said and clucked her tongue. “You’re a fantastic artist, and what do you do? You only paint in your free time! I would die for your talent, I’m telling you. But you’re like a hollow person here, killing time in Maidstone, marching towards death.” Her friend’s eyes had widened at the thought of a life unlived.

  “I’m not—”

  “You won all the art awards in Maidstone Grammar, again in MidKent College, and what are you doing with them? Nothing! You’ve got to move up to London. I mean, what’s holding you back, y
our mother? You said yourself you only see her once a month. You can do that from London, just hop on the train and come down. It costs a few quid, but you’ll be making more money up there, you know. Seriously, Sassy, you need to come up and get into the art scene on the King’s Road or something. They’ll love your stuff, wait and see. And you definitely cannot keep working in that awful restaurant.”

  The cubbyhole in the restaurant where she stuffed her coat and handbag came to Sarah’s mind. “It’s not too bad—”

  “With a maître d’ you call Percy Pervert?”

  “They’re a nice lot, really, and I get good tips. Besides, there’s a new gallery opening up and I have an appointment to meet with them. I’ve painted one or two new things. You never can tell, maybe they’ll appreciate something other than wildflowers.”

  Penny had clunked her glass down on the bar’s counter. “Listen, I have a friend who owns a small gallery in Ken­sington. It’s really posh, high ceilings and classy clientele, you know the type. Let’s show her your work, shall we? Come and visit me for a few days and bring those pieces you’ve painted.”

  In the end, it was Penny’s comment that she was a hollow person—the kind of statement soon forgotten by the speaker but embedded in the listener’s mind—that had pushed Sarah to change the trajectory of her life. Events had followed swiftly: a short visit to Kensington and a contract with Eccentricity, the upscale gallery owned by Naomi Whittingham; the sale of three of her pieces; then the invitation to move into Penny’s flat after her boyfriend had left in a rant (according to Penny), breaking the teapot he’d given her. She’d talked Sarah into moving in and buying a new teapot.

  “I’m going to miss you, you know,” Penny said over the rim of her cup. “Are you taking your mobile?”

  “They said it wouldn’t work there. I’ll email you, anyway. Roper said he was on the Internet, although I can’t imagine the Internet in the middle of the jungle, can you?”

  “It’s not the jungle, Sarah. You said yourself it was a fishing village in the northeastern corner of the island. I looked it up. Gorgeous scenery, the article said.” Penny snapped a biscotto in two. “It’s quite romantic, you know, running off to Jamaica with some man you’ve only met once.”

  “I’m not running off. Naomi said he has a perfectly nice girlfriend and I have nothing to worry about.”

  “Whatever it is, I think it’s a super idea. You’ve needed a great adventure for a long time, and it’s not like you’re going to disappear into the mountains or anything.”

  “Hard to disappear with this hair in Jamaica, I imagine,” Sarah said with a sigh.

  “What’s his name again—the man you’re staying with?”

  “Roper—that’s how he signs his paintings. Everybody calls him that. Naomi’s visited him and says his home is quite comfortable, maids and whatnot. She thought it was a good idea that I go. She said something about wanting to see me explore new vistas.” In fact, Naomi had been so enthusiastic about the trip to Jamaica that Sarah had known instantly that the gallery owner did indeed hate the new acrylic series she was planning.

  “Eggs in dirt!” Naomi had shrieked the month before when she heard the name of the series.

  The art diva’s reaction hadn’t lessened Sarah’s desire to create five paintings of five white eggs. The larger ends of the eggs were to be buried in dark brown earth, shiny lumps cradling the shells. Her goal was to paint the first one as soon as she got finished with her Mermaid in the Cathedral series, the last of the twelve disciple-mermaids near completion.

  Before Naomi’s outburst, Sarah had been mulling what the new eggs-in-dirt series should be called. It had to be a name signifying fertility and the unity of all life—the idea of baby chicks taking the place of grass. Both eggs and dirt would have to be safe and contained, of course. Otherwise the viewer would think about the crushing of eggs and the resulting slimy yolks. And like all her other paintings, each piece would be small, exactly four inches by four inches.

  Sarah painted nothing but miniature canvases. They had become part of her personal style and no one had questioned her choice in the last eight years, not since her father had died.

  “Why not try it even once?” he’d suggested while he was driving her to her job one day. “Try sketching, just take a big sheet of paper and let things flow, as they say nowadays.”

  The very thought of a large piece of paper always resulted in a knot in Sarah’s stomach, the way it had when she was forced to do it in art school, and she’d ignored her father’s advice. The unfettering of self that came with painting large, the unveiling to others, left her far too vulnerable. Her paintings remained small, the ornate frames more than double the size.

  The subject of an eggs-in-dirt series hadn’t been raised with her mother, who’d never been particularly interested in her work.

  “Hello, my dear,” she’d always say, pressing her cheek to her daughter’s, when Sarah paid her monthly visit. Arthritis-­bowed spine pushing through the back of the sweater set, her mother usually launched into descriptions of her latest ailments as soon as they sat down. The subject of her only child’s art never took longer than two minutes of the one-hour visit and, over the years, the artist had gotten used to nursing her work within the privacy of her own breast.

  There was even some pride, admittedly, in knowing that few people understood the minuscule, surrealistic paintings. Only a buyer with an unusual eye would appreciate mermaids lying before church altars or the safety offered to an egg by warm, brown earth. But the egg series was to be put on hold, thanks to Roper’s invitation, and a Jamaican series was to take its place.

  “A free vacation.” Penny snorted. “I’m totally green, you know, thinking of you being in the Caribbean in the middle of winter.”

  “And the sea’s right there, at the end of a path.”

  “How’d you get this invitation, anyway? I know you mentioned it, but—”

  “I don’t know why I tell you anything, Penny Clutterbuck.” Sarah took a slow sip of tea, relishing the suspense she had few opportunities to create.

  “Get on with it.”

  “Naomi represents Roper in the UK, and he was in the gallery one day and we started chatting. Actually, he was chatting and I was listening. He kept looking at my paintings and asking me if I didn’t want to paint something larger than four-by-fours, like a bloody teacher or something, and I finally got upset because he kept pressing me, and as I was walking away he called out something about paying my ticket to Jamaica and putting me up if I painted one large painting. You can’t paint Jamaica small, he said. Had a rather arrogant tone, too.” Sarah shrugged. “I said no, thank you, of course, but Naomi was standing right there. She started going on about how wonderful a Jamaican series would be.” Sarah drained her cup and filled it again from the teapot. “No way out, really.”

  “Lucky bugger, you are. Don’t even know the man’s full name and he’s paying for your ticket, plus board and lodging.”

  “Yes, but it’s sort of like holding me hostage, isn’t it? No return ticket until he approves of one of my paintings.”

  “Suppose he doesn’t approve of anything and you’re stuck?”

  Sarah ran a finger around the lip of her teacup. “He’s rather a character, I think, but he strikes me as a fair sort. When I’ve had my holiday and painted what I want to paint, I’ll just give him the painting he wants and get done with it. In the meanwhile, my expenses will be taken care of in Jamaica, and your cousin will be renting my room here until I come back. No harm done.” She hunched her shoulders forward and hugged her arms. “The great adventure, right?”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  * * *

  Say that again!” Shad said. He pushed himself up on one elbow, Beth’s arm still on his hip. The unexpected evening of romance had descended into a web of manipulation.

  “So that is why you left the sandwich on th
e dinette table—”

  “With the crust cut off, the way you like it.”

  “—and the nightgown and perfume, because you want to work in Port Antonio?”

  “What wrong with that?” Beth asked, almost innocently.

  “Just because Jamaica get a woman prime minister, all you women think you can—”

  “Why you going on so?”

  “You have four children to look after, a baby to nurse, Ashanti with her problems, a garden in the back to tend, market on Saturday to sell your vegetables—and you want to get a job? You don’t have enough work to do here?”

  He dropped back on the pillow, his head on his arm. Above him, the ceiling was streaked by the neighbor’s porch light sneaking in above the curtains. “Who going to take care of the children? I working mornings at Mistah Eric’s bar and evening shift until all hours, so I can’t take care of no children, if that what you thinking. You going to spend almost one hour each way to Port Antonio in the route taxi every day. It don’t make no sense.”

  Beth rolled onto her back. “Joella have to finish high school in Port Antonio, like how she want to start dental assistant school next year, right? She going to take taxi there every day, starting September. Like how she don’t know the place, and I come from Port Antonio and know it good, and we nervous about her traveling with all the boys on the bus, I can travel with her. You know what can happen if we let her go on her own? You said it yourself. Next thing she end up pregnant and the studying gone through the window.”

  Shad rolled his eyes in the dark, hearing what Beth was not saying, that her own downfall had started on a Port Antonio bus when she’d smiled coyly at him, the new bus conductor, and five months later had agreed to go back to his room behind the butcher shop and lie down on his old iron bed.

  “What about Joshua?” Shad argued, changing direction. “He still breast-feeding—who going to take care of him?”

  “He gone one and a half years now, time to stop the feeding. Miss Livingston say she will look after him in the daytime and I will pick him up when I come home.”