* * *
“Good morning,” Ata whispers, entering the guest room.
Fraser’s foot waves from the bed. The mosquito net is half off, sheets kicked into a heap.
“You okay?” She goes up to his bedside, trying to bring the morning in on her face.
He reaches a hand out for hers as he croaks, “I made it to the bathroom by myself — shhh.” He presses as she moves to object. “It’s just the damn net, though; I had to fight it off. It was like a nightmare trying to hold me back.”
She squeezes his hand and can’t help telling him off for taking the risk, with no one close by to hear or help. She untucks the rest of the mosquito net, pulls it back, and ties it up. “We could get rid of this but then you’ll have to use the fan or AC for the mozzies.” Straightening the bed, she nods to his twisted boxers. “The latest style?”
He chuckles as she helps him straighten them. “Only safe with silk ones, girl. Castration otherwise.”
“How’s your new navel string this morning?” She checks the dressing just below his belly button that covers the tube inserted for peritoneal dialysis. The dressing is intact. “You up to coming outside for breakfast? Or you’d like it in here? It’s a bit late but it’s not too-too hot. Bright … let me open the doors for you.”
Fraser’s hand stops her, trembling slightly like his voice. “Not just yet, Ata. Thanks, though.” He asks if he could have one of her tofu smoothies for breakfast and agrees to have his face wiped.
She wipes his features with the warm washcloth and he sighs softly. Tired eyes close. Royal turtle nose, jowls, and finely shaped lips breathe. His big brow and silk-fuzzed bald head smooth, long ears flatten. The still, warm room sighs, then stays silent.
* * *
That Friday, Ata had rushed about with predeparture excitement. It thrilled her every time, even when she planned her travel. She had worked late nights to hand in her jobs to Roses Advertising and finish Slinger’s costume prototype. That morning she double-checked that Thomas had what he needed, before they left.
“Breakfast is getting cold!” Pierre shouted from out on the lawn.
“The money for the topsoil delivery is on my desk,” she told Thomas and paused in the kitchen with him. She could see he was trying to remember something else.
“Everything is cold now!”
“Coming!” She tapped Thomas’s broad shoulder, grinning with him as he chucked his head in Pierre’s direction. They would laugh behind Pierre’s back at how prompt and particular he got around mealtimes, especially when he had prepared it. As if food cooled off in a second in this heat, or as if everyone felt the need to eat it piping hot in a strict sequence. At first Thomas was alarmed, but Ata reassured him that Pierre was not really angry, it was just him trying to hold on to a piece of his culture.
The breakfast was Pierre’s. The same toast, butter, jam, and café noir. He had long given up trying to find quality pastries and French foods, didn’t have time for that, and had kept his distance from regular French expats by deliberately not fussing about food or wine. Just get the best when you see it, and drink it. It was the one thing he refused to go without — wine.
There was a gesture of fruit on the outdoor table for Ata — one solitary mango on its own plate. More crockery than nourishment, she sometimes thought. She sat and pushed her cup forward for the steaming, bitter liquid.
Fraser had arrived as they were finishing, dragging himself out of his beat-up Land Cruiser.
“You’re too late,” Pierre welcomed him, “breakfast’s finished. Sorry, old dog.”
“Jesus. I sure is the same dry ole toast and jam. I’m not too late for breakfast, am I, Ata?”
She offered to heat up the coffee and Pierre headed for the shower.
“I know the English part of you is stingy, that’s okay,” Fraser shouted after him. He cut open the Julie mango, curling the cheeks inside out. It was perfect. He bit, almost dribbling over the heavenly fruit. “Unh, delicious. PIERRE, you up there on yuh throne? Mangoes and other fibrous fruit help, you know. You should try them sometimes.” Laughing with Ata and groaning.
“If you’d like eggs or anything else, help yourself — we have to leave for the airport in half an hour,” she told him.
Toast and the mango was fine. He was just teasing. But even Ata didn’t know sometimes when Fraser was serious. He was exhausted as usual and by the time she came back out with the hot coffee and toast, he was stretched out on the bench in the shade, sleeping.
He scrambled up when she placed the tray down, rubbing his face hard and gesturing quickly at the bamboo, the metal copper with water lilies close by. “Youall moved it. The table is nice in this corner, eh? Very relaxing.”
A breeze rustled the sharp leaves overhead. Ata said nothing but looked at Fraser closely. He looked like he’d been overdoing it again. Burnt-out and not ready for the day ahead. But that was nothing new for him.
By the time she and Pierre had showered and come back downstairs with their one wheelie case, Fraser was fast asleep on the bench again. The coffee hadn’t worked. Thomas was clearing the dishes noisily but that didn’t stir him either. They managed to rouse and maneuver him to the nearest settee and he kicked off his shoes, mumbling, “Bye, have a great time.”
Don’t worry about Fraser, Ata had told Thomas as they left, just let him sleep. Fraser had stayed at their house before, not only when they traveled, but regular time-out from his clients and lovers. He enjoyed hiding and luxuriating in what he called their bohemia, their great combination of tropical and cosmopolitan living, even if they did have some vestiges of colonialism — with a butler, as he called Thomas, silver cutlery and all. He always teased Thomas mercilessly. “Red T’ing,” inspecting Thomas’s friendly features and square build, “you putting on some size, yuh looking thick, man. That bottom looking round and chunksin. And yuh like wearing them sexy little short pants to tempt people, eh?”
Thomas died every time, grinning embarrassedly, dipping to pull his tennis shorts out from where they bunched up between his thighs.
“Yuh sweating? One day I must ketch you, when Pierre and Ata not around…”
* * *
Sleep had Fraser in its grip, curling its poisons through weary veins. He couldn’t move — half-aware of the sound of a car leaving, washing-up noises in the kitchen. The office could wait. The world could wait. He had to sleep. Just to get rid of this terrible tiredness, for now. Sweet sweet sleep, he welcomed … and swam deep, into a borrowed heaven. While the Chancellor Hill rolled Pierre and Ata down its curves to the green belly of the Savannah.
* * *
Ata didn’t bother with the Lady Young Hills judgment that Friday morning, as they wound their way out of town. She was still mentally checking what she had packed or maybe forgotten.
The guardian hills of Port of Spain arched their neck high over the swamp-basin town connecting to the ridged backbone, the Northern Range. The treacherously beautiful route cut through the lookout on the edge of ruffian Morvant territory. It sped you through the Never Dirty bottleneck housing scheme, giving way to Neal & Massy Autos and factories, down to the throbbing Eastern Main Road artery. They crossed the Priority Bus Route, looped onto the highway, and turned east to the airport.
Ata began to relax then, looking forward to a purely pleasurable little trip. Pierre had suggested it. She watched him driving. Sure, strong forearms guiding them easily. She loved the soft curly hair over surprisingly hard, bronzed muscle, thick, tight wrists — so different from his pale, softer upper arms. His one indulgence, an antique gold Rolex with its tan ostrich-skin band, so suited its position that his wrist appeared almost ugly without it. The idea of a real gold Rolex on a white man’s wrist bothered Ata. But she hadn’t known it was a Rolex until she looked closely. This one was old. Understated. The type of wealth that Pierre liked and worked hard to acquire. Something he associated with aristocracy and value and style, the substance of history. Something she was not sure about but was now exploring, with him. She could see the same beauty, though. In a particular piece of antique furniture, selecting the one he would choose — purely by her eye for proportions, and attraction to nonelaborate authentic.