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Monday at breakfast
l Good morning Carter, it’s good to be back, where’s Marlon?” The two breakfast waiters have been the hotel’s double act ever since I started coming to Jamaica for some winter sunshine and crystal blue water ten years ago,
“Marlon? Oh, he’s in prison man.”
“In prison!? What for!?”
“Murder, man!”
“Murder!? Marlon murdered someone!?”
“He got himself into a little fight, man.”
“A little fight? What happened? “
“He slashed a guy, man.”
“ WHAT !? Marlon? Marlon the waiter? My breakfast waiter, Marlon? Our Marlon? That Marlon? He murdered someone!?”
“Yes, man. Marlon the waiter is Marlon the murderer.”
“When did he do it?”
“Do what, man?”
“When did he murder the guy ?”
“He killed him five years ago, man”
“Five years ago!? I’ve been coming here every year for the last ten years but I can’t remember him ever saying as he poured the coffee ‘By the way Mr. Rosengard did I tell you that I murdered someone?’”
“He was on bail, man.”
“On bail for five years !?”
“The wheels of justice, they grind slow in Jamaica, man.’
“But Marlon was such a nice, quiet, gentle, smiling, peaceful guy.”
“Yes Marlon was a nice quiet gentle smiling peaceful guy —but he got provoked, man.”
“How long did he get?”
“He just got life!”
“Life!?”
“Don’t worry, man, he’ll be out in fifteen years.”
“Oh, that’s OK then. Wait a minute! How was he able to still keep working here as a waiter all the time he was on bail for murder?”
“The old manager knew, but I think when he left he just forgot to tell the new guy. You got to understand, Marlon never murdered anyone before — just this one guy, one time — and he was a good waiter.
Tuesday
l My next door neighbour on the beach, Marsha from Boston, comes over after breakfast and tells me about a phone call she got this morning from her six- year-old granddaughter about Trump.
“She said ‘Grandma I think ‘the wall’ is a really good idea — because when they build it all the way round the White House— he won’t be able to get out and make trouble!’”
Wednesday after dinner
l When the band had finished playing the Beany Man classic Pump it Up! (‘Di handle pop off..but mi pump it up back’) I went to the library and began reading the Jamaica phone directory. I counted 60 Cohens and 223 Levys.
I borrowed a book on Mindfulness and started reading the chapter on how to be a giver and not a taker. The next morning it had disappeared — some one had come onto my verandah and taken it .
Thursday
l Carter who is also a singer songwriter sang me his latest composition at breakfast. "I recorded it in the studios down the road, man!”
I had an idea — why didn’t I do an audio recording of my own recently published book? Who needs Stephen Fry anyway?
I rang the studios. “What are you man? Reggae or dancehall?” the guy on the phone asked.
“Something in between,” I said.
I spent the next seven days of my holiday in Jamaica squeezed into a very hot tiny glass box, with a microphone .
Leroy the deadlocked rasta producer at first didn’t seem very interested in my reading of The Adventures of a Life Insurance Salesman; he was either on his phone or asleep, even though I’d begun it with the words “I became a life insurance salesman for the beautiful women…the glamour…the excitement…the women who’d stop at nothing to buy life insurance…it’s a very well kept secret.” But he certainly perked up when I got to the chapter about how I’d once sold life insurance to a Mafia hit man.
“No,he didn’t disclose it Leroy! On the application form he said he was a wine bar proprietor from Surbiton.”
After five hours a day for a week in the box I finally got to The End and had lost 14 pounds. It was better than being at a health farm for a week — and a lot cheaper.
And Leroy — who on the second day had started laughing at my stories — asked me how he could get barmitzvahed (or was it “get barmitzvah presents?”), was downloading Curb your Enthusiasm and instead of his usual jerk chicken and pork, rice and peas went off in search of bagels and salt beef sandwiches.