“I know. I want to go there and come back today. I’m going to see something they building down there.”
“Oh ho! You going and see the church they say de prime minister building down there? Okay.” He don’t wait for Father to confirm. “Yes, is Guapo’ self we have to reach. I know where. I hear it ain’ finish yet.”
Father asks Sam to wait a moment and touch him gently on his shoulder before he leaves. The touch feel like Father want him to kneel and confess something. The Father know everything, but Sammy not about to go telling him no tragedy lines. Still, it feel like a kind’a blessing. Sammy grateful even though he not Roman Catholic. Right here, is where people does be kneeling, and taking Communion, whispering secret praise and sucking biscuit and drinking — why they had to call it “the blood of Christ”?
Father come back through the lil’ door in the darky pulpit and they set off. He make Sammy promise that this is a private and confidential trip. Never does he want to hear it broadcast round town, that Father McBarnette went to spy on the PM’s church in Guapo.
“Never, Father,” Sammy agree. “This is not a matter for public affairs. And too-besides, all my private trips is private. They stay right in my car. But you know how Trinis like to maco, Father.” He claims he can’t be responsible for who might recognize the priest down there.
Father agrees.
* * *
Ata bolts upright, squeezing her legs together and pressing her pants into her crotch. Fraser is still sleeping, sound and motionless, and she holds her panicked breath to listen for his. His chest rises and falls again and she dares to move, checks the mattress under her. Relieved that the blood hasn’t reached the sheets, she inches to the foot of the bed, and makes it to the bathroom.
In the light, against white, when she releases her hand, it is blood. But her period was only two weeks ago. She squeezes and compresses her stressed insides. No pain but definite bleeding. Not heavy. Breathe, she tells herself—my body is dealing with this, breathe. And if this is happening to me, what about Fraser’s insides? She lets the tears fall onto her legs as she sits on the toilet. Salt red. The nurse stirs in the kitchen. She must have checked Fraser’s pulse and temperature by now. It has only just gotten dark.
* * *
Night falling fast as Sam and Father McBarnette leave the construction site of the Presbyterian Church in Guapo and head back to Port of Spain.
“Look, what I tell you, Father? Watch behind and you will see the light from Point Icacos lighthouse — tha’s how close we is to the bottom’a Trinidad.”
“It is a big church, isn’t it?” Father had hear too much about the distances and the different routes and roads and want to get Sammy impression of the building, now that he see it himself.
Sam lift himself forward onto the steering wheel. “Is not a nice design, Father. That could never look nice when it done.”
Father smile. “‘Guapo’ means handsome in Spanish.”
“Well, dat could never look handsome, is a ugly piece’a work.”
The endless driving is the counseling Sam need. The familiarity of roads and potholes, rumors and development, the talk of the land, comfort him.
Sam glance across at Father bearded profile, settling back on he headrest for the long road ahead. “Why ah say so, is ’cause it build like a oversize house. You know them big spanking house, that returnees does build when they just come back? What they send they money from Canada to build? Yuh know the ones? Something like a hotel. It look like one’a that — but megarized. Everything in Trinidad is mega now, yuh know. That same stupid prime minister make it so. They well overdo it — but watch the windows they going and put — house windows…”
The dark country sky brush the tops’a coconut trees as they zhupp by.
“Aluminum-frame house windows they buy from Moonan. Is a contract deal, tha’s what it is … Father, you talk to the woman pastor? I hear she not easy, she is de one who go behind de PM for the money. You know wha’ I mean?”
“It’s not good to repeat hearsay,” Father murmur, lulling.
“Father, what yuh think about Fraser … sickness, and how he getting on now, eh? You t’ink is right?”
Father dozing so Sammy continue, he used to talking to sleeping passengers. “Fraser chasing away good-good friends and now he own Mums ain’ talking to him. He doing like he want to die. Who want to die? Is not right…” He have a feeling nothing in this world would ever be right again.
Is a kind’a black Jesus, Sammy carrying here in his car. Well all right, a black-man of Jesus or “of the cloth,” with he lil’ wooden cross ressing on his chest, and piece’a white collar shining by he throat. Father wouldn’t tell him what he think about Fraser even if wasn’t sleeping. He would tell him what God think or what Jesus say. Smart man. No one would never know what a man like he thinking. But Sam still wished he did. He had two hours of driving to Mount Saint Benedict tucked high up in them Saint Joseph hills. Then half an hour back down to home. He will pass and check on his daughter. Even though will be late, he could watch she sleeping face.
THOMAS SMILES at Fraser, who’s trying to pucker up and give him sweet-eye, even now. “Look at you — yuh can’t do nothing and yuh still trying.”
“So you wait till I stuck in bed, to come close? You just want to tempt me. Where de short pants?”
“Nah, I tell meself that go be too much. Look how it turn round now, eh?”
“You too late, man, too late.” Fraser mock-steupses and turns his head away, reaching for Thomas’s hand on the edge of his bed. “Thanks for coming.”
“Well, I had was to come, and see how me good ole pallywal doing.” Thomas keeping good cheer to cover his shock. Fraser was disappearing by the day. “You ain’ eating enough, man. You can’t let dis t’ing fight you down.”
“No, it’s not that, it’s—” Fraser breaks into coughing.
“Like you ketch Alan nasty cold.”
The racking seizes him and takes its cruel course. Thomas feels it shaking up through his own thick hand.
“Have a seat,” Fraser splutters as it passes. The nurse sticks her head in and he waves her away. Signals Thomas for his glass of water, to wash down the phlegm that wouldn’t come up. “Ah boy, ahh.” He sinks deeper into his pillow. The feeling of emptiness inside now was beyond hunger, and more comfortable, maybe even clean. Yes, clean. He feels better without food, extremely lucid for moments too.
“Where Alan, by the way?” Thomas asks.
“He’s, he’s sorting out downstairs, to camp out for a while, now he’s decided to stay on a bit longer.”
“Good, tha’s good.”
“Where’s Ata?” Fraser asks. “She and Helen and Marriette supposed to be coming today.”
“Sammy will bring her just-now. Pierre gone up Blanchisseuse, just for today, so she don’ have de car and she had to pick up a few things.”
“Oh? Why Pierre gone up there? They quarrel?”
“No,” Thomas answers promptly, happy to report. “You know him, maybe he have some document work to do, or something. Maybe he just want to get away too. Yuh know how it does be sometimes.” He drums his fat fingers on the mattress and stares at the Casio digital watch he wears when he’s out.
“Yes, maybe.” Barely a murmur from Fraser. The two pillows are seeping into his head. Muffling him. Pierre should be careful up there. He wonders if Ata has told him. How could she? No. Did he tell her she should — come clean with Pierre straightaway?
* * *
“Baking. You could say de sun baking today, ent?”
Sammy seems more normal today, Ata notes. He reverses neatly and slides down the drive, crouching forward into his customary on-the-lookout pose. He checks the rearview, to see the gate closing properly, because he knows no one was left at home. She relaxes a little. She likes his ever-guardedness now. It makes her feel safer, closer to something secure.