On Paradise

When I was a child my neighbourhood was a utopia. It was the perfect place to be a child. People’s houses were rarely locked, and we’d be in and out of each other’s spaces like we belonged there. There were four main homes that we children regularly invaded: my dead granny’s house – where all were welcome at any time and granny’d make us toast with real butter while we watched her bash my cousins on the head with her pot spoon (Christmas time was particularly fun as she’d generally make us all stir black cake mix in a cast-iron bath tub – always fun); Aunty Jo’s house – where we mainly stayed outside and feasted on her homemade confections (fudge was her specialty); Aunty Heather’s house – where we’d all cheerfully allow ourselves to be bossed around by only-child-yearning-for-a-sibling Caro because her father had an entire draw full of chocolates in their fridge (and an illicit stack of Playboys in his cupboard); and my own parents’ house – where everyone always ended up getting into a fight and we generally had to run for our lives before my mother found out whatever mischief we’d got up to.

Actually, we spent very little time inside the houses; they were just way stations on our daily rambles around the neighbourhood. Most of the time we spent roaming the streets, climbing trees to steal plums, swimming (it’s a seaside neighbourhood), jumping off rocks into the ocean, exploring the wooded areas and, as we all got a bit older, riding our bikes. Our feet were generally bare, the boys rarely wore shirts and our skin was usually encrusted with dried sea-salt.

All the adults in the neighbourhood kept an eye out for us. We knew everyone. Our parents had no problem with letting us spend hours roving the neighbourhood like vagabonds because it was a safe, secure environment. Even the beachcombing vagrants kept an eye on us.

I have distinct memories of my parents’ Sunday afternoon ritual. After lunch, they’d have a little rest. This is before my brother was born so I was still an only child. My job was to trek down to the hotel on the beach to buy beer and cigarettes for my slumbering begetters. I’d trot down to the hotel where the bartender, who was sort of my hero, would let me in behind the bar to reach into the freezing cold counter and extract four (no more, no less) beers. He’d then hand me two packs of 555 cigarettes and I’d hand over the money. I was no more than five at the time. My mother experiences extreme guilt over this. She thinks it was a subtle, yet indubitable form of child abuse. If so, then it was the only abuse I ever suffered at my parents’ hands since they never hit me. They’d shout and scream a lot, and they were both masters of the guilt trip (parental disappointment can be a potent tool for controlling a child such as I), but I was never struck. Well, except for that one time when my cousins and I ran away from school; then they both spanked me. I think they cried more than I did.

Our parents never worried that their little kiddies were marauding in a neighbourhood that housed potential rapists, murderers or kidnappers. These things simply never entered anyone’s heads because they never happened. I mean really, I was a five-year-old child going shopping for beer and cigarettes all by himself on a Sunday afternoon!

Fast forward 20-something years. Everyone has had to have burglar bars installed on their houses. The beach is no longer safe for people to wander along alone, whether adult or child. Stealing plums is out of the question because everyone has vicious dogs, both for protection and to act as an alarm system. Weekly reports of murder and rape escape people’s radios. Just this week a man younger than I was beaten about the head by some sociopath who’d broken into his house. His girlfriend was brutally raped.

Rape, especially, has become a very common word in this country. I’m not even talking about the secretive, often glossed over rape of woman by lover (which is horrible in itself), but of brutal acts of violation against our nation’s women, of strange, psychopathic men entering women’s homes and violently forcing them to perform sex acts.

My still-alive grandmother, who lives alone, in a cunning move towards self-preservation, has enlisted the help of several of the older neighbourhood vagrants. These aren't the more recent, sly-looking types – the ones who’re eyeing up your house looking for the best way to break in when you’re not home. Rather, they’re the guys who’ve been beachcombing and begging in the neighbourhood since my childhood. These old-timers are guilty of little more than filling our childhood heads with fantasies of living itinerant lives under the open sky. Oh yeah, plus there’d be the occasional theft of fruit which they’d then try to sell to the very people they stole from. But that’s the extent of it, really.Last Monday I went with Robert to get one of Mel’s tyres fixed. As we were waiting for the attendant to find the source of the leak, my grandmother’s favourite vagrant-in-shining-armour wandered over to say hi. He went into a long list of reasons why my granny is such a wonderful woman. He clearly thinks very highly of her. He then told me that it was his birthday. There was a bit of silence. We stared at each other. He repeated that it was his birthday. I told him happy birthday. We started at the ground. Eventually I got the hint and gave him $5.00. He gave me a huge bear hug, and then did the same to Robert. As he was walking off, he suddenly turned to me, his face as serious as death: “if anybody fuck wid yuh grandmudda ah go fuckin kill dem, yuh hea me? Ah go fuckin kill dem cause ah love yuh grandmudda, she is me mudda, me is yuh brudda, an ah go fuckin kill any fuckah who fuck wid she, as God.” He said it simply, there was no shouting; he was stating a reality.

Empath has, for a while now, been blogging about the anarchic state of things in our country. I’ve always thought that she was being a tad melodramatic and over reactive. But when a vagrant vows to kill in order to protect a relic of the plantocracy, I have to wonder. When degenerate rapists roam the streets disguised as normal human beings, I have to wonder. When I compare my childhood with that of Lila, whose parents have to make play dates in order for her to spend time with other children, I have to wonder. I learned to climb rocks and trees; Lila is learning to climb burglar bars, cupboards and Logan’s crib (and if she’s not careful she’ll get licks for it too, because she’s not allowed).

When Lila, and my other amazing God-daughter, Emma, get older, will they live under constant threat of rape? Will sex be something to be feared rather something to look forward to? How will their parents ever be able to comfortably let these girls out of their sight? Will they be allowed, as teenagers, to wander the streets of Kingstown on a Friday night after going to the cinema, or will roving gangs of rape-mongers force everyone to be accompanied by personal guards? I saw a taser for the first time two weeks ago. It was in the possession of a young, female friend of mine. Ten years ago I’d’ve been iffy about someone owning something like that. Two weeks ago, I nodded in approval (plus I had an overwhelming urge to use it on someone, but that’s neither here nor there).

Is this cage going to be Lila's future?

The idea of living on an island paradise is dying a painful death, full of suffering and shame. Utopia – the place I lived in as a child – has disappeared. Empath may be correct; we may be living in a state of barely-restrained anarchy. When I lived in the UK, people would often ask me why I would choose to locate myself in the grotty world of London when I had a paradise back home. Usually, I’d reply that paradise is in the eye of the beholder. Paradise goes beyond blue skies, clear water and pristine beaches. Paradise implies a feeling, a refuge from imperfection, fear and loathing. There is no more paradise.

The death of paradise