Part Twelve: Jamaica Farewell

A wise man once told me that a soul can only travel at the speed of your feet. With some small effort it can keep up with a horse, and I think it quite enjoys the pace of a bike. Like any weary traveller, a soul will sit with relief on a slow moving train and gaze through your eyes out the window. These days most souls have learnt to cling to the outsides of cars in order to sustain the vehicle’s velocity, but it is much more shocking that the bumpy trundle of a carriage was. Try though it might, a soul cannot keep up with an aeroplane. That is the true definition of jet lag: the soul is left lagging behind the jet. So that the symptoms you suffer when travelling long distances so rapidly are actually caused by the strangeness of your body waiting for your soul to catch up. Disorientation can last up to a few days. Avoid dehydration, expose yourself to sunlight and adopt the local rhythm of life as quickly as you can.

I am still waiting for my soul to catch up with me – I think by now it is somewhere over the Celtic Sea, nearing land, desperate to rejoin itself with the body that was wrenched so reluctantly from the Caribbean sun. I sat for a last half hour on the pavement outside the airport with the heat of the tarmac on the skin of my bum, and the afternoon sunshine on my face. I waited there until I saw a lady with no bag (and probably no passport in her pocket) enter the departure terminal of Montego Bay International. I followed her in, knowing she wasn’t leaving and saw her hesitate as she passed into the air-conditioned cool of the interior and looked around. Knowing it was Auntie and me she was looking for I moved into her line of sight and then into her open arms. C has a smile like a spring sky: always ready to burst into showers, a face that is always brimful of emotion. We sat and sipped sorrel out of Pepsi cups until we had to go and leave our Jamaican friend with a few thank yous and a hand squeezing.

 

We had been lucky enough to make a new friend that day too, a wonderful a lady who took us out for lunch. She wore midnight-blue earrings and amber necklaces, spoke with BBC English and drank from her glass with both hands. I imagine that to be the way she lives her life: grabbing it by the lapels. She spread her three phones on the table like tarot cards and nodded at the many people who greeted her.

Coffee is not native to Jamaica, but you would never know it. The Grey Squirrel isn’t native to Britain, but you wouldn’t know that either. Every shop in Jamaica promotes the Blue Mountain Coffee that has become famous (and therefore expensive) across the world, and A made sure she had a few bags to take home.

There is nothing more perfect on arriving home than an English apple. It is the ideal antidote to the in-flight breakfast of bad coffee and muffins that smell like blueberry soap. I am sure we couldn’t have jammed in anything more in the week we spent in Jamaica, though there are many places I will have to come back to see. I am sad to say, I’m on my way. Wont be back for many a day. My heart is down, my head is turning around and I never even got to see Kingston Town.