The White Woman on the Green Bicycle Read Online Free PDF Page A

him.’
    ‘I’ll come, too,’ Sabine decided.
    George didn’t fancy his chances crossing her. ‘OK. Let’s bring the camera.’

    Music boomed from the house across the road from Jennifer’s home, domineering reggae of the most pastoral and sober kind, conscious music they called it. Jennifer’s teenage nephews played it night and day, peace piped over the poorest of neighbourhoods. Jennifer hated it. Restless buggers, they limed out on the street ambling around in circles, trousers hanging from their arses. They shot George and Sabine looks, bad looks from their bleary black eyes.
    ‘What wrong wid you,’ Jennifer scolded them. They steupsed and walked away, but not far enough.
    Jennifer’s home stood amongst tall grasses. A miracle. Her Aunt Venus had lived there, too – their whole family, in fact. Seven generations. An ancient slave chattel house, it was rust brown all over and had a much-patched galvanized roof; even so, it still bore a faint trace of grandeur with its gingerbread design. It stood of its own free will, walls leaning against each other like praying hands, the nails having dropped out long ago. Holes dotted the wood and, where one or two nails remained, they were orange and withered. The shack loomed there up on the hill, to the left of a treacherous bend in the road, surrounded by a wire fence. It stood on columns of rubble and furniture and pillars of flat river-stones. It always looked down on George, or so he felt.
    ‘Can we go in?’ he asked, tentatively.
    Jennifer nodded, still scowling at her nephews across the road.
     
    Inside, it was darker and it took a few moments for his sight to adjust. George was always awkward coming here, which wasn’t often. He tried not to glance around, not to notice the familiar objects in the house, their cast-off armchairs, their listing sideboard, the kitchen appliances. Sabine had fallen morbidly silent. They followed Jennifer straight to the room at the back of the house.
    Talbot lay on an iron-framed bed, the thin mattress covered in bald winceyette, his face to the wall. The room was airless, the walls patterned with brown shadows. Stained pyjama-striped sheets hung for curtains; their worn sheets. Talbot groaned, turning his head.
    ‘Dear God,’ George muttered.
    Sabine gasped.
    Jennifer began to cry again.
    The bruises were so bad it looked as though a butterfly had settled on Talbot’s face, a curious blue-green, purple-yellow butterfly. His eyes had exploded, so damaged they were gooey, leaking a clear glistening fluid. One of them was bloated, lopsided and sealed closed. His nose was smashed and swollen and the jagged break loomed through the skin. Talbot’s bottom lip was still encrusted with gems of congealed blood.
    ‘Jennifer, I’m so sorry!’ Sabine whispered under her breath. ‘Talbot, who did this ?’
    Talbot made no attempt to reply. His eyes were vacant; he was past caring. George felt his bile rise, a flush of pure hatred spread outwards from his gut. Talbot lay bare-chested, his ribs grazed; his torso appeared as if it were smudged, bruises over bruises on his young pearl-brown skin. The breaks were plainly apparent, where the lines of the bones underneath didn’t meet. George worried that Talbot’s lungs might puncture if they moved him hastily.
    Sabine put an arm around Jennifer. ‘It’s OK now, it’s OK. We’ll get help. Shhhhh.’
    Jennifer sobbed. ‘Dey beat him, dey beat my son. Dey beat him like a dog. Dey beat him up on de hill. Where it so peaceful. Two men held him and two others beat him.’
    Sabine held her tight, shooshing, her lips close to Jennifer’s bowed head.
    George thought fast: Talbot needed immediate medical attention, so they wouldn’t drive him to the General Hospital in Port of Spain, where stray dogs roamed the wards. No, no, no. Talbot would go to the A & E at the private medical centre in St Clair. To get there, they would need to lay him flat on the back seat of the car and drive with