Well now she completely lose me, but I get her drift because she and me both know she not just talking ’bout her and Meacham, she talking ’bout the British and Jamaica.
When we finish eat and deal with our business I walk with her down the stairs into the lobby and through the side door, past the empty swimming-pool loungers that the tourists should be sunning themself in and the empty chair under the almond tree where they should be reading their book, and we make our way past the rubber trees and coconut palms, and along the path following the pale blue flowers on the plumbago hedge into the hotel car park. The air still damp from the morning rain.
Next day I ring Margy and tell her that I going take a trip to see her next time she in Port Antonio. Then Finley decide we all going go because Port Antonio is really beautiful.
The day before we supposed to go Milton tell me that all the rain we been having the past two weeks cause so much flooding the government declare five parishes disaster areas and they busy evacuating people from them homes.
‘Communications is down and the road system not looking so good under the strain. Plus the
Milton talking just like he quoting the newspaper to me.
‘So yu think we should call it off? Yu want me fix another time to go see Margy?’
Him stick his thumb in him belt that he always wear now ever since that thing with Clifton Brown, and say to me, ‘No, man. I just telling yu, that’s all. We still going drive over to Port Antonio tomorrow. No problem.’
Me, Finley, Hampton and Milton set off the next day, Milton driving. The water in the road so bad that when we coming down Mountain View Avenue a motorcycle stall in front of us and when the rider put down his foot the water come over his ankle.
Once we outta the city we come face to face with this rural mass that is still Jamaica. The donkey carts; the roadside higglers with them wooden carvings and conch shells; roasted sweetcorn for sale, or three wet fish on a string; multicoloured timber huts in blues and pinks and yellows with them rickety makeshift roof, or some piece of rusting corrugated-zinc sheet; fruit trees growing wild – mango, avocado, ackee, breadfruit, jackfruit, pawpaw, naseberry, soursop, bananas; pineapples laying on top; yams and sweet potatoes in the ground; the banana plantations stretching out on both sides of the road, with them little blue plastic bags that they wrap ’round the bananas to protect them from disease.
Plus with the road not so good anyway and with all this rain, the thing turn treacherous. Potholes full of water and covered in a sorta white slime that wash off the grit and hardcore they scatter down in a effort to patch everything up.
And I think to myself how is progress and prosperity going catch up with a place like this? Especially when every time we take one step forward the rain or the hurricane come to drive us ten steps back.
When we get to Poor Man’s Corner the River Yallahs completely take over the road, gushing fast from left to right and plunging down a steep embankment in this muddy reddish-brown waterfall. Milton stop the car. When the big station wagon behind us overtake and slowly power its way through the water, the spray reach up above the top of the windows.
Milton decide to take a chance. He nudge the car forward trying to keep a steady speed so the engine don’t stall, but when we hit the deepest part halfway across, him slow down and it worry me. We make it alright though, and when we reach the other side Milton laugh and say, ‘Man, even I was sweating then.’
At Green Wall a dead cow lay in a bus stop, all brown and bloated, and frothing at the mouth.
At Morant Bay I ask Milton to drive up to the courthouse where Paul Bogle and his followers stage the demonstration in 1865, and where the volunteer militia fire on the crowd and spark the uprising. What amaze me wasn’t just that the building still standing there, with its red brick and whitewashed stone, but it still functioning as a courthouse. So as I climb up the semi-circular stairway to the upper balcony I begin to hear voices and realise that a trial is actually in motion. And even in this heat the barristers still dress up in them wigs and gowns just like they do it in England.
Above me the round white turret perch on the top of the roof. Below me the statue of Paul Bogle, machete in hand, and the commemoration plaque which read:
Here in the front of this courthouse on 11 October 1865, Paul Bogle of Stony Gut led his people in a protest at the injustices to the poor in the courts presided over by the planter-magistrates. It was the start of what became known as the Morant Bay Rebellion. Paul Bogle, George William Gordon and hundreds more were brutally slain. Behind this building is buried the remains of many of these patriots whose sacrifices paved the way to the independence of Jamaica. We honour them.
It was early afternoon by the time we reach Port Antonio, the blue sea on one side and the lush green hills on the other. The Blue Mountains in the distance and yet so close I could almost smell the coffee. We climb the hill to San San. When we get to Margy’s house, Milton ease the car down the steep driveway into the carport. Margy’s housekeeper come to the door to greet us.
We follow her through the dim, cool house and step out on to the rear terrace into the brilliant, dazzling sunshine. The deep blue of the Caribbean stretch out before us, the abundant green of the surrounding hillside, the white sand beach of San San Bay, with the twin harbours of Port Antonio and Navy Island in the distance. I could feel the sea breeze on my face and taste the slight salt in the air. And somewhere in my own head I hear Harry Belafonte singing ‘Island in the Sun’.
Margy come up from the lower garden, standing on the top step with her short thick wavy hair trembling on the breeze.
‘Let’s go straight to the factory, I want to show you something. It won’t take long and we can have lunch when we get back.’ She reverse out a big four-by-four and we all pile in.
Margy excited ’bout everything she showing us and how she change this and improve that, and reduce the waste and increase the product line. She talking fast and she pleased with herself. It don’t mean nothing to me except, when I look at the accounts, I know the business doing good.
When we get back to the house she say, ‘I hope you like marlin. Port Antonio is famed for deep-sea fishing, marlin, tuna and kingfish especially.’
The fish pan-fried and simmered in a light curried coconut sauce. It really delicious.
‘This here is a long way from a airport,’ I say to her, ‘what with your constant hopping between here and New York.’
‘There is a helicopter shuttle service between Ken Jones Aerodrome and Kingston. The road from Kingston is so bad now the whole town is just relying on the cruise ships for its livelihood. What’s going to happen when the wharf falls down I don’t know because it isn’t looking too good and they don’t have the money to rebuild it.’
After coffee, I ask Margy to come walk with me in the garden. We go down the stone steps and follow the path past a load of fruit trees, and a huge crepe myrtle with its lilac flowers and dark green leaves. Then we pass hedges of poinsettia, deep magenta and pink bougainvillaea, and red and yellow hibiscus. We come to a stop at her poolside pergola that covered in wild orchids in pinks and whites and purples.
‘You really have a beautiful place here, Margy. I can see why you running back from New York every chance you get.’
‘I love it. I don’t think I could live without it. You know Errol Flynn once said he had never met a woman as beautiful as Port Antonio. And that’s saying something, isn’t it, coming from him? I don’t know how any Jamaican can live without Jamaica or the promise of it.’
When we sit down on the little bench I turn and I say to her, ‘I want to talk to yu ’bout the business. It doing good, very good, and all that down to your hard work and how yu so smart with all this cosmetics thing. I have lunch with Merleen, maybe you already know?’
‘Yes, she told me on the phone.’
‘Merleen going have her own vacation company now. And I want to do the same thing with Yang Cosmetics. I want yu stop being a employee and become a full partner so if anything happen to me yu going be alright.’
Margy look at me like she half surprised and half relieved because she must have guessed it from what Merleen tell her.
