Dark Days on the Fairest Isle

26

About the Author

Judith Nembhard, a life-long educator, has written for professional journals and magazines and has published two novels, Myra’s Calling and Breaking Away, and a memoir, Mr. Michael: Journeying with My Special Son.

Born in Jamaica, she cherishes the island’s enchantment, which has an influence on her writing. She lives in Chattanooga, Tennessee.

About the Book

It’s a turbulent time on the island. A grandmother has disappeared. Resisting her parents’ objections to her going back into the violence they had fled to settle in the U.S., twenty-six-year-old Claire Wynter returns to the place of her childhood to help the family members there search for the missing grandmother with whom she had lived as a child and whom she loves almost as much as she does her own mother. Once on the island, Claire receives a jolt of reality. The family members have given up their search, feeling that the prevailing violence had swallowed up the grandmother, so it was useless looking for her. Claire finds herself a one-woman search party, but she feels certain her grandmother is alive and begins her search. She accepts help from an unlikely source and sets out on a venture she could not have undertaken on her own. The suspenseful path to finding her grandmother leads through missteps, dashed hopes, and to a beckoning romance. Everyone involved—most of all Claire—is unprepared for the outcome.

Dedication

For Beatrice Haye,

whose disappearance on the island

still causes me to wonder

how, why, and especially where.

Copyright Information

Copyright © Judith Nembhard (2019)

The right of Judith Nembhard to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with section 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs, and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.

Any person who commits any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

ISBN 9781528931755 (Paperback)

ISBN 9781528966795 (ePub e-book)

www.austinmacauley.com

First Published (2019)

Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd

25 Canada Square

Canary Wharf

London

E14 5LQ

Acknowledgement

I thank my amazing Lord who provides new paths to lead me in, still waters to lead me beside, and a cup of joy that is overflowing because of His gift of the ability to use words to reach others; to my readers and friends who are constantly asking, When is the next book? Your question has been highly motivating; and to the production team at Austin Macauley for your commitment to quality and integrity and for your careful attention to details.

Chapter 1

The jangling came at her as if from a far country and took two rings to jolt her awake, but she didn’t answer right away. At four o’clock in the morning, she was in a charmed spot on the island, lying on her back, her face upturned to the glorious, lemon-yellow sun. She’d been floating languidly for hours on the dappled water of a wide-margined river – far removed from her suburban Maryland home. By the fourth insistent ring, Claire Wynter emerged reluctantly from the sleep-haze to roll toward the nightstand, reach for the receiver, and mumble a foggy Hello.

What took you so long to answer? She recognized the voice right away. It was her Aunt Vida, calling from the capital city on the island. The reprimand in her aunt’s tone wiped away any remaining trace of sleep in Claire’s voice.

It’s early morning. I was sleeping, Claire said, now wide awake, but her undisguised annoyance didn’t go unnoticed.

Well, you better wake up, her aunt snapped, because I’ve got bad news to give you, and without stopping to reach for words to soften the impact her bad news was sure to make, she blurted out, We can’t find your grandmother.

Claire shot bolt upright in the bed. What do you mean you can’t find Granny Belle?

Disbelief, not shock, had prompted her reaction. That kind of news was the last thing she’d expected to hear, so she ventured a challenge for verification. Are you sure? Suggesting that her aunt, twenty years her senior, didn’t have a handle on the truth might have been a bit presumptuous, but the two of them had long ago established a level of understanding that could accommodate that kind of exchange.

Of course, I’m sure. Vida was shouting now, her voice fluttering with the anxiety she was feeling. You think I’d call you at this hour in the morning if I wasn’t sure? You heard right. We can’t find Mum. Oh, Lord, I don’t know what to do. She didn’t say anymore, just paused and moaned.

When Claire realized that her aunt had actually said they couldn’t find her grandmother, Belle Rainey, she hurriedly turned over the idea in her head and concluded there was a catch somewhere. After all, this was the grandmother she loved almost as much as she loved her own mother, and although they hadn’t seen each other for several years now, they connected by phone at least once each month. The bond between them was as if it had been forged in steel. To Claire, at that moment, it was inconceivable that her beloved grandmother could be lost.

Aunt Vida, this is hard to believe. I just talked with her last week, Claire spoke in purposeful denial. She was fine then, gossiping as usual and cracking jokes. Granny Belle is a strong woman. She couldn’t just disappear.

This happened just yesterday evening. Right after I got home from work, I checked on her as usual – called out to her but didn’t get an answer. I called again on my way to her room. She wasn’t there. I looked out in the yard. She wasn’t anywhere around. I started to panic because she never go anywhere without telling me. I ask around. No word about her. As it started to get dark, we really got frightened. A few of the neighbors and some of the people from over at the place where she used to live helped us search. Vida stopped and cleared the hoarseness in her voice before continuing. Derrick and some of his friends just come back from searching all over Town for her. They’ve been looking for her since seven o’clock last night. The way things are now – people getting killed all over the place – no telling what happened to her.

Claire heard the sniffle before her aunt paused to blow her nose and choke back a possible emotional outburst.

As Claire listened to her aunt’s recital of her mother’s disappearance, a din of confusion erupted in her head. She felt her heart pound with growing dread. Her bedroom became unusually warm for an early spring morning. She pushed the covers to the foot of the bed and tried to remain calm.

Did you say they checked everywhere? Claire asked, still working on her disbelief.

Everywhere, I tell you, starting right here at the house, turning the place upside down. Not a trace of her. I’m fit to be tied. I don’t know what to do, Vida paused, and Claire sensed what was happening and waited. The younger of Belle Rainey’s two daughters, Vida Roberts was the one charged with watching out for their eighty-four-year-old mother there in the city, and she had done a good job so far. Claire, like the rest of the family, trusted the placid, conventional Vida to take good care of her mother. Vida, whose husband had gone off years before to graze in greener pastures, worked in a bargain retail store downtown in the city four days a week, but she had always kept a close watch on her mother. Now she had the burden of alerting her sister about their mother’s sudden disappearance.

Did you call Mama to tell her? Claire asked, half expecting a ‘No’, since Vida and her sister, Elsie Wynter, kept a good amount of emotional space between them.

No, I called you so you could tell her. You know how she is, gets upset about every little thing. I couldn’t break this kind of news to her. She’ll take it better from you.

You’re right about that, and this is no little thing, but there’s no need to panic, Aunt Vida. Sometimes what at first seems frightening in the dark later turns out harmless in the light. That was so much like Claire whenever she was faced with a difficult situation, always looking for the brighter side, ready to rely on her faith to give her confidence.

I’m sure by morning something will happen to put things right again, she said, hope hanging in her subdued voice. Derrick and the others will find her, and everything will be all right. Tell them to go out again during the daytime and search. They might come across people who know what happened to her or where she is now. I can’t believe anything has happened to Granny Belle. Not the Granny Belle I know. You know how strong and independent she is. Maybe she just went off someplace without telling anybody. Claire stopped for a moment when she realized she may have been merely giving her aunt a pep talk instead of relying on her reservoir of faith. She added soberly, I’ll pray about this. I’m sure God will work things out.

I hope so, Vida’s limp voice took on a note of despair. If anything happened to Mum, I’d never forgive myself. She made a low groan and burst into tears.

Now, don’t you worry, Aunt Vida, and don’t you go blaming yourself. You’ve done a great job taking care of Granny Belle. All of us know that. Claire reached into her storehouse of encouraging words and matched them to an upbeat spirit to comfort her aunt. I bet by morning she’ll come walking into the house as if nothing had happened. Can’t you see her now with that little shuffle-walk of hers? ‘What all o’ you worried ‘bout?’ she’ll ask. ‘I just stay out on the road too late to catch the bus back to Town from country and decide to stay the night down there.’ You know how she can sound as innocent as a two-year-old when she gets into trouble. Believe me, she’ll be all right.

Well, she didn’t tell me she was going to the country, Vida said without intentionally trying to dampen Claire’s hopeful spirit. Matter of fact, she don’t go there much anymore. She’s at home most of the time now. I wasn’t expecting her to be gone anyplace, but you may be right. Even at her age, she has a stubborn streak, likes to do things her way.

See? So now you have something to help you stay hopeful. You have to believe, Aunt Vida, Claire encouraged, drawing her words from a source she herself wasn’t fully aware of at the moment. It makes a big difference when you believe, you know. That’s how I get through situations that look like they’re going to crush me. I just wait a little while, and I always find it amazing how things can look better, and actually get better, in daylight. She listened for what her aunt would say so she could judge whether her words had had the desired effect.

Vida gave a puny agreement to what she’d heard, I hope you’re right, Claire. At least, you helped calm my nerves a little. I’ll call you tonight and let you know what’s going on.

The minute Claire hung up the phone, she flung herself back on her pillow, not knowing whether to scream with all her might or just thrash about in the bed and sob. She chose the latter. She’d been holding off her fears while she talked with her aunt, but as soon as she hung up, a thousand fearful images invaded her mind. What if her grandmother had been caught in the crossfire of one of those violent confrontations that were always flaring up in the city’s streets? With all the bad news that had been coming from the island lately about the brutal actions linked to the partisan politics, the gangs, the fighting and the reprisals, barefaced murders for the party’s sake, what if she had spoken too openly about her political beliefs – as she was likely to do – among people in the opposing party? The what-ifs led to dark, forbidding thoughts. She rolled over in bed and buried her face in the pillow.

Several minutes passed while she remained in that position. A sentence she’d read in her devotional before retiring the night before flashed across her mind: Oftentimes pain waits on the other side of pleasure, and we must always be prepared for it. She’d challenged the writer as being unnecessarily negative, but now the thought jabbed at her memory of the delightful events of the day before, when she luxuriated in the island ambiance of a festival put on by the Guild of Caribbean Students on the university campus where she worked. How she had immersed herself in the back-home-style revelry! Could it be that she – her whole family – had now been catapulted into a valley of pain? She pulled the sheet up to her face and pressed it to her eyes to thwart the tears.

It can’t be. Granny Belle isn’t lost, she told herself. Not the Granny Belle I know.

With her face still buried in the pillow, she pictured her grandmother as she remembered her in the years she lived with her on the island. Only four feet seven and a half inches tall – she always insisted on having the half included – wiry and strong well past her sixty-fifth birthday, Belle Rainey could walk miles, balancing a basket of produce on her head.

Although the family had long ago moved to the city, she went back and forth to the old place in the country, where the man who lived on the property and took care of it picked all kinds of produce – breadfruit, mangoes, ackee, and bananas – for her to take back to the city to sell.

Feisty as the favorite hen in a barnyard, she fearlessly spoke her mind every chance she got and seldom apologized to anybody for doing so. Lying there in the half-light of early morning, Claire remembered her grandmother’s strength, her fighting spirit.

She’s not lost. She can’t be lost. She heard the words strong and resilient in her head, believed them, and felt confident that by daybreak her aunt would call again with good news.

Claire wouldn’t risk calling her high-strung mother with bad news at such an early hour, so she lay there unable to go back to sleep, growing restless. It was five-fifteen according to her bedside clock. She got out of bed and went to her closet; perhaps she could pick out something to wear to work, get a head-start on the day, but her outfit, a plum-colored suit with a floral silk blouse, had already been hung out. She went into the living room and sat on the sofa. What she intended to do there was pray for her grandmother’s safety at that moment, but the sad-sweet ache of memory summoned strong images that kept pressing in on her, and she found herself harking back to an incident that had left itself cradled in her mind. Granny Belle had come to visit on a midweek afternoon, and she was sitting on her grandmother’s lap in the living room, listening to her read from The Story of Jesus that had become her favorite book, one her father had given her at Christmas.

Where is Jesus now, Granny Belle? she asked, looking at the brightly colored picture of Jesus that filled one page. She got a simple answer that seemed so true, so unequivocal to her then three-year-old mind.

He up in heaven and can see you, her grandmother said, and after a brief pause, added, without any attempt to frighten her, yet without being playful, Behave yourself for him. All her life she had been trying to behave herself for Him, and very likely for Granny Belle too.

Instead of going back to bed, Claire lay on the sofa and rested her head on one of the plump, multicolored throw pillows that decorated the sea-green sofa. Granny Belle should have come with us to America, she thought. Now she would be safe from the day-to-day violence in the island, and certainly the family wouldn’t be facing unwelcome distress.

But Belle Rainey didn’t want to leave her island home. Claire recalled that part of the family history that had happened when she was just ten years old. Her father, Kendrick Wynter, had decided to rescue his family from the violent 1970s on the island, a time of wanton killings, armed gangs, and gun battles in the streets as common as flies in mango season.

She remembered her father saying, I’m taking my family out of this pit of hell. We’re going to America away from the destruction. She watched her father’s frenzied selling and packing up, like the thousands of men and women fleeing the island for safety abroad, fleeing from what was shaping up to be the bloodiest election in the history of the island. Everything had to go – houses, cars, household possessions – everything, many times leaving the children with relatives until it was convenient to send for them. Claire was one of those left behind.

Lying there on the sofa, Claire remembered in all its emblazoned vividness the day her parents took her to Granny Belle’s home. I take good care o’ her. You don’t have nothin’ to worry ’bout, Belle Rainey told her daughter, Elsie. You all go on over dere. She better off in her own country. You think those people you runnin’ away to over dere better than us? You soon find out. Let her stay here. Bad as things is now, ‘least people here think you is a real human bein’, not a monkey.

Claire smiled at the recollection of how Granny Belle had hurled the words at her daughter and son-in-law. Maybe she was just echoing some of the tales people who had gone ahead to the U.S. had written back to report. There was no convincing Belle Rainey that leaving for America was a solution to the mounting violence and destruction sweeping over the island.

Two exciting years with Granny Belle passed, and on the day when her parents did return for her, Claire heard Elsie Wynter plead with her mother to come with her to America. You’ll be better off with us over there, Elsie told her. Claire listened and waited for the ‘yes’ she wanted to hear, but there was only her deep disappointment at hearing Granny Belle’s stout resistance to the offer.

I not goin’ nowhere. Everything bad all right. We don’t have no food in the shop, no electric light. A whole lot a things, but is my island dis. I die here.

Twelve-year-old Claire had left the island and left her grandmother behind.

Claire looked around her living room and refocused on her surroundings. It was almost daylight now, the sound of traffic beginning to pick up in the street outside. Time to get up and face the day, carrying into the light the sad knowledge she had received during the dark. She shook her head at the horde of childhood memories that had crowded in on her. All of it was a lifetime away but as near as yesterday. Thoughts of her grandmother’s disappearance in the midst of overpowering violence on the island sent a cold shiver though her body. She didn’t want to believe that her dear Granny Belle was in any kind of danger, but a gnawing fear tugged at her mind and tempered her desire to believe that all would be well. What did she really want?

Above everything else in that early morning hour, Claire Wynter wanted her aunt to call later that day with the good news that her grandmother had been found, safe and in good condition, thus keeping the pain of loss from overtaking the pleasure of her satisfying life.

Chapter 2

Claire looked at the face staring back at her in her bedroom mirror. Mama must be told. She said the words aloud, repeating them resolutely, but resolution was more on the breath of her words than in her spirit. How could she tell the sad news about her missing grandmother to someone with such fragile emotions, one for whom the terror of the island was an ever-present memory?

Finding the best way to break the news to her mother kept her preoccupied as she went about getting ready to face the workday. She had made the matter the focus of her prayer during her devotional time, even asking God to anoint her lips with words in season, but the ‘how’ of the telling eluded her. She puzzled over the answer as she made herbal tea and toast and poured cereal into a bowl, adding grapes and yogurt – all the while fearing the effect the telling would have on her easily agitated mother.

She would never risk telling her over the phone. She knew Elsie Wynter too well to spring that kind of information on her without being around to help her handle the emotional aftermath. She finally settled on doing it on the way to her office at the university in Washington, DC. She would swing by her mother’s house on Webster Street in the District and, with heaven-sent sweetness and light, gently tell her what she had heard from Aunt Vida. With some luck, she would be able to get her to calm down enough to leave her by herself. She knew that at that time of day she wouldn’t have her father’s strength to help her deal with what she was sure would be a major scene.

She was about to grab her handbag and keys and head for the door when the phone rang. Usually she ignored calls that came just when she was about to leave for work, but this morning she was quick to answer, and when she found it was her Aunt Vida’s son, Derrick, calling from the island, her heart immediately said good news!

Hey, Derrick greeted his twenty-six-year-old cousin,