and dinner plate on the chair’s wide arm, humming along with Billie Holiday’s “God Bless the Child.” The aroma of garlic and fish from her half-eaten dinner lured Susie; without looking up from her lists and calculations, Els shooed the puppy away each time she nosed the plate.
“Glad you’re no longer subsisting on Cheez Ums, sweet.”
Els jumped. The plate slid to the floor. Susie dove for the fish bones and Els grabbed her collar. “Could you figure out a way to announce yourself that doesn’t startle the shit out o’ me?” she asked, leaning down to pick the bones off the carpet.
“Leave some old chains by the door and I’ll drag them in, or maybe ring a bell, like Marley,” he said. He was standing in the dim light near the refectory table. His hair was on end, his beard unkempt.
“I thought you’d disappeared forever,” she said.
“Or maybe you wished it.”
“Not without a proper goodbye.”
“Nobody else got one.” He stepped closer to the light. His eyes were bloodshot, darkly circled. “Most expats go away in the heat of summer, why not me?”
“There have been days this bloody summer when I might have fled back to London just to get a proper bath, if I’d had the money.”
“Maybe now you appreciate my waterworks, all the Aladdin lamps,” he said. “You have to be prepared here to bounce back a century without notice. Good move, though, resurrecting the water system and buying that generator.”
“A costly necessity. We can’t close every time the current clicks off.”
He gazed at the refectory-table-turned-souvenir-shop: T-shirts with the pub’s logo, a version of his likeness on the flag with the cigar and horseshoe. His nude photos and Els’s flower paintings made into notes and postcards. Vivian and Eulia’s cookbook. He walked to the bar and gazed at his portrait, a swashbuckling counterpoint to The Beatrice. “Your preoccupations have changed.”
“The pub is more than a preoccupation.” She stroked Susie’s ears. “You’re jealous.”
“Jealousy,” he said. “The only vice that gives no pleasure. I swore off it long ago.” He picked up a postcard with an image of the flag and the legend I got walloped at Jack’s. “You’ve filled my—our—house with boozy life again, gotten my best work out there. My little measure of immortality. How could I be jealous of that?”
She stared at him, sipped her drink. He looked less substantial than in earlier visits, his shirt a misty blur. “Have you been spying on my customers?”
“Who could resist?” he said. “All these people drawn to the legend of Horseshoe Jack? Whispering to each other about illicit sex, political overthrow?”
“Sex I’ll grant you, but overthrow’s a bit dramatic.”
“You watch out for those domino guys or your fine establishment might suddenly start having trouble with the powers that be.”
“They’re just playing and watching the girls.”
“Don’t bet on it. Power is money here, and don’t you forget it. You flirt with the opposition and see what happens.”
“I’m not flirting with anything. I’m just trying to run a business.”
“My point precisely,” he said. “You’re not just a white private citizen anymore. Pay attention that you don’t get on the wrong side of power.”
“Why shouldn’t they push for Nevis independence?” she asked. “I don’t see that we get much out of being yoked to St. Kitts.”
“You need to stay the hell out of all that.”
“Did ye come back just to warn me where not to stick my nose?”
“Partly.” He gazed at the carpet. “It was two years today that I died.”
September 21: the autumn equinox and the day Hurricane Georges slammed into Nevis in 1998.
“Damn, I should have observed the anniversary,” she said. “A special night at the pub, drinks half-price at sunset in celebration of a life recklessly lived.”
“There’s always next year,” he said. “Stoke the legend. Should be good for business.”
She looked up at him but couldn’t catch his eye. “Jack, how insensitive of me.” She stood up and Susie huddled against her shins. “I never knew the exact date.” She picked up her drink, decided a toast was inappropriate, and crossed her arms. “It’s only just occurred to me that there’s no marker for you.”
He shrugged. “Even if you plant us, we dead don’t hang around some graveyard address you can visit.”
In the family plot at Cairnoch, she’d sought her beloved spirits in the keening wind, piney scent, stones ancient and new, and had always drawn strength from their presence. She thought to argue with Jack, but he was sliding in and out of focus, and she knew it couldn’t