Portent (10 page)

    'Mahn,' he said aloud, throwing his Epcot cap (left behind in his

    bus by one of last year's tourists) to the ground, and following it himself in almost the same movement. 'Mahn, this girl makin' me ignorant!'

    He picked up a rotting piece of tree bark and tossed it down the hillside, the sudden exposure rousing the sluggish gecko that had been resting in its shade into stone-like tension. The wide staring eyes blinked twice before the lizard slithered off to safer regions.

    'He jus' a pippial clerk wit' a manager belly. Everythin's turned ol' mas', mahn.' He was telling the breeze that the real object of his hatred was an insignificant man (who was, in fact, a clerk) with a paunch stomach.

    Nello drummed his sneakered heels into the earth, which perhaps was not quite the expected behaviour of a twenty-three-year-old male who owned his own minibus called LOVE ME STYLE and made a good, although by no means prosperous, living taxiing locals from one side of the island to the other and tourists to anywhere they wanted. He was also considered to be one of the island's rising stars at slamming a dom' and, until now, had looked like being chosen to represent Grenada in the next Eastern Caribbean inter-island dominoes pairs championship, which was to take place in Barbados. This, too, was a source of his rising frustration, for that same 'pippial clerk' who was stealing Nello's woman-or intended woman, to be more accurate-had thrashed him mightily in a dominoes play-off only last night.

    'Don' make me vex, mahn!' he yelled down the hillside towards the customs building in the distance.

    Nello, normally a bright spirit with an easy-going nature, was trembling with rage and bitterness, by now a truly unhappy young man. Even when the bus HEAVEN SENT went by and its driver, Norris Hercules, both his friend and neighbour, honked its horn and waved through the empty windscreen, he was too preoccupied to wave back. He even ignored some of the passengers who, lazy with a day's work done, hailed him from the glassless windows.

    'Fire one later, Nello,' called the unoffended driver. 'Maybe some o' that mountain dew, eh mahn?' The mention of illegally distilled rum sent his passengers rolling with laughter. 'Oh Grey, Nello play lougarou today,' Norris said to the nearest one.

    He was told to relax. 'Hold strain, Norris, mahn, an' watch the road. You a covetous driver.'

    Norris smiled broadly and swerved the bus into a pothole at the 'road hog' insult. 'You put goat mouth on that,' he admitted, sending his passenger and those nearby into paroxysms of laughter.

    Dust stirred up and left behind by the brightly painted bus drifted down to settle over Nello's head and shoulders. He appeared not to notice, his gaze directed balefully at the tiny customs building below.

    'Everythin's turned ol' mas',' he repeated. And he was right: for him, everything had become confused for, until six days ago, Angella was his intended woman and the whole village of Boca, where they both lived, knew that; but he'd caught her giving Clyde A. Jelroyd, the 'pippial clerk' in question, the sweet eye-a wink-at the weekend carnival in St George's. Unfortunately Angella worked weekdays in the town's Government Post Office, which was no distance at all from the customs building where that obsocky Dougla (part African, part East Indian) Jelroyd shuffled papers and bounced his rubber stamp, and twice since that carnival night Nello had caught her and this bloated pig strolling the streets together. The first time, despite having a minibus full of passengers, he pulled up across the junction of Green Street and Tyrrel Street to remonstrate with them both. They had proclaimed innocence and 'Don't mamaguy me!' is what he'd retorted, at the same time raising a fist to 'lick down this locho'-knock down this low-life. Only the arrival of a policeman had prevented him from so doing right there and then, and only the complaints of his irate fare-payers and the cacophonous honking of the traffic his misparked minibus had been holding up for the last ten minutes forced him back into the driver's seat-and a good thing too, for the policeman might well have taken a smack along with the locho.

    'Oh woman, don't you know this mahn have keeper and outside child?' he had wailed at Angella later that night. But Jelroyd's common-law wife and illegitimate child didn't appear to bother her at all, because three days later Nello had seen the two of them together again, on this occasion walking hand-in-hand through Market Square. Once more he'd abandoned his minibus, full of tourists this time, and raced across the square to confront the perfidious couple, but this time he had lost them somewhere in the crowded side street. (Or so he thought. In fact they had spotted his blundering approach from 300 yards away, his head bobbing up in the crowd every few feet, and had dodged out of sight into the Straw Mart. Clyde had bought Angella some shell jewellery while they waited for Nello to pass by, which she had accepted with a bashful giggle and a look in her eye that hinted at some foolin' aroun' later on.) When Nello returned to LOVE ME STYLE fifteen minutes later it was empty of tourists, with traffic in both directions in uproar and a constable busy taking down his registration number. That had been less than half an hour ago (twenty minutes to sort out the traffic jam) and he was still seething with the injustice of it all-the unfaithfulness of his sweetheart, the loathsomeness of his rival, the fickleness of his passengers, the wrath of the policeman and, of course, the traffic violation ticket. Oh mahn, this was one grey day.

    A tailor bird flew up the hill and past him, wings flapping madly as though it had to get somewhere fast.

    Nello concentrated hard on the faraway customs building, imagining Clyde A. Jelroyd inside, having parted from his, Nello's, sweet thing, thinking of the kiss they would have shared before going their separate ways. In his mind's eye, he could see the customs clerk taking tea with the other office creatures, who would be working late because of the passenger liner's arrival, gloating at how he had not only stolen Nello's woman, but had thrashed him at the dom' also, and no doubt would be replacing him in the championship tournament.

    Nello sucked his teeth, drawing a patois 'cheups' sound of contempt. There was a low malevolence in his eyes as he stared down at the harbour. 'I get the obeahwomahn on you,' he said almost as a deep growl. 'She do you bad t'ing fo' brutalisin' me life.

    She send the jumbie to be blammin' on your door.' He managed a grin, although it was far from pleasant. 'Me tantie is obeah-womahn, she do me fo' right.'

    Nello had always lived in fear and awe of his aunt, and he was not the only one on the island to do so. She was a rake of a woman, who relished her own reputation as a witch and who never let one day pass without casting a spell or brewing a potion. At any time she could be found giving bush or herb baths against illness or bad luck, or taking an unborn and unwanted child from a young maiden who had 'swallowed the breadfruit', or putting a curse on an enemy of any eager and preferably affluent payer, or fulfilling traditional requirements such as keeping Mama Maladie, the evil spirit, away at Christmas time. Even to this day, as a grown man, he dreaded visiting his tantie without Mama and Papa and, if possible, with at least two of his brothers and three of his sisters along for the treat.

    Yet last night after the domino match which he had so disgracefully lost, and charged with rum alternated with one or eight too many Caribs, he had taken the windy road up through the hills to her shack. Unfortunately, there was no way he could force himself to tap on that old corrugated iron door which, unlike most of the islanders, she always kept clammed tight. Instead he had sat in his minibus, wide eyes watching the small lighted window, quailing in fear. And Tantie had come to the window and stared right back. For a while he thought she might be putting the maljoe, the evil eye, on him; then she'd waved and he couldn't be sure if it was an invitation, or her way of telling him to get the hell out of her face. He had scooted, scratching the sides of the minibus on bushes and trees as he'd executed a tight seven-point turn on the narrow track. He was sure he heard her rollicking laughter all the way back to his village.

    The rustling of a nearby fern, followed by a frantic scrambling, disturbed Nello from his thoughts. A wood slave, perhaps the same lizard he had roused earlier, broke free and darted up the hill and across the rutted road into the thick undergrowth on the other side. Nello clucked his tongue at the creature's 'chupidness' and returned his attention to the harbour. A sudden breeze that carried with it an unusual chill caused him to shiver.

    'Jook monkey, jook monkey, monkey conkaray. You giving me fatigue, Jelroyd, an' me tantie be giving you the maljoe. She make me deal las' night only.' And Nello had just about convinced himself that this was so. Last night he had slept in his bus rather than wake his parents by lumbering through the house at such a late hour, and as he'd lain there in the darkness, the echo of the obeahwoman's laughter still in his head, Nello knew that she knew why he had gone to her shack, even though they had not spoken. That his woman was making a fool of him was 'old talk'-gossip-in the village, and Tantie would never turn a blind eye to that, she would never fail a member of the family. She would cast her spell, brew her potion, chant her bad-wish.

    'You sick'fore too long, Jelroyd!' he shouted.

    He jumped when a flock of bananaquits flapped low over his head, their see-ee-ee-swees-tee call strident and somehow shocking in the languor of late afternoon. He craned his neck to follow their flight and as he watched their black bodies become tiny in the distance, he became conscious of the chill breeze on the back of his neck, a chill that set his skin to prickling. He faced the ocean again and his brow furrowed into heavy ridges as he observed the approaching greyness.

    At that precise moment, Nello could not quite comprehend exactly what he was seeing, for there were no rain clouds-the sky was a perfectly clear blue that faded to azure near the horizon-and the greyness was from the sea itself, a kind of swelling that gently sloped away at either end. Before he could think too hard on this, something else distracted him.

    Floating directly in front of him, level with his own face and nine yards or so away, was a shining light. It was round like a cricket ball, and about the same size too, and its edges were blurred like the sun's. It hovered there above the incline, and although it was not quite still, its position was fairly constant.

    Nello cried out and covered his eyes with his hands. 'Oh Mama, mais non,' he moaned, and wondered if the jumbie, the boobooman, had been sent to haunt him instead of his rival. The breeze from the ocean, now rising like the strong Christmas wind, snagged on his shirt.

    He peeped through his fingers and the day-star was still there as if it were studying him. But what was looming up behind this hypnotically weird light could not now be ignored, for it began to dawn on Nello just what this vast grey swelling out there on the ocean was.

    'Oh Grey,' he muttered under his breath. 'Oh goodness, oh mahn, oh Mama.'

    The wave stretched at least fifty miles from end to sloping end, but its height could not be judged from that distance. But it was high, Nello could tell that.

    He began to rise, and the ball of light rose with him, keeping level with his face. He discovered the strength wasn't in his legs and he stumbled, almost slipping down the hillside. He grabbed the tough grass blades, steadying himself, rolling forward once and clutching at the grass again, so that he was outstretched, flat on his back, watching the swiftly approaching wall of water.

    Somewhere in the town below a church bell started to peal. Another joined in. He thought he could hear human cries, but a new sound was beginning to dominate all others, a continuous hissing, like the surf rushing into shore, this sound never breaking, growing louder as the huge dark mass rolled towards the island. Yachts, motorboats, dinghies and schooners were gathered up like driftwood and carried along as it loomed over the harbour.

    The sound had become a low, thunderous rumble, and what seemed like hundreds-thousands-of birds streamed by over Nello's head, while animals-lizards, rodents, opossum and even an armadillo-scurried past him, squealing and grunting their panic.

    'I did not mean fo' this, Tantie!' Nello beseeched, hands joined together and raised towards the still blue skies.

    The wave was seventy-no, it was a hundred!-feet high, and it broke over the harbour smashing boats and buildings alike, pushing the great white passenger liner up on to the dock to flatten the customs building and everyone inside, including Nello's arch-rival in love and dominoes, who had indeed been taking tea and gloating to his colleagues over his supremacy at both games. Clyde A. Jelroyd heard the bells, he even heard the shouts outside, and then he had heard the curious rushing, rumbling sound, and when the wall opposite exploded inwards, he heard his own scream. But not for long did he hear the latter, for soon he was as flat as the Customs and Excise Regulations book he kept on his desk and had already discovered that infinity has no sound at all.

    Nello watched in absorbed horror, failing to notice that the little light had disappeared.

    As the tidal wave tore through the harbour town, smashing everything in its path, be it concrete buildings, timber frames, metal, glass, or human flesh, he wept wretchedly. For the third time that afternoon, he wailed, 'Oh mahn, oh mahn, everyt'ings turned, of mas!'

    

    

    They had talked through the afternoon, breaking for a late lunch, then continuing into the evening. Now it was dusk and still they went on, the topics ranging from the change in rainfall patterns to the drastic reduction in the world's food production, and from the methods of selection forestry to the threats of toxic hazards (Rivers learned that Hugo Poggs was a major contributor to the original volumes of Dangerous Properties of Industrial Materials, known more succinctly as Sax by the scientists and environmental health specialists, who still referred to the tome to that day).