Where There's Smoke Read Free

come from a workplace, in her suit, and Cox had spruced himself up to meet her in dazzling white trousers. They sat on the ledge under the coconut tree. It was Cox’s first date. All he felt he could offer the young woman was a convincing pantomime of worth. I watched, thinking it was perhaps all any of us can offer. Cox frowned and smiled and frowned, and his hands masterfully framed notions and surprises for the girl. Occasionally he stepped away to take a call on his phone. I lurked in the dark of the window hoping the thing didn’t squeak.
    As I began to lock up for the night, he hurried to meet me on the steps. When Cox was nervous or frightened his eyes grew round, and he clenched his teeth so that you could see them clenched.
    â€˜Mister sir, sir …’
    â€˜Don’t worry,’ I said. And passing the girl on my way to the car: ‘See you tomorrow, Doctor Cox.’
    The girl didn’t come around again; I suspected she would have liked to, but Cox only had the ledge under the coconut tree to entertain her. He had illuminated what might have been, and that was all he felt he could ask of life. Plus the phone would’ve eventually squeaked.
    He went back to his paperwork at night, shuffling and sorting it in and out of his case. He used to ask if I had any official-looking correspondence I could give him for his collection. But after reading the occasional letter for Cox I noticed some were beginning to arrive addressed to him. They were letters from businesses and civic groups; statements of support for some kind of charity.
    Cox had founded a charity. With his glasses and briefcase, and perhaps with his phone, he had been trawling the town garnering support for a foundation for poor children and orphans. Businesses were offering to host bins on their premises where children could leave Christmas gifts. Then at Christmas Cox would deliver all the gifts to the nation’s children in care.
    As this dawned on we colleagues, that Cox’s battered case had begun to contain real work, a cry rang out one day from the director’s office.
    Cox was on television. He was on television with Miss Universe.
    Trinidad and Tobago and her mainland neighbour Venezuela have more than their fair share of Miss Worlds and Miss Universes; one of the most recent at that time was Trinidadian. Here she was with him. He wore his glasses. They laughed together. Later that afternoon he passed by the office, grinning, to a hail of jeers and taunts, then went out to find prostitutes for some Chinese seamen off a rusty freighter in return for a few dollars. After that he stole some coconuts from our office tree, was discovered and took a tongue-lashing for it; then retired to his hole under the building. That was Cox’s day in the sun.
    When Christmas came, our office became a depot and command centre for the distribution of gifts. Things had looked up for Cox, and our nights at the office developed a routine – but, being Cox, this was soon disrupted. I opened the door to his rattling one night, and he came in to ask if he could use the phone. I let him in, and paid little attention to his phone conversation. But suddenly – and strangely for the time of night – a second phone line started to ring. I picked it up on another receiver, and it was our boss calling from home. He demanded to know how Cox came to be using the office phone.
    Cox had called a radio phone-in show, and among its listeners was the boss. It spelt the end of Cox’s evenings in the office. Carnival season approached, and the twin-island republic became a whirl. Carnival was a prime season for Cox and his street cronies as the island filled with newcomers, and the streets were awash with flesh and beer and rum. Occasionally his face would appear like a light bulb in this place or that – at the back of some of the most select parties, or on a carnival float, or running with packs of tourists. After that, Carnival