Evadne

By Pat Riviere | Posted: February 06, 2006

Over the past two years, Mr. and Mrs Jude Everdean awoke on Saturdays at precisely 4:30 a.m -- she from a husbandless bed, and he from the arms of his mistress, Maria Lopez.  Arising briskly, Evadne Everdean would be out of her empty bed before her husband could disentangle from Maria. Evadne often longed to linger, to surrender to the peaceful darkness that engulfed her but she did not. Saturday was Baking Day. A hand-painted sign over the side veranda of her home read:

 
She must be ready to serve her customers. So, as had become her habit, at 5:00 a.m she was waiting eagerly on her front step for the taxi that would take her to Port-of-Spain. There she would purchase flour, milk, yeast-cakes and golden Demerara sugar, the freshest and the best. She’d be back in her home by 7:00.a.m.

On this particular morning, about fifteen minutes into the taxi drive, she discerned a figure emerging out of the gloom. She frowned, peered, and blurted out: “No. But that can’t be.” She knew even before she could see clearly, that it was her husband, Jude. “Strange,” she thought.  “He’s never on the road at this time.” She shook her head in an effort to unravel her perplexity, clutched the door handle and looked straight ahead. They crossed paths but neither acknowledged the other. Her eyes flicked to the rearview mirror and saw the driver looking at her. She shifted in her seat thinking  “Everyone knows about his nonsense.  My business is all over the place.”

Jude entered his home through the back entrance to the kitchen. Martha, the old housekeeper, offered him a small cup of the dark, sweet coffee he liked. He refused. Martha shook her head and turned back to the stove, banging pots and pans and mumbling as she worked. “He should come in earlier, be off the road before daybreak. Like people eh talk enough already. Everyone have a story about this bacchanal.” Jude climbed the stairs muttering. “If I drink coffee I’ll stay awake. Awake I’ll think of Maria, none of that.” He was worried about Maria. His once saucy, playful, teasing Maria had been petulant and critical of late. First it was his clothes: “You should try to spruce yourself up. Get rid of those linen suits and fat ties.”

Then it was his wingtips. She suggested loafers with tassels. “God, at my age, loafers with tassels!” Last night she declared that she liked Afro hairstyles, even on old men. “For whom does she take me? One of those ill-bred young men back from university in Jamaica or the States?  Next she’ll be talking of dashikis and beads”. He shuddered and entered the bedroom he had shared with Evadne for forty years. 

He lay on the bed thinking that last night had been the worst in a month of bad Friday nights at Maria’s. After dinner they had sat together on the couch as they usually did but when he was about to kiss her, Maria moved away and flounced into an upright chair. “Your kisses,” she pouted, “are too loud and soppy.”   

Their conversation was inane and she avoided looking at him. He’d dozed off, fallen asleep, perhaps even snored, and in the morning when he awoke, still on the couch, Maria’s bedroom door was closed. It was already 5:00 a.m. He was late.

Saturday dawned and Evadne’s bread was ready.  Business would begin at 5:00. The long table and book shelves in the small room that used to be Jude’s library-study were stacked with the loaves.   Evadne, Martha and the two older children would soon be down for the final stage; selling to the customers. Evadne’s business had prospered. She’d gone from selling her home-baked loaves to a few neighbours, then to others in the village and next to people who came up from Port-of-Spain.  Evadne’s bread was good, very good, superb. Miraculous potency had been ascribed to her loaves.  Forty-eight year old Mrs. Zachary would giggle and openly claim that it was after she had eaten Evadne’s loaves, two years ago, that she had conceived Dean, her first and only child, so far.  Young folk too began showing up; girls and boys, back from studies abroad, wanting homemade rather than store bought bread. If they had been to Jamaica or California, they would ask for hardough or sourdough loaves like that nice young man Derek. He’d showed up about two months ago and always came before business started for two loaves of hardough bread. She liked these young people. Their fresh new ways and crazy fashions made her smile.

Jude Everdean stood on the veranda facing his former library-study, seemingly looking at but not really seeing his wife’s work. He had spent a reflective day. His mind flitted from the high-status, lucrative job he had lost five years ago to thoughts of his family, thoughts of his wife, thoughts of Maria, of his wife, of Maria, Maria, Maria.  He remembered those long-ago Fridays when Maria, all flirty buttering their store-bought bread for supper would tease: “Why, Judesie. I am probably the only one for miles and miles who has not eaten your wife’s bread.”  They would laugh at the impossibility of it. Standing there now, he shook his head. He paused. A smile burst onto his face coming up from as far down as the tip of his wingtips. He grabbed and opened a brown paper bag with a smart snap.

“That’s it.  Dinner rolls, half a dozen, well -- maybe eight.  She’ll never miss them.”

At sixtyfive he was fairly agile, and Evadne coming into the bakery room saw his back as he hurried along the veranda, sprinted across the small front garden and leapt over the low garden wall.  She could not imagine what, but as soon as she entered the bakery room she knew. She turned to Martha who had entered soon after her and whispered in her ear. Martha looked up sharply and narrowed her eyes.

Seeing Evadne donning her hat and starting to leave, speculation arose and stirred the line of waiting customers. Evadne eyes were fixated, her carriage determined and imposing. She smiled at some as she walked along, and wished her regulars, such as Mrs. Zachary and Mrs Robinson: “Good evening”. She patted the ten-year old Salazar twins on their heads and continued forth. In the same direction her husband had taken earlier on.

Jude entered Maria’s sitting room. She was sitting on the couch about to pour hot cocoa into one of two mugs. A loaf of hardough bread lay on the low table in front of her. When she saw Jude she gasped. The pot of cocoa clattered from her hand as she tried to cover the loaf of bread with the towel on which it lay.

“What on earth!” she exclaimed. Her mouth continued to gasp fish-like and soundless. Her eyes opened wide in deep shock. Jude, light of step, walked over to the couch, bent over Maria and planted a smacking kiss on her forehead. Her eyes, now bright with tears and a tinge of fear, darted to and fro and focused briefly on her bathroom door.  Her chin trembled. 

“I know that you’re surprised to see me but compose yourself I have something special for you tonight. Close your eyes.” He felt young, playful and romantic, Lothario re-born.  Still obviously agitated, she forced herself into composure, crossed her arms tightly across her midriff and did as he asked. “Now open your mouth.” Jude whispered into her ear.

Propelled by fury, each stride covering more ground than usual, buttocks articulating womanly indignation and determination, Evadne arrives at Maria’s house. No knock, no ringing, no calling out is required, as the villagers do not lock their doors in the daytime. She enters unannounced.  Her entry reverberates through the house. The china on the side-board rattles. Glasses tinkle against each other, and sparks glitter off her crimpeline dress. But the besotted husband and his love are unaware of her presence.

Evadne sees Jude teasing and tantalizing a giggling Maria with a morsel of dinner roll.  Steaming, chest inflating, breath rasping, she marches to a place at the front of the low table across from the playful lovers. Hands on hips, eyes like lasers, she fixes her flaming sights on her husband. First he gasps, then freezes. His skin pales from mahogany to taupe. Evadne leans forward and hisses at him. “Listen here, Mr. Jude-I-Don’t –Know –What Everdean. When you want bread for your lady-friend, do not take mine.  Bad enough that you shame me to the whole village but no, no, that is not enough.  You now take my bread and give it to this....this...." She gestures at Maria who is rocking and whimpering into a cushion. 

Evadne’s eyes flare. She would like to smack her husband upside his head and slap and shake Maria. But no. Now that she is here, she is spent. Beyond articulation, beyond action, out of breath and unclear of purpose. She swallows a mouthful of air, places her hand on her chest, straightens up and looks scornfully at the two lovers. There they are; her husband crumpled, shoulders slack, loose, slouched down and guilt ridden. The piece of dinner roll he was about to feed to Maria, is stuck between the fingers of his now flaccid right hand. Maria is rocking and blubbering nervously.   

Contempt congealed with disgust oozes into and cools Evadne’s rage. She sucks her teeth in a long watery stcheups, cuts them with her eyes and with a wide forward sweep of her right hand grabs the paper bag with the remaining dinner rolls off the table.  Holding it high, she shakes the bag and affirms, “This is bread made by me, of me. Made with my own hands. The product of my own sweat.” She turns and walks away with the utmost self-possession.

When Evadne left, Jude recovered rather quickly, but Maria, still agitated, and seeing the bathroom door open slightly, began to wail pulling Jude closer to her. “Judesie, Judesie, forgive me. I’ve made so much trouble for you. Jude opened his arms and calmed her with clever consolations. Soon a bit relaxed, she said “I must go to the bathroom.” While she was there Jude removed his jacket and tie. ”Can’t go home now. Must give Evadne some time.”

Maria came out of the bathroom refreshed, renewed, passionate. “Ah thought, Jude, there might be some compensation for me tonight after the mess of things.” Maria pulled him up onto his feet and teasingly, playfully removed his shirt. He stepped out of his shoes, then pulled off his socks.  Next his pants were off.  Everything was flung in a Hansel and Gretel trail to the bedroom.

Meanwhile, Evadne fuming on her way home stopped abruptly; the loaf of hardough bread lying on a table flashed through her mind. “What!” she cried out. “My husband and young Derek too?”  She wheeled around and headed back to Maria’s. “Now I’m mad. What a loose unprincipled young woman. She has the morals of a guttersnipe! One lover. OK. But two? And for all we know even more! My God, one young and one old! Well, I want back all my bread and I’m going for them.  Who does Miss Lopez think she is? the hottest thing around? Well not with my bread. Turning everyone into her personal fool. Well, not me! Not Mrs. Evadne Everdean!”

Arriving at the house Evadne pushed open the door expecting to find them in the living room.  “Listen here,” she shouted. “Have you no shame, no pride?” The living room was empty. She stopped abruptly. Instinct drew her attention to the bedroom. As she advanced toward the bedroom door, her feet became entangled and she almost fell. Wrapped around her feet was her husband’s tie. “Oh God help me save me.... “ She did not hear the gasp that came from the bathroom. She removed the tie, and began picking up her husband’s clothing. It was an automatic reaction. After all she had been doing so for forty years. “Miss Lopez, whatever you are doing, listen. I’m also taking these hardough bread. "You already have enough that is mine.” She saw Maria’s shoes and took them. ”And now,” she added, “I also have something of yours.”

After a while the bedroom door opened.  Seeing the living room clear Maria said to Jude.  “Looks like she’s really gone.”

“Oh good, bring me my trousers.”

“Jude, Jude, Oh God, oh God! Come here, come quickly.” Out of the bedroom stepped Jude trying to wrap a sheet around his naked body. Out of the bathroom stepped an afro-ed and dashiki-ed Derek. 

“What... who...I mean..." stuttered Jude stumbling as he turned from Derek to Maria.  In an act of self-protection, Maria fainted to the floor. Derek was quick. No questions to be asked, none to be answered. He hurried to the front door. Jude knew he had met a rival. Looking around for something with which to attack, Jude saw the second hardough bread that lay on the sideboard.  Clutching his sheet, he chased Derek out of the house and down the steps. 

The Salazar boys walking back home from Evadne’s bakery shouted out: “Oh Lord. Look at Mr Everdean. He wearing a sheet. He ain’t have no clothes on.” They raced home. “Ma. Ma.” They shouted dashing into the house. “We see Mr. Everdean beating a man wid a bread, an' Mr. Everdean didn’t have no clothes on.”

“What nonsense...."

“But Ma is true.”

“Be quiet both of you. Go to your room and study your books.”

They spent a hilarious time in their room illustrating and re-enacting the scene.

Later in the evening when darkness had already descended, Mrs. Robinson, sitting on her veranda to catch the cool evening breeze, saw someone slip into the Everdean’s yard.  She stood up and peered.

“What on earth?” 

Next day, she related the event to her sister Gloria who was up from Port of Spain for a visit.  “How he came to have lost his clothes, I can’t imagine. You’d think though, that he could have borrowed from one of the neighbours along the street. Someone like Mrs. Zachary ”.

“Isn’t Mrs. Zachary the one who thinks she gets pregnant from eating Evadne’s bread, and don’t pretend. We all know why he had no clothes on!”

”But I felt so sorry for the poor man. There he was skulking into his own yard. Wrapped in a sheet, looking like some pundit in a dhoti”

On Sunday morning Mrs. McLaren’s maid Elsie ran into the Singh’s cook, Dolly, In the market.

“Ay-ay girl, so yuh hear about the bacchanal.”

“Ah tell yuh. Yuh hear Maria pregnant?”

“Oh Lord.  It go be a ‘hardough’ baby”

They dropped their baskets, held their bellies and laughed scandalously.

Later on, in the early evening, The Scarlet Ibis Club for Retired Gentlemen met for culture (All Fours) and to solve political problems of the world (ole talk). Jude was a member. He did not show up.

“That’s some nasty business about Our Boy isn’t it?”

“Oh yes, he gave the afro-ed upstart a sound thrashing.”

“A sound thrashing? You call that a sound thrashing?.  That was no ‘sound thrashing’, but a good ole Trini cut-arse.”

Speculation arose and stirred through the village, and perhaps wafted to other villages and perhaps even reached as far as Port-of-Spain. The big question was “What will Evadne do now?”

What did Evadne do? Monday morning there was a new sign hanging on the front veranda of the Everdean House. 

The following Saturday there was a double line of customers.

This Article in Print-Friendly Version »

Reader Comments

Post a comment