The cut-stone wall near the gate stood strong; it had resisted decades of weathering; but its middle part lay down like ancient rubble on the sidewalk. A reversing truck had licked it out years ago and nobody had fixed it. The Lignum Vitae tree stood secure in the middle of what could have been a lawn but for the weeds, which had taken over like unembarrassed squatters. That tree had guts. It had withstood Charlie, Gilbert, Ivan, Emily, and floods too frightening to mention. To think of it, I'd never seen an uprooted Lignum Vitae tree. The trunk, near the ground, was bare, for the rocks of the rockery and the dirt in it had been washed out and away long ago. Time had walked all over the place and booted the hedges, which bent limply, like frail old people waiting in line with outstretched hands. And look at the engrafted mango tree, as aged as the hills, with Old Man's Beard clinging on all its branches! Yet it dropped juicy Bastard Bombay and Blackie. To the left of the front steps, the one blooming red-rose plant showed a circumscribed bulge looking like a home-bandaged sore foot, the work of a non-professional, no doubt.

The house looked good from the street, but those who had eyes to see, saw that only the front, with the verandah, was painted. Only one bulb burned at night. Poverty was hiding in there.

An old man, the bed-ridden owner of the house and land, his 36-year-old daughter, and a granddaughter lived in the once properly maintained facility. Everything around personified the past tense. The half-alive old man on the bed, Larry Logan, the cobwebby corners, some broken pieces of fine mahogany furniture, a mantlepiece 100-year-old clock which worked when weekly wound, and outdated mutterings of hate from a trembling, hoarse-whispering voice. 'Damn returnees. They rape the hillsides with their money and their mansions. Nobody can stop the building of these monstrosities. I'd burn them if I could move.'

Nobody bothered to answer him. His laments were frequent and boring. He'd been the best builder of sensible houses in his time; his extreme anger over the changes everywhere, especially in the construction industry, had caused his stroke, and now his sightless eyes focused on memories. The young woman in the house paid respect to him, but no attention to his past. Frustrated, he'd hug himself with his one good hand and curse returnees and their garish splendour.

Abundant life, energy, enthusiasm and exuberance exuded from the youngest one. She wore skimpy clothes: tank tops, bare-belly blouses, short shorts and tube pants. Her navel was pierced with a gold stud and a yellow butterfly tattoo sat at the base of her spine.

The woman, Rita Logan, and her daughter, Rianna, did not look alike. They each favoured their father, and the girl's father was Chinese. But watch them going up or coming down the hill! The same height, they bore themselves with buxom bravery. Behind, they were identical. Their ungirdled bottoms bounced to the same rhythm. Left, wiggle right. Right, wiggle left. Only sixteen years separated those two who schemed as pros. They knew how to catch a man. They knew the value of the man whose money was to be the root of their success. The mother recited her father's words, although, from the looks of things, none seemed to have rubbed off on her.

'Education is key and the same key has to open the door to opportunity. Is you have to put the key in the door hole, and the door this time is Mr. Nicodemus.' She lapsed into soliloquy, for her daughter was not listening. 'Mr. Azan paid for your first year and yu have to go back. We not losing that money. We have to get somebody to pay fo' yu secon' year. We have to work on Nicodemus. One day at a time, though.' And she went on as if she was the sophomore at the University of the West Indies.

It was always Mr. La Fayette to his face and Nicodemus behind his back. And they never slipped, not once. They, like the rest of the community, preyed on the returning residents who, it seemed, became victims on arrival. For years returnees made futile reports about overtaxing at the airports, the unscrupulous taxi men, the highway robbers, problems at the local banks, the extortionists, the attacks in their own spanking new, heavily burglar-barred houses, the sloppy gardeners and domestic helpers who demanded higher wages from them. If you have to go, returnee, you have to go. Some of you have returned to America, others to Canada, many to England, to begin again. You, plural, remained and endured.

The tall, thin, black-as-his-hair man stood up in his hot three-piece suit, felt hat in hand (the last one was stolen when he got up for communion), and walked to the lectern. Why would the minister call on him to read that day when he had been sitting at the right end of the fifth pew for over six months, and announce his name as Mr. Barrington La Fayette? Who the hell was that? 'Is Nicodemus,' they whispered. Bad-minded, back- bush people called the man Nicodemus. But Nicodemus did come to Jesus by night. He was wary of them and they were jealous of him and the big house he was building. He walked by night. The light in his house burned till daylight. The material for the building was delivered at night; the workmen waited noisily for their pay and got it late on Friday evenings. Money. Everything is money. Stupid clowns, waiting for politicians to give them money to follow them. Watch big people grin and pocket the manleys, children giggle and show off the nannies. But money is money, and the two women wanted it and saw their man in a new vision. Mr. Barrington La Fayette read Isaiah 53, verses 1-12. The man read the thing like a poem. The whole chapter. Only a Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts man could read the Old Testament like that.

'Who hath believed our report? And to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed?

For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground;

He hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see him,

There is no beauty that we should desire him.'

The half-dead Episcopal service livened up. Awe and respect gaped at the newly discovered orator. Such deliberate English!

After church, teen-age mimics (they're perfect at that age) mocked Mr. Lafayette:

'Fohr whoo hawth beleevedh ouwr repoht, and to whomah ees thah awrm of thah Lawhd revee-led.'

Once, married women with eligible daughters would coax them to make contact with Mr. Lafayette. 'He's old and old men soon go to everlasting life.' Unwed mothers pushed to meet him after church; they made much of him and encouraged their daughters to entertain him. But those old-time days had long gone and some young women were very busy. They found the idea repulsive. Poor Mr. Lafayette with his ordinary, simple looks!

'Said the pie man to Simple Simon, 'Show me first your penny.'

Said Simple Simon to the pie man, 'Indeed! I have not any.'

And they developed strategies, for unemployment had taken over the town and only those who left escaped it. Good jobs dodged the seekers. Mother and daughter became members of the Ways and Means Association and devised plans to get the returnee's attention.

The same Sunday Mr. Lafayette had read from Isaiah, the pastor had preached long and hard about the coming of the Lord. Soon come? Why do you say that when you are always late? One mother, Miss Logan, was not preparing to meet her God. Neither was her daughter, Rianna. Not yet. Every day they spruced up and watched the man's house from their front verandah. They baked a shepherd's pie for him once and took it over to his house. He didn't eat it. They'd coincidentally crossed his path as he left Miss Amy's, where he had his evening meal. Were they that desperate, to waylay him under the coolie plum tree as he began the uphill climb to his gate? He grunted as they chatted, telling him about his neighbours.

Touchstone would say that the power of ice is to melt, but this time it didn't melt. It broke. The ice broke one Sunday morning.

'Excuse me, Mr. Lafayette,' the daughter lisped softly. 'It's running down.'

'Whot's running dowhn?' he snapped with a stiff upper lip.

'The perspiration and the dye.' The mother moved toward him. 'Give me yu kerchief. Quick, before it nasty up yu shirt collar.' She grabbed the white linen from his slow hand and mopped one side of his face. She showed him the soiled part, folded the kerchief, sopped the other side of his face, flicked her wrist with a little drama and wiped his forehead. She pushed the damp, grey-white cloth in her handbag. She'd launder it and return it.

They both returned the handkerchief and presented another shepherd pie. He did not go to Miss Amy's that evening. The rum punch, mixed by the daughter, was strong and found its mark on Mr. Lafayette's tongue. It loosened and he talked. He only kept a million dollars in his Jamaican account. His pension from England was sufficient to meet his daily needs. How was he going to manage?

Never let the right hand know what the left hand is doing. Hand in hand, hand and pen in pass book, the three met with a good friend of theirs at the bank and the money passed. Just like that - for a man is a man, is a man, is a man. And history will prove how disoriented he'll become when two women unleash their trickery on him. When Mr. Lafayette's Rover arrived from Kingston, the three of them perched in it and were up and down, down and up and around. He was no longer poor Nicodemus. He saw respect and he felt importance. Two good-looking women taking turns, waiting on him, the older one with much experience.

The minister got the message from London. 'Telltale Tit, you' tongue shall split and all the dogs in town will have a bit.'

The minister delivered the message the night he received it. Mother and daughter hid in the passageway and heard everything.

'Your son has been trying to get you, Mr. Lafayette. Your cell phone is not working?'

'Seems as if someone stole it. I've searched everywhere. I reported it lost.'

'Your son wants to know why you're transferring all the money to another account. He said you forgot it was a joint account. He said he tore up the forms the bank sent for his signature.'

'Alright. I'll call him in the morning, his time.'

'Your son said he got the number for the nurse who will accompany you to get the ARV drugs. Here's the number.'

'Thank you for coming.'

'No problem. We're praying for you, my brother. You know that you can live a full life with HIV. Think of Magic Johnson.'

'Yes. I was diagnosed positive over five years ago.'

'Jesus Christ!' The two women stifled their groans and hugged each other. One put a hand over her face, squeezed her nose, and bit her lips to control nausea. They stole away as one, down the back steps and into the darkness of the night.

The elaborate house is finished and Mr. Lafayette's son, daughter-in-law and grandchildren have returned and live in it. Three cars line the driveway.

Now years pass and Mr. Lafayette, with his new wife, sometimes wonders about the sudden disappearance of his two friends and neighbours. Did the younger one ever finish university? Did the mother migrate? He looks at the locked-up house, the FOR-SALE sign on the Lignum Vitae tree, the cut-stone wall where the middle part still lies down, silent and neglected, like ancient rubble on the sidewalk.

Veronica Carnegie

Veronica Carnegie

Song for my Father

Is it because I have not sung

a song for you, a dirge,

an elongated keening

shredding the tissues of the heart,

that this song

curdles in silence,

this song for my father?

Dark, it is dark

in the place I grieve.

A silent wailing

in the mishmash hollow

and sockets of my skull.

Time runs out in attenuated grief -

This pin prick of eternity,

a glow, memory, grave.

- Raymond Mair