I stumbled across her by accident.  Or fate, depending on what you want to believe.  If she was in her room, I’d never have seen her.  I certainly would never have entered in.  But the carnival crowd packed the narrow shopping street, flowing south towards the old square.  It was impossible to go north, the direction of my hotel.  I saw a side alley, forced my way through the revellers, and found myself in a secret parallel town.  Alleys barely two metres across had upper floors jutting out overhead, turning the paths almost into tunnels.  When they widened occasionally, the sky was blocked out by tiers of washing.  Bicycles, crates, baskets and the detritus of close-packed living turned the maze into an obstacle course.

The silence was palpable.  If you listened hard, you could hear the formless roar of the crowd transmuted into a background murmur.  The afternoon sun didn’t reach the floor, and though it was still warm, it wasn’t the suffocating heat formed by the sun beating down on a solid mass of humanity.  I slowed down to a stroll, then a saunter.  It was pleasant and peaceful in this solitary other-world.

She was sitting in a doorway, her back against one jamb, feet high against the other, the only person I had seen since fighting my way out of the chaos of the main streets.  She watched me making my way towards her, lazily drawing on a cigarette.  She had plenty of time to note my western clothes, my whiter-than-white face, and all the other give-aways that screamed ‘foreigner.’

She openly stared at me as I approached.  I, on the other hand, stared at the floor, at the next twist in the alley, at anything but her gaze.  I wished I could be as unselfconscious as the locals, but I wore my reserve and hang-ups like a second skin I was unable to slough.

I gave her a quick smile of acknowledgement when I was too close to ignore her.

“You lost, Mister?” she asked, and her voice was as slow as a Sunday afternoon.  She put her feet down onto the step and held out her hand in a request to be helped up.

“No, no, I’m fine, I’m just … you know, the crowds,” I stuttered, holding out my hand.

Her grip was firm, her flesh cool and dry, her nails scarlet.  She flowed to her feet like a dancer, not needing my hand, but holding it anyway. 

“Ah-ha,” she sympathised.  “World gone mad at carnival, sure enough.  Sometimes, you just got to hide from the world.”

She turned my hand over, and with her other hand ran a fingernail along the palm.

“You want your palm read, Mister?  See what the future hold for you?”

“Um … no, thank you.  I don’t really believe in that sort of thing.”

She shrugged laconically.  “Don’t matter you believe in the future or not.  What matters, does she believe in you?”  She smiled and released my hand, her fingertips brushing the length of my palm as she did so.

She flicked her cigarette onto the floor.  “Here, it’s carnival, have a drink.”  She turned and reached down to the dark floor beyond the doorway.

“No, really, I’m fine,” I protested.

She stood up and stared at me for a moment, head cocked to one side, a bottle in her hand.

“Can I ask you a personal question, Mister?”

“Sure.”

“Are all Americans wound up tight as a guitar string, or is it just you?”

I snorted with embarrassed laughter.  “Ha!  I don’t know about Americans, I’m English.  But yes, I guess pretty much most of us are.”

She proffered the bottle.  “I’m not charging you for this, nor nothing.  It’s carnival.  The church parades its saint through the town, and suddenly no-one wants their palm read or nonesuch.  Drinking and whoring, that’s just fine, but palm reading?  Oh no!”  The laissez-faire shrug again.  “So I’ve pretty much given up on taking any money today.”  She smiled.  “Tomorrow, though, when their head hurting or their gut squeezing, or they want to know the name of the man they slept with; tomorrow, it’ll be busy.”

I took the bottle, wiped the mouth as surreptitiously as I could, and took a sip.  The ubiquitous coconut rum flooded my taste and smell.  I offered it back to her.

“Thanks,” I said.  It wasn’t perhaps the most witty or apposite rejoinder, but I was at a loss as to what to make of this young woman.

She lifted the bottle in a silent salute and took a swig herself.

“You here on business?”

I nodded.

“Thought so.  You know you’re the only one on the whole island wearing a tie today?”  She took another swig.

“Damn, and I thought I blended in so well.”

This time it was her turn to laugh.  She spat rum onto the step and cried out with easy laughter.

“Yes, yes.  You look just like one of us.  It’s only ‘cause I got the magic eye I knew.” We laughed together.

“Come on, mister, come inside.  Let me read your palm, and I won’t give you none of that tourist bullshit.  No charge, ‘cause you make me laugh.  Don’t make me waste no more rum, though.”

She stepped into the doorway and beckoned me in with a tilt of her head.

I followed her through a narrow corridor into a small room.  The only light came from a small fanlight high up in one wall.  She indicated a chair by a table.  “Sit yourself down there, Mister Englishman, while I get ready.”  She pottered around in the gloom then took the opposite chair, switching on a table lamp.  A beaded shawl covered her head, her dreadlocks peeking out from the sides.

I nodded at the shawl.  “I thought there wasn’t going to be any tourist bullshit.  You’re not going to tell me that shawl was handed down through generations of gypsies, are you?”

She laughed again, her white teeth flashing in the lamplight.  “Ain’t nothing gypsy about this.  This is from Mother Africa, flesh and bone.  The shawl’s not for you, it’s for me.  You got to show respect to the Gift, if the Gift going to respect you.  Now stop your joking, I got to be serious for this.  Give me your left hand.”

I proffered my hand.  She took it gently.

“You married.  You want to see where it tell me that?”

I nodded.

She tapped my ring.  “It say right here, on your wedding ring.  You think I need to be psychic to know that?” she said, smiling.

“Okay, now we be serious.  This is your heart line.  See how clear it is?  You a lover, not a fighter.  This line here?  You going to meet a woman, she going to be close to you.”

“Bloody hell, I hope the missus doesn’t find out,” I joked.

She fixed me with a serious stare.  Suddenly the joke didn’t seem that funny.

“This your life line.  See?  It crosses your heart.  This is when you met your wife.  You love her.  Then your life line meet this other woman here, and then … then you live long enough,” she finished, abruptly.

I laughed.  “Long enough?  What does that mean?”

She shrugged.  “It mean you’ll live, then you’ll die.  What else you expect?  We all got to face the Man, someday.”

“Bloody hell!  No wonder you’ve got no customers today, with readings like that.”

She stared at me for a long moment, then laughed, breaking the spell.  “I thought you didn’t believe in this tourist bullshit?”

I grinned ruefully.  “Oh, I get it.  Tell the up-tight foreigner he’s going to die.  Very funny.”

She squeezed my hand.  “Ah, my poor English lover man.  Don’t be angry, it’s jouvert, carnival time.”  She slid the bottle across the table.  “Have a drink.  Be happy.  Nothing today means anything tomorrow.”

I shook my head.  “Sorry.  This has been fun, but I need to get back to my hotel.  Packing and stuff.  I’m flying home tomorrow”

She grabbed my wrist.  “No-one should be alone at carnival.”

“I won’t be.  There are plenty of other people at the hotel.”

“Not you, you stupid Englishman,” she said softly, staring into my eyes.

Later, after the sun had set, she held me close in the bed.  “Don’t go,” she whispered.  “Stay here, grew old on the island.”

“I can’t.  I have to go home.  I’ve got a family, commitments.”

She nodded.  “I know, I know.  You can’t turn off the road you on.  But I had to try.”  She sat up abruptly.  “So, you got packing to do.  Best you go back to the hotel.  And you phone your wife, you hear?  You phone her tonight and tell her you love her.  Not everyone live long enough to tell someone they love them.”

“Um … Okay.”

She turned to face me.  To my surprise there were tear tracks on her cheeks.  “No, I’m serious.  You tell her tonight.  Every woman want to hear that.”

So that was last night.  This morning I’m sitting in the tiny twin-prop island-hopper waiting to be ferried across to Antigua.  It looks as though the plane is as hung over as everyone else I’ve seen this morning.  I hope the pilot abstained yesterday.

I thought I saw her again, out by the airfield fence, dressed all in black.  I looked again, and she was gone.

Once more, I wondered how long ‘long enough’ was.