I went forward and he turned and waved a dark hand at me. He said something that was lost in the wind. I put my face next to his and he said he had never seen a man sleep so hard, that he had been trying to awaken me all afternoon.
“Afternoon?” I repeated stupidly, glancing up at the dark sky.
I couldn't believe I'd slept the day away but the old guy insisted he had come out with fruit before noon, then took up an anchor watch when he couldn't shake me awake. He thought the storm would blow over during the night. I hated losing a day away from Rose and it wasn't a big storm. If my head felt better I probably would have started the engines. But you can't play catch-up with time and there wasn't much point in going now— if it was this dark in the afternoon the night would be pitch black.
The anchors seemed okay and I told the old man to come with me. He sat and marveled at the cabin, felt of the bunks and the galley metal, while I dressed and cooked a good meal of eggs and bacon, toast and plenty of coffee. I had some of his bananas and when we finished he said he had work to do ashore. I wanted to give him a pair of pants but I couldn't after telling him last night I didn't have any. He asked if I wanted him back later but I said it was too rough. I thanked him and held out a ten dollar bill. He shook his head and stuck his hands in his pockets. There was a kind of angry dignity about him as he said he'd sat anchor watch both as a friend and as a man who admired a good boat.
I finally gave him a new sweat shirt and a large box of tinned meats, making sure to explain it was merely in exchange for the fruit.
I helped him load it into his bouncing boat. We both knew I couldn't leave the Sea Princess to ferry him ashore with the outboard. I watched him row, kneeling in the boat to get all the leverage of his body behind each stroke. Once ashore I could dimly see him pull the boat up, wave to me, and disappear among the Woman's Tongue trees, carrying the stuff I'd given him. The seed pods on the trees must have been really chattering in this wind.
For want of something to do I took a rain shower on deck, soaping myself good, and when I dressed again and put on oilskins, I felt sober and okay. I spent the rest of the night listening to the radio, checking the anchors every half hour. I still thought about Rose and myself dolled up, living it big on Broadway.
By early morning the storm died and the stars were visible. At dawn I started the motors, noticed the oil temperature shot up too high. I had a little trouble raising the anchors, but once out of the cove I ran up sail and keeping a good mile out to sea, followed the Jamaica coastline. I considered putting in at Green Island, which is a town and not an island at the tip end of Jamaica, for a few hours sleep. I had a good twenty-hour run to Grand Cayman. But I kept sailing because now that I was a day late, I missed Rose more than ever. The fact is, at the moment I even looked forward to seeing my landlord, Ansel Smith, and his sharp puss. I had a big box of the Havana blunts he prized so much.
Old Ansel could—and generally did—talk your head off but he had been a break for us.
After hauling anchor from port to port like sea-going gypsies whenever Rose got her wind up because she thought a man might have looked at her suspiciously, we had lucked up on Ansel's island. If it wasn't much of an island, most of the land actually was his and free of tourists. I'd vaguely heard of him years ago—a small time operator interested in smuggled bolts of cloth or anything else he could sell at his rundown general store. Ansel lived in a fine wooden bungalow within sight of our hut and the whole island was about a half a mile of land many hundred yards off one of the “bigger” Cayman islands, on which his store stood. While I've never been to the South Pacific, I suppose we had the closest thing to a South Sea isle. It has white sandy beaches, colorful and heavy-smelling flowers, coconut palms, and we live in a large thatched hut facing a small reef. This same reef wrecked the first Sea Princess, but actually our cove is a protected and safe mooring, with plenty of water to cross the reef at high tide.
Although I'd heard of Ansel, we had sailed into his cove by pure chance and when we found the hut had running water—it had been his house before he built the bungalow to celebrate his newest and last child—we decided this was for us. I explained we were on a prolonged honeymoon—but under wraps because Rose had a husband who didn't think much of our honeymoon idea. Ansel took the lie and assured us he was a man of the world and understood perfectly. The only time I've actually seen him amazed was when we installed a bathroom in the large hut at our expense.
Ansel's a little man in his late fifties with a dark skin, sharp features, and very proud of his thin, silky-white hair. His wife is a large tan woman who rarely speaks and probably can pick him up with one hand without straining. They have a son who runs the store, and two married daughters living in the islands. The baby boy was a change of life child and as Ansel says over and over, “We knew she have de child in her and we squeeze him out just in time.”
The first time he told me this I made the mistake of asking what he meant. “When Cecil, de first born, come, de old lady have four knots in navel cord. All islanders know each knot signifies de number child woman have inside. Then we knock out two gals a year apart, and den nothing. As years go by, Mrs. Smith say to me, 'Come on, mon, come on, de last baby awaiting.' Mickey, I wear meself out trying for that baby. But we bring him in right under de wire. You bet!”
Ansel himself is not only a dreamer but a tremendous liar. Although he sometimes lapses into the island dialect—for my benefit, I think—he's widely read and self-educated. His hobbies are the history of the Cayman Islands and sex. Over a beer he'll tell anybody Columbus first called the islands Las Tortugas, or the turtle islands. Ansel claims Columbus reached the Caymans first—before he sighted Dominica, which would make old Cris a hell of a cockeyed navigator. Later Ponce de Leon thought the islands were a continuation of the Florida Keys —or cays—named them Cayman Islands. Old Ponce must have had a queer sense of distance, too. Once the Caymans were the center of the turtle industry—there still are turtle pens around—and Ansel loves to lecture about them.
On sex Ansel is the local Dr. Kinsey. In an open and scientific manner, and in great detail, he asked how Rose was in bed. Of course he considers her the most beautiful woman in the world—and so do I. In exchange he told me about the women he'd slept with—which seemed to number millions—and gave me local pearls of wisdom concerning birth. If a crawling baby looks under the mother's skirts the woman is pregnant again, “for the baby is hunting for de new child.” Unless a pregnant woman works hard, the baby will be lazy. A woman will certainly be sterile if the after-birth of the first born isn't buried with a silver coin in the yard outside the house, and facing East. The nana or midwife should tie a tight cord around the waist of a pregnant babe to keep the child from leaping from the womb into her lungs and suffocating her. Half the time I didn't know if he was kidding me or not. Ansel knew a lot about Obeah—a kind of ancient voodoo—but frankly refused to discuss this with me.
He talked about sex and birth with Rose. At first she was sore, until she realized he was merely talking. I know she's fond of him and his wife. Often Rose and Mrs. Ansel Smith (we never knew her first name) have fierce arguments over the baby boy, mainly on matters of sanitation. But Mrs. Ansel is a good listener and they get along fairly well. Most important, from the start Rose completely trusted them.