Barberry Hill

By Carol Mitchell

Fourteen-year-old Jaden has experience with abandonment.

All that he has of his mother fits into the barrels of goodies that she sends from the US to St. Kitts where he lives with his grandmother, father, and brother Rashid. But when Rashid is killed in a gang-styled execution right outside their house on the “good” part of Barberry Hill, Jaden’s grandmother dies, and his parents seem even more distant than ever, Jaden is at the end of his rope. The police, his mother, his father, and indeed the entire town seem to agree Rashid must have been doing something wrong, but Jaden knows better. Rashid was no saint but Jaden is convinced that Rashid would never have been entangled in anything illegal.

With the help of his two best friends, dependable MJ and the inscrutable Stein, Jaden pledges to clear his brother’s name. Together the three friends embark on a danger-filled journey that takes them into the clutches of one gang and forces Jaden to face some difficult truths about his relationships with his friends, his family, and his brother.
Barberry Hill was short-listed for the 2016 Burt Award for Caribbean Literature

• Language: English
• Publisher: CaribbeanReads Publishing
• Release date: Feb 24, 2021
• ISBN: 9781953747099

Carol Mitchell

Carol Mitchell describes herself (in jest) as being in self-imposed exile from her Caribbean home. She holds an MFA and teaches writing in Virginia. She is also a fellow of the Virginia Center for Creative Arts. Her short stories have appeared in various Caribbean journals and four of them have been long-listed for the Commonwealth Short Story Prize. She has written 18 children’s books. What Start Bad a Mornin' is her debut adult novel.

Book preview

NOVEMBER

It was our Saturday morning ritual: We worked our way up, pushing our legs to the limit as we rounded the corners of the three-mile road to the top of Barberry Hill. We sweated like pigs, even though we always left home before the sun was high enough to really scorch our backs. As usual Stein led the way, his long, skinny legs pumping furiously throughout the grueling ride. I followed and MJ was last. He always had to stop to catch his breath on the way up, standing over his bike huffing, puffing, and sometimes wheezing just a little.

When the three of us finally reached the top, we tugged our T-shirts over our heads and yelled Geronimo! I’m not sure why we shouted that word. It didn’t really mean anything to us—something we had heard in a movie or somewhere—but it seemed like a good way to wrap up the ride, to end the week of school, and to push the weight of life off of the hilltop and into the ocean below.

I wondered if anyone at the bottom of the hill could see us, three boys standing on top of the world. From our viewpoint, it was hard not to feel like a king. Society spread out before us, starting with the mansions just below the top of Barberry Hill that MJ and I often pretended were ours and flowing down the hillside dotted with smaller and smaller houses, until all that was left were the ones at the bottom that looked like matchboxes from up here.

I took a deep breath and slowly released it, pushing out my chest, feeling powerful. Up here I could at least pretend to be in control of something. Pretend that life was manageable, simple.

A gust of wind pushed over the top of the ridge and pressed into my back, as if to say, Get off my land. It whipped past us, taking with it the fantasy that the world was ours to rule. I looked over at MJ and Stein. MJ gave a slight nod and we jumped on our bikes and started back down the winding road of Barberry Hill.

***

The first part of our journey was not so much on a road but down a path, rough and unpaved. Up here my mountain bike, the only present from my mother that I’d actually ever wanted to use, came in real handy. We knew the terrain well and our bikes picked up speed, wheels spinning, droning like a swarm of dragonflies as we navigated over stones, bumps, and gullies.

I was out ahead, the first to round the corner where the real road started. My bike felt alive beneath me, a thinking being that knew what I wanted to do without my having to say it. We moved as one creature. We jumped the hump that marked the boundary between the rocky path and the paved road, bounding forward like a hungry dog released from its kennel when we hit the smooth surface. I crouched over the handlebars and let the bike have its way, speeding down the hill faster than I ever had before. I flew past the first house—the one closest to the top of Barberry Hill and the largest of them all. I heard my name in the wind and glanced back. Stein and MJ were way behind, riding fast yet holding back a little as they navigated the bumpy road. I used to be like that, even a few weeks ago, but now I’d left behind the fear that used to make me press my brakes. It’s not that I wanted to die, but somehow dying didn’t seem like the worst thing that could happen anymore.

Jaden! Look out! I heard MJ’s voice again.

I glanced up just in time to see a red sports car pulling out of a driveway in front of me. For a split second, I pictured myself yanking my handlebars up and sailing over the squat vehicle, but a more sensible instinct must have kicked in and I pulled to the right instead. The bike swung low to the ground and I had to put my foot down to keep from falling over entirely. As I straightened out of the turn, the bike skidded over a small stone. My front wheel wobbled and I struggled to maintain control. Then the back wheel jerked to the left and I heard that blood-thinning sound, like dry chalk on a blackboard, as my back bumper made contact with the car.

As I fought to keep the bike upright, I glanced to the left and found myself staring into the red, angry eyes of the driver. He was young and had an unmistakable scar above his lip, one that I had seen before under very unpleasant circumstances. Our eyes widened with mutual recognition. He pulled his steering wheel left to get out of my way, at the same time cursing ad shaking his fist. I steered right. The bike wobbled again and I cursed back at him even though I guess it was really my fault. I continued riding and my wheels steadied once more. I glanced back and saw that MJ and Stein had stopped. They were standing over their bikes, looking on as I sped down the hill.

The car followed me. There had been no call of ready-set-go, but I knew we were racing and that I had to win. The glimmer in Jafar’s eyes had not been that of someone who wanted to have a calm discussion about the scratch on his car. Instead, it said clearly that he planned to beat the crap out of me…again. Well, he would have to catch me first.

He slowed to pass through a ghaut, moving carefully so that the bottom of his car wouldn’t scrape the deep drain. I rode even faster as I crouched down, molding myself into the bike and sailing over the dips in the road. Between the ghauts, the curves in the road, and the low height of his car, Jafar had to drive slowly while I gained speed, burying any lessons about bike safety deep in my mind.

I took a corner and came to a long straightaway. I did a quick calculation: My bike was no match for the sports car on the flat road. He would have more than enough time to catch up to me before the next sharp turn…and who knew what might happen then? Having witnessed Jafar’s temper before, I was convinced that he was capable of murder. We were still high enough up on the hill that there weren’t many houses, and there were none at all along this particular stretch. No one would hear my screams.

I turned off of the road and took a shortcut through the bushes, riding as the crow flies to the next level of the hill. Shrubs, mainly prickly cocha, scratched at my bare legs. I ignored the pain and crouched even lower behind the bushes, bracing myself as the bike sailed over more bumps and stones.

He probably thinks I’ve got away, I thought. Even though I was terrified of facing Jafar, a part of me hoped that he hadn’t given up. I’d never ridden down the hill this fast before. It’s true I was riding for my life, but something else had built up inside me. I felt powerful. If I pedaled fast enough, maybe I could take off into the air and fly over the rooftops, like the boy I’d seen on a movie poster bicycling in front of the moon with an alien perched on his handlebars.

I emerged onto the road again. This part of the hill was more densely populated, the houses large and luxurious but cramped together on small lots. There were people milling about and other cars on the road that would further slow Jafar but not me. Glancing back, I saw Jafar rounding a corner in the distance as I continued speeding down the hill. I approached MJ’s house and for a moment I considered stopping but something kept pushing me down, down, down.

My fear left me. I had escaped; outsmarted the most dangerous guy in school. I felt free and light for the first time in weeks, for the first time since tragedy struck our household and changed everything forever.

The sun was now beating down on my back, the heat urging me forward. I had every intention of continuing past my house too, which was nearly two-thirds of the way down the hill, but then I saw my father standing outside our gate. Even from a distance I could tell from his stance—feet apart, hands on his hips—that if I passed him I would face worse trouble than anything Jafar could possibly have in store for me.

And so I stopped.

I turned back toward the hill. I glimpsed MJ and Stein—two dots in the distance—and the red sports car rapidly catching up to me. As Jafar approached, he slowed to take in the scene—my father and I standing face-to-face—then shot me a look that left no doubt in my mind that this was not over, and sped off.

What’s up, Dad? I asked as I leaned the bike against the wall in front of our house.

I’ve got bad news.

Dad’s face was serious. Really serious. My heart sank. I racked my brain to figure out what I might have done, although these days I didn’t even need to do much of anything for him to become vexed. I heard MJ and Stein pull up behind me. When my dad put a hand on my shoulder, it was heavy, like he needed me to carry his weight. He was way taller than I—I was still waiting for my growth spurt—and when my eyes met his, I noticed that they were kind of wet. The last time I saw him cry, the only time I saw him cry before, was…

He finally spoke, interrupting my thoughts. Come inside, Jaden, your grandmother dead.

I stood completely still. My dad’s hand remained on my shoulder and his lips kept moving, but I couldn’t hear anything. Not his words, not the passing traffic, not the hum of the electric wires, nothing. It was like I had slipped into another world, a silent one where no one said things like your brother dead or your grandmother dead. I shook my head, trying to clear it, hoping that perhaps I had simply heard wrong. I looked at my dad again. Tears were running down his cheeks.

I managed to open my mouth.

How? I said.

Her heart, son. Her heart.

I looked back. MJ and Stein were standing over their bikes, staring at me. They dropped their eyes.

Sorry, Mr. Trinity. They spoke in unison as if they had practiced it.

My father turned and walked inside our house. I followed, head low, fighting back the tears.

PART ONE

October

After Rashid

Chapter 1

Granny had to fight to get the priest to bury Rashid in the churchyard.

Everyone thought he was a gangbanger, mainly because he was killed in the streets execution-style—one shot to the head. Granny and I both knew Rashid wasn’t in any gang, but it was hard to convince anyone of that given the circumstances. A string of murders were being committed in St. Kitts. Seemed like every day you heard about somebody getting gunned down. Maybe it wasn’t every day, but sometimes it felt like it. The murders had never scared me, even when it was someone I had heard about, like a friend of a friend of a friend, but they put a serious cramp in my life. Granny wanted to hide us under a rock; she wanted us to go straight to school and come straight back up Barberry Hill afterward. She thought the hill was safe, at least our part of it and higher up where the rich people lived. In Granny’s mind we were decent people, we didn’t get into anything with guns and drugs. And, of course, the more money you had, the higher you lived on the hill, and the less likely you were to be in a gang in her eyes. Their money bought her respect.

And then Rashid was shot, right outside our house on the good part of the hill.

The first few days after he died the police came around like the fruit flies did whenever we sat down to eat on the back porch. They were always there asking me and Granny all sorts of questions, and Daddy too when he was around. They warned us to stay indoors, to keep a low profile. The thought of Granny keeping a low profile made me laugh. It started with just a chuckle and ended in a superhero nemesis sort of laugh that had everyone looking at me like I was crazy.

Granny had visited Ghana when I was young, before she had to move in with Daddy to take care of us after my mother took off for the US. Daddy liked to tell the story of how he needed to hire a truck to pick her up at the airport when she came back because she brought enough African-style clothes with her to fill a closet and plenty fabric to make more.

You didn’t need any truck, Granny would always counter, swatting Daddy’s arm playfully.

Sure, he would mutter before sinking back into his usual silence.

Her brightly coloured tops, skirts, and headdresses would have looked weird on most other women in St. Kitts, but Granny carried these outfits as if she was born right in Africa herself. When the police told her to keep a low profile in case the gang targeted any other members of the family, she took it as a dare: the very next day, she went out dressed even more flamboyantly than usual, as if to prove that she had no fear because, as she told anyone who would listen, her grandbaby was no gangster. She made me proud, the way she stood up to the world and for Rashid. I knew he would have been proud of her too.

Daddy was a different story. He didn’t come right out and say that he thought Rashid was in a gang…then again, Daddy hardly came out and said anything at all. He just did what the police asked and answered their questions. I never heard him try to convince them or anyone else that Rashid must have been shot by mistake. It made me really mad how he took this all so cool. If my son was murdered in the street I would be making all kinds of ruckus