Jamaica: John Crow's Botty

Jamaica is two weeks behind me now, and as is the case with every holiday I’ve taken, it’s hard to believe that the holiday destination is carrying on just the same without me. I’m reliably informed that it is, just as the rest of the planet has carried on in spite of the warnings of a nut who had some people fooled and who captured the imaginations of a whole lot more of us. The holiday laundry is done, the souvenirs given out, we’ve drunk some of the rum but not broken into the spices I brought back. Those, the fading tan line from the wrist band, and memories remain.

This bits I liked best about Jamaica all feature birds. I’m no twitcher, but in those training sessions where the leader has run out of things to teach and asks, ‘What animal do you most identify with?’ Right after I ask myself why I’m wasting my life, I always think of birds. Sometimes I think of being one of a cluster of songbirds, a pretty one, pecking over seed on a bird table. Other times I think of starlings at twilight thousands of billowing as one in the sky like a black sheet shaken out. Most often, I reply that I identify with one of the hunting hawks that float on the warm air currents and answer to no-one. Then, I blush, feeling I’ve given away too much and wish I answered ‘cat’ just like every other woman in the room (men answer ‘cat’ too, they just vocalise it as ’tiger’ for testosterone proving purposes).

The hotel we stayed at was on the beach. If I walked to the far end of it, right down by the fence that separated our hotel’s bit with the next hotel’s bit and made it impossible to walk along the coastline, it was almost possible not to hear reggae music. At first, I just enjoyed the beach looking like they do in the brochure: white sand, turquoise sea, gently shelving, blue sun loungers, palm trees… Then, shortly after I discovered the fence (and its twin at the other end), I realised that the palms were planted in a straight line, and that the reason for the lack of proper waves and the tide coming in only a metre was that out towards the horizon was some kind of wall that the waves were crashing on to. I scoped out the coastline beyond the fence and there, the water broke on to sandstone scrubland, proving that the sand was imported. Thus, I was hemmed in on all sides by a luxury playpen.

There weren’t just palms on the beach. Some broad leaf trees had taken hold. They had wide–spreading flat tops, and dry, white bark that ants lived in. I developed a fondness for spilling a bit of sticky drink and watching them gather for a feast. I could hear birds in the trees as I lay on a lounger below them, but it took me some effort to spot them. Then, just like one of those illusion puzzles where you can’t see the image for a while, but when you do you can’t unsee it, they were everywhere. I’ve tried looking them up, and they could have been Jamaican crows, only there’s no mention of them living on artificial beaches in the grounds of hotels. I had a special one who kept his beady eye on me, as I did on him. I didn’t want to get bird poo on me.

I just took an exam by the way. It seemed to go really well because, for the first time since O’level maths, I did proper revision. Maybe breaking my kindle just as the holiday started was for the best, all I had left to read was my revision notes. In the exam, I had a moment just as I read the question about the Recovery Model of mental health when all I could think of was a bird. It was a small black and white one, all alone. It moved quickly in the air over the water, and then flapped its wings hard to stay still before dive bombing into the shallows for fish. It seemed to favour the same spot from late afternoon until sunset. The light would catch under its wings, and it would lurch about the sky, unaffected by the mundane happenings of humankind, the most beautiful thing I saw in all of Jamaica. Naturally, I can’t work out what it was. Possibly this petrel?

One day, we went out of the hotel with a relative of my friend and her boyfriend. He drove us along the coast road from Mo-Bay to Negril where there is real coastline. As it was Easter, people come in coaches from the hills inland to play on the sand and go to beach parties. At night, walls of speakers are stacked four metres high and rum-bars appear. That’s all by-the-by. I spotted big dark birds in the sky and asked what they were. ‘Crows’ the man scowled ‘like vultures feeding on dead animals’. I took a liking to them but neglected them as the events of the day unfolded. That night we stayed in a house up in the hills where chickens and goats roamed wild and where water was delivered to wooden shacks in bowsers. It was strange to sleep in a room in a shared house (‘dolphin house’ because its door pillars were sculpted that way) owned by the cousin of somebody. I woke just before sunrise and watched from a balcony as the great carrion birds ascended from the woodland treetops in groups, off to catch the warm air currents, each alone for the day. Days later it was pointed out to me that the JB rum I had bought as a souvenir featured the birds. We call it ‘John Crow’s Botty’ the man told me as he lined up the sun loungers, ‘but really it’s Jamaica’s Best or Jamaica Breast’. I thought he was joking, but as it turns out, those great birds are known locally as John Crows.