Leaving by Plane Swimming back Underwater by Lawrence Scott

Author:Lawrence Scott [Scott, Lawrence]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780957118737
Publisher: Papillote Press
Published: 2015-01-21T00:00:00+00:00

The fires burned all night on Rosary Street, black smoke from the pyre of burning tyres and the day’s garbage.

The next morning, the corbeaux clambered back onto the mango tree to judge what was going on.

Leaving by Plane

Swimming back Underwater

The afternoon was hot.

I had set my heart upon this journey so far back that there was no turning away now. The very first enthusiasm had faded into a kind of fate. This was what was to happen. There was no changing it. I kept the growing doubt beating in my heart and fluttering in my stomach, hidden from those, whom, if they themselves had any doubts, did not show them, but only encouraged and aided me in my choice to leave, as the gospels put it, mother and father, brother and sister and country, and go follow Him.

I was giving my life to God.

I was leaving by plane that afternoon for England.

The previous weeks had been a round of farewells to family and friends, and with each event, my fate was clearer and I could do nothing about it. I was toasted and feted as if fatted for the sacrifice, my mother’s Benjamin, but now Abraham’s Isaac.

Would an angel descend from heaven to stay his hand?

I choked at the sight of my packed, open suitcase on the bed. There was not much to take. I would be given everything I needed when I entered the monastery. If you have a bag in the house do not go back to get it, the gospel tells us. There were a couple of shirts and most particularly long woollens, my mother’s obsession with the cold I would have to suffer.

It was winter in England. It was 1963. I was just nineteen.

It was a hot afternoon. I wore a warm suit. We waited in the departure lounge for the flight to be announced. I was carrying a large bouquet of pink anthurium lilies, my aunt’s gift to her sister in London. Their large fleshy hearts and erect yellow stamens pressed against the cellophane which was to save their tropical beauty from the hazards of the journey and death of the cold to come. Under my other arm I carried a shiny black Bible, the Old and New Testaments in the Douai version, a gift from another uncle and aunt.

The flight was announced and I held myself against every inclination to do the opposite thing, to run away. After kisses and hugs, I walked away without turning round till I got to the top of the steps into the plane. Then I turned and waved, like a film star.

I watched the island become a flat distance: the mountains, the plains, the archipelago between Trinidad and Venezuela.

All that I loved disappeared.

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