Oonya Kempadoo - All Decent Animals

* * *

Thomas passed again by Fraser on the couch, and heard a voice coming from the telephone receiver, “Hello? Hello?”

He picked it up and told the Dr. Lady that he couldn’t believe Fraser dropped asleep again. “No,” he answered her questions quickly, “it don’ look like he eat anything since yesterday. I thought he was helping heself but I don’ know if he even drink anything neither … No.” His panic rose with the urgency in her voice. “I trying, he answering but he not getting up, like he can’t even open he eyes! No!.. Okay. Okay.”

She instructed Thomas to forget the ambulance, call Fraser’s taxi guy and get him down to the private hospital. She’d meet them there — Fraser must be dehydrated and slipping into unconsciousness.

* * *

Sammy was there in no time and the two of them half lifted Fraser into the back of the car. All the way, Thomas kept repeating that he thought the man was at least drinking something. He never suspect anything — the man could’a died on him there and he wouldn’a know, ’cause he always see Fraser come there and just sleep.

“You wouldn’a know,” Sammy confirmed. “No way. But I see he was looking real real tired, these last few days. Check, check he breathing, Lawd … We go reach soon.”

* * *

Ata was glad that they did take the break to Saint Lucia — the fake honeymoon. Their love, compatibility in bed, in taste, humor, and intellect — needed celebrating every so often. Especially now that their differences were beginning to leak. In the ex-luxurious Grande Beach suite the terra-cotta tiles were shedding some of the clear sealant. The furniture in the living room and veranda was covered in the tropical floral print that is made specially for mediocre hotels — the ones that try so hard to supply paradise but have been having a little difficulty in recent times. Ata noted the dated light fittings and Pierre supplied the period — rusting seventies. The fake antique four-poster bed with its turned-wood pineapple motif looked fake because it was varnished instead of polished, the headboard too thin. But it didn’t matter.

Damp all over from the heat outside, Ata stripped off as soon as they entered the room. Pierre dropped the clunky coconut tree keyring onto the side table and flopped onto the bed, shoes and all. He likes the luxury of breaking the no-shoes-in-the-house rule in a grand way — shoes not just in the bedroom but on the bed. To Ata, that’s the kind of thing people do in movies, not in real life. Another little thing that made her warm to him. Audacity. And the way he rests his stiff hands, fingers down, on his big boney chest while lying like that, with his amazing Adam’s apple poking, shockingly, out of his throat. It almost made his neck look broken.

She bounced onto the bed alongside him and he automatically raised his hands to protect his spectacles — this always made her laugh. She’d surprise and grab him from behind whenever she could, imitating his cowering while they laughed. She kissed him, lying on the floral bedspread, slowly. And the kiss tasted like the curly illustrations of childhood fairy-tale books. Traces of mint on his breath, the flavor she imagined those fields smelled like, sweetness and peppermint, candy-wet breath. Soft, bendy blooms touching skin, that perfect young skin on the glossy page. Knee bent just so, fingers joined, pixie ears, tousled hair and ringlets beautifully arranged. Swirls of delicate blossoms. Lying on grass without ants. Mischievous eyes sparkling love. Entrancing. The kiss smudged and melted into the humid morning air.

The phone rang then. Ata answered it and passed the nasal voice of Pierre’s colleague and doctor-friend to him. She picked up her wrap from the chair and tied it on firmly, then loosened it a bit across her chest. Splashing her face in the bathroom, she heard Pierre’s voice drop as she noticed the slight fungus-and-hotel-bleached-towel smell. She came out to register Pierre’s face, a pallor of shock. He was hardly responding, hand worrying his mouth and — something Ata had never seen on him before — fear.

Pierre put the receiver down and sat shaking. He cried before talking, holding on to her as she gripped him waiting to find out — who? His mother? Who? Her heart pacing, racing, readying her.

At first, it didn’t sound as bad as Ata imagined. Thirty percent function. That’s what she didn’t understand, at first. When Pierre said kidney failure — limited, irretrievable life didn’t register. It must be fixable with surgery or drugs. Transplants. At least it’s not an incurable disease or paralysis.

* * *

Sleep the lovely toxin wrapped itself around his heart, his lungs, his shrunken kidneys and liver, pulsing in its poisonous race. Mama D’leau slithered her mermaid tail and serpent hair. Tapping. Ticking … breaking and entering, forever. Sucking blood work. Tests. Transfusions.

The lady doctor-friend was as quiet and calm as Fraser in his coma. She came back out through the emergency room doors, spoke quietly to the nurse behind the counter, and approached Thomas. “I’ve called Helen, she’s closest. She’ll get in touch with his parents and…” She shook her head and touched Thomas’s shoulder. “You couldn’t have known. I don’t know why he didn’t see his doctor before — he must have been feeling ill.”

She explained the details but Thomas’s heart had turned to his own phone call to make — how could he explain or tell them?

“I will call Pierre,” the doctor-friend said.

Thomas felt even more useless. Worse, as Helen arrived, saying Fraser’s mother and father were on their way, glancing at Thomas as the doctor-friend explained, again. Useless. The gray hospital feeling every friend feels.

* * *

Sammy went home early that day after waiting awhile with Thomas. He picked up Future Mamee-in-law from her shift at Valsayn Hi-Lo Supermarket, as he did sometimes. He mind still wondering how a man could be good good one day and then next day — he almost gone. “Is not that we can’t get lick down and dead anytime,” he say aloud to Future Mamee, “but the thing is — all kind’a things could be going wrong inside a man, and he have no idea. That’s the part that troubling me.”

Mamee didn’t mind Sammy thoughtful mood as they rolled down Central flat highway. She thought Sam is a good soul even though he black. She didn’t see why Pappee had to get on so — the boy is a hardworking, decent fella even though he have a child already. She could see he is not no runabout. He responsible. He does look after he child and see about he mother. Is so he would look after they own Douli, if he could ever marry she. Mamee secretly wished she had a son so. She didn’t even mind the chats.

Sammy quiet that day, though. He cruised the three o’clock lead-belly road, watching the old rice fields and cane fields. He didn’t need to talk, he just glad for the day and the homebound feeling. Some things he couldn’t understand but that’s all right. Some things is better not to know too much about. Except maybe the physical health. He himself supposed to go for a checkup long now, will go this week coming, for sure. But things like this does make you think … what kind’a man Fraser is anyway? He have that gardener fella living by him — the one he always treating nice, when the man look like a damned criminal — them things Sam don’t want to dig up in too much.

What he do know, is that is two years now he courting this lady daughter. Picking up Mamee from work sometimes to drop her home bound to increase the chances of getting through with Douli. On Saturdays too, if he have time, or sometimes he does make time, he takes Mamee to Chaguanas market and they buy things together — he shopping for he own mother and for the catering, and she taking she time selecting lil’ vegetables for curry and so. Sam know is just a matter of time for Douli father to come around and agree for them to marry. He couldn’t even ask the old tiger too often, due to he temper. Didn’t want to rile him, by being there too much or at the wrong time. He could never understand the man moodiness neither he racialness. And if Future Pappee own wife couldn’t understand him — who is Sam to try?