Most Jamaicans know and will remember Carl Stone as a master of public opinion surveys, better known as the Stone Polls. What many will not know is that this brilliant and revered university professor also existed in the shadows of the night; roaming through a world of bars and exotic clubs, until he met his untimely end, wasted by one of mankind’s deadliest enemies, Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome – AIDS.

Rosemarie Stone, the beautiful Jamaican woman who loved Carl Stone through the pain and agony, suffered the trauma of watching as the disease ravaged and tortured the body and soul of her beloved husband. awaiting the inevitable but cruel news that she too would contract the evil virus.

In her book, No Stone Unturned, Rosie Stone tells a gripping, mind-bending tale of love, courage, forgiveness and sorrow, a sorrow that no woman should have to bear. Beginning today, and for the next three Sundays, the Sunday Observer brings you excerpts of this shocking, yet revealing book.

Carl Stone was born in St Elizabeth, Jamaica, in June 1940. He got his high school education from Wolmer’s and Kingston College boys’ schools. Before going to university, he was an executive officer in the Town Clerk’s office at the KSAC. He got his BSc in Government at the University of the West Indies in 1968. He went to the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and received his MA and PhD in Political Science.

He was a lecturer in political science at the University of Michigan from 1970-71, after which he returned home to Jamaica to be a lecturer at the University of the West Indies. He rose through the ranks of the university to senior lecturer in government (1974-78) to reader in political sociology (1978-83) to be a professor of political sociology (1983-93).

Many of you knew Carl as social scientist, pollster, colleague, newspaper columnist, author, and academic. He was all of those things, but he was also my husband, and I am writing this account as a wife writing about her relationship with her husband.

The perculation for this manuscript has been many years in the making. Effort was necessary, endurance was essential, and energy both physical and mental, was needed to complete this task. All of these ingredients were not always present together in the quantity required, until now.

To family and friends, both mine and his, who love us and would prefer that some of these events remain private, I hope that by the time you have finished reading this extremely personal account, you would have understood.

.There I was, 44 years old and married since 1975. I had left my full-time teaching job at the Norman Manley Secondary School and was a stay-at-home mom, teaching part-time occasionally. My husband was a university professor, a newspaper columnist at the Daily Gleaner and a well-known and highly respected political pollster, having founded the Carl Stone Polls.

Our family’s Christmas celebrations had gone well and now the year 1991 was winding down. Every year, my siblings and I, along with our families, gathered at Momma and Daddy for Christmas dinner. As always, when the extended family gathers, the shared memories and the mix of personalities, intermingled with the pleasure of us all being together with some good food, make for great festivity.

Throughout the season, Carl, the children and I, visited many friends delivering and receiving gifts. I was looking forward to the New Year’s Eve partying in a couple of days, but tonight Carl and I were at our home in Kingston preparing to attend the Third World concert at the Courtleigh Manor Hotel. Our children, Tricia, age 12, and Timothy, age 8, were coming along, but I was having second thoughts about taking them.

‘Carl, are you sure it’s a good idea to take the children, I mean the crowds and it is outdoors and all that.’ I watched him as he stood in front of the dresser in our bedroom buttoning up his shirt. He knitted his brows then turned to me.

‘What are you talking about Rose? There is a lot of rubbish parading as music nowadays,’ he said. ‘I want to expose them to some good Reggae music, and talk with them after the concert to explain the finer points of it. It is not a problem.’ He glanced in the mirror and headed towards the bathroom. I followed him.

‘But remember the time when we took them to Portland for the jazz festival, the crowd was dense and it.’

‘Rained? Yes, it rained, he said, finishing off for me. ‘If it rains this time, it will still be no problem.’

I stood in the doorway and watched as he brushed his teeth.

‘Just as long as you know that it is your responsibility to take them to the bathroom and deal with them and the crowd, especially if they want to go home. Remember, Carl, I am going there to enjoy the music,’ I said, stressing the word ‘music’.

He mumbled something and smiled, which told me he had accepted my terms.

Musical journey with Third World

Stephen ‘Cat’ Coore, Bunny Rugs, Michael ‘Ibo’ Cooper and the gang would all be there at the hotel to take us on a musical voyage to Reggae heaven. By 1991 they had already made waves in the international music community, and whenever they played in Jamaica, sold out crowds of Jamaicans would flock to see them. Later, as we travelled the short distance to the venue Carl’s enthusiasm further energised the children about going to the concert. He smiled at me. I slapped him playfully on his leg.

I felt elated that Carl was excited about going to the concert. When he was in this mood he was a delight to be around. He was smiling and relaxed. He had lost a few pounds recently and looked content, virile and the picture of health.

As we entered the crowded hotel, the band was just striking up the first few notes of Jah Glory. A friend, Sharon, a teacher like me who also chose to stay at home with her two sons, and her husband, an attorney who I knew, greeted us. Sharon and her family were one of a group of families that we occasionally vacationed with on Jamaica’s north coast. Smiling all the time, we carefully picked our way through the throng of music-loving Jamaicans. No chairs were provided and none were needed because Third World’s music was too infectious to sit through. It was pure raw Jamaican reggae and dance music and already I could see Carl snapping his fingers. He hoisted Timothy, our son to his shoulders. Carl was a very fit man at 51 years old.

Despite a recent diabetic scare, he was still jogging and playing tennis in the mornings.

The haunting rhythm of the reggae held the crowd and all we could do was rock to the beat and immerse ourselves in its healing. Any stress I had as a mother raising two young children floated away as I swayed along with everyone else. I felt close to Carl even though I was lost in the music. When he lifted Timothy down from his shoulders, something made me move closer to him. Even above the loudness of the music, I heard him say to our son, ‘Daddy is a bit tired.’

‘How unusual,’ I thought. Recently I had participated in the annual Jamaica Carnival. Carl, Tricia and Timothy walked the two-mile distance from our home to catch a glimpse of me as my group passed by. All the while there and back home, Timothy was on Carl’s shoulders.

But at that moment, he did not look himself. I noticed that he was no longer swaying to the music, and I placed my mouth close to his ear.

‘Are you OK?’ I asked, finding it strange for him to be tired so easily. ‘Yes, I will just rest a while then I will lift him again.’

My insides were palpitating but I was in a sea of humanity dancing their troubles away and this was not the time to show panic. With my arms around his waist I spoke into his ear again.

‘Maybe you shouldn’t lift him all the way to your shoulders, Carl.’

‘It’s OK, I am fine.’

I examined his face for signs – signs of what, I couldn’t have said. After 16 years of marriage I knew when something was wrong, so I remained close to him. I turned my eyes to the stage, to ‘Cat’ Coore on the cello, but my soul was no longer with the music. After about 10 minutes I saw Timothy again hold up his hands to his father. Carl bent down and picked him up, then swung him onto his shoulders. In almost the same motion, Timothy was back down. Panic was threatening to set in but I was telling myself to remain calm as the music, loud and thumping as it was, disappeared from my world. I instinctively moved closer to Carl.

‘Rosie, I feel a little strange’

‘Are you OK?’ I asked again, searching his face, his eyes. This time it could not be hidden. ‘I don’t feel so well,’ he admitted. ‘I feel a little strange.’

I heard strangeness in his voice too. I held him close, and then in much less than a minute I felt his body weight against me. I held on to him, fearing that he might faint. I looked around and I saw a couple seated on chairs that they must have carried from home. After a couple of minutes Carl seemed to be reviving. He stood a little straighter and his body was no longer heavy against mine. I used the opportunity to speak to the woman.

‘My husband is not feeling well. Can you allow him to sit for a while?’

Without hesitation she gave up the chair and I got Carl seated. His head was lowered and I feared that he would fall off the chair. I stood behind him with my arms holding him against the back of the chair. I tried to talk to him but he did not respond.

‘Carl, Carl, can you hear me?’ After a while Carl started responding to me.

‘Yes Rose, I hear you.’

I left the children with him, telling them to watch out for Daddy because he was not feeling well. I rushed off to find Sharon. When I found her I explained that Carl was not well. She was always well equipped for situations like this.

‘You people are always telling me what an old lady I am for carrying around these things with me all the time, but here you are.’

She handed me a small container of Wray and Nephew white rum and a handkerchief. I thanked her and went back to Carl. After wetting the handkerchief with the rum I placed it close to his nose. Carl stared up at me in a daze, almost as if he did not recognise me. Then he attempted to stand. He slumped back in the chair.

As I grasped his body and wiped his face and neck with the wet kerchief, I realised that he had fainted.

Earlier I had feared the crowd might create problems for my young children. Now that very crowd protected me. I was in the middle, being pressed on, but few were aware of my plight. Trying to act inconspicuous and, even more important, trying my best not to alarm the children, I feigned conversation with Carl. He slowly started to come around. Seeming confused at first, he looked around, then at me, again with that peculiar stare. With my mouth to his ear I asked, ‘Are you feeling any better?’

He leaned his head towards me, and asked, ‘What happened?’

‘You fainted. Must have done too many laps this morning,’ I said.

For a few seconds he allowed my words to sink in. ‘Oh boy,’ he said then shook his head then sighed. I told him to relax, that I would arrange to get him home.

Manley, Seaga and the Stone Polls

…After graduating from UWI, I taught at the Norman Manley Junior Secondary School. While there I took the time to complete a post-graduate diploma in education (DipEd). This ‘in service’ training allowed me to teach full-time and be released from classes every Friday for a year for practical training. The theoretical part of the course was done the following summer. I eventually rose to become head of the English Department.

During those first five years of our marriage, 1975-80, Jamaica was in political upheaval. Carl was conducting political polls and writing regular columns for the Daily Gleaner. The polls showed that the governing People’s National Party (PNP) led by Michael Manley was losing support to the Edward Seaga-led Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) opposition. While I saw Carl’s columns as being objective, some readers saw them as having an anti-PNP stance.

By 1980, political temperatures ran very hot and Carl, whose ‘Carl Stone Polls’ showed the Opposition ahead, was seen as a traitor and enemy by many PNP supporters. After a poll was published, it was not unusual for Carl and me to receive threatening phone calls. The phone calls frightened me, and while I did not feel personally at risk, I feared that his life certainly was.

It was within this context that in October of 1980 I received a phone call from the principal of Norman Manley Secondary School. I had resigned my teaching post at the end of the previous school year to stay at home with my daughter Tricia, who was 16 months old at the time. Because I had many friends at Norman Manley, I had visited the school occasionally in September and October.

‘Mrs Stone, I have something serious to say to you. I have had discussions with my two vice principals about a particular matter concerning you.’ I listened, not responding in any way.

‘In fact, we were wondering whether we should tell you or not. What happened was, just this week a crowd of women showed up at our school gate asking for the wife of Carl Stone. Apparently they did not know that you don’t teach here any more.’

I responded for the first time, with a simple, ‘Uh huh.’

‘They were insisting that we let them in. These women had machetes and ice picks and they were very boisterous. Mrs Stone, for your safety I am asking you not to visit here for a while.’

I thanked him for calling and hung up. Even in retrospect it is still difficult to understand that they would use me to get to Carl. I shudder to think what would have happened if I had driven up that day with Tricia in the car.

As I sat watching Carl sleep after the Third World concert, I pondered political tribalism. I also wondered what Carl’s fainting spell was all about and if there was any connection to past illnesses.

Hospitalised for high blood pressure

In 1977, two years after our marriage, Carl had been head of a tribunal looking into industrial relations concerns at Jamaica Flour Mills. One day he complained of a painful headache, I applied an icepack, gave him painkillers, and then suggested he sleep for a while. That afternoon he was supposed to attend the tribunal. In the evening when he awoke, he was very upset with me for not waking him in time. To Carl, it was the worst thing I could have done. The media carried the story that the head of the Flour Mills tribunal had failed to show up. Carl was not amused.

Later when the headache returned, I forced him to see a doctor. His blood pressure was so high that the doctor recommended immediate hospitalisation. He spent four days at the University Hospital where they used medication to carefully and gradually bring his blood pressure down.

Over the years, Carl had astounded medical personnel by his shunning of medication and his successful use of diet and exercise to bring his blood pressure down to normal. One doctor, however, had concerns. She pointed out that there could be times when, even though his levels might return to normal, the absence of medication would prevent his system from being able to deal with these spikes in blood pressure.

The high blood pressure incident just two years after we got married was the only major medical problem Carl had had. He seemed to battle it successfully with diet and exercise, so I was astounded when, in October 1991, a doctor told him he might be diabetic. He was advised to cut back on fruit, something he loved.

When he subsequently lost some weight, I thought nothing of it because he had reduced his sugar intake. It came to me that night in 1991 that Dr Errol, an expert on diabetes, had young daughters who were studying ballet at the same school as Tricia. As I sat looking at Carl I thought about using that connection to book an appointment with him.

Next Sunday: Carl Stone is very ill