Part Eight: At Unity

At school it was always the cool kids that went to the back of the bus. Apparently the airport shuffle was no different. Aunt A and I got on to leave the resort in Negril, and from the next hotel along a group of 4 American guys (baseball hats and baggy shorts) got on, sat at the back and passed their cameras between themselves laughing loudly at the funny things they had managed to capture.

We left them at the airport where we were picked up by Mr Roy, who knows exactly when to hold his seatbelt down against his hip as we pass the police checks  and who was to drive us to Unity House in Runaway Bay.

Runaway Bay has its own selection of chain Resorts: it has a Breezes and a Sandals and a Hedonism just like Negril, but we passed these and pulled instead into much smaller gates and up to the door of a beautiful stone Colonial house. There are no doors on either side of the main hall, just metal grills, so cool air fills the high rooms. Foster, the butler for nearly 37 years, greeted us and left us to the little housekeeper Dorothy (in her pink dress and white apron) to show us around. They must care about the house a great deal, for it was beautifully kept and the dark wooden furniture and carved pineapple headboards polished and bright.

We had lunch out in the garden, where it is calm and peaceful and watched butterflies flirt on the lawn. Foster brought us coffee talked to us a while. He has the deepest, richest voice I have ever heard and a really wonderful slow laugh, like there is some ancient mirth breaking free through his body.

When Mr Alfred came to pick us up we left the house and the coast behind and turned inland towards the mountains.