Here Comes the Sun(81)

Currently there is yellow tape all over town. The warning is as clear as the sun. In a matter of weeks, River Bank will be no more. Everyone gathers to meet at Dino’s at night to discuss the development. They talk and talk, the men pounding fists on tables or countertops and the women shaking or holding their heads. Macka offers them hard liquor, like he offered the farmers when their crops had started to die, and they take gulps, not sips, throwing their heads back and wiping sweat from ridged foreheads. Little children play hide-and-seek under the tables and chairs, avoiding the grown-ups, who are beside themselves in panic. Even if they block River Bank Road in protest, the developers will still proceed. Look what happened to Little Bay. They have already erected hotel resorts on top of people’s homes, and they will do it again and again.

In the midst of their chatter, Verdene Moore appears in the doorway. A hush falls over the bar. Even the children stop playing to look. She glides inside Dino’s without a pause, as though she has always belonged. As though she hasn’t noticed the women shifting to avoid touching her, the mothers hissing for their little girls to move away, and the men clutching their bottles like a neck they want to strangle. Thandi, who is seated beside Delores, watches her with curiosity. Verdene smiles at Thandi and she almost smiles back before remembering not to. Verdene sits next to her. “Hello, Thandi,” she says, her voice laced with familiarity. An agitated Delores grabs a slipper as if to hit Verdene. “Get behind me, Satan!” Delores shouts.

“I’m not going to let you run me off again,” Verdene says calmly. She doesn’t move away from Delores and her slipper. “My mother didn’t raise a coward. This is my community too. I was born and raised here just like you.” She glances around the room. “Just like all of you.”

One by one people take their hands from their jaws or lolling heads to look. They become animated in their disapproval again, Verdene’s presence seeming to revitalize their spirit. “Yuh crazy?” Macka asks Verdene. “Why yuh t’ink yuh can come in here an’ stan’ up like yuh own di place?”

“This problem concerns me too.”

“It might do yuh more good to leave.” Macka moves closer to her like he’s about to do something.

“I’m not the one to blame,” Verdene says. “Why don’t you focus your energy on those who are responsible?”

“You’re a bigger devil,” Delores says. “Worse than the devil driving us out of our country.” The room quiets, its occupants waiting to see which way the conflict will go. Verdene walks up to the bar and stays, her body stiff with determination. Realizing she’s undeterred by their bullying, and sick with their own troubles, everyone returns to clutching their bottles of liquor to wet their parched mouths and throats, completely drained and powerless as they were before.

Thandi stares out into the darkness as Margot brushes her hair. Like old times, she’s sitting between her sister’s legs absorbing the comfort of the gentle strokes, the mild scrape of the bristles on her forehead as she bends her head back, the sheesh-sheesh sound of hairs being pulled from the roots and tickling the back of her neck soothing. Thandi is sitting with her knees pressed to her chest and her arms encircled around them. It’s dark except for the kerosene lamp that Margot uses to see what she’s doing, and the wood fire that burns nearby, the flames crackling in the cool night air. Margot is humming a song Thandi doesn’t recognize. Earlier Thandi had heard her mother and her sister whispering about her, their hissing fight stirring from the back of the house. She knows it has to do with her being withdrawn over the last few days. Delores went out to get more eucalyptus leaves from people who have the trees in their yards, to boil for Thandi’s bath. They want her back to her old self as graduation approaches, but her ache is deeper than any she has ever felt. It’s deeper than her bones. A soul ache that rattles her already fragile body so great that it knocks her down and yanks her under the throes of a restless sleep. When she’s awake, all she can do is try to recall those dreams that were swept away by the turbulent waves. In her waking moments the water closes quickly over the place where Charles disappears, though Thandi can still feel him—the pressure of his body on hers.

Margot gently parts Thandi’s hair into sections and applies Blue Magic on her scalp like a balm. Thandi inhales the familiar scent, which mixes with her sister’s. She closes her eyes and just feels Margot’s fingers massaging her scalp.

“You told me dat yuh didn’t have a boyfriend,” Margot says gently.

“What does that have to do with anything?”

“We agreed.”

Margot begins to massage Thandi’s scalp again with the oil. “Now look at all the pain he caused you, when this is supposed to be the happiest time of yuh life.” Her voice is as soft as the hair on Thandi’s shoulders. “I’ve never seen you like this. Thandi, yuh have to snap out of it. He’s not coming back. This is the kind of thing that mek women go mad, yuh see all those mad people in di streets wid their hair like thundahclouds an’ privates exposed? They get like that because they expected too much. Nothing lasts forever, Thandi.” She picks up the comb and resumes her languid strokes. “Delores used to give me baths.” Margot’s voice cracks. “I was sick too. Sick wid the same t’ing. Over a girl who told me I was pretty.” Margot chuckles at this. “Ached all ovah my body. Ah couldn’t explain what was happening to me. Nothing Delores did could get me back to myself. I didn’t know what it was then that made me so . . .” She pauses when Thandi turns around to look at her, flame dancing in her eyes. “I was young. And na?ve,” she says. “But I knew something was inside me. Felt it here.” She puts her hand to her belly. “It was like a ball of fire. Delores thought the baths would heal the sickness. She thought all sorta things. Even took me to ah obeah woman to get rub down wid oil an’ black magic concoction. Di woman gave me goat blood to drink in a soup an’ I ran. But there was nothing that coulda get my mind off her.”