MELANIE GRANT
The migratory Saharan dust, stopping by on its annual journey from West Africa, diluted the colours of the day and turned the small volcanic island into a dull watercolour wash of itself. Everywhere was covered in a grainy, light terracotta haze, including the peak of the island, the grey-headed volcano Morne Diable.
Morne Diable looked down on the island, like many of the elderly women of Queen’s Isle who spent their days idly watching the world from their open windows and patios, calling out and wishing every passerby a good day. But unlike these women, the volcano surveilled silently and hadn’t said a word to anyone in many years.
Down by the Hillsborough jetty, a single boat approached from the horizon, cutting through the haze. The heliconia-red boat, bearing the name ‘Scarface’ hand-painted in white, italic lettering on the hull, wove its way through mounds of shells jutting out of the shallow greenish-blue waters of the bay. Thousands of discarded queen conch shells lay piled up in what the locals called the conch graveyard, their array of pinks all turning bone-white, slowly being bleached by the sun. In the body of this red boat were more shells. Dozens upon dozens of them. These ones still had life writhing around in them.
The driver of the boat slowed as she reached the jetty. Her black neoprene wetsuit was rolled down to her hips, revealing the solidity of her abdomen, her chest compressed by a sports bra. Suddenly, she pushed the gear into reverse, sending the propellers spinning in the opposite direction. The engine let out a loud guttural roar as it spit out water. With a sense of urgency, a young man leapt from the boat onto the jetty, grabbed the thick rope which was tossed to him and waited to secure the boat to one of the rusty cleats. The woman guided the boat sideways and connected gently with the black tires hanging from the side of the jetty.
People here called her — this conch fisherwoman — Scarface. Or, Scar, for short. Everyone here had a nickname. People on this island had a natural gift for summing up everyone’s existence into one defining characteristic and then giving it to them as a name badge to wear.
She got her nickname from the scar that divided the left side of her face in two. A jagged line that ran from above her eyebrow, curving its way to the base of her cheek. Her skin there looked pulled and gathered, like ruched fabric, lifting, ever so slightly, the left side of her smile. She often hid her scar behind her freeform locs which dangled in front her face, like a beaded curtain.
As she walked down the jetty, carrying two buckets loaded with conchs in either hand, Scar looked like a woman who was used to carrying heavy loads on her own. There was something about the way she hung her head and walked forward, that made her look both solid and solitary.
At the top of the jetty, a man sat comfortably on an upturned bucket smashing the head of a queen conch shell with a hammer and sliding his hand into the shell to rip the conch’s slack body from the safety of its blush pink home.
“Scar”, he shouted as she approached him. Which sounded more like “Ska” in the sharp Queen’s Isle accent that often cut off the ends of words.
She rested the buckets next to him, adding to the queue of conchs waiting to be killed and cleaned, whose shells would then be added to the growing graveyard in the bay.
Wiping away the sweat gathered on her brow, she looked up towards the bleak, dusty sky. Her squinting eyes pulled up her top lip, revealing the edge of a gold-capped incisor, glinting in the sun.
“Reminds you of those days, nuh?”
“Chuh. Same ting did cross my min’. Thinkin’ Jab actin’ up again or somethin’ so.” Even the volcano had a nickname here. “But, then I tell myself, it jus’ a lil dust. Nothin’ to worry yuh head ‘bout.”
“Yea. Nothin’ to worry ‘bout.” Scar replied. Though she knew that when you share an island with a volcano and have seen within your lifetime what it’s capable of, the worry never truly settles.
When the notice of evacuation was put out one February morning in 1989, she didn’t understand the adults’ panic-stricken reaction. When the ash began to fall all over the island, looking like the large puffs of talcum powder women and girls patted down their necks with, she couldn’t understand how something that looked so soft could destroy half an island. It was only at Tamara’s unexpected departure that she was aggressively awakened from the adolescent naivete that blinded her to the gravity of what was happening.
Scar and Tamara had known each other since the age of 15 when they moved into the Hillsborough primary school-turned-shelter. Over the following months, the two became inseparable. People at the shelter would never see one without seeing the other trailing behind.
Until one day they did.
Tamara had vanished from the shelter with her mother one morning, without saying goodbye to anyone. Scar was filled with grief at this unexpected loss; the first major one she had been confronted with. She was forced to bury within herself what had been the beginning of something more profound than just a friendship.
Clunk. A shell fell to the ground.
“Huh?” Scar muttered.
“I said I have de 25 pound’ ready fuh you in the cooler dey so.” He used his chin to point to a plastic blue cooler off to his left.
“Alright. I’ll make a first rounds an’ deliver these an’ come back fuh the rest later.”
After washing off the salt from her skin and changing out of her wetsuit, she loaded the cooler, packed with fresh conch meat and ice, into the back of her pickup truck. The metal had rusty, open wounds from years of constant exposure to the corrosive, salty sea spray. As she turned the key in the ignition and the engine awakened, everything inside, including Scar and the cooler, began to tremble. She honked twice, waving to the men left working on the jetty, and headed off in the direction of her daily deliveries.
***
Bam! Somewhere nearby, dominoes were being slammed against a table. Scar lined up six beer bottles and prised their caps off, one by one; each releasing a little hiss that was drowned out by the music and the crowd chattering in Ma Queenie’s rum shop.
Bartending was not her second job, being a helpful daughter was. Scar jumped in to lend a hand at Ma’s on nights like these, when the place was particularly busy. The arms of the clock on the wall now pointed to 6:23 pm. The sun had only just slipped beneath the horizon, yet Ma’s shop was already full. She slid the beers to the waiting customer and took the cash. While she made change, the next person was already shouting their order at her. “Two portions of de stew conch.”
Through a little cut-out service window behind the bar, Scar screamed to Ma and two other chefs. “Two stew!”
Ma’s was the place to gather and meet on weekends. This local Saturday night ritual was all about the conch — Ma’s specialty. There, on the menu, a blackboard propped up next to the bar with words hand-written in chalk, was conch in every form you could imagine: fried conch, curry conch, conch fritters, stew conch, conch souse.
Ma Queenie managed everything food and drink-related while Big Joe, Scar’s father, managed the music and Karaoke. It was a symbiotic relationship.
In the corner Big Joe stood at a turn table next to two colossal speakers. Some residents claimed that the bass coming from them could be heard on the opposite side of the island.
“Be careful that bass don’t wake up Jab!” People would say to him, half-joking, half-serious.
Those who wanted to sing Karaoke, would need to know the lyrics of the songs well because the screen was malfunctioning after being tossed to the floor during a rum shop quarrel. No one was wounded during the brawl, just the screen. It now had an undulating rainbow strip that cut horizontally through all the lyrics.
Next up to sing was Natty. He took the microphone from Joe in one hand, gripping it gently with a hardened, dry palm. A labourer’s hand.
The title appeared, wobbling on the cracked screen. ‘A Picture of Me Without You’. A George Jones Classic.
Natty began. “Imagine a world where no music was playin’…” Dum. Dum.
If you listened carefully to those who stepped up to sing, you would notice that there were feelings in the words of the singers, coming from the depths of their core. Heavy, weighted feelings. And singing had a way of pulling it out of them, slow-slow, like a frail man hauling an anchor from the depths of the sea. Inch by inch. Lyric by lyric.
The smiles and brawling cackles in Ma’s shop would fool anyone. But the truth was, everyone left behind on this volcanic island had experienced great loss. Some had lost their homes to heaps of ash. Some had lost family members to migration. No one was spared and everyone was grieving something or someone, trying to release their grief or drown it. Or put it aside at the door of the rum shop and forget it for a moment. These were the tools at their disposal here: Song and liquor. Liquor and song. One a cheaper form of therapy than the other.
After Natty finished, the crowded room swelled with the rise and fall of applause.
“Can you tek over from me fuh a sec?” Scar said to Yellow Man, the bartender working the shift alongside her. A customer pushed forward and shouted an order at them. Yellow Man shot her a look as if to say you better not leave me alone.
“It’s just a lil 3-minute song. I’ll be right back.” Scar patted Yellow Man on the shoulder before squeezing out from behind the bar. She jostled her way through the packed room and whispered something in Big Joe’s ear. Shortly after, guitar strumming came through the speakers. Tracy Chapman’s ‘Crossroads’ flickered on the broken screen.
As Scar began, the voice that came out from within her was deep and dignified. The lower notes rose from her chest, out from her lips and then sank softly, landing on the floor as if carefully placed there, before being absorbed by the room.
Blue Curry. Untitled. Conch shell, strobe light, 25 x 20 x 15 cm, 2009
The feeling of being watched came over her. Not the feeling of being watched by the crowd. It was that feeling of being stared at, deliberately, that made the skin being gazed upon hum ever so slightly. And her skin, in this moment, was humming loudly.
She turned her head quickly to the right. There, at the bar, was a man staring directly at her. The light above the bar coated his black skin in royal blue, making him look as if he were submerged under the sea. His hair was gradually faded down to the skin on the sides and buzzed low on the top. The thought crossed her mind that he was handsome. Exceptionally. This thought unsettled her. She couldn’t recall the last time in her life that she had found a man attractive.
What the fuck does he want? She thought.
He smiled.
The lyrics she knew by heart, came out slightly jumbled in the next line of the chorus. She quickly covered her mistake and turned back to the unreliable, broken screen for support.
Then something slotted into place within her, in a jarring way. A forceful hit to the chest that sent her heart beating at the speed of a hummingbird’s wings. She felt the sensation of years, the weight of 15 of them compounded on top of one another, pushing down on her.
Gripped the microphone tighter Scar dared to look back towards the bar. Staring at her was not the face of a man.
No.
It was the face of Tamara.
***
Yellow man watched Scar walk away with a glare that could almost cut her. She mouthed her apologies to him as she and Tamara squeezed through the crowd and slipped out the front door of the shop. All the seating outside was already taken so they opted to sit on the lip of the curb.
Scar snuck glances at Tamara, quietly taking her in, trying to pinpoint the ways in which her old friend had changed since she last saw her. She was a far cry from the scrawny-armed teenager that she remembered. Tamara had filled out, her body layered with muscles and the skin that stretched around her biceps was now a canvas full of black and grey tattoos.
“I must say, your voice has improved,” Tamara said. Scar noticed the way the sharp edges of her Queen’s Isle accent had changed, as if someone had taken a fine grit sandpaper to it and tried to polish it down, softening the edges of her words. “Maybe we can try a duet later?”
“You gonna let me pick my role?” Scar smiled at her.
“Hmm… Sure. I’m feeling a little generous tonight.” Tamara leaned over and nudged Scar, playfully.
It was like picking up where they had left off all those years ago.
In the months following the eruptions, with schools now serving as shelters, the government took many months trying to figure out how to educate the children. So, during that time, the children were free to enjoy an endless summer with eternal idleness. Scar and Tamara often spent those days learning their favourite songs by heart. Sneaking off to the almond tree behind the school-shelter with Tamara’s mother’s radio, stolen from under her cot. When it came to duets, there would be a fight for who got to sing the guy parts yet every time, Scar would cave in and give way to Tamara’s wishes. The constant compromising reaped the constant reward of Tamara’s smile.
Tamara was now looking directly at Scar, searching her face. Scar lowered her head sharply, shaking it ever so slightly so that her locs fell on her face.
“What?” Scar asked through the veil she had created in front of her eyes.
“You know I’ve tried to imagine you over the years but locs never came to mind.”
Through her locs, Scar clocked a subtle movement at the edge of her peripheral vision. Fingers reaching towards the tip of a loc. Tamara’s hand hovered nearby for a second and then retreated to her drink.
“I don’t know why because they suit you perfectly.” She smiled.
“Can’t say I pictured you bald either.” Scar joked, trying to deflect the compliment.
Scar watched Tamara’s smile fade as she turned away from her and stared off into the distance, running her hand across the smoothness of her scalp, from her forehead down to the nape of her neck. She began to worry that she had said something wrong.
“Well, I initially did it in solidarity with my mother and then just kept it short after.”
“Solidarity?”
“She had cervical cancer for a few years. Lost the battle a little over a year ago.”
An appropriate immediate response in that moment would’ve been something along the lines of my condolences or I’m so sorry to hear. She tried to say the words, but they weren’t forming. Scar hadn’t prepared herself for this. To hear that the woman who was responsible for separating her from the first person she loved, and teaching her what profound loss felt like, had died. Even though the anger that she once felt for Tamara’s mother had weakened over the years and turned into a grudge, it was still a grudge that hadn’t lost its bitter taste.
A decision made by Tamara’s mother had caused a ripple effect that marked Tamara in so many ways. She was reminded of it every day she looked in the mirror and was confronted with a scarred face.
“I’m trying to take her ashes to Clifton cemetery. She always told me that she wanted to be buried there.”
Clifton cemetery was in the exclusion zone. Anyone who entered needed a permit and a guide.
“You get permission fuh that?”
“I’ve been trying for the longest while. But then they got back to me and said they aren’t letting anyone go to the exclusion zone at the moment. But where there’s a will…” Scar saw the determination on her face.
“It’s a bit risky to try an’ go without a permit.”
“You were never the type back then to worry about risk-taking. When did that change?”
Between the two of them, Scar had been the bigger risk-taker. During their first May at the shelter, Scar had overheard some fishermen taking about the leatherback turtles that came to nest in the nearby Bay. It took a bit of persuading for Tamara to agree to go along when Scar pitched the idea. They waited for the full moon to sneak out and make their way onto the beach. The light of the full moon made Layou Bay shine like a newly minted silver dollar. After over an hour of waiting, they finally saw one. A giant, her charcoal black body freckled with white spots, rising from the waves. They watched as the turtle made her way onto the beach and found a soft spot of black sand, grunting as she started digging a hole, her powerful flippers becoming shovels to dig the nest in which she’d bury her eggs. Scar had noticed Tamara cross her arms and fold into herself, shivering. They were both being hit by the chill of the sea breeze. Instinctively, she wrapped her arms around her, ignoring the goosebumps that had been pinching at her own skin, giving all her warmth to Tamara.
“I do have a boat…” Scar said.
“You do?” Tamara brightened. “I will pay you anything!”
Scar swirled her drink around in the cup for a few long seconds, thinking. Taking Tamara for free would mean that she was doing a favour for an old friend. Accepting payment would mean that she would just be a woman with a boat, providing a service. There was no way she would ever accept money from her.
“I don’t think it’s a good idea. You lookin’ at a five thousand dollar fine if we get…”
“Please.” She cut her off, leaning over and gently resting a warm palm on Scar’s knee. “I have been trying to get back here for almost a year. I just want to finally take her home. She deserves that.”
Scar looked at Tamara. There she is, she thought — the girl that she knew whom she had always desperately wanted to please.
Scar sighed. “We can go tomorrow mornin’. I’ll come fuh you at five thirty. Best to get in an’ out early.”
Some things never change.
***
By the time they arrived at the exclusion zone, the sun was rising in the East, behind the back of the volcano. Pelicans, with their long, prehistoric faces, stoically positioned themselves on the pillars of one of the old jetties, like guardsmen on a morning shift, watching the women as they parked the boat.
Tamara held the metal urn containing her mother close to her chest as they began their walk across the rocky terrain. The land beneath Morne Diable used to fan out around the volcano like a full green skirt, lush and abundant with gardens and agricultural lands. But the lahars had come down from the volcano and these days the island looked as if someone had accidentally poured a bucket of cement over it and forgotten to clean the mess up.
It took almost 10 minutes of walking inland for them to find recognisable remnants of the old capital, Clifton. Scar thought the sight resembled the black and white pictures her history teacher had shown them of faraway cities bombed in wars. But all this was simply the island warring with itself.
“If I remember correctly, the church should be about two streets up from here, no? That way?” Tamara pointed a finger eastward.
They recognised the cemetery only due to its position in relation to the church. There were only a few gravestones visible; tips of crosses peaking their heads above the thick pile of ash.
“I hadn’t really thought this part through.” Tamara turned to Scar, as if asking for help.
“Umm… Just say somethin’ from the heart, I guess.”
Scar had found herself being a guest at a funeral she didn’t really want to attend.
“I can give you a minute to do your thing.” Scar said, stepping away.
“No… Can you stay?”
Tamara began her improvised eulogy. “How to sum up a whole life into a few words? I am not sure I can but I will try. I have never met a stronger soul. You taught me how to stand tall in the face of any hardship. And we know, we know, we have faced difficult times…” She paused when she heard the noise. The sounds of wind being whipped, approached them, getting louder and louder. A small black insect on the horizon, growing and growing as it came closer.
The volcanic observatory surveillance helicopter.
“Oh shit! The church!” Scar yelled, quickly darting in the direction of open doors. From behind her then came a thud. She paused and turned to see Tamara rising quickly from the ground, dusting herself off and scurrying along.
They entered the church and settled to catch their breath from the short sprint. Then, finally noticing their surroundings, they looked around in disbelief. St. John’s Anglican church used to be the grandest building in Clifton, with thick limestone walls, polished wooden pews and ornate stained-glass windows that turned the church into a kaleidoscope of colours at certain times of the day. But all of that had been lost. All that remained now were the sturdy limestone walls and part of the roof. Vines spread themselves out in an attempt to reclaim the entire building, as nature always does.
“She would be so sad to see it in this state. I sometimes wonder if the homesickness might’ve been what took hold of her body.”
“Then why did she leave?” Scar had finally found the appropriate moment to insert the question.
“It was what was best for us at the time. And she knew I wouldn’t have the same opportunities here as I did in London.”
“So you agree with her decision then,” Scar thought, aloud.
“I do, yes.”
This was not the response she was hoping for. Maybe it would’ve been best to leave things in the past, she thought. She wanted to get back to her boat, go back to Hillsborough, and drop off Tamara where she had found her. She didn’t want to be part of this ceremony anymore. But the whirring of the helicopter still thrummed nearby, trapping them there.
“Why didn’t she let you say goodbye to me though?” She couldn’t stop the words from manifesting themselves out loud.
“Because…” Tamara looked around the room as if searching for the words on the walls.
“Because what?” Scar asked impatiently.
“Do you remember Mr. Edwards?” Tamara asked.
The man who fucked up my face? she thought. Yes. Of course, she remembered. The memory of him was forever engraved on her skin. “What about him?”
“Remember what I told you I caught him doing while I was in the showers? How he’d watch me? I also told my mother. She had the same reaction as you. She wanted him dead. But she also wanted me as far away from the shelter as possible.”
Scar propped her back against the flaking stone of the windowsill. She folded her arms and listened.
“Right after that she went and bought the tickets to England. She didn’t want anyone to know and then it became a big scandal. You know how things can be. It would’ve also been my word against his and she didn’t want people challenging me.” Tamara approached her. “I swear to you I didn’t know she was making all those plans to leave. I hope you never thought I deliberately kept that from you. You know you would’ve been the first person I told.”
Scar’s shoulders softened. She had gotten it all wrong. What was she supposed to do now with all this anger that she had amassed for Tamara’s mother; a woman who, she was now realising, had only taken her daughter away as an act of deep love for her child?
Scar sprang into action, confusing Tamara. She plucked some wild flowers from the vines and made a bouquet. Tamara watched curiously as Scar then dusted off the ash on a seat of an intact pew at the front. “Do you wanna leave her here?”
“Sure.”
Tamara kissed the head of the urn and rested it down in the place where her mother once sat, in her Sunday best, for services.
“I hope you’re resting easy. You don’t have to be homesick anymore.”
Scar placed the bouquet next to the urn and bowed her head in respect. It was when she looked down that she saw a wound on Tamara’s knee, the blood running down her shin. Drops of red being absorbed by the dry, thirsty ground below.
***
The boat rocked gently up against the jetty, the sea water that had pooled at their feet swishing back and forth, tainted light red with blood. Trying to keep a steady hand, Scar applied a large plaster to the base of Tamara’s shin. Her locs hanging and swaying, left to right, in sync with the boat’s movements.
“Why do you hide your face all the time?”
Scar looked up. Before she could even construct an answer, she felt Tamara pulling back the curtain of locs.
“There you are,” she whispered with a smile.
The harsh rays of the mid-morning sun and Tamara’s soft gaze, both warmed the surface of her face. Her irises expanded, glowing the colour of fresh honey. She felt Tamara’s eyes tracing along the meandering line of the knotted skin on her face. She lowered her head in one swift movement, allowing her locs to fall back into their usual position.
She had developed, both consciously and subconsciously, ways to hide and distract people from looking directly at her scar. For her, scars were a sign to the whole world that something bad had happened in your life. A scar, in her eyes, meant that you were too weak to protect yourself or too foolish to avoid danger. She loathed the idea of being seen in that way by the rest of the world.
“Thank you,” Tamara said as she looked at her wound, now clean and covered with a plaster. Scar closed the lid on the first-aid kit. “Soon you can call me Scar too,” she added.
Scar couldn’t fight against the smile she felt forming on her face.
“Can I ask how you got it?”
The smile dimmed. No one but her parents knew the full story. Even when friends and lovers had posed the question, she found ways to dodge it or lie. But Tamara was worthy of hearing the truth.
“After you left…” she shook her head, remembering. Scar took a deep breath, readying herself to release the words that so few in her life had ever heard.
“After you left…” Scar began again. “Things went downhill. I got into a fight with Edwards. I went an’ approach him in his room, tellin’ him that I knew what he was doin’. Touching himself an’ lookin’ at lil girls.”
“Next thing you know he push me into a glass window. Blam! An’ he tek off runnin’,” she continued. “All I feel is this warmth on my face… an’ then blood. So much blood I couldn’t see nothin’. I just start screamin’ an’ screamin’ til someone come.”
“Your mother was right for takin’ you away from that. But… All I had wanted was to jus’ tell you goodbye. To know where you went. Dat’s all.”
They stared at each other, filling their lungs to capacity and pressing the air out through their noses. They were silent for almost a minute, the water lapping at the boat the only sound. Tamara leaned forward, placing a hand gently on Scar’s face and cupping her cheek. She used her thumb to wipe away tears that Scar hadn’t even noticed were falling.
“I’m so, so sorry, Aisha.”
Who is Aisha? She thought. The name sounded so familiar. Who was this person Tamara had mistaken her for? It took a moment for her to realise that there was no mistake. The name belonged to her; to a version of herself that she no longer was acquainted with.
Everyone had called her Scar for so long, even her parents. With this nickname that she had been given, Aisha had been left in the past. But who was she underneath the weight of the name Scarface and the pain carried with it? Who was she before the split skin?
“Can you say my name again?” Scar asked in a whisper. “Aisha…” said Tamara.
Scar started remembering Aisha — the 15-year old girl in a volcano shelter who had fallen in love with her best friend.
It was Aisha who then stepped forward and rested her hand gently on the nape of Tamara’s neck. Her fingertips greeted by its smoothness. With her other hand she lifted her locs away from her face and leaned in to kiss Tamara.
On her lips she tasted salt, their salt.
The salt of the sea spray lingering on their skin.
The salt of their island home.
The salt of repressed grief and longing pouring out from everywhere that would welcome its release.
