So, David, after spending his summer holiday with us in Jamaica, turned around and invited me to Christmas. In Anguilla. Now my first thought wasn't yeh! It was 'how on earth would that even work?' I told him straight, I couldn't afford it. But David, he'd already bought the ticket. Calmly said so. Left me speechless. My mind raced. I don't know why but I wanted to say no. So I said, 'I don't have a passport.' Which was true. His reply... 'No one has a passport until they app

‘Suck-in.’ 'I. Am. Sucking. In'. Lemara seethes back at Julia. 'Em, have you put on weight because these clasps ain't budging?' The commotion brings Joshua, in all but his tux and cufflinks, to the ensuite door. The said cufflinks he’s fixing, he stops, to look at his sister and his girlfriend. ‘Everything ok in here?’ Lemara grits teeth. Doing anything else, breathing, blinking, would cause clasps to detonate. Like shrapnel. So she nods. Joshua satisfied, nods back. Retreats

'I don’t understand what this young woman of mine eats. How is there no corn meal, no sweetened condensed milk, nutmeg and things like that.' I woke to the most clawing hunger pain, not helped by the scent of nostalgia coming from our kitchen. The smell of Christmas morning's saltfish. Somewhere downstairs, the original 'Mary's Boy Child is in competition with my Aunty Shelly's intermittent singing and the pattering of pots and pans. I eased myself upright. David wasn’t in