Leonard dreamt about smashed bottles and saw a blue Albert shouting, ‘That’s it! Off! Stupid Ilois…’ Suns bled, dead fish floated through the sky and bumped into him.
Cannons flashed. The girlfriend he didn’t have appeared stripped. Birds and butterflies drank her sweat as she rolled around in a cool, grassy place. Her eyes sang and his dueted with them. Both pairs were clear and saw way into a future that whispered a list of all the brilliant things that were going to happen to them. They would travel overseas in a huge white ship and visit places from pictures they had both seen and fancied. Europe and America, Australia, Japan and the South Sea Islands. She would wear a new dress every day. He would carry a suitcase of clean shorts and shoes. Jimmie cried and woke him up.
His pride in having a watchman’s job slipped. His natural sullenness took on a paranoiac dimension. He imagined Albert was watching him all the time. He imagined laughing girls and thieves in banana trees and hedges; when he was off duty he walked as far from the hotel as he could and fished on his own.
‘Take Jimmie!’
‘I’ll catch more on my own.’
Odette laughed. ‘You? Catch more?’
‘I will!’
He didn’t. He came back, mumbled and sat on the beach. He put his rod down and gave it a hard look.
‘Nothing,’ he said, and spat. His cheeks were pinched and he punched a fist into the palm of his other hand. ‘Nothing,’ and he watched the spit dry.
Fishing brought back memories of the Chagos and Paul on a dead flat lagoon with two lines. Tombeau wasn’t home. A dead day and a waste of time. He didn’t want anything to eat, didn’t want to be bothered and didn’t say anything else. His face cracked and his mind collapsed into a hole behind his eyes. He scooped a handful of dirt.
‘Odette!’
‘Yes?’
‘Is Leonard back?’
‘Yes.’
Albert came down from the hotel. He was carrying a chair. He put it outside the shack.
‘Would you like this?’ he said.
‘What?’
‘The chair. No charge.’
Odette looked at it. ‘A present?’
‘If you like.’ Albert turned to Leonard. ‘Leonard?’
‘What?’
‘Would you like it?’
Leonard shrugged. What did Albert mean? What did he want? He looked at his sister. Jimmie yelled and sat in the chair. Odette smiled.
She liked Albert. He had had words with Leonard but she understood why. He paid money to have the place watched. Leonard understood too, but in a different way. He understood with the aches he still felt from the beating. He had never expected to be hurt. He had never expected to live in Mauritius. His mind could only cope with certainties. He didn’t want to say anything about the chair.
‘Leonard? Albert’s talking.’ Odette stood up, picked Jimmie up and sat in the chair.
‘I know.’ Leonard picked his nose. ‘Yes. Thanks.’
‘It’s old,’ said Albert. ‘The back’s broken, but we’ve got some new ones and I thought…’ He pointed to the shack.
‘It’s very comfortable,’ said Odette, and touched his hand.
Odette liked Tombeau. It was safe for Jimmie. In Roche Bois or Cassis too many Ilois children were treated badly. Their lack of sophistication was taken for stupidity. They were teased and taunted at school, blamed for things they hadn’t done and left out of games.
Tombeau had children but Odette and Jimmie didn’t mix. They had a patch of grass beside the shack, a skirt of beach below that, the rocks beyond and the shallows. Trees grew all around, the air smelt of water. Odette wanted to stay there.
She liked Albert. He had girlfriends – she knew she didn’t stand a chance against them, but whenever he was about she watched herself and told Leonard to behave.
‘Don’t grumble. He gave you the job…’
‘I know.’
‘Tuck your shirt in.’
‘It’s torn at the back.’
‘Give it to me and I’ll mend it.’
‘Then what’ll I wear?’
Why did she nag? He went to the shop for a beer. Some people there whispered when he paid the money, and he felt them pointing as he left. He sat by the road to drink.
Albert liked Odette. She had a pride in something, a quality none of his girlfriends had. They’d complain if he tried to kiss before they’d taken their make-up off. ‘IT’LL SMUDGE!’ They didn’t like their clothes crumpled, ‘NO!’ Odette’s dress had holes in it.
‘Get Leonard to buy you something new,’ he said.
‘He bought this.’ She showed him the scarf.
‘It’s nice. Very nice. But what about a dress?’
‘Oh,’ she said. ‘I’m not, sure. The money…’ She stopped.
‘What about the money?’
‘He gives me some, for Jimmie and other things, but he keeps the rest.’
‘I’ll tell him…’
‘No!’ Odette stood up. ‘No.’ She didn’t want him to think she’d been talking behind his back. ‘I’m alright. I don’t want anything but what I’ve got; apart from…’ She sat down again.
‘Apart from what?’
‘Nothing.’
Albert wouldn’t argue. Later in the day, he took a car to Port Louis and visited an uncle’s shop.
On Diego Garcia, women had worn colourful clothes. Dresses and skirts printed with giant flowers were favourites, a matching scarf tied in a particular way. Albert said, ‘I want something bright,’ to his uncle. ‘Something with flowers.’
‘Which one’s this for?’
‘You don’t know her.’
‘No?’
‘No,’ said Albert. ‘She’s an Ilois I…’
‘An Ilois?’ The uncle laughed. ‘Your watchman’s woman?’
‘She’s his sister.’
‘Oh, yes?’ The uncle looked at his nephew.
‘It’s not like that.’
‘No.’ The uncle looked through his rails. ‘Of course not.’ He sucked his teeth. ‘How about this?’
He showed Albert a white dress printed with big red flowers and green leaves. He put it on the counter and smoothed it. ‘Special price for you.’
‘How much?’
‘Well…’
Albert gave his uncle a look. He had something on him. He’d seen him kiss a woman other than his aunt (his father’s sister) in the back room of the shop. He got the dress cheap. His uncle wrapped it. ‘Thanks,’ he said, and drove back to Tombeau.
‘There’s no scarf with it,’ he said when he handed Odette the parcel. ‘But it’s new.’
She unwrapped the dress and held it up. A breeze caught it and blew it against her body. ‘Albert!’
‘Put it on.’
‘Now?’
‘Why not?’
She was embarrassed. ‘Well. I don’t…’
‘For me?’
It was the right size. She rubbed a sleeve against her cheek, smelt the material and ran her fingers over the flowers and leaves. ‘It’s mine?’
‘Yes. Another present; but don’t think you’ll get another…’
Odette laughed. She kissed Albert on the cheek. Jimmie held his mother’s leg.
Half an hour later, Leonard came back from doing nothing with his rod and sat down without a word. Odette said, ‘Like it?’
He shrugged. He knew Albert had bought it. He could show off with money if he wanted. It was nothing to do with him. There were a hundred things you could do with your life. One of them was nothing. Why should he do anything when he couldn’t catch a fish or watch a hotel properly? What did people expect?
‘I love it.’