I was here.  This was Barbados.  I had domestic trouble that occupied my first week.  My landlady Mariette needed much coaxing from me just to buy the basics.  Every day I did what I could to improve my physical circumstances and I made my morning swim mandatory or else.  I wasn't sure if I had made a mistake coming to Barbados or not and on day five this was just too awful a thought to entertain.

It was a welcome diversion then when Mariette came to my screen door.

-Good morning.

I was still struggling to get used to that, the way the Bajans said good morning.  It always sounded perfunctory to me and unfriendly, as if nothing but trouble was expected now.  I am a child of hi and hello.

- I thought we could visit the hardware store and see about your kettle.

-That would be great, thanks.

I was actively interested in Bajan women.  They were a puzzle ring to me from the first.  I am 53, wear short skirts and run around to the beat of my own drummer.  I have always been like that.  This is not about defying getting old.  If anything I have a heightened awareness of my age because of my industry.

Mariette was a good-looking 60 and in public her behaviour was about to become strange.  I was wearing my usual mini-skirt and utterly distracted.  I was vying for the best moment to mention paint.  I could see there was paint in the hardware store window.  In my experience painters handle the paint purchase and so a painter was where I needed to start.  The first step was to get a release of funds.

My low-grade headache from the airplane had fully evaporated and I could feel the 'Jeannie factor' restart.  At my best I am full of the energy of Canada (my native country).  Also the 'can-do' part of Britain that is its strength and I was getting ready to make my next suggestion.  Let me take my deposit - a portion of - and repaint this apartment so it doesn't look dark and dirty and then I can live there.

I was thinking happily about this - and hard - as Mariette and I stepped into the hardware store.

She announced Good morning to no-one in particular and I did the same.

-We are looking for a kettle.

Again she directed it to the room at large.

- And a toaster.

I added this part in helpfully.

Everyone in the hardware store was black except me.  I have to include these details to make narrative sense.  Colour is incredibly important in Barbados.  What was interesting also - and it had already come up - was that Mariette would not have described herself as black.  She had already more than once used black as an adjective the way I might describe a family as Chinese or someone else as being French.  A polite observation of an other.

There were two men on our side of the counter talking and one saleswoman standing behind it, arms folded across her chest.  In response to Mariette's query something unintelligible got said.  My landlady seemed satisfied and started up in the opposite direction.

 The first detail I noticed when she moved away from me was that her skirt was only two-thirds closed - that is the zip was at least two inches shy of the hook and eyelet.  Also the hook and eyelet were open and on anyone else I would have thought this mere carelessness or the early signs of a decline in mental health.  Then I suddenly had one of those ah-hah moments.

I remembered being 15 and living with 20 Jamaican girls (I have a novel in the pipeline that explains this more) and although in the beginning I liked these girls well enough, I could never figure out their clothes.  They all walked around with their jeans unzipped and their skirts half open.  

Given my lop-sided life experience and the preoccupations of my age, at the time I just assumed that en masse they were suffering from depression.  Then when I saw Mariette's rear end swing in front of me I thought Oh, that was what was going on.  This 'I haven't finished getting dressed' was a deliberate signal.

Next Mariette started swinging her hips in a way that was so pronounced I almost laughed.  I turned to the two men at the counter who had shifted their interest from the saleswoman to Mariette in an instant.  Mariette is married, the men were 60 as well and I wondered if perhaps an old boyfriend was in the store.  The saleswoman who was younger didn't look upstaged in the slightest.  Everyone seemed to be living their life to the full.  My feeling with regard to myself was that I had been clocked and dismissed by all of them the moment I walked in the store.  I suspected it was my colour.  I didn't mind one bit.  I hadn't come to Barbados to lift someone's husband.  I came to write, teach yoga and stay warm.

My immediate goal was that somehow we left this shop with a toaster and a kettle.

I came quickly to Mariette's aid when I saw she had a toaster in each hand.  It transpired there was a selection of two only. 

-The cheaper one is fine - I just need it to toast.

I tried to say it brightly.

-$39.99.

Mariette was frowning.  

I did some quick internal math.  The prices here were in Bajan dollars.  The exchange rate on the street for American was always 2:1.  This meant $20.00 USD which was rather a lot for this grade of toaster.  It was with a sinking feeling that I realised I could be living below the poverty line on this island.  I  would be sun-browned though and well-swimmed which should be enough. 

I decided the mention of white walls might need to wait until I secured a kettle also.  

It turned out this hardware store didn't have kettles.  Mariette and I got in her car and decided to drive somewhere else.  I found myself in that tricky position of being both grateful and cross.  I felt I needed to re-explain.

-I am sorry to be so much trouble but it is usual in a six-month let to have some of this stuff in place.

Mariette was trying for diplomacy, I could see that.

-Well Jeannie, I just haven't been in this situation before.

That makes two of us I thought - never.  I did wonder then for an instant if I should get out?  Ask her for at least half of my three months' in advance money plus deposit back and do what?  Stay in an expensive hotel until I found somewhere different?

Then suddenly there was good will in the car between us.  Mariette in her half-zipped skirt and me cross-legged like a yogini with my knees catching the sun.  We had rolled the windows down and Mariette was detouring to show me another beautiful beach.  Barbados is one beautiful beach after another and if there was a visual climax then we were cresting it now.  The only disturbing factor were the women's faces.  

I could never say this to Mariette - it was strictly a one visitor to another visitor's comment - but on the street nobody female ever smiles.  This puzzled me as the weather was a banner and a song and I felt the uplift of it instantly.

We did get to the second hardware store and Mariette bit down on $21.98 Bajan dollars and got me a whistling red kettle that would do the job.  

-Thank you.  I will take care of it.

I was entering into the spirit of our excursion now.

The mood between us was almost conspiratorial as I suspect Mariette was doing her math.  If I stayed with her long enough paying $750 USD per month this kettle and anything else I wanted would be incidental.  For my part I could only stay a long time if I were allowed to transform the flat.  I decided to mention paint.

-I was wondering please if  I could take part of my deposit back and use it to paint your apartment?

We were back in the apartment when I said it.  I was helping Mariette move out all her clutter which I had placed carefully in five bin bags and tied shut.  I had also labelled all five bin bags in a way that was general and kind (broken flutter board, hideous paintings etc I had not written).  

Mariette and I did have one moment of trickiness 24 hours' previous when she had suggested I leave bin bags in the far end of my closet or even on my balcony for now.  I then had to put my Canadian snow shoe down firmly.

-I'm a bit of a minimalist and I find clutter distracts my mind.

All of which is true and probably more widespread and applicable than people realise.

So now I had dropped the paint bomb and we sat together on her shabby couch.  Nothing I could do about the shabbiness of the couch but I am a great believer in white walls enhancing everything.

-The walls are pretty neglected looking Mariette.

There, I had said it.  We both looked at the neglected walls.

-I like colour Jeannie - west coast style.  That's why I chose to do them like this.  White is for institutions.

It was like those conversations you have sometimes with friends or in a shop.  Everyone identifies blue as blue and then one person looks at it and thinks its green.

-I like colour also Mariette but these walls look sad.

They were tobacco coloured.  Like when old men chew it and spit.  I couldn't say quite that much but I must have looked mournful.

-How much of your deposit would you need?

-I don't know but I have heard of a good painter.  I'll find out what he charges.

-I know a painter...

Mariette was considering.

-Mariette, I'd like to use my friend's if you don't mind.

My friend Nas was Cuban and she had lived in Barbados for 20 years.  She wasn't a good friend otherwise I could have packed all this in and gone to stay with her.  She was a friend though and I liked her and her house was lovely and clean.  She had said something about a young man who had done a good job for her, been careful with some lattice work.  I definitely wanted somebody from somewhere that I could trace back and I wanted to use someone accountable.

It was agreed that I would call Nasreen that evening and I could have as much of my deposit as I needed for the work.  This meant I was redecorating my landlady's for free but needs must.  

I helped Mariette carry away bag number five and I felt the cool promise of white walls beckoning...

To be continued...