‘Michael Roberts,’ I said.

‘Michael Roberts, yes. This young man has been officially reported as missing.’ She spoke slowly, emphasising each word with a small jab of her index finger pressed against her thumb.

‘Oh, he will soon turn up,’ I assured her. ‘I know Michael. He is always off doing some mischief.’

Closing her eyes, she leaned her head forward on to her two hands, which were clasped together as if in prayer. ‘Miss Roberts, there is a war on. When the family of a serviceman is told that their relative is missing in action, the intention is to prepare them for the news that the young man may be dead.’

‘The letter says nothing of him being dead,’ I said, but foreboding was trembling my hands.

‘God willing he is not dead. But prepare yourself and take comfort in the fact that many people, of whom I am one, believe that no matter what their colour, no matter what their creed, men who are fighting to protect the people of Great Britain from the threat of invasion by Germans are gallant heroes – be they alive or dead.’

She held out her hand for me to return the letter to her. But before it had passed from my grasp into hers she did the thing I had a dread of – she smiled on me directly. And all at once this woman appeared devilish to me. So devilish I stood stupefied and gaping as my slackened mouth, like a terrified infant’s, quivered with the effort of trying not to weep.

Five

Hortense

The moment I saw him the pawpaw I carried slipped from my grasp, its orange-pink flesh smashing open against my foot, splattering my leg with the pebble-black seeds. He rode a bicycle. The frame, too small to take his long legs, forced his knees to bend like a frog’s. Unfamiliar with the machine, he wobbled dangerously, ringing the bell to warn people of his hazardous approach. I ran so I would not lose him – borne on a euphoria that flew me through the street while the sticky pulp from the pawpaw seeped into my shoe. And I called, ‘Michael, wait.’ Many heads looked but not his. Raising himself from the bicycle seat, he stood to pedal faster.

I turned a corner, and the bicycle – wheels still spinning – lay abandoned in the road, sprawling disorderly as if dismounted at great speed. He was moving through a crowd: a raggle-taggle throng of men pressing together all the way down the street, men stretching their necks, craning for a better view, demanding hush, sucking on their teeth, spitting on the ground, gently jostling each other in this cramped place. He nudged people with his shoulder as he tried to make a steady path through this ragged assembly. And, like a thread pulling between us, I followed in his feet. Soon I was behind him, my hand, with stretched fingers, just an inch from his shoulder when I saw a chair – a part of a chair, the seat and two legs – tumbling through the air towards me. And suddenly I was looking at the dirt floor, a crushing weight on my back and a pain at my knee. Someone was covering me, the pressure of a hand pushing on my head, the vile odour of perspiration filling my mouth. Yelling came in vibrations through a protective chest while an arm slipped round my waist and lifted me from the ground.

The street erupted in commotion. The black men who had been a moment earlier an orderly crowd were now shouting, cussing, jumping and straining to send stones and rocks and wood arching high into the air. Then ducking and skipping to avoid the reply of smashing bottles and sharp projectiles that came back in volleys. A man, his head gashed, oblivious to the pumping blood that ran down his ripped shirt, bent to pick up a jagged stump of a bottle, lobbing it as casual as a ball game. And above this riot a megaphone boomed with words so sonorous and distorted they could not be understood.

I was carried through this chaos. My feet tried desperately to search for a footing so I might run along the ground. But I was enclosed as firm as a knot. Then, rounding a corner, all at once everything was peaceful. People went about their business unaware of the mayhem that could be glimpsed along the next street. In this harmonious place it was a peculiar sight for a man scruffy with dust to be carrying a grown woman whose knee was trickling with scarlet blood. So he placed me gently down and I saw his face. It was him. It was the man I thought was Michael. But it was not Michael. It was a stranger.

‘What you doing at this meeting? It’s not safe,’ he said.

‘Get off me,’ I replied. His skin was darker than Michael’s. His nose was broader than Michael’s. His lips were thicker than Michael’s. His eyes were rounder than Michael’s. His moustache was bushier and his smile was not crooked.

‘You hurt?’ he said, noticing my bleeding knee.

His open mouth revealed a gold tooth that shone from within. I could have screamed. I shooed his hand away as he reached out to touch my leg. To think that I mistook this uncouth man for Michael Roberts. ‘What is all that commotion?’ I found I was shaking. The words did not come out with the force I required of them – they rang with tremulousness.

‘Busta speaking.’ I had no idea what this man was talking about. ‘I just come to see what him have to say. But every time we meet there is this rough stuff.’

I was not interested in his explanation.

‘Your foot,’ he shouted, his face grimacing. ‘Your foot is mash-up.’

Calmly I told him, ‘That is pawpaw.’

For an instant he gazed on me as if I had mislaid my senses. ‘Pawpaw?’ he asked.

‘Yes,’ I replied, offering this man no explanation.

His gold tooth glared as he smiled. ‘Your mother never tell you pawpaw is to go in your mouth and not on your foot?’ And his smile then became a chuckle at his own joke.

A young man running to the battle line – his arms laden with two big stones and several branches of a tree – tripped in front of us, spilling his load. From his mouth a stream of cusses poured, turning the air rancid. The man who was not Michael grabbed this cussing man by the throat. Their noses only one inch apart, he said, ‘You no see there’s a lady here? Hush your mouth.’ I feared a brawl would begin in front of me. The man who was not Michael released the cussing man’s throat, pushed him, and for a second these two stood snarling like savages until the terrified cussing man backed away and ran.

Taking a composing breath, the man who was not Michael looked on me and said, ‘Sorry, Miss, for you to hear such language,’ before his attention was drawn once again to the uproar that was happening in the next street.

‘Go,’ I said. ‘I am fine.’

‘You sure? I can leave you here? You no gonna come back throwing bottles and roughing up the men?’ Again he laughed at his own joke as he walked away. And as his back rounded the corner I had to shake myself from the belief that I was once more seeing Michael.

I had sat a quiet vigil for Michael long after the war had ended. The festive balloons deflated, the ribbons lost their sheen. People stopped talking of the shortage of rice and, oh, those miserable days when the condensed milk ran out. Up on the hillside the boats docked below. Even from that distance, if he had been there among the crowd that alighted from the vessels, I would have seen him like a pinpoint of light on a cave wall. Those men who left for the war with spirited cheer returned looking around them as bemused as convicts. In their ill-fitting suits or uniforms that would soon no longer be theirs, they studied the surround as if this were a foreign place – a momentary reluctance trembling in their feet as they stepped on to the dock. Mothers hugged these sons to them while abashed wives looked guilty on the eyes of their returning men. And still he was not there.

What would Michael look like on an aeroplane? I had no picture to conjure with. Was he inquisitive – straining to make out the curve of a coast far below? Or did he gaze skyward, shielding his eyes against the sun as he counted the clouds that slipped past his view? In England the houses are placed so close together, I had been told, that it is possible to look on your neighbour in the adjacent and opposite dwelling. Was someone staring through a window to see Michael sipping at a cup filled with hot tea? Was the window open, a breeze caressing his cheek, or was the closed glass almost opaque with rain? What did Michael do when he was cold? Did he shiver, shaking himself like a dog fresh from a stream, or did he stand erect, wrapped warm in a thick coat? In the eye of my mind Michael Roberts – with his thin moustache and crooked smile – could belong in no other place than on this Caribbean island.