Dare to Love (26 page)

‘How she get it?’ Mel can’t see the “causes” page. I scroll back so she can read it and head for the fridge. I need a drink. I knock back a big shot of Hennessey. The ice hardly touch it. When I get back she look at me confused.

‘So, do you have sickle cell?’

‘Either that or Marcie is a jacket.’ I know even as the words leave my mouth that the child is the image of me. Everybody say so. She have my eyebrows, my forehead, my nose. She have her mother’s big eyes and her mouth but even the shape of her face is me.

She just asked the question that going round in my head. If she get one defective gene from each parent then she must have one from me. But nobody in my family have sickle cell. Darron and Derrick don’t have it. Jeanette never mention that anybody in her family have it. I feel numb. What kind of father poison his daughter’s blood and can’t even be there to comfort her when she in pain.

I feel useless. I can’t do anything right, everything going against me. I pour another Hennesey and sit down to look at the pages on treatment.

The only cure is a bone marrow transplant from a “matched” donor. God knows I’d give her my bone marrow if it would stop the pain, but she get the disease from me in the first place… who could be a “matched” donor? She might need a blood transfusion, but maybe my blood won’t be any good. Full immunisation may reduce complications. I leave all that to Jeanette. I don’t even know if Marcie get all her vaccinations. There’s so much I don’t know. I don’t know these things about Derrick either. Maybe Jeanette’s right. Maybe I do favour Darron. But I had to do all those things for him. I know about him. Where is he? He should be home by now.

‘Did Darron say he going to be late home?’

‘No,’ Mel shout from the kitchen. ‘Dinner nearly ready.’

I dial his number. It go to voicemail.

‘Darron, your dinner on the table and you’re not here.’

I feel uneasy. Like something I eat earlier don’t settle. Maybe it’s the Hennessy.

‘You get him?’ Mel ask as she bring out the food. Fried chicken and noodles.

‘He’s not picking up. What if something happen to him?’

‘Maybe he just at his friend, revising again.’

‘He should tell me. This is why I can’t trust him.’

‘He’s not so late yet. He can microwave his dinner when he get back.’

We eat in silence. I chew the food but I don’t taste it. I tell Mel it nice. She had a good day and now I’m spoiling it. I keep checking my phone even though it not on silent, not on vibrate and I would hear if it ring. Where’s Darron?

He walk in as we’re finishing.

‘Where the hell you been?’ I shout at him as soon as he comes in. I see the same look flash across his face that I see the night I grab him up. I realise what I’m doing. In two steps I cross the room. I put my arms round his shoulders and hug him. At first he stand rigid with his arms by his side. Maybe he feel my love, maybe he feel my fear but after a while he hug me back.

‘I don’t want anything to happen to you.’

‘Nothing’s going to happen to me Daddy.’ For a second we change places. He’s reassuring me.

Eight fifty. I’m waiting exactly where Sammy said to wait. It’s a quiet part of the street, hardly anybody going past. My heart beating fast. I’m taking deep breaths to try and slow it down. I know this isn’t a few boxes of booze but I need to see Marcie. Roxy would lend me the money but it comes with too many strings. What kind of man am I, taking from my sister, taking from Mel? How can somebody like Josi take me seriously? I haven’t even thought about her all this time.

I’m supposed to take her dancing tomorrow night after she come back from some pageant with her friends. Something she don’t even invite me to. Maybe she don’t think I’m good enough to mix with her friends. No money, no prospect. I need to step up my game for somebody like Josi but this is a one off for Sammy. It’s too risky. I’ll sort something else out when I come back from Guyana.

A man walk toward the car. He’s about five foot eight and 150 pounds, light skinned with a round face. He’s wearing jeans, black trainers and a black T-shirt hanging outside his jeans. As he walk up to the car he look straight at me with his small mongoose eyes. I hold my breath waiting for him to open the passenger door and get in, or give me what he have, but he carry on moving without stopping. Can’t be him, must be somebody else. My phone ring. Make me jump. Make my heart thump.

‘Grant, Sammy. Open your passenger door slowly. There’s a little square parcel wrapped in black plastic. You see it?’

I lean across the passenger seat and do as he says.

‘Yes.’

‘Pick it up.’

The parcel weighs about three pounds.

‘I have it.’

‘Take it to the supermarket. When you get there put it in the trash can under the big tree. Buzz me when you do it. Got it?’

‘Got it.’ My mouth’s dry, my palms wet but I follow his instructions. I’m glad I don’t have to meet anybody.

There’s about a dozen vehicles in the car park, none near the tree and trash can. I find some Kleenex in the glove box. I pull up slowly by the tree. Everything feel like it in slow motion. I wind the window down, drop the parcel in the can, wipe my hands and throw the Kleenex in the can too. If anybody watching they might think I just eat a takeaway and throwing away the rubbish. I wind up the window and drive away slowly. I wait till I’m out of the car park before I call Sammy.

‘Yeah. It in there.’

‘Good man. I’ll drop by tomorrow with your plane ticket money.’

‘No. I’ll meet you somewhere.’

When I get in, Mel ask if the air conditioner in the car not working.

‘Yes. Why?’

‘You soaking wet.’

She and Darron carry on watching the life of some celebrity while I take a shower and lie down on the bed. This morning and Josi seem like a long time ago.

All night I toss and turn. Every time I fall asleep I dream about Marcie, in one dream she laughing and climbing on my shoulders, in another one she running to me on a dirt road. I hold my hands out to her but it don’t matter how long she running she can’t reach me. There’s one where she fall over. She holding her hands out to me and crying for me to pick her up. I try but she too heavy for me. It’s like I have no strength in my arms.

I wake up about two o’clock and go for some water. I pour a Hennessy and think about what I did last night.

I think about Josi. What would she think of me if she knew what I did? I feel like there’s a big sheet of glass between me and the people I love. I want to hold her. Want to talk to her. She would know what to do. She might not judge me. I go back to bed, wrap myself round Mel and try to remember what it was like this morning, but my head’s full of Marcie and black parcels.

I sleep late and don’t meet Sammy till the afternoon at a bar in Bridgetown. I check the price of tickets before I set off. Sammy smiling in a corner of the bar, a bottle of Bud in front of him. He stand up, shake my hand as he pull me into a “long-lost-brother” hug. I feel the notes in my hand. ‘Good work cus,’ he whisper in my ear, ‘you’re a pro.’

I slide the money in my pocket. ‘Let me get you a Bud.’ He wave to the barman. ‘Why you in such a hurry to go home?’

‘Kids.’ I don’t want to discuss my personal life with Sammy. Don’t want him to know any more about me than he know already.

‘If there’s anything I can do to help, just ask. You know you like family now.’

‘Thanks.’ I hope I never have to take up his offer.

We talk about football for a few more minutes, before I tell him I have to go.

‘Word of warning cus. Just lay low for a while. Stay in tonight, play the family man. Stay away from public places and foreign people.’

‘What you talking about?’

‘Your lady from England is buddies with the cop on the beach. Sometimes after a job like this, after the first one, some people get a little nervous, drink too much and… you know, talk a little too much. Best not to take the chance, especially with the company she keep.’

‘She going home soon.’

‘So she have nothing to lose. Is just advice I’m giving you. Just lay low till you stop shaking.’

I look at my hand on the bottle, see the tremor and put it in my pocket.

‘See you around,’ I say as I get up to leave.

‘Real soon.’ He flash me a smile and take a swig of the beer.

Josi

He rings at seven in the morning. I answer, tell him I’m half asleep and will call him
later. When I call at nine thirty he asks if we can meet.

‘What happened to you last night?

‘Babes, I fell asleep on the settee. I was so tired.’

‘So tired you didn’t hear your phone ring?’

‘I put it on silent cause I just want to sleep for a couple hours, then just carry on sleeping. Anyway, you said you would phone.’

‘I did phone. I left you a message.’

‘Babes, I didn’t see any missed call from you. I figured you changed your mind and decided to go out with your friends. What time you called?’

‘About ten thirty.’

‘The only missed call I have at that time was from a unknown number.’

Then I remember. I’d called from Celia’s phone as mine wasn’t working. ‘Yeah, I was calling from my friend’s phone, but I left you a message.’

‘I don’t always pick up messages from unknown numbers at that time of night. Listen babes, can we meet? What you got plan for today?’

‘It’s my last day so I’m going to spend it on the beach, might be the last time I see it for a while.’

‘My friend want me to come and play snooker with him at the airport. You want to come?’

‘Why the airport?’

‘He’s a pilot.’

I didn’t fancy watching him and his mate play while I looked on like some love sick teenager. ‘No thanks.’

I hear the disappointment in the brief silence before he asks, ‘How about if I come and join you on the beach later?’

‘I’m easy. It’s up to you.’ I’m still feeling piqued after being stood up last night.

‘OK, see you later babes. Love you.’

He waits for my echoed sentiments. When they don’t come, he says, ‘See you later,’ and clicks off.

He arrives on the beach two hours later looking fabulous in white cut-off pedal pusher jeans, an orange T-shirt and sunglasses. All my resolve melts when I see him. He’s not classically handsome, but he’s so damned sexy. I can feel his hungry eyes behind his shades as he saunters toward me. I can tell from the set of his mouth, from the tautness of his jaw, from the slight wrinkle on his forehead. Then it hits me; this might be the last time I see him. I’m not prepared for the tightening in my chest as the thought moves from my head to my heart. Oh God, Josi, you’re in love. No, Josi, highly infatuated maybe but not in love. I’m glad he can’t see my pounding heart, but he can feel my clammy hands as he sits on the side of the deck chair and takes them in his.

‘Babes, I’m so sorry about last night,’ he says after he kisses me.

Before I can answer, the deck chair attendant appears. ‘Only one person on a chair,’ he says. I ask him to bring another.

‘Do you want a drink?’ he asks.

‘I’m on water today.’

He comes back from the kiosk with two large glasses of ice, one of which he hands to me, into the other he pours coke from the bottle he’s just bought and tops it up with a shot of brandy from his flask. He pulls his chair close to mine, lays down and props himself up on his elbow so he can look at me.

‘Babes, I can’t believe you’re going home tomorrow. What am I going to do without you?’

‘I guess exactly what you did before I arrived.’ I want to believe there could be something beyond this romantic fling between us. I want to silence the screaming and clamouring of my heart for something more. But there can’t be any more than this. He has too many complications and I have a whole set of my own waiting at home.

‘You really think I can just forget you like that? You think I can just get used to getting up every day knowing I’m not going to see you or hear you?’

‘Grant, we’ve had a beautiful time. It can’t be any more than that. You’ve got Mel and Darron and…’

‘You have Richard. I know. I tell you what else I know. You’re not happy, I’m not happy, we’re not happy with our lives. Josi, I’ve never been this happy with anybody. Tell me honestly that you don’t feel the same way about me.’

‘This is all just end of holiday talk Grant. Next week you’ll…’

‘Tell me Josi. Tell me I don’t make you happy.’

‘Grant, you’re unreliable, you don’t show up when you say you’re going to, you lie to your girlfriend; God knows, you’re probably lying to me.’

‘Tell me Josi. Look me in the eye and say, “Grant, you don’t make me happy.”‘

I take my shades off and look into his eyes. My lips move but no words come out. Whatever he sees in my eyes makes him lean forward, wrap his arms around me and kiss me.

‘Babes, what are we going to do?’ I’m not sure if it’s rhetorical. I can’t think straight. There’s a movie running in my head of my life to this point. It’s on fast forward. I search each frame for the answer to his question, some clue that will tell me what to do. But there’s nothing, just the beating of my heart hard against his chest.