A BLESSING FROM THE OBEAH MAN

Short stories from the imagination of

Celina Grace

© Celina Grace 2012

A Blessing From The Obeah Man

“We’re lost.”

“We’re not lost.”

“We are. We’re nearer the north coast than the south. Come on, can’t we just pull over?”

Richard made no reply but yanked the steering wheel, heeling the car over the verge, bumping over the potholes in the road. Vicki bit back a shriek. She was hot, and tired and cross, and they were lost, whatever he said. The car rolled to a stop and for a moment there was just the hum of the hot engine and the insect-filled busyness of the air outside. The sugar cane stretched before them on either side of the lumpy road, lush and green, frondy leaves waving in the constant breeze that blew from the coast.

Richard put a hand up to his sweating forehead.

“Alright,” he said, “we’re lost. Happy?”

Vicki sighed inwardly. They were two steps away from a row, she could just feel it; it was hanging in the air like the heat shimmering up off the road surface. But it was their honeymoon and she wanted everything to be just perfect… she took a deep breath, calmed the acid rage that was gnawing at her breastbone and put a hand on his knee. His thigh was warm and sweaty under her palm.

“Never mind,” she said, “we’ll manage. I thought I saw a sign for Bridgetown back there.”

Richard looked over at her and managed a tiny grin, a ghost of his usual marvellous smile.

“Next time, you bring your driving licence,” he said and began to shift the gears, shunting the hire car round on the road. The heat flooded in the open windows, relentless. Vicki leaned forward, trying to get some air on her lower back. She could feel a slow trickle of sweat running down between her breasts.

The car moved forward, back the way they’d come; the road unscrolling between the high green fences of the sugarcane either side.  Vicki sat with her arm out of the window, hot gusts of air beating on her face. She could feel this morning’s careful hair twist unravelling under the onslaught. This is supposed to be Paradise, she thought, thankful her thoughts were hidden behind her big dark glasses. So why do I feel like crying?

She knew why. It was laughable to attribute her mood to any other reason. Richard was being so patient, so careful with her; she knew that and felt a rush of love for him that melted the anger and impatience that she’d felt earlier. It was just that they had no time. She realised she was digging her nails into her palms, just as she had done back in England, and made herself consciously relax her hands. But still, the urgency was there, the worry, the panic; it was okay when we were just living together, and I was thirty two, but now I’m four years older and we’re married and…and what happens if we can’t? If I can’t? And the worst of it, of not being able to say anything, because everyone thought that she didn’t care, that it wasn’t important, that they were happy the way they were…

She was so lost in her own thoughts that she scarcely noticed the car slowing, and Richard’s exclamation of satisfaction. She saw the sign just before it flashed by – Bridgetown, 8 km.

“Well, that’s a relief,” she said, making her tone as light and as happy as she could.

The road they’d turned into looked the same as the one they’d left. After about a mile they went through a village; past the church, the rum shop, the children walking home from school, neat and tidy in their uniforms. Vicki didn’t dare to think of how hot they must be. She waved to the smallest ones and they waved back and she felt again the jab in the pit of her stomach; the endless yearning, the never-ending longing.

The road was narrowing again and getting rougher, the tarmac bumped and blistered, flaking away at the edges like sunburnt skin. Vicki held onto the side of the seat as they drove forward. The car’s momentum dropped as Richard hesitated at a crossroads, then crawled over, towards the blue glint of the Atlantic that they could see on the horizon.

The road got worse and the car bucked like an unruly horse, the bonnet rising and dipping. Richard’s jaw became tense. The houses were petering out here, brick houses and chattel houses alike, spaced at further and further intervals. Soon there were none and they were back amongst the sugar cane fields. They drove on in silence for a while. Vicki wasn’t going to be the one that said it.

The tarmac skin of the road ended and became rocky, white dust that billowed up over the bonnet and into the open windows, settling on their damp skin. After five minutes, Richard pulled the car over to the side of the track.

“This is ridiculous,” he said and turned the engine off.

Vicki was immediately aware of the silence. Above the tick of the cooling car engine, she could hear nothing; no human voices, no crashing waves, no bird song. The dust cloud settled. All around them stretched the sugar cane fields, the stems of the cane swaying gently to and fro in the breeze. Up ahead of them, by the side of the road, was a roadside stall.

“Let’s get a drink, at least,” she said, and opened the car door.

It was so hot. Only at night did the temperature become pleasant; during the day it was punishing. Heat pressed upon you like an invisible wall, thick and heavy and unyielding. Sweat sprang up on Vicki’s upper lip, her nose, the small of her back. Sometimes she felt frantic; it was relentless, like a punishing demon that pursued you and sat on you. The only relief she got was when she was in the sea but there was no chance of that here, they must be miles from the ocean – Atlantic or Caribbean.

She approached the roadside stall, hearing the grit of Richard’s feet on the road as he followed her. As she got closer, she could see it was more of a.. a structure.. a few rickety planks lashed together with a ripped tarpaulin forming the roof. What looked like strings of white beads hung from the edge of the tarpaulin. She got closer and her nose wrinkled as she realised that the beads were actually hanging snake skeletons. There was no one in the structure, just a chalked sign propped up against the front of it that read ‘Bird Man’.

“Hello?” she said tentatively.

Richard came up behind her and stood by her side.

“I thought there weren’t any snakes in Barbados,” he said.

Vicki shrugged.

“Maybe they’re old. Maybe they’re not real.”

“No, they’re real all right. Bit creepy.”

The trade wind continued to blow, flapping the tarpaulin in brisk snaps. Vicki looked about her.

“There’s no one here,” she said. “Let’s go.”

There was a chattel house set back from the road behind the stall, a really decrepit one, the windows lacking glass, the paint long since peeled away. Vicki saw the door opening. A shadow loomed in the doorway and she felt a sudden jab of panic, quickly dispelled as the figure came into view. It was a middle-aged man, tall and thin, bare-foot and with dreadlocks that reached his waist.

“You want help?” he said.

Vicki and Richard looked at each other helplessly. We’re so English, she thought. The man cocked his head on one side and his dreadlocks swayed like seaweed under water.

“You need help from the Obeah Man?”

Richard cleared his throat.

“Yes, we’re – well, we’re lost. We need directions back to Bridgetown.”

The man said nothing for a moment. He looked past Richard to Vicki, his black and shiny eyes pinned to hers.

“That’s not what you want,” he said.

Richard shifted his feet.

“Er –“ he said.

The man took no notice of him. Vicki couldn’t take her eyes off of his; those black irises; the whites yellowed like a curl of old paper.