Maude left an atmosphere in the Roche Bois shack. It bled from the walls as a palm tree, a man mending thatch, a chicken and an enormous sun throwing speaking beams of light across a foamed and spent ocean. ‘I’m not staying here,’ said Leonard – the most positive thing he’d ever said.
‘Nor am I.’
‘We’ll move.’
They carried their possessions away and found a shack on the edge of Cassis. The main Port Louis–Moka highway ran twenty-five yards from the door and an old woman stood on a stretch of waste ground, rocking backwards and forwards on her heels. She wore a grey cardigan in all weathers. No one knew who she was or where she slept, but she collected coins thrown from passing cars.
‘This is better than Roche Bois,’ said Leonard. He pointed to the few concrete buildings growing up amongst the corrugated. ‘We’ll stay here.’
Odette nodded.
‘There’s more room.’
‘That’s because we’re on our own.’
‘There’s still more room.’
Their shack had no windows, but a few sheets of tin, bent and nailed to its front served as a veranda. Odette arranged some wire over a square of bricks and lit a fire.
‘How’d you like to give boys a good time?’
‘A good time?’ Odette didn’t know.
‘Sure.’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Well look. I’m Marie. You think about it. I’m always around. You’ll see me.’
The new shack was free of their mother’s spirit, but nothing else changed. Weeks of begging and scrounging became months; down by the bus station, outside airline offices, at the bottom of the museum and library steps, in the parks or around the docks. Some days were good, others not. One week in July, all they could manage was twenty cents and two ripe bananas and Leonard spent the weekend on the floor of the shack, holding his stomach. He couldn’t get up. His decisiveness following Maude’s death had gone.
Odette looked at him. For a while she’d thought he was changing and taking the pressure off, but then he didn’t care any more. She had to prop him up and make him comfortable.
‘Leonard?’ she said.
‘What?’ He wasn’t dying but his voice was weak.
‘Have some of this.’ She had a cup of water. He sipped. ‘I’m going out now,’ she said.
‘Out?’
‘Yes.’
‘Where?’
‘The docks. I’ll bring something back.’
Leonard nodded, but didn’t watch her leave.
Marie hung around the docks and waited for girls like Odette. She had said, ‘How you like to give boys a good time?’ so many times that the words had stained her teeth. A smart woman, eyeing dollars/pounds/rupees and poor girls with one thing to sell; she’d approached Odette before. But Ilois women were slow to understand their value. On Diego Garcia, sex had not been sold. ‘… a good time?’
‘Sure.’
‘I don’t know…’
‘For money…’ Marie looked Odette in the eye. She had a persuasive mouth and pursed it.
‘Money?’
‘Sure. Sometimes forty, fifty rupees.’
‘No!’
‘Some girls do.’
‘Who?’
Marie gave Odette the names of some girls she knew.
‘They don’t!’
‘They do. Ask them!’
The next day, with Leonard up but still weak, she asked around.
‘Don’t you?’
‘No…’
‘And with a face like that. And your body!’
She wondered what she was going to do, looked at her brother and wondered the same about him. He worried but never wondered. She wondered, worried, waited. Dogs barked, a sulky moon hung in the sky. She stared at it. They hadn’t eaten for two days. Every time they breathed they rattled.
‘Sure. Sometimes, forty, fifty rupees.’ Fifty rupees. Once. She might do it, forget it, not worry. A week later, she crept out to meet Marie. ‘Any time,’ the woman had said. ‘I’ll show you.’
‘Most of them are too excited. Some don’t even get as far as you. Half a minute…’ Marie cut the air with her hand, ‘and it’s over. No problem.’
‘So quick?’
‘Sure.’
‘Why?’
Marie laughed. ‘Because they’re men! Don’t you know anything?’
Odette nodded. ‘Yes, but…’
But hungry to nod again. Money was a big word. She was nervous and stopped walking.
‘What’s the matter?’
‘I…’ she stuttered.
‘Look. Odette.’ Marie took the girl’s face in her hand and stared into her eyes. ‘Just stick by me.’
A long street. Single lights pricked the dark, shacks and houses were built close together. Puddles. Alleys. Shadowed women who knew what they were doing. Sailors and other men with money holding bottles, standing in groups, yelling at other groups. Loud music from dark buildings.
Marie stood Odette in a doorway. Iron grills covered the windows of the shop it served. A rat scuttled across the street with something in its mouth. The moon came out. A man approached.
‘You!’ He pointed at Odette. ‘How about it?’
‘How about what?’ said Marie.
‘I’m talking to her.’ The man’s face was shaded by a hat. He smelt of diesel oil. He rolled a cigarette.
‘And I’m her friend.’
‘And her pimp? How about two of you,’ the man licked his lips, ‘together?’
‘What?’
‘You heard.’
Marie stroked her chin. Odette tried to look small but when Marie said, ‘Come on then,’ to the man and took her arm, she didn’t worry or wonder.
A minute. Another woman and a sailor called Jack. One night in a first-floor room, dirty windows and a single light bulb. Other people in other rooms pounded away as a fight started in the street outside. The sound of a siren and a ship’s hooter. The wink of traffic lights, the clank of two people riding one bicycle. Odette kept her eyes closed and her body rigid, ground her teeth together but couldn’t stifle a single scream. A sharp one in the night and then he finished and gave Marie thirty rupees.
‘Thirty?’ Odette said. They were back on the street.
‘There’s ten for you,’ said Marie. She held one nostril and shot a gob of snot from the other.
‘Ten! But you said fifty and…’
‘Fifty!’ Marie shook her head. ‘You’ve got a lot to learn.’
‘But…’ Odette bled. She held herself. She started to cry. ‘I thought…’ She sniffed. ‘Fifty. I could have bought enough food and…’ Her voice broke. Her heart fainted.
‘You’ve got ten.’
The note was in her hand. She looked at it. It was wet. There was a picture of the Queen on it. ‘But…’ she said again.
‘Odette!’ Marie gave her one hard look. ‘If you want that sort of money you work the hotels. You can’t earn that down here.’
‘What hotels?’
‘On the coast. But you need more than just a body for that.’
‘But fifty rupees…’
‘Forget it, Odette.’
That sort of money. When Odette got home, she stripped and stood behind the shack in a basin of water. She had a rag and washed herself for an hour. She didn’t get to bed until four, but couldn’t sleep. Leonard was snoring, a bad moon sank.
Ten rupees. In the morning, he stood up and asked where she’d got it.
‘I begged it.’
‘Where?’
‘At market. It was busy.’
‘It’s always busy!’
‘Busier then,’ she whispered.
He believed her. It was lots of money but her eyes could plead. She always collected more than him. He didn’t have the touch or look. He would sit on his wall. If Odette could beg enough to live on, why should he do anything? There was nothing to do anyway; the wall was comfortable.
He didn’t notice when the money ran out and Odette begun to stay out late once in every three nights. But Marie had shown her all she needed to know. She had to pray that an image of her mother’s face didn’t appear but if she closed her eyes, gritted her teeth, held her arms against the side of her body and waited it was over. She earned fifteen rupees a time, washed herself carefully and bought a hairbrush with a blue back. It was hers. She hid it from her brother in a gutter and used it when he was asleep.
An American called Dan picked her up. He’d come from San Francisco on a supply ship out of Subic Bay. He spoke quietly. ‘It’s a helluva way from the States. God; I feel it.’ He scratched his face.
‘What?’
‘Oh, I don’t know. Homesick? I guess that’s it. Sick, anyway.’
‘You want to do something with me?’
‘Sure. Let’s talk for a while, then…’
‘Talk?’
‘Sure.’
‘I haven’t got anything to say.’
‘Listen then honey, okay?’
‘Okay.’
Dan was a thin man and he rolled his eyes as he talked about home. He talked about his wife. He had a poetic streak. He called her a ‘cat in a fish’. He talked about his job. His ship was in dock for ten days.
‘You’ve seen many countries?’
‘Lots,’ he said. He had a bottle of rum and poured some. ‘You name it, I’ve been there.’ He drank.
He talked about Europe and America, and impressed her with stories about shops and buildings. Australia, the Philippines, Hawaii, Japan. ‘You ever been to Japan?’ he said, then, ‘No, of course not.’
She shook her head.
‘It’s beautiful there, strange though,’ he said. He lit a cigarette. ‘But the goddam strangest place I ever saw you won’t have heard of. Weird.’
‘What is it?’
‘The Rock…’
‘The Rock?’
‘That’s it. It’s why I’m here.’ He pointed at the floor. ‘We were carrying supplies for the guys there.’ He coughed and said, ‘Hell, but I was sorry to see it like that.’
‘Like?’
Dan thought. Orders forbidding talk about the Rock had been issued to all sailors visiting Mauritius, but he didn’t care. ‘It’s an island… goddam crazy.’ He wiped his brow and took a shot of rum. It went to his head. ‘I saw it first at night and I thought “A space of darkness”. The words just came to me, like the place was glowing with lights all night but they didn’t make it light.’ He dropped his cigarette and trod it out. ‘You know what I mean?’
Odette shook her head. Dan widened his eyes. The look scared her. She wished he’d leave her. Nothing he said made sense. He took another drink and offered her the bottle. She shook her head.
He said, ‘Most of it’s jungle, but they’ve built a fence where the sites stop; keeps people like me away from the rest of the island. The rest’s like they’re building another Subic. Hundreds of goddam Seabees stoned out of their minds. The lagoon’s full of trash.’ He unbuttoned a shirt button. ‘And nowhere. It’s nowhere. Thousands of miles in any direction…’ he spread his arms, ‘there’s just nothing. Okay. So it’s a B52 from the Mid-East, okay! So what?’
He talked about weapons dumps and nuclear submarines riding in anchored pairs as bombers and reconnaissance aeroplanes taxied along the aprons that surrounded the new runways. ‘Still,’ he said, ‘they built a television station there. It had its moments… but nowhere. Diego Garcia they…’
‘Diego…’ Odette stuttered, and put a hand to her face.
‘Honey?’ Dan put his bottle on the floor and put an arm around her shoulders. She stiffened. Tears were pouring down her face. ‘What’s the matter?’ She shook her head.
‘I don’t want to hear,’ she said.
‘Hear what?’
She swallowed. ‘Diego Garcia.’
‘What do you know about it?’
‘I…’ she said, and couldn’t finish.
‘Okay,’ said Dan. ‘We’ll party instead,’ and he tipped her back on the bed.