The Sea Grape Tree (14 page)

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

T
he brochure that Danny had placed in Sarah's hand said that Bucket Falls was
one of the island's most stunning ­waterfalls with a large, clear pool suitable for swimming,
and Shad had endorsed it, apparently. What neither the brochure nor the bartender had said was that the falls were reached by a long, uneven path from the parking lot, a path unsuitable for carrying easels, chairs, and bags of supplies.

After they reached the falls and dumped their load, Danny and Sarah stood beside the pool, sweaty but satisfied that the brochure had been accurate—the falls were exquisite. About twenty feet in height and thirty across, they cascaded noisily into a circular pool beneath. Trees towered up from the steep valley walls, sentinels keeping out the heat. The clarity of the pool was questionable, however, since the water had been muddied by groups of swimmers, tourists and locals, some climbing the mossy rocks beside the falls. One brave girl balanced her way out to the middle of the falls and dove into the pool to cheers from her friends.

“Here all right?” Danny asked, gesturing with his chin to a spot facing the falls, and Sarah agreed, despite an urge to wade in and swim away from him. He set up their chairs, his a few yards behind hers.

Once she started working she almost forgot him, almost forgot Janet's caustic words. She loved the translucence of the water sheeting off the overhang and tried to capture it on one of her panes, as Danny had started calling her four-by-four images.
Windowpanes into her soul,
he'd said, laughingly referring to her definition of art. When he said it she'd wanted to reach out and touch his lips, lips that had described something she'd always felt about her own work and never put into words. But she'd turned away instead, and repeated the phrase in her head.

Bucket Falls continued falling, morning turned into afternoon, sandwiches were eaten, and swimmers came and went. Sarah finished a second and a third painting, one of bubbles touching the dark, pebbly sand at her feet, and she decided that she'd had enough.

“I'm going in,” she called to Danny behind her.

“Don't swim out too far.”

She put her last painting on the stool to dry and washed out her brushes at the edge of the water. Removing her sandals, feeling Danny's eyes on her, she took off her shorts and T-shirt.

She stood in the shallows getting used to the chilly water, aware that he was probably examining her breasts, too big for the bikini, and her bottom, too flat for any bathing suit.

Don't forget, you're a swan,
she reminded herself, resting a hand on her neck.
You are graceful and elegant.

She waded into the cold water with gritted teeth, avoiding two children who were splashing each other. When she looked back, Danny was bending over his painting, his face expressionless. After dog-paddling in a circle to get used to the cold, she turned over on her back and tried to relax. It had been a stressful week. She hadn't slept well to begin with. When she did fall asleep she'd had dreams of women shaking her by the shoulders. One woman battled her with a toilet tank ball.

Danny had shown up on the beach Monday morning, somewhat subdued but ready to paint. She'd struggled with telling him to leave, but he was so intent on setting up his chair just like hers, facing the road going west around a bend, and she was so happy to see him, that she hadn't protested.

Two hours had passed in sweaty tension, in the midst of which she'd decided that there would be nothing more between them. Not only was there Janet, but she was sure that any feelings she might have had for him were imagined. He'd been gracious in paying for her room at Strawberry Hill and gotten carried away when he'd kissed her good night. If there was any feeling between them it was platonic. There was no obligation on either side, and her attraction to him only offered a lesson in not stereotyping.

Before he'd shown up, she'd been sure he wouldn't come, reasoning that Janet would have warned him off or he'd be too embarrassed to come. There was even a part of her that wanted him to stay away, for her sake and his, the part that kept seeing Janet looking up at her with steely eye shadow. But he'd come that Monday, and shortly before noon he'd gotten up, saying he had to leave. He'd folded his chair and started walking away, then put down the chair.

“It's difficult,” he began, and chewed on his bottom lip. “I'd like to—I'm just—oh, shit.” He'd leaned against the trunk of a coconut tree and rubbed his jaw with one hand.

“Listen, I don't think you should come back,” she'd said, putting down her brush. “This is not a good idea, you know, painting together. There are people—people won't understand.”

“I'm coming back,” he'd said, spreading his hand flat to make the point. “Nobody is going to stop me doing what I want to do. If I want to paint, I'm going to paint.”

“You—”

“And I like painting with you.”

She'd picked up her paintbrush again. “You have a girlfriend, Danny, in case you forgot.”

“She's not my—it's tricky.”

“You don't have to say anything.” She'd put down her brush, wanting to hear more.

“I have to say something, because that's how I am. I don't want to be one of those guys who—who lead women on, you know, and don't give no kind of explanation. I just need some time. That's what I'm saying, just give me a little time.” He'd left without explaining.

To her surprise, he'd come running down the beach the next day, like the first time she'd seen him, barefoot and bare-chested, making her heart thump. He'd waved at her coming and going and she'd waved back, but he'd kept on running and left her wondering in his wake. The day after that, he'd been waiting for her when she got to the beach. He'd helped her set up the easel and asked if she would like to go on a painting expedition to a waterfall Shad had recommended.

“I'll pick you up tomorrow.”

“I don't think so.”

“Trust me,” he'd said, holding on to her arm. “I have this under control, I'm telling you.” He wore her down, showing her the brochure, telling her not to worry.

“Okay,” she'd said, and looked down at his hand on her arm. “But I don't play games.”

Before he picked her up that morning, she'd allowed his statement that he had things under control to rise to the top and hold down her doubts. She had to stop worrying and be a big girl. Let life take its course, not anticipate anything, and keep her mouth shut.

Thus far, she hadn't confided in Sonja about her feelings for Danny, and she hadn't written Penny one word on the subject. Her rare emails had stayed on the topic of the village and her painting, and talked only in generalities about the place and people she'd met. She was having a good time, doing lots of painting, she'd written. To her mother she'd sent two postcards with even less information.

Floating, she looked up at the sunlight twinkling between the leaves of the trees overhead. A water gnat hovered over her and she swatted it away. Settling back, she decided that this was as good a time as any to practice being in the present, like that philosopher had written, Eckhart something or the other. She was going to stay in the present, be literally and figuratively present wherever she was, observe what went on around her, and detach from the outcome. She turned her attention to the sound of the falls echoing through the water and into her submerged ears, to the coolness of the river against her skin.

A spray of water in her face made her jerk to her feet. The boys playing nearby were throwing a ball back and forth. She swam away from the children and toward the falls. A Rastafarian man with long gray dreadlocks was standing up to his knees in the water.

“Go into the cave, man.” He gestured with both arms, urging her on. “Swim around and go behind the falls. It nice, go on.”

Feeling she had no choice, a little scared but determined to prove some point to herself, she swam in front of the falls, the noise deafening. After swimming through the opening in the water, she climbed onto a shelf of cream-colored rock behind the falls, the splashing making her scoot deeper along the shelf. She wiped the water out of her eyes and pulled her hair away from her face. She was sitting in a magical place, a damp cave where the water blocked her view of almost everything outside, enclosing her in noisy intimacy.

Danny appeared through the gap in the falls. “Are you trying to hide?” he shouted above the din of the water. He clambered onto the rock shelf, his red bathing trunks looking garish in the tranquillity of the cave.

“What am I hiding from?” she yelled back.

“Me.” He sat down a foot away from her. She shook her head, smiling, evading. They sat in silence for a few minutes staring at the falls in front of them. She started feeling dizzy, perhaps from the noise, and she signaled that she was ready to leave. He held on to her hand and brought it slowly to his lips, his bald head glistening over her arm. She pulled back her arm, but he held it fast, no hesitancy about him now.

She mouthed the words
no games
when he looked up at her and he mouthed them back at her, and leaned over and kissed her arm higher up, her shoulder, her neck, and then her lips.
It was not my imagination,
she thought, grasping one of his powerful shoulders. When he slid his arms around her and pushed her gently back against the rock wall, it felt for a second as if they'd done this before, primordial people making love in a cave.

His hand moved down to her right breast, caressing it, pushing the bikini top aside. She held on to the strap and pulled away. “No, we can't—”

“We can,” he said in her ear, licking it with his tongue between words. “I've—taken care of—everything.” Repeating his words to herself, she allowed him to release her breast and lick it, his chocolate scalp over her raspberry nipple, licking and sucking.

The drive back to Largo went slowly, Sarah tingling in her wet bathing suit and shorts like she hadn't for a while, still agonizing about her decision to invite him back to her room, wondering if Roper and Sonja would be okay with it, thinking of Janet, wanting him and yet afraid. At the wheel, Danny started talking about her work, his voice calm like they weren't midway between foreplay and intercourse.

“I notice you're still painting little panes.” He looked at her sideways, a smile playing around his lips.

“I'll get up to six inches next week,” she said, and he burst out laughing. “I mean—”

“It's okay,” he said, and reached for her hand, kissing her open palm, still tickled by her joke. He pulled up to a shop with a sign above the door that said
Doctor's Pharmacy,
and she was puzzled when he got out and left her with no explanation. Returning to the car, he held up a small brown bag and grinned.

There was no one around when they got to the house, although noises were coming from the kitchen. She softened her tread going down the stairs to her room. Danny walked behind, the floorboards creaking under his weight. When they reached the small lounge outside her bedroom, he dropped the easel and bag onto an armchair. She went into the bathroom, returning to find him still outside, doing something over the easel box, his back to her.

She wondered if he was going to enter after all, the moment lost, perhaps for the best. The twin beds had been neatly remade by Carthena. Should she push them together? Maybe they wouldn't need them. Then he was behind her, sliding his arms around her waist, the length of his bulky body against her narrow one. She turned and wrapped her arms around his neck. He walked her backward to the bed and, when she felt the bedspread against the back of her knees, she knew that the bed and its size were irrelevant.

“Close the door,” she managed to whisper, and he obeyed. He returned to her, his eyes boring into her as he removed his shorts while she did the same, avoiding looking at him, her fingers trembling.

They kept their shirts on—something, she thought later, she'd done as protection. His kisses were vigorous this time, one hand playing with her hair and the other stroking her, all of her, the innards of her, until she moaned for him to stop. He opened the brown bag and deftly put on a condom, his penis browner and larger than any she'd seen. Her mouth got dry as he slid inside her and her heart started beating fast, faster.

He lay on top and carefully entered her, and it started again: the urge to end it, revulsion churning her belly. She wanted him to stop, but it was too late, so she held on to the low wooden headboard, wishing it over, the way she always did, his organic smell like the very earth coming at her through his pores, the bamboo in the ceiling above him making him look like a tropical Pan, half-human, half-­animal, with horns coming out of his head, the voice inside her saying,
No, no, no
. She didn't climax, as usual, but he didn't, either.

He got up slowly, his body gleaming and his penis still at attention in the pale brown sheath. She lay on the bed, still wanting him but relieved it was over, watching his muscular buttocks and legs as he walked to the bathroom. She heard the toilet flush and he returned and pulled on his shorts.

“I'm glad you're still painting small,” he said, his tone matter-of-fact. He leaned over her half-naked body and kissed her. “You'll be here longer.”

“You're barmy,” she said to his back.

Later, still moving around in a dazed state, she discovered something he'd placed on top of her bag and easel. It was the single painting he'd been working on all afternoon, not of the falls but of her. He'd portrayed her leaning into her easel, brush poised in the air and hair aflame above it.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

I
getting married, boss.”

“Say that again. I couldn't have heard you right.”

“I not joking, Beth and me getting married.”

Eric pushed away from the table and the stacks of dollar bills in front of him. “You proposed?”

“Nobody propose in Jamaica. The woman just harass the man, and he either leave or give in.”

They'd just finished doing the weekly accounts, an afternoon routine performed at the square wooden table in Eric's apartment, the door ajar so they could see arriving customers. It had been another sad week moneywise, the bar's cash flow meandering downhill despite the bump over Christmas, and Shad had decided it would be a good time to change the subject.

“Did you set a date?” The boss's eyebrows made a rooftop over his eyes, the look he wore when he knew he'd lost his case.

“I think she set the day in July, July twenty-something. I can't remember.”

“This year?” Shad nodded, and Eric gave a deep sigh.

“It keep peace in the house.”

“Where's the reception?”

“We was hoping we could have it here, in the bar.” Eric blinked, like he was weighing the cost and the effort. “We going to take care of the drinks, food, everything,” Shad rushed on, spreading his hands comfortingly. “You don't have to worry about nothing.”

“You can afford that?”

“Beth get a work in Port Antonio, say she want to help with the wedding.”

“That's a good woman.”

“She give me four children, bring them up right. She deserve the best.” Shad stood up, straightening his jeans that she'd starched and ironed just like he wanted. “Only thing, though. I want to give her a ring, a diamond ring, you know, a proper ring to go with the wedding band.”

“That's going to cost you, man.”

“God will provide, yes.”

The rings had come to him the night before when he'd climbed into bed. He'd thought of the diamond ring he'd seen on TV that afternoon and he'd realized that, if he was to do the marriage properly, like a man, he'd have to buy Beth an engagement ring. She probably wouldn't fuss if she didn't get one, but all the married women he knew had two rings: a plain band and an engagement ring, even if it only had a small-small diamond.

He'd just served his regulars—Tri, Eli, and Solomon—and just tuned the radio to an uplifting Garnett Silk song, when Danny Caines walked in with a glum face, like somebody had died. The bartender popped a Red Stripe open and placed it in front of the man. He was wearing a black shirt this afternoon, too hot for Largo at five o'clock, and small beads of perspiration were already forming on his forehead.

“I signed the last paper you give me,” Shad said. “The one for the next application. It seem like this application business just going on and on. We have plenty more to sign?”

“A few more. After we meet with Horace next—what the—?” A screeching noise was coming from the thatch roof.

“Is just an old croaking lizard.” Shad waved. “He live up there.”

“A lizard?” Danny said, his eyes fixed on the roof.

“He a regular customer,” the bartender said, flashing the grin that gained forgiveness for the bar's inadequacies. “He been living there for years, like he can't dead.”

“If he's that old, maybe he's getting ready to—to croak.”

“Or drop some doo-doo on you,” Shad said, letting out a gleeful yelp.

“Don't even say that, man. A lizard dropping its stuff on me? That's bad luck!” The big man was smiling like he'd forgotten whatever was bothering him when he walked in. After the croaking stopped, the talk about lizards went on with Danny recalling how he used to catch them when he was a boy.

“I like to see them sitting in the sun,” Shad said. “I used to creep up on them and just watch them.”

“They're beautiful,” Danny agreed. “Come to think of it, maybe I should paint one.”

“You still painting with the Englishwoman?”

“I love it out there on the beach, just the wind in your ears. We don't talk much, you know. It feels good.”

“She look like a nice woman.”

“Very nice, no drama. She's kind of low-key, quiet and deep. She has a beautiful, steady spirit about her. I really like her, but . . .”

“But what?”

The investor pulled back and looked at his hand, flexed the thick brown fingers. “I don't know, man. I've dated a few white women, but to tell you the truth, I never been comfortable with it. America is a real prejudiced place, and I been burned a few times—shit, a lot of times, from high school on. If you're a black man trying to do business in America, you have to keep figuring out how to survive around white people, so when I'm kicking back I don't ­really want to be around whites that much. I was married to a Dominican woman last time, and I always think that if I marry again, it would be to another black woman, I just haven't had any luck with one yet. But Sarah's good people, good people, and I like her a lot. She's good for me, I can feel it, but I still don't know, man.”

Shad pulled up his jeans and settled on his stool. “Pshaw, man, you talking about America. In Jamaica, we don't notice things like that. If you get along with her, then that important, not what color her eyes or her hair or her skin is. When you talking about relationships, it's about what's
inside
the person, not what's outside. You can't make a little thing like the color of a woman's skin stop you from loving her. God create us all, right? He create her and he create you.”

Danny shrugged. “I'm not used to thinking like that.”

“Maybe is time to think about it like that, then.”

Shad rubbed a cloth over the counter, rubbed his way to the end of the counter and back. “You know,” he began, examining the cotton rag as he hung it over a nail, “not every woman nice like—Sarah she name, right?—like Sarah. Some women just plain wicked, let me tell you.”

“What you talking about?”

“Who you think I talking about? I talking about Janet. You think she going to let go of you so easy?”

“It's none of her business—”

“Trust me, star, to a woman like Janet, your business is
her
business.”

“I told her already, I want to slow down. She knows it.”

“When you told her?”

“Three nights ago. We had a talk and I told her I wanted to take it easy. I told her the truth, man.”

“What kind of truth?”

Danny glanced up at the thatch. “That I wasn't here to start anything, you know, didn't want to get committed.”

“How she take it?”

“She was cool.”

“You heard from her since?”

“Not till this morning. She left a message to meet her here, said she wanted to show me something.”

“I don't like how that sound,” Shad said, and put both elbows on the counter, looking Caines in the eye. “If there is one thing I know something about is women. My grandmother teach me. Two things she believe in: God and me. Even though she call me a
worthless no-good
when I went to the Pen, she make sure to get me a work with Job when I come back to Largo the next year. She never give up on me. That is how it stay with women. Once they set their eyes on something, nothing going to stand in their way. They like a dog with a bone, and you is the bone.”

Danny pulled at his shirt collar, chuckling. “I can take care of myself, man, don't worry. I'm twice her size, remember?”

At the back of the restaurant, high heels clipped on the concrete floor. Janet was wearing the bright smile she'd been wearing for the last few weeks, but it now looked pasted in place.

“
Yes,
man,” Shad said, pushing away from the counter. “We used to catch lizards and put them in a glass jar, and Granny used to make us throw them back outside.”

Danny didn't turn around, and his shoulder muscles had bunched up a little higher. The men continued their conversation, chuckling about how the reptiles' tails would fall off when you caught them wrong.

“You talking about lizards?” Janet said, climbing onto the stool next to Danny and plopping her bag on another stool. “I hate them. I don't know how you can even touch them.” She shivered and squeezed her breasts together.

“There's one right above you,” Danny said with a toss of his head.

“Oh, God,” Janet squealed, and looked up in horror.

“We was just saying that he sound like he getting ready to do something,” Shad commented, and the woman made a face.

“You finished your drink?” she said to Danny.

“Just about.” The investor took a last sip and looked at Shad as he set down the bottle.

“Marvin waiting in his taxi for us at Miss Mac's.”

“I can drive, I still have the car,” Danny said, straightening his shirt.

“No, man, let Marvin drive us. Like how is a nice afternoon, we can just relax.”

“Where you going?” Shad asked.

“Somewhere you don't need to know,” Janet answered. She picked up her bag and jumped off the stool.

“I can't be gone long,” Danny said, standing slowly. “I have stuff to do.”

She slid her hand through his arm. “Pshaw, man, we not going long.” They left the bar, Danny walking fast and Janet, reaching only to his shoulder, trying to keep up, two steps to his one, in her red stilettos.

Shad watched them disappear around the corner. On the radio behind him, the words of one of Sly and Robbie's classics started pouring through the bar, a song that kept repeating the chorus,
Murder she wrote
.