Lloyd relaxed against one of the wooden pilings and squinted at the Harbour. Boats of all sizes went by—the small ones like buzzing insects, the large ones bulky and slow. He turned to watch the entrance to the Harbour and just rounding the point, he saw a figure standing on a surfboard. He couldn’t tell the sex of the person—he or she held a long paddle, and, balancing on the swaying surface of the water, the figure dipped the paddle into the water on one side of the surfboard and then the other. Lloyd wondered if the wake of a boat would make the person fall over. It seemed a very inefficient method of transport, but he thought he would like to try it.
He watched the figure and realized it was moving faster than he had first thought. The paddle went up and down in a smooth, steady rhythm. He saw it was a woman in a wet suit and he wondered if it was the dolphin woman at Lime Cay, the woman who might know about the capture of dolphins. He had seen surfers out at Bull Bay riding the waves, but had never seen anyone standing upright on a surfboard with a paddle. A canoe zipped by the woman and with two strong strokes of the paddle, she turned the surfboard to face directly into the curving wake. Lloyd saw her bend her knees slightly and take the bounce of the surfboard with the paddle held across her chest.
He wondered where she was going—the hotel, he thought. He watched her come closer to the dock and when she was at the nearest point, he stood up and shouted across the water, “Hi! Miss!” He waved his arms and she turned to look at him, almost losing her balance. She stopped paddling and the surfboard continued to glide in the direction she was headed.
“Miss!” he called again. He wondered if he should swim out to her, but his doggy-paddle was slow and this part of the Harbour was dirty. He waited to see what she would do.
And she dipped the paddle and turned her board and in a few strokes was standing in front of him on the surface of the sea. He saw it was the dolphin woman. She was wearing a short wet suit, leaving her arms and legs bare. Her toenails were painted, but not her fingernails. Her hair was very short, almost shaved clean. Her eyes were the color of beer. “You call to me, yout’?” she said. Despite her black skin, he had thought her a foreigner because he didn’t think a young Jamaican woman would be a dolphin expert. He was surprised to hear her speak with a Jamaican accent.
“You the woman what save that dolphin outta Lime Cay,” he said.
“Last month,” she agreed.
“What happen to it?”
“Died in the pick-up. Dolphins can’t cope with gravity. You like dolphins?”
“Ee-hee. Where the dolphin was going in the pick-up?” Lloyd had not understood what she said about gravity.
“Don’t know. Some other island, probably, but could be sold anywhere. Russia, even.”
This seemed unbelievable to Lloyd but he wanted to keep the woman talking. “My granddaddy, he love dolphins,” he said.
The woman smiled and rested her paddle on one end in front of her. She stood as if she were a sentry at a fort and the sea was solid ground. “Your granddaddy a fisher?”
He nodded. “A line fisher.” He thought that was an important detail.
“Anyway . . .” she said, and he knew she was preparing to leave.
“Me never seen anybody stand on a surfboard like that. It hard?”
“Easy in calm sea. Takes awhile to get used to if it’s rough. I like it because you can see far enough ahead. And it’s slow. Relaxing.” She laughed. “Sometimes the Harbour dolphins—you know them, right?—come up beside me and then I have to sit down. They’ll make me fall over for sure.”
“What’s your name, Miss?”
“Jules.”
“Miss Julie?”
“No. Jules. My father liked Jules Verne, you know, the book Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea?”
Lloyd shook his head. He had no idea what she was talking about, but he was glad she had not left him.
“What’s your name then? You live in Port Royal?” she asked.
“Lloyd. No, over by Bournemouth. Near Gray Pond beach. Looking for my granddaddy. He don’t come back from Pedro three—no, four—days now.”
The woman, Jules, inclined her head, as if asking a question. She made a short stroke with the paddle and the surfboard bumped against the dock. He saw it was tied to one of her ankles. She put the paddle on the dock, and then her palms, and without pushing off with her feet, she eased herself to sit on the dock beside him. They both looked out across Kingston Harbour. She gave a little sigh. “You live with your granddaddy?”
“No, my mumma. She sell fish in Liguanea. Gramps, he never go to Pedro, but he go this time and him don’t come back.”
“What, he don’t have a cell phone?”
“Yes, him have one, but him not answerin it. Me come over here to see if the Coast Guard go look for him.”
Jules turned to face him then. “And you couldn’t get through the gate, right?”
He was ashamed to say he had not tried, so he just shook his head.
“You know the hotel? Morgan’s Harbour?” she said. “Wait for me there. In the parking lot, under the almond tree. I’ll take you over to the Coast Guard.” She eased herself
