Kerry Young - Pao

Plus with the road not so good anyway and with all this rain, the thing turn treacherous. Potholes full of water and covered in a sorta white slime that wash off the grit and hardcore they scatter down in a effort to patch everything up.

And I think to myself how is progress and prosperity going catch up with a place like this? Especially when every time we take one step forward the rain or the hurricane come to drive us ten steps back.

When we get to Poor Man’s Corner the River Yallahs completely take over the road, gushing fast from left to right and plunging down a steep embankment in this muddy reddish-brown waterfall. Milton stop the car. When the big station wagon behind us overtake and slowly power its way through the water, the spray reach up above the top of the windows.

Milton decide to take a chance. He nudge the car forward trying to keep a steady speed so the engine don’t stall, but when we hit the deepest part halfway across, him slow down and it worry me. We make it alright though, and when we reach the other side Milton laugh and say, ‘Man, even I was sweating then.’

At Green Wall a dead cow lay in a bus stop, all brown and bloated, and frothing at the mouth.

At Morant Bay I ask Milton to drive up to the courthouse where Paul Bogle and his followers stage the demonstration in 1865, and where the volunteer militia fire on the crowd and spark the uprising. What amaze me wasn’t just that the building still standing there, with its red brick and whitewashed stone, but it still functioning as a courthouse. So as I climb up the semi-circular stairway to the upper balcony I begin to hear voices and realise that a trial is actually in motion. And even in this heat the barristers still dress up in them wigs and gowns just like they do it in England.

Above me the round white turret perch on the top of the roof. Below me the statue of Paul Bogle, machete in hand, and the commemoration plaque which read:

Here in the front of this courthouse on 11 October 1865, Paul Bogle of Stony Gut led his people in a protest at the injustices to the poor in the courts presided over by the planter-magistrates. It was the start of what became known as the Morant Bay Rebellion. Paul Bogle, George William Gordon and hundreds more were brutally slain. Behind this building is buried the remains of many of these patriots whose sacrifices paved the way to the independence of Jamaica. We honour them.

It was early afternoon by the time we reach Port Antonio, the blue sea on one side and the lush green hills on the other. The Blue Mountains in the distance and yet so close I could almost smell the coffee. We climb the hill to San San. When we get to Margy’s house, Milton ease the car down the steep driveway into the carport. Margy’s housekeeper come to the door to greet us.

We follow her through the dim, cool house and step out on to the rear terrace into the brilliant, dazzling sunshine. The deep blue of the Caribbean stretch out before us, the abundant green of the surrounding hillside, the white sand beach of San San Bay, with the twin harbours of Port Antonio and Navy Island in the distance. I could feel the sea breeze on my face and taste the slight salt in the air. And somewhere in my own head I hear Harry Belafonte singing ‘Island in the Sun’.

Margy come up from the lower garden, standing on the top step with her short thick wavy hair trembling on the breeze.

‘Let’s go straight to the factory, I want to show you something. It won’t take long and we can have lunch when we get back.’ She reverse out a big four-by-four and we all pile in.

Margy excited ’bout everything she showing us and how she change this and improve that, and reduce the waste and increase the product line. She talking fast and she pleased with herself. It don’t mean nothing to me except, when I look at the accounts, I know the business doing good.

When we get back to the house she say, ‘I hope you like marlin. Port Antonio is famed for deep-sea fishing, marlin, tuna and kingfish especially.’

The fish pan-fried and simmered in a light curried coconut sauce. It really delicious.

‘This here is a long way from a airport,’ I say to her, ‘what with your constant hopping between here and New York.’

‘There is a helicopter shuttle service between Ken Jones Aerodrome and Kingston. The road from Kingston is so bad now the whole town is just relying on the cruise ships for its livelihood. What’s going to happen when the wharf falls down I don’t know because it isn’t looking too good and they don’t have the money to rebuild it.’

After coffee, I ask Margy to come walk with me in the garden. We go down the stone steps and follow the path past a load of fruit trees, and a huge crepe myrtle with its lilac flowers and dark green leaves. Then we pass hedges of poinsettia, deep magenta and pink bougainvillaea, and red and yellow hibiscus. We come to a stop at her poolside pergola that covered in wild orchids in pinks and whites and purples.

‘You really have a beautiful place here, Margy. I can see why you running back from New York every chance you get.’

‘I love it. I don’t think I could live without it. You know Errol Flynn once said he had never met a woman as beautiful as Port Antonio. And that’s saying something, isn’t it, coming from him? I don’t know how any Jamaican can live without Jamaica or the promise of it.’

When we sit down on the little bench I turn and I say to her, ‘I want to talk to yu ’bout the business. It doing good, very good, and all that down to your hard work and how yu so smart with all this cosmetics thing. I have lunch with Merleen, maybe you already know?’

‘Yes, she told me on the phone.’

‘Merleen going have her own vacation company now. And I want to do the same thing with Yang Cosmetics. I want yu stop being a employee and become a full partner so if anything happen to me yu going be alright.’

Margy look at me like she half surprised and half relieved because she must have guessed it from what Merleen tell her.

‘Thank you, Uncle.’

‘But you not going get your name come first like Merleen. Chin Yang Vacations don’t sound too bad, even though I still think Yang Chin would have sound better. But Lopez Yang don’t work. I think it got to be Yang Lopez Cosmetics.’

‘But it isn’t just cosmetics we do now. We have a whole range of bathroom and kitchen products as well that we retail out of our own stores not just outlets in department stores like we used to. That is what I was telling you and showing you earlier this afternoon.’

‘So what yu want call it?’

‘Plain and simple, Yang Lopez.’ She hesitate, and then she say, ‘Do you mean a fifty-fifty partner like you did with Merleen?’

And I say, ‘Yes. Fifty-fifty. The papers all drawn up, except for the name, and I going have the accountants sort it out and bring them over next week so you can sign them.’

‘So fast?’

‘No reason to wait.’

When we go back up to the house Margy go inside and come out with a parcel. It beautifully wrapped in a heavy stripe paper of green and brown and blue.

‘I got this for you in New York but I feel a little embarrassed giving it to you now after that conversation. Please believe that this was for you anyway.’ And then she hand the package to me and I take it from her and unwrap it.

She say to me, ‘The Flor de Farach was manufactured in 1958 and shipped to Tampa prior to the 1962 Cuban embargo. The shop’s proprietor bought the entire consignment and now he is selling them in this wonderful shop on the corner of Fifth and East 46th Street. When I bought them he said I wasn’t just buying a box of cigars, I was buying a piece of history.’

When I open the box it got layers of packets of little Farachitos. I lift out a packet of five and sorta look it over.