A Shadow in Yucatan Read online

  A Shadow in Yucatán

  (A Tale Sung in Exile)

  by

  Philippa Rees

  Cover design: Philippa Rees, Ana Grigoriu

  Book Interior: Philippa Rees

  Photographs: Cover and some internal images Crestock

  others Shutterstock

  First Print Edition 2006

  This Smashwords edition published by:

  CollaborArt Books

  Copyright:Philippa Rees 2014

  ISBN 978-0-9575002-4-2

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior permission of the author, nor be otherwise circulated.

  This book is licensed for your enjoyment only. If you would like to share it with another person please purchase an additional copy. If you are reading this book and it was not purchased for or by you please respect the hard work of the author and purchase your own copy. Thank you.

  Table of Contents

  Dedication

  1 The Beauty Parlour

  2 Saturday

  3 The Specialist

  4. Sunday-Key West

  5. Monday. Brooklyn

  6 The Park

  7.With a Truckee Hitching North

  8 Gethsemane

  9 Going Home

  10 The Landlady

  11 The Wisdom of Solomon

  12 The Agency

  13 The Dream of Childhood

  14 The Storm

  15 Birth

  16 Post-Mortem

  17 Reincarnation

  18 Infancy

  19 Adolescence

  20 Maturity

  21 About Philippa Rees

  22 Other Books

  Reviews of Yucatan

  Dedicated to the Nameless Girl.

  El Progresso was further than the back of beyond.

  It was the flywhisk refuge of the poor waiting for winter work and the sharks that cruised past in hope of the equally unlikely; a dry landscape of fathomless cenotes and human sacrifice.

  Here in pitiless sun this tale was spilt, by a troubadour of sorts, a girl who had fled her past, blindly and in pain. I have written it for her, and for others that remember the eclipse of joy. The setting has been changed; the characters are fictitious, but our betrayal was universal. We were betrayed by our hunger for hope.

  This song is a lament.

  The Beauty Parlour, Coconut Grove.

  All day the cycles swing around the window, the tanned legs flattered by the double glass then arrested...Ratchets buzz impatient..

  The slow generator arbitrates...

  The green light frees the traffic’s undertow.

  Reflected twice, the lightweight English Raleighs, gears, toe-clips, nudge the dryers against the far white wall.

  Wink and seduce the gap-toothed rubber plant, skewer Mrs. Sklayne at her pedicure, with spokes.

  ‘Not too short at back...mind the kiss curl’s at the side...let me remove my spectacles…’

  ‘Vogue or Harpers, take ya pick?

  Will y’ave coffee, chocolate or iced milk?’

  Stephanie works fast, (she’s real nice Steph...)

  not smart y’hear, but steady, plain but clean;

  her fair-isle sweater under the gingham darned at the elbow

  'But the ankles, it’s a shame, a shade too thick.

  She’s been with us, let’s see...goin on three years and as I recall, never a day missed...

  Quiet with the customers, never chatty...that sort leave..

  Ten fifty altogether...have a nice day...’

  ‘Where the hell’s that cheeseburger?

  ‘I jus gotta have a cigarette’

  *****

  ‘Are you early lunch or late?’

  Stephanie shrugs, her wide mouth full of pins.

  She fixes the bangs, sprays and dusts the neck... powder tin is empty...

  ‘Drugstore’ll be crowded’

  ‘I’ll eat my apple in the park’

  ‘Yeah? Well suit y’self. I’m blowin. Gotta rip.’

  *****

  The tide is out, the grass worn summer-thin.

  The cymbal-shakin Hare Krishna set have gone to swim.

  The wind is blowin west, there ain’t one jib, the burgees up the masts a yelpin din...

  The pelicans have gone.

  ‘Christ I feel sick!’

  Wally’s in his hammock with his kids,

  his squint son, bored with bark, with woodlice, and the tethered tree.

  His daughter sunk in her talcum sleep is stroked...

  The monocle of light, now focussed, flames her hair, it lifts, it falls, it curves, conceals...

  Her open nectar-mouth, now shaded, breathes.

  He peers between his knees into the dust

  unable to distinguish screw from seed...

  He sifts with fingers, looks beneath his thigh,

  investigates the folds of sock, and sighs...

  Balanced on one palm he rolls erect and goes to pull a rush leaf by the hedge,

  splits it with his neat sharp teeth,

  curves length along an easy tongue...

  Binds his bifocal frames with green, and sits back down.

  Now he takes up and tunes a steel banjo.

  His hands, with nails kept short, are competent and quick.

  They guide the dolphin sounds through hoops of tree; he bends, he turns, harks with ear inclined...

  It reaches pitch. It thrums and calls...he seldom plays,

  he keeps it tuned, in case.

  He’s come far, has Wally, in the years, come March, since Annie rode away astride a pillion, arms around her black...OK her darkie...(Nigger if y’like)

  Shacked up in Oregon...he isn’t sure. She does not often write.

  The kids, the bike, banjo, all-purpose knife,

  comprise his got-together, self-sufficient life.

  ‘I ain’t sold’

  Stephanie’s doubts confuse, her hopes weave round and round.

  She’s walking straight, though slowly, on the shore

  queasy as that oil slick on the sand

  ‘Tar barrels, fish and quarrelling gulls sure don’t help me stomach varnish, acetone and cream...

  His small girl needs a mama, that’s for sure...

  I’d bake us pizza, we could cut cookies..

  ‘I’m gonna be sick!’

  Wally stops.

  He knows the scene.

  Man, that’s too much!

  That girl beyond the saw grass...she’s alone...

  and why she’s bending down so low?

  Her back convulses, shows its spine, and spews...

  The gulls come circling...

  peck, startled, skid the retch recoil,

  relentless pump, the thud.

  She’s fallen on her knees...no she gets up...

  she’s goin to splash her face in curvin brine.

  Discards her sandals, rinses and then spits...She spits twice more.

  Enjoys the tang of salt, the clear clean sting of salt, of salt, of salt...

  A welling unimpeded view of everything.

  ‘Yer pregnant ain’t ya?’

  Wally’s all concern.

  For all his hard won sinew, he’s a family man.

  He loves his children, loves his loving too...

  ‘Honest, I don know’

  Fearing another bout with bile, she half turns away.

  Slowly redeemed, her shoulders sink; the sulky sea turns chill.

  The strutting flicking feathers hunch. The shadows too blanch dim...

  Evaporating light...the light holds everything

  She thought she saw...

  His eyes s
ee emptying.

  *****

  A candid light returns, a flood-lamp sun, angled to define both weight and line.

  Her sweating hands smooth skirt, and fasten shoe...

  He plants his feet still deeper in the mud

  'Oughta find out soon‘

  He scratches an elbow.

  She bends her head.

  A dried reed rattles. A lifting sail subsides...

  ‘It’s no good hangin out. What is, is bound t’be...

  I know a doc, works way up-town, a regular medic, not some knife happy loon

  I don suppose you’d go to y’ own.

  If you drive up past Funland, past the ole dry dam...

  Tell you what, come back. I’ll write it down.’

  Stephanie follows, servile, blind, searching for water through her seeping mind...

  The sea, the sky, and buried somewhere under salt...the effervescent tongue refreshing view...

  But in the distance, at her feet, she sees only a child asleep.

  A banjo, a bag, split, full of diapers, nuts and mixed dried fruit...

  a diet for a life, the open road.

  The weightless child asleep, and loneliness the load.

  She folds the paper, thanks him, leaves him to the leaves, and goes.

  *****

  Two saffron monks, pale-pated, cross the grass.

  Their discourse falls in folds, their hands elaborate, perennial truth perhaps...

  (Perhaps the price of rice.)

  The shafted pencil-light writes clearly on their crowns; the ankles trace the shadows, but the bare feet laugh...

  Avid for a taste of their measured paced-out peace, Stephanie picks an unripe lime.

  Bites bravely through its grim green skin...

  The eyes goddam-it water, the astringent palate smarts...

  She sucks at it regardless...squeezing and recoiling, she kicks off her shoes...

  disdains the easy somersault, accepts the broken glass...

  ‘It’s good, it’s good, some ways it’s great! I’m dressed in polished poplin..

  Inside I feel all new...’

  Then euphoria hits the sidewalk. She begins to smooth her hair.

  The sleek glass door is guillotine to any thoughtless tread...

  The receptionist surveys any likely unwashed head...

  Stephanie is pole-axed, overpowered, drained by air-conditioned talcum, re-circulated scent, plushy velvet drapes, glossy blown-up prints.

  Ye Gods is this the morgue? Must I undertake the corpse?

  Lacquer for internment, ritual oils and masks...

  Go daub your dead with war paint

  let’ em paddle their own hearse.

  ‘Why there y’are honey...Mrs. Beale’s in number three...

  She says she’s pushed for time...make it snappy, there’s a dear...

  Just a wash and shingle...no, today no facial hair...’

  Thank God tomorrow’s Friday. I’ll just get through this week.

  ‘Say please pass my lighter. And Joe?...out back...Joe! Joe!

  Oh Joe, order lemon tea'.

  Saturday

  Twenty-eighth street South, holds credit potential and promise.

  Once a grove of palms, rattling perpetually...

  Now a lattice, plotted on points, two trees to each house, each pruned to the axis of the unfettered cable...

  Only the occasional fruit, silently ripening...seed accurate...

  The perpendicular plumb-line bomb

  (A small cycle was found crumpled in the cover it bucked into un-steered; a hedge in bloom with passion flowers...)

  Often enough to latch-key mind, whether to call the tree man?

  Or wait for the hurricane?

  This is the old quarter of the Grove, built

  when folks were bright with hope and standards

  before the boom and greenback brass..

  They were clean shaven then, and not too clever,

  they built small with chain link fences,

  they laid paths and still sink flowers.

  (Five years, on average, before a sleek Estate is parked fenceless further south, protected by the German Shepherd and strolling Securicor.)

  ‘It’s nearer to the beach y’know, and Arthur? Why, he doesn’t mind the drivin’

  Twenty-eighth on Saturday sleeps late, or walks the dog...

  No Afghan or elegant Saluki, but a home-grown sensible get-down Rover, part pet and part policeman.

  Sniffing its beat from Hibiscus to Azalea, sneezing, pausing, lifting and retracing...

  Tangling skeins of trotted scent along the clipped grass sidewalk, four blocks to the Causeway,

  and once over, to the Bay.

  Man, now see him move!

  At seven the street is a long lick of paint.

  The Banyan boon of shade at the corner belongs to the Architect.

  (His curved walls are cedar, all other walls are white.)

  No tooth shadows gnaw the surfaces as they do at noon:

  The tattered spikes that serve the night are raised portcullis high, but the garrison is in its vest, and the mailman’s been and gone.

  Now the sun is cracked for breakfast in the middle of the street; spatters the sidewalk, and the back of the newsboy’s knees...

  Only sleep soiled quarters grey and dim, door hatches plastic sealed...

  The air-propeller din sucked greedily through straw of mesh and spat across the sheet.

  ‘Hey Honey? D’ya hear me? Would you say that fella’s queer?

  Y’ know that one that wears those shorts and those shades against the glare?’

  *****

  Stephanie stirs to the flapping of sheets, and the creaking revolution of a line...

  Slatted sun flickers...

  The windowsill flares, and is doused by the closing eye.

  The open palm reflexes, the pillow wrist reclines, her body curves towards its plinth and melts again in sleep.

  The clock-still, washer-numb, rag-bound Sabbath sulks.

  Mrs. Martins in mules beneath the mangoes treads a protest in sand and suds across to the line and back.

  Shuffles to stay shod, slaps and damns the mosquitoes.

  Body bowls fall un-harnessed, roll beneath the housecoat...

  (blessed midges take advantage in the shade)

  She feels for a pocket of pegs, spins, secures, spins and reaches, and scratching a buttock tracks back.

  Mrs. Martins is shaking her Sabbath fist. Shalom.

  ‘So Abel how does it look? It looks good huh?

  Your auntie, Abel, on the Sabbath in rollers, at the mangle maybe?

  To honour that wheedling whippet, long-legged layabout, your uncle Will

  (not will enough to stay alive even.)

  Not that I am noticing the difference..

  him half buried in the fishing canoe, paddling lazy through the saw-grass with his pipe...

  Did she ever tell you (your mama with her shoes and hats) that your uncle was an alligator?

  But still Abel, how does it look? I should also be enjoying the hats, and today dressing for Schul’

  Miriam, widow of goy Wilbur, continues to soliloquize without malice.

  Wilbur, cause of curses has been dead too long.

  Abel, adulated heir, prepares for manhood.

  The uncertain Sabbath must be monitored;

  He consults his gold Rolex, picks his nose and turns the pages of a comic he is not reading...

  ‘So why must he read when he inherits an apartment north of Fontainebleu?’

  ‘Ah, the tenant is awake. I will ask when the flushing has a decent interval. If I could bring myself to eat bacon, we could be having breakfast. A daughter I wish I had. To adopt I couldn’t afford; to make believe costs a person nothing.’

  The Specialist

  Synchronised signals on Lauderdale thread the lace of the idling engine...

  A line up of short-order shacks elbows for a view of the parade.

&nbs
p; Champ beats Burger-king, knocked down to Pete’s Pizzas, and two to you from Charlie’s Cornets...

  (bigger you can’t buy)

  Stand aside. Yonder Palm Beach...

  (cut rates for condominium convenience)

  ‘For a place near the water, what’s ninety thousand bucks?

  We need to moor the catamaran, honey’

  Well before.

  Before the Boulevards, and Porcelain Parlour, Cassata Cafe and Originals by Appointment, the Florida fanfare is scored for braggart brass, despairing cheerfulness...

  Flaggin y’down with a swollen tongue...

  Only one, jus one more soda from de poor,

  the undimmed Pepsodent poor

  One hundred eighty sixth street, north?

  Right. Four blocks later, left.

  Another street, undistinguished, communal grass, paved ways, porticos; hedge-less by decree...

  ‘Colonial rambling’ developers would call it

  (spreading their signet rings to cast the shadows of illimitable oaks and graciousness)

  ‘All that in two pillars and a porch, anodized, weatherized, and warranted for two years against rust.’

  *****

  Dr. Paul Robsart lurks behind the tiger blind in button-down battledress and horn-rims

  ‘He’ll have ya believin Memphis is in Massachusetts’

  Chimes strike salad welcome, daily-dozen, apple-a-day ratio of health.

  Visitors are here through carelessness,

  the air-conditioning primed for punishment.

  ‘Take a seat honey. We’ll need to take y’details.’

  The mother reluctant crosses adolescent knees.

  The off-white chairs are carefully squared, the carpet piled like straw.

  The face behind the glass is gashed, and continues to dry its nails...

  *****

  ‘The Name of the Father?’

  The apostrophe in the perplexed gut?

  The sleeping spawn alive and palpitating asks for no father...