Where There Are Monsters by Breanne Mc Ivor

Author:Breanne Mc Ivor [Ivor, Breanne Mc]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Peepal Tree Press
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

PEMBROKE STREET

These days, I rarely visit Port of Spain. Walking down Pembroke Street, on my way to renew my passport, I feel as if the capital and I have become strangers. There are still some of the old buildings, white-painted wooden grandfathers laced with fretwork and louvred windows. But those are steadily being annihilated by concrete and chrome. Sandwiched between St Joseph’s Convent and St Mary’s College – those two bastions of colonial, Catholic education – I see more evidence of the war between old and new. Outside St Mary’s, a statue of the virgin weeps ancient marble tears, while behind her a new wing of the school is being built – all glass, fixed windows and vast screens instead of blackboards.

I feel my age.

I am so busy lamenting the loss of the old that when I see a young man walking towards me, his resemblance to Ralph makes me jump. It isn’t that they look exactly alike, though his eyebrows are wiry forests like Ralph’s. No. It’s the way he walks that strikes me as uncannily similar. Both have a stride like a sailor just finding his land legs. I feel as if I should say something, but what? I open my mouth but the air is hot and dry and I just gulp a couple times as he passes me.

*

Ralph and I lived together in the first flush of our twenties, when gay men really could not speak the name of their love. I never knew for sure whether our neighbours thought that we were just roommates or whether they guessed all along. My grandmother certainly seemed innocent; when we had tea with her she was always gushing about how we must make the ladies crazy. Ralph would brush the tips of his toes against mine under the table while we admitted that yes, the ladies did love us.

We lived on the edge of Pembroke Street, but in those days the street was more sure of its identity. Our house was a small wooden thing with a tiny veranda opening onto an even tinier yard, but it was tended with love. My salon was the first room you entered; its walls were decorated with newspaper clippings of famous actors, mounted in designerly diagonals on a red background. Years later, when my clientele had grown to include anyone who was anyone in Trinidad, I sometimes missed those early days and that cosy little studio nestled downtown.

The studio led straight into the dining room, which was the biggest room in the house. Ralph had brought Saladmaster cookware to the Caribbean and we would host dinner parties to sell their range. Ralph and I were a dream of a sales team. I was a born actor; no matter how many times I showed our guests the Saladmaster machine, I was able to conjure up a subtly awed voice and an eye-smile that showed that I really meant what I was saying.

Ralph loved me most at these dinner parties. We were the

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