He watch Thomas quiet, slow self, keeping him company ’cause he is a nice fella and, for the first time, Sam see a softness in he manhood. Jesu Christ — that’s why Fraser like him too.
“Fraser going home tomorrow,” Thomas almost whisper.
“Yeah, I know.” Sam wish he don’ have to wait around no more.
* * *
That night on the North Coast, Ata felt a big, important thing had gone missing. After opening up the dank wooden cottage, they had sat out in the tender relief of wet salt air and wide sky. The unending sea below them turned lazily and steadily, rolling in breakers in its show of constancy, just as it did on all their visits. It was this they came for. The sturdy crashing and slap-rock sounds, the big and small feeling of staying still on the wooden deck, without the need to talk.
Ata had a rum and Coke from the rusting little fridge, Pierre a glass of wine from the bottle he had brought. And when night fell, they went to dinner across the road at the restaurant on the hill, as they always did. No need for much talk there either — about home, work, nothing. Only little comments about what was good on the menu, which hadn’t changed, and how empty the restaurant always is. The waitress brought the steaming pumpkin soup and fresh white-bread rolls wrapped in a creole cloth that matched their napkins. These restaurants could be found all over the Caribbean — mostly empty, with a cheaply varnished bar and limited wine stock, mediocre food and hotel-packet butter. They ate and stared out at the fluorescent-lit car park, the treetops and rooftops, and could just hear the sea beyond.
Nothing was wrong, nothing the matter. But after they had made love and fell asleep, Ata woke. She stepped through the open doors onto the deck and sat there. They always take a chance, sleeping with the doors open, the sea quarreled. Why risk? the waves echoed, trying to hide their tumbling white smiles in the dark. But they knew why she came, was sitting there gazing, and maybe even what she could only feel was missing but couldn’t name. The black hills behind her felt solid then, reassuring. Not to worry, things go missing all the time and new things wash in.
Ata sat there a long time, neither scared nor clear. She listened, unimpressed, to the sea banter. Eventually she crawled back into bed and snuggled up against Pierre’s warm, dry back. She held him and he rested a paw across her arm. She nestled down in the hay-smell of his fur and was asleep before a strange kiss was placed on her nape. Something brushed a curl off her cheek and sat on the bed behind her.
* * *
Back in their home, the missing feeling had vanished with things to do. With everybody fussing, they moved Fraser back to his place and Thomas pottered around, trying to reestablish his old routine.
“Right, what about dinner at Veni Mangé?” Pierre suggests.
Neither of them want to seem too relieved to have their home to themselves again. But Ata agrees to eat at their favorite colorful restaurant. A discreet celebration of some normalcy.
As Ata and Pierre drive off about six o’clock down the drive, suddenly footsteps, lots — running past Thomas in his room, into the kitchen. Thudding footsteps. Men’s shoes. And voices. Thomas holds his breath, locks his door silently, and reaches for his cutlass. Two voices come back out of the house. Must be about four or five of them.
“Everybody gone.”
Steps, closer to his room.
“Ah feel somebody in there…” A hand tries the door and Thomas leans all his weight against the inside. Sweat drips off his hands gripping the raised cutlass and he squeezes harder, wringing the wooden handle.
“Nah.”
A shoulder thumps against his, on the outside, as the door handle rattles again. “Somebody in there.” Kicks start. Then stop. They listening.
Thomas wonders how they can’t hear his heart and blood thumping so loud. His breath in the pit of his gut, quivers like the blade in the air.
“Nah, boy. It ain’ have nobody there.”
Something hard hits the door. Then the footsteps leave and go back to the house.
Thomas stays behind the door. He dare not move or peep out as he listens to them talking and moving freely through the open house. They stay for hours and go upstairs, taking their time. While the minutes drip from Thomas to the sweaty floor. Pierre had talked about running a phone line into his room but Thomas claimed he hardly made calls. When everybody was busy clamoring for these mobile phones, he couldn’t see the sense in one.
But like the t’iefs think these people wouldn’t come back home?
Two hours pass. Then the footsteps again. Trekking up and down, just outside his window. They carrying things — they must’a t’ief-out the whole house by now and …
Footsteps stop outside his door again. Thomas replenishes his cutlass grip.
Somebody still has a feeling he’s in there — talking about kicking down the door, just to make sure.
Is he and them. First one that come through — he taking off they head. They better not …
Two kicks land, same time on the wood. A next two, and the putty between the cracks popping out.
His heart can’t give up now, a next kick and they will come through.
Just so sudden though, they stop. Thank the Lord. And this time they don’t stick around to hear his blood beating. They steups, give up, and leave.
* * *
At the end of their colorful meal, Pierre gets the call from their neighbor and they rush home. Thomas flapping and the police haven’t arrived but the neighbor’s security company is there flashing torchlights into the bushes.
“Are you okay, though. You okay, Thomas?” Ata taps his stiff shoulders as he splutters out the whole story, brave enough still to enter the house with them. The security had turned on all the lights and checked it out.
“The TV still there!” Thomas exclaims. “But the VCR gone … Watch what dese fellas do.”
The fridge is wide open and some cupboards too.
“They was eating! And drinks too — all de alcohol gone.”
The computers are still there but the camera, some British pounds, and all the small appliances — blender, toaster, down to hair dryer — taken. The police arrive, blink their siren lights about, point torches up the hill, and say they will be back in the morning to take fingerprints.
Upstairs, Ata walks past the bathroom to their bedroom, feeling the eyes of the men, who must have been watching from the hill, following these same movements, earlier. She goes back down the steps, just as she had then.
“Thank God Fraser wasn’t here still.”
“I say that too. And look how they cut the telephone cord — these fellas see how to do these things on TV.” Thomas can’t stop talking and repeating the story, no matter how much Pierre keeps saying it’s okay, nothing much was lost and he wasn’t harmed.
They lucky. Thomas lucky. But they should have more security measures, the guards told them. Too much risk. When Thomas protests that it was six o’clock in the evening, the place wasn’t even dark yet — he would’ve locked upstairs and turned on lights at seven — what is wrong with this place? Nobody replies. Nobody could say what really had gone awry — what was taken or disappeared. Missing. Ata just feels more empty. Their bed foreign, room full of strangers, their home like trampled grass. The hills’ ever-present stare and their betrayal lumps up, breathing down too close.
* * *
Next morning Ata hears Vernon’s growl downstairs with Thomas. He came at first light, after hearing the news. How could Thomas have slept when she and Pierre hardly did, even in each other’s arms?