E3 When The Rhythm Changes: The Shade of an Almond Tree

Mourners, faces barely visible under dripping umbrellas, lined the drive. Though, I make out Mr King, he and my father go back and so his presence here is no surprise. 'The basket weaving would have to wait,' he said to me yesterday, 'while I send off my ole friend.' In his hands palm fronds twisted into my father's initials. I don't think I've ever seen him do that before. I do however, still have the very first basket he weaved me all those years ago. I wonder if he remembers it. Surely that's vintage now.

The hearse struggles up the drive. Tires skidding over the wet and gravel my father lay himself, before rolling to the top of the slope as far as the pavement would allow and stop. My father's last time rolling up his driveway.

'Mommy.'

'Yes, Baby Cakes'

'Why isn't Grandad Banny going to the graveyard like other people?' Her pigtails in motion again.

'Because in Jamaica, you get a choice, sweetheart. You can bury someone in the graveyard… or at home.'

'Mom, can you bury me at home?' Her little face lit up.

'You can't do that in England, silly.'

'Sa-sha.' David's tone the warning.

'But I want to.'

The corners of her mouth in an upside-down smile, climbs onto her knees. Arms outstretched to her, she scrambles over the back of the seat and into my lap for cuddles.

'Its okay, Gracie, you can be here with Grandad Banny if you wish.'

'I want to be with Gra-ma-Lu.'

'I am sure Grandma Lu would love that Sash, but we don't do that in Anguilla, either.'

'Awhh.' The disappointment on that child's face.

Until then, we'd sat in silence. Me peering out the water threaded streaks of David's window to my old garden. Rain, the thing my father loved, delaying his burial. Not Lucinda Ellis' so-called lawless roads of Montego Bay, but rain, delayed his arrival. Funny because this man was never late. Not for anything. Upfront, the windscreen wipers intermittently sprang into boxing match action against the downpour on our parked vehicle.

Cashew apples on a cashew tree

Most, if not all, of the mourners congregated on our little veranda, pointing and gawking at Charles Bandanny's manicured gardens. For some, maybe a replica of the one he worked. Round Hill's garden in miniature. Strange, I'd never thought of it that way before.

Someone pointed to the loaded cashew tree at a far end of the garden and I grinned.

'You know what's funny?' Turning to David. 'This is the most people I have ever seen on that veranda.' Turning back to look at the veranda. 'You know what else is funny?' Turning to David again. 'Tell me.' 'This was possibly the quietest my father has ever come up this drive.'

'True.' He'd said after thinking about it. 'He and that old truck.'

'Yep, came up that drive with the old pickup a riot of a Marilyn Manson concert. Today, Mendelsohn.' I smiled on as we sat in a little more quiet, still looking out David's side of the window at the hedgerow of ferns bowing in the rain. 'And possibly the longest he's ever sat on this drive. Doing nothing.'

'Very unlike your father.'

'Very unlike him.'

We both grinned but my grin caught on a lump in my throat and I cracked.

Grace shot up in my lap. 'Mo-ommyyy', she'd taken off my hat.

'Grandad Banny would be glad for the rain,' I told her, before turning my face away and out my window. Blinking too late to stop it.

'Gracie, what do you think of Daddy's new look?'

'Mo-om.' I hear Sasha's giggle.

Gracie breaks into full cackles. I turn to find Gracie trying to find her father's face. The reason? David is wearing my hat. Had I recognised a hat would transform my husband this way, I may have reconsidered this marriage because I am forced to admit he looked good. Too good though it didn't stop me from laughing. Shaking my head.

'You wanna wear that for the rest of the day?' Still laughing at him.

'He winked back at me.'

'Mrs Ellis,' there's a tap on the screen before it comes down between us and our driver. 'The storm has passed.' His thick Jamaican coming through. My body returned with the weakness of the end of the church service. Car doors open. Everyone descends the veranda and up ahead, pallbearers stand next to the coffin in the hearse.

Out the limo, my hat's back on my head. David stands with us until Aunty Shelley comes up alongside me. All of us focussing on the sky-blue casket in stainless steel. Near the same colour as his old Datsun pickup. The casket gleaming in the new rays of sunshine. 'He be real proud a yuh Livie.' Aunty Shelley rubbing my back. David, he nods. Agrees. Before rejoining the pallbearers. Sasha leaves too but she runs off for her Gra-ma-Lu. Grace she hugs my side, the way she normally does. Casket out the hearse, the pallbearers pick their steps with purpose on the paving stones still glistening wet from the rain.

Shade of an almond Tree

We follow. Past the veranda one last time. Down the side of our house one last time. Past his old workbench he'd sit on one last time. Down the garden path to the extended piece of land one more time.

Under the first almond tree and the second. Past the June plums, papayas and the guavas one last time, to his final resting place under a cashew and the shade of another almond tree. Till someone broke chorus...'Till The Storm Passes over, and the trumpets... Only a hum at first but it was there.

Till I couldn't anymore...

---

This piece is dedicated to my grandad.

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