The Worlds Within Her (18 page)

“Since when?”

“She always has.”

“Why didn't she ever tell me? I thought they were her favourites.”

“No, they're what you've always given her. She just never had the heart to tell you.”

Jim sniffled unhappily and shook his head.

His father patted him on the shoulder. “Never mind, my boy.” Then, turning to Yasmin, he said, “Well, shall we go inside and have a chat? Young lady, what can I get you? Tea? Coffee? A bit of sherry, perhaps?”

CYRIL DRIVES AT
careful and deliberate speed through the quiet night. His eyes flit constantly around, searching less in the flow of the headlights than into the darkness that resists their reach. Ash, driving an old truck, follows them with the imminence of a shadow.

Yasmin, held by the revealed details of a landscape no longer seen, feels sequestered by the darkness. And the knowledge that both Cyril and Ash are armed — a machete at Cyril's feet, an unspecified weapon on Ash's passenger seat — is itself somehow suffocating.

Cyril drives in a silence Yasmin does not feel free to disturb, but as they leave the coast road behind and enter the town he relaxes sufficiently that his breathing eases into inaudibility. Yasmin understands then that his tension is unsummoned, that he is not merely being dramatic.

Slowing his speed, he gives a burst of nervous laughter. “I suppose Penny right, you know. Nostalgia. Maybe is ol' age.
But these days is as if everything bothering me.” Another burst of nervous laughter. “I guess I becoming a crotchety ol' man.”

Yasmin, with a sudden desire to comfort him, says, “Looks like you've got a lot to be crotchety about, though.”

“Yeah, but —”

He slows, but does not stop, at an intersection.

“— I can hardly even watch cricket any more.” For the first time during the drive, he lets his eyes flicker from the road to her. “You know cricket?”

“Kind of. Mom used to watch it from her apartment. I know the basic rules.”

“From her apartment? Where'd she live — in a stadium?”

Yasmin explains about her mother's Sunday afternoons, about the binoculars and the view from the window.

“And these cricketers,” he says. “Did they wear whites?”

“Always.”

“Always,” he mumbles, and for a moment appears to reflect on the word. Then he says, “Strange, eh, how some customs survive better in exile. These days, cricket become big business.
TV
and everything. Now the players wearing colours. Green, yellow. Shows up better on
TV
, nuh. Some o' them makin' millions.”

The regret in his voice prompts Yasmin to ask whether this is not a good thing, but her question goes unheeded.

He says, “You know, my bes' memories of Shakti is at cricket. Her and Celia — Celia was my wife, nuh — drinking tea and eating sandwiches and watching the match day after day.”

He slows, but does not stop, at a red light. “Some laws jus' too dangerous to obey,” he explains. “You don't want to stop in the nighttime if you can help it.”

Assuring himself with a glance in the rearview mirror that Ash is still behind, he says, “Celia use to try to predict the cricket results from tea leaves. She had more than a passing
interest in tasseomancy. Shakti never tell you about that?”

“Mom,” Yasmin says evenly, “never told me much about anyone.”

NO, NO, MRS. LIVINGSTON
. In your left hand. Now, swirl the cup slowly. Clockwise, please. With gentleness. Once, twice, three times. There we are. The idea, you see, is to allow the leaves to settle into the pattern they wish. Now tip it into the saucer and pass it to me. There now, gently does it.

It was like a parlour game she played, you see, my friend Celia. When the cricket was slow or the afternoon long. She'd read up on it, knew what many of the symbols meant. An anchor meant success, a cat's head peace and contentment — but if she saw a complete cat poised for battle, well, then, it was a sign of conflict. You can imagine what a horseshoe or a clover leaf meant, or a dagger for that matter. The most disappointing was when she discerned letters. Those were taken to be the initials of someone you should pay attention to, but for good or ill she could not say. I cannot begin to explain the contortions we would go into, Mrs. Livingston, to apply initials to people we knew. But there are thousands of symbols and signs and what have you, so that offered her a kind of freedom, you see. It's the fun of tasseomancy. It's a game of imagination from beginning to end.

But sometimes … No, I'm afraid I'm not seeing … Maybe if I turned it this way. It depends on the light, too, you see. Celia always sought indirect light. Too much brightness and too much
darkness tend to obscure the patterns, for the symbols are as much a question of shape as of shadow. Let's see now. Perhaps if you tilted the lampshade a bit, do be a dear. This way — no, no, that's too much. Back a touch, that's it, yes, that's better.

Truth to tell, Celia never had anything of great interest to say. I don't know whether my leaves were uninteresting or whether she simply wasn't very good at it — rather like myself, might I add. She attempted to be encouraging, I suppose.

But there was this one day, when we were at the cricket. India or Pakistan must have been visiting, for I remember only dark-skinned men at play. It was early afternoon, the players had just taken the field after lunch and play was still sluggish in the afternoon heat. Celia took my saucer as I have just taken yours, bent over it and peered with her habitual concentration at the array of wet leaves.

I remember looking up from the field of play, above the bleachers on the far side, to the heat haze that dulled the colours of the hills beyond. For some reason, a comment my husband had made the night before about the weather we were having came to me. Hot and muggy weather, the sun like open flame on the skin. He'd called it heart-attack weather, and my brother-in-law, Cyril, had responded that, with the multitude of fires that were breaking out almost uncontrollably all over the island, and with the drought we were experiencing, heart attacks seemed the least of our worries. It was then that I heard Celia say, “Oh, my.” I turned to her as she pronounced her reading unsuccessful and poured my leaves back into the cup. Just at that moment, one of my husband's political men appeared. Celia saw him scanning the crowd and pointed him out to me. I waved to catch his attention.

He ran up and came along the row to me. He was hurried, rough, he trod on toes. I was about to pull him up for his lack
of consideration when he said, “Miss Shakti —” and a terrible look came over his face.

No, Mrs. Livingston. Not my husband, and not a heart attack — though this is what I, too, thought.

No. This is how I learnt that my parents had both perished in a fire. A cooking accident. My mother …

And when my father tried to save her he too … In that weather the flames were voracious.

My husband was at a political meeting, forging alliances. A delicate moment for him, so he sent his man with the news. You know, I don't remember leaving the cricket grounds and, indeed, Celia told me later that my husband's man had had to pick me up insensible halfway to his car. She also told me that in my leaves she had seen with a clarity that startled her — that “Oh, my” — a perfect, dense circle. As if the leaves, she said, had woven themselves into a black sun.

STORES SHUTTERED AND
barred: rows of dark iron vertical and horizontal, crossed into Xs, bound into diamonds, mannequins' stares gazing unreciprocated through protected glass.

They turn a corner. Tree trunks and greenery flitter through the headlights. And then, not far ahead, the flashing blues and reds of emergency: police cars, ambulances.

Cyril says, “But what
jhunjut
is this.” He pulls quickly to the side, Ash immediately behind, his lights filling their car.

They sit in silence for a moment, trying to read the pantomime
in the coloured lights. But movement is minimal, and half hidden by vehicles.

A rear door opens and Ash slips into the car. He says, “Is right in front o' the hotel.”

Cyril says, “You have another news flash for us? We have eyes, you know.”

His tone tells Yasmin that he is unnerved. She places her hand on his, to calm him. He takes a deep breath, crosses his palms on the steering wheel in a gesture of indecision.

THE TIGER LILIES
sat in a simple vase on the coffee table, an embarrassment on display, a rebuke that would not go away. Jim, eyeing them unhappily, mumbled, “What was the fucking point anyway?”

Yasmin caressed his arm, but he would not be consoled.

When his mother brought in a bowl of potato chips, Jim said, “Mom, maybe we should put the flowers somewhere else?”

“But why, dear?” she said, taken aback. “They're beautiful.”

Quickly, Yasmin said, “It's Jim, Mrs. Summerhayes. He reacts.”

“Oh, does he? But Jimmy, why didn't you tell me? I'll … Why don't we put them in the dining room. Yes, the dining room.”

Jim sat there on the sofa beside Yasmin, and said nothing; merely watched with an ironic detachment Yasmin found painful and unattractive as his mother scooped up the vase and bustled off with it.

Jim said, “Don't try mediating, Yas. See? Even there she couldn't tell me she's allergic.”

“Has she always scurried around like that, or is it me?”

“Mom's always been a scurrier. That's how she's always operated. At the supermarket, in church, preparing dinner.”

“I wish you'd told me that before.”

“Why? What difference does it make?”

“Me. You and me. Our wedding. Scurriers don't like surprises. I must have been a big one, bigger than she could ever have imagined.”

“That's no excuse —”

“No, but at least I'd have —”

“Here we go then,” Mr. Summerhayes called as he came in holding two glasses of sherry. He had washed, changed his shirt. “One for you and one for you. I'll be back with mine in just a minute.”