This is no news to me – the news of my death. It was something that I had long expected, no, something that I had long desired, and when it came, I welcomed the gentle ripples of blackness that reminded me of the lapping waves of Anse Chastanet. Now when I died, but more precisely, when news of my death reached the ears of certain people, time stood still. I was nowhere near the record of Mr. Joshua et al an, but I was quite content to have had my 90 seconds of fame.
Truth be told, the best thing my death has done for me is to create the crippling paralysis of my husband. As I was drawing my last breath, I saw the look of sheer terror tattooed in his eyes, and I almost felt sorry for him. I had no time left to cater to my husband’s needs though, for soon enough death was pulling my tongue, and the breath of life from my soul. That feeling? Euphoric! Almost as good as the sex I used to get from him, before he was my husband, and we used to fornicate left, right, and centre all in his mother’s house. Ahhh, the good old days, but, like I was saying, my husband has been reduced to a bumbling mess of an idiot now that I am very much cold in this ice box. I cannot help but be very ashamed of this current version of him.
Unsurprisingly, the morning after my death is met with mass confusion. My husband cannot even make a cup of tea; not because he is physically incapable to make tea, mind you, but because the ennitil does not know where we keep the kettle, the teacups or the blasted bwa denn. He instead sits at the kitchen table and cries. He is crying for me. Hip! Hip! Hurrah! Now, as much as I am amused, and would love to savour this moment, there are important issues that I must focus on. For example, there is the matter of my niece, Lizette. She is someone whom I love but could never bring myself to like. Right now, I am proud of her. She in her “up north” accent has informed my husband and parents that contrary to their belief, a metal casket is not what I want. I want a solid wood casket. A metal casket may stave off the worms longer than solid wood, she argues but the wood casket will preserve me better. Lizette is a good girl to know her auntie so well. I would much rather have my bones cleaned by nature’s critters than to be buried in a metal casket and be dissolved into black tar liquified remains. I am so darn proud of her. That feeling is quickly extinguished though because this frigging blasted Lizette girl has found the thousand dollars I keep in the house in the event of an emergency. She fails to mention this find to my husband. I am again reminded of why I am normally ashamed that she is my flesh and blood.
Lo and behold, that feeling of shame metamorphosizes into admiration. Lizette is doing a fantastic job at shutting down the circus that Reverend Beauchamp wants to disguise as my funeral. Two hymns, one extremely long reading from the book of Ecclesiastes, another shorter, more pleasant reading from Psalms, the eulogy, and boom! a 15-minute sermon by the rector, final prayers, and that’s it she warns. She continues by threatening to take my service, and hence the exorbitant fee that we have been charged, to the Seven Days who do not charge a black cent to bury neither Jew nor Gentile. The mention of our sabbath-keeping neighbours brings them all to one accord: my service will be a sophisticated 75-minute affair at the Joseph A. Stephens Funeral Home, Moule-a-Chique, Quarter of Vieux Fort, Saint Lucia, West Indies. As my mahogany wood casket with ivory velvet interior is wheeled to the front of the chapel, Enya’s Only Time will play discreetly from the surround sound system; a harpist, very pretentious, yes, I know, but what can I say? will play Pachelbel’s Canon in D while my husband and parents sign the register. Score!
A very demanding and extremely negative energy directs my thoughts back to the present. It is as if a blanket of gloom and doom is threatening to suffocate me, and I struggle to keep my wits about me. Ms. Hoity Toity has arrived. I honestly did not think that she would have come. We have not spoken since she stormed out of my house, choosing her hard haired, country bookie husband over me. Ms. Hoity Toity looks down at me and for a long time she just stares. The dermatologist recommended products have done wonders for her skin. Her face glows. But this perfection magnifies her misshapen nose and enlarged pores. I now marvel about all the other things I had forgotten about her. She is so aloof, so cold, so clinical; and true to nature, she examines me as if I were an insect under her microscope. And then, just like that, her eyes get unnaturally bright. This is not the kind of behaviour I was expecting from Ms. I-Am-Better-Than-Everyone-Else. I feel confusion attacking my brain. Ms. I-Am-Better-Than-Everyone-Else better known as Madame Superior has asked the mortician to leave. It is only within this cloak of privacy that her trickle of tears becomes a tsunami. It is not a scandalous burst of emotion. Never! Sister Claire taught her girls well. And so, there is only a slight groan, and then, a silent avalanche of tears. Oh, so Ms. Hoity Toity is human? And she is mourning? She is mourning me? I am elated as I now know that without a doubt, even after all these harsh words and years of anger, well silence, we have not spoken since 1997, Mrs. Jeanine Daniel née Duboulay loves her mummy. Three cheers for me! I win!
Jeanine does a good job of preparing my body. She cannot score higher than a B minus because she refuses me the pleasure of combing my hair with my staple Talijah Wahid products. It is not that her alternative is bad. On the contrary. The products she uses smell of hibiscus, maybe poinsettias, I cannot be sure; but the scent has conjured memories of my first love, and there has been nothing in the heaven above, or earth beneath that can replace the love that I have for Mr. Patrick Jones. Surely, in the next lifetime, he and I will get it right.
My hair is layered around my face. Without my punishing one plait, I look approachable, loving even. I think my husband will fall in love with me all over again when he next lays eyes on me. Thick cocoa butter moisturizes skin that will never again feel a man’s touch. What a bloody shame!! Still, I feel like a Nubian queen or at the very least the Jewel of Petit Rocher and I know without a doubt that I do not have the waxy look of the unhappy and unloved dead. The mortician is back and Jeanine hands him a bag. Yes! New Natori undergarments and a choice of two dresses. But who is this girl kidding? I will not be able to fit in this size 8 dress! It is a bloody shame though. I recognize that the bag holds a Saks Fifth Avenue purchase; so, just like many other things in my life, I must settle for something I do not quite want: a Bloomingdale’s size 12 Rachel Parcell dress. Sigh. The mortician begins to dress me. It’s a Herculean effort on everyone’s part, especially because I am so, according to Cousin Itt, “remarkably” cold and stiff. What malarkey! If I am too much to handle, why did they not consult with my husband who is very familiar with my frigid, impliable body?
As the guests line up to view me, I cannot help but feel like a debutante at her cotillion. Many are gathered and all eyes are on me. I know that I do not disappoint. I look lovely. Radiant. I am the belle of the ball. People murmur that I left too soon, and people offer words of comfort to my family. My husband looks handsome in a black Armani tuxedo which matches the dress our daughter wears. My husband and daughter smile politely and nod at the well-wishers. There is even a brief hug or two. Lizette looks slightly puzzled. Since she is not the centre of attention, she does not know what to do with herself. She reminds me of her mother; a witch of a woman I have never been able to fully understand. Here she is standing to the back of the chapel. My only regret in this life is not having had enough strength to orchestrate her removal once and for all from my brother’s life after I understood that he was indeed going to marry her. My brother goes to her side. What a mess! What a weakling! What a snivelling, spineless, shameless piece of crap! He causes me great and intense shame.
My parents stand a little way off from my casket. They have not been able to fully accept that I am dead. My father looks lost. He has every right to though. Who will call just to listen to him recall his green days by the river? Who will remind him to take his heart medicine, his diabetes medicine, and his cholesterol medicine?
Who will remind him of who my mum is?
Who?
Both my father and my husband have lost their compass. I cannot lie. It gives me immense pleasure to know that my family is like a ship without a sail. Maybe now they will value me for what I am –ahem — what I was — to this family. My mother insists on annoying me. She keeps muttering that she never wanted to bury a child. Well, guess what mum? We do not always get what we want. For example, right now, He-Whose-Name-I-Will-Not-Mention is staring me in the face. He is not someone I want to see now, not in my current state of affairs, but since either, a), Lizette did not vet the invitation list or, most likely, since b), he has the balls to attend the funeral service of the woman he dumped like garbage in La Bas now that he is a big fancy Minister of So-and-So, He-Whose-Name-I-Will-Not-Mention is towering above me. Today, and it is only today, at this very moment in time, I can appreciate him choosing someone else over me. If he had been man enough to love me without the cloak of darkness, I do not think I would have seen upon my death, the reflection of his soul shattered into a million pieces in his perfect, brown doe eyes. Oh yes! He-Whose-Name-I-Will-Not-Mention is in deep, dark mourning. I am not going to lie. I feel like Sir Viv Richards. He-Whose-Name-I-Will-Not-Mention is crushed and defeated. He has been pulverized. I fini. Completely and totally finished. All out. Why? Well, because He-Whose-Name-I-Will-Not-Mention still loves me. Now, how is that umpire? Ha! Today is turning out to be lovelier than I anticipated. I pray that when he least expects it, memories of our could-have-been paralyze He-Whose-Name-I-Will-Not-Mention in Jesus’ name, amen.
The service is tasteful. Everything is perfect down to the solid black clothes of the guests. The sombre dressing devoid of a touch of colour that is becoming fashionable these days, does not encourage the piercing shrieks that I wanted at my service. Instead, I must settle for muted whimpers. I suppress a desire to yawn. I am bored. And disappointed. I had wanted my death to cause loud crushing anguish, pain, regret, loss, and pure, unadulterated grief. Instead, I get nothing. No bawling. No screaming. Just dignified dabbing of the eyes. Humph. I feel cheated. And then, just as I am about to fall into the deepest of depressed state of being ever recorded, I hear Shantal, wife of He-Whose-Name-I-Will-Not-Mention, conclude that my funeral service is certainly the most elegant church service since Lady Diana walked down the aisle at St. Paul’s Cathedral. And just like that, without even trying, I win! Again.
Soon enough I am transported to the Rosewood Private Cemetery. I guess getting rotten in a private cemetery is my husband’s way of apologising to me for being such a weak vessel. I catch a glimpse of my granite tombstone. “Here lies Janice Duboulay. Daughter. Wife. Mother.” What on God’s green earth have I done to be denied sophisticated marble? What sin am I paying for? What — thoughts of granite versus marble are flung from my mind as I finally hear those piercing, shrieking cries that I had wanted. Someone is feeling the appropriate loud crushing anguish, pain, regret, loss, and pure unadulterated grief that is supposed to accompany my departure. I really cannot suppress the glee that is threatening to rise from deep within my belly; but what the hell is this? Oh. My. It is Ms. Hoity Toity creating this raucous. Oh! So, she has now finally realized that I am going, going, gone? Good for her! So, she has now come to understand that there will be no more trips to the funeral home to assuage her guilt? GOOD FOR HER! Cemetery attendants are lowering me into my forever home. This is it ich mwen! Punto finale.
Over the mournful sound of Amazing Grace, I see my prodigal daughter slump into the hands of her husband. My granddaughter, Fiona, rushes to her side. Well, I can only assume it’s Fiona since the young woman resembles me before I became intimate with the horrors of being a woman. I try to process the tidal waves of conflicting emotions that are overwhelming me as I try for one more glimpse of a grandchild I am seeing for the second time in her life, but there is disturbance from my right. It is my husband. He is now leaning over my grave and is muttering: I love you, Janice. Janice, I love you. You know that, right? You hear? Janice? You hear? I am irritated. Of course, I know that he loves me. He married me against the wishes of his very bourgeois family. He married me; former coconut oil wivandèz of Tou Pita. I bloody well know —.
Bouf
I am startled back to the present.
Bouf
It is dirt landing on the top of my casket.
Bouf
There is a sniffle from my mother. She sounds like an old, wet chyen savan.
Bouf
More dirt. Deeper darkness. Suffocating darkness. A little sob from my husband.
Bouf
The weight of this darkness is fogging my ability to think. There is nothing to do but wait. I think that perhaps I should whistle. It will help me while away the time. But then I swear that I hear my granny admonishing that a whistling woman is neither fit for God nor man. I determine that I will do whatever the hell I want because I never met this God, not even when that bloody disease was slowly shutting my organs off one by one so surely, he cannot be waiting for me in this six-foot hole. But…what if he? she? I don’t know, is waiting for me? Perhaps I should not anger him — her– further. But what if there is no God? What if all that remains is the silence that is slowly blanketing itself around my body? I arrive at a compromise, and decide to hum. Only one song comes to mind though. I settle into my casket and begin: so long, farewell/Auf Wiedersehen, adieu/Adieu, adieu/ To you …and you ….
and you…
Goodbye…
∞
Shanette Monrose is a Saint Lucian writer and secondary school teacher. Her fiction has been published internationally in magazines such as adda, the online publication of the Commonwealth Foundation, Lolwe, Moko, and The Caribbean Writer.