Kingston Noir (9 page)

When is he working again? You know?

Thursday, miss.

It was now Monday. Three whole fucking days she had to wait. Three! Who had that kind of money to waste on a hotel? Who had that kind of time? She kissed her teeth sharply and hurried back upstairs. She had to think quick.

She brewed coffee in the one-cup maker on top of the minibar. She brewed it bitter and strong and drank it quick, standing by the window, curtains smothering the light from outside. Then she made a second cup. And while this one cooled she carved out a new plan. When she began to drink again, she was calmer and she slurped noisily from the cup.

After she’d gotten out of prison, the first thing Mita did was to track down her ex-husband Errol. This had taken her nearly six weeks. When she finally got hold of his number, she called him. By then he’d already moved back to Jamaica with Moira, their only child.

I’m coming to get her, she’d said. For that was all she wanted: to see her girl. I haven’t seen her in six years, she said, and six years is a damn long time.

He’d paused for so long she thought he’d hung up.

Finally he’d said to her, Over my dead body.

She couldn’t believe her ears. After all she’d gone through. After all that fucker had done to her. Then it will be over your dead body, asshole, she’d said in return, and hung up.

It had taken her a month to gather up the money to make the trip.

After she was finished with her second cup, Mita showered, changed her clothes, put the pipe inside her purse. She went downstairs and got a cab.

Valentine Castle Avenue, she told the driver.

You mean off Red Hills Road? His eyes searched her face in the rearview mirror.

She glared at him. Yes, she said softly. How the hell was she to know?

The drive was slow in the white Corolla, bumper-to-bumper. This was never the way she thought she’d visit her husband’s country. But this was life. She listened to the horns blare incessantly around her and watched as the dust from the construction sites pillowed up over the whole world turning it white. On the radio, callers were complaining to a man named Mr. Thwaites.

Last time she’d seen her daughter she was four. Long skinny legs like her father, big shiny forehead like her. What would she look like now, at ten years old? Would she even recognize her? That thought brought a pain to her stomach. But it didn’t matter. They’d come to know each other. In time.

Just up from the big clock tower, at a traffic light in Half Way Tree, a swarm of vendors mobbed the car, rattling the door handles, pressing their faces against the glass. Mita drew her arms tight against her sides. Double-checked that she’d locked the doors.

The driver gestured roughly at the crowd. Shouted. Cursed. Ordered them to move, but they didn’t care. A boy no more than seven had already started to wash and scrub the windshield. She locked eyes with him for a second then turned away. What if she couldn’t get her girl? What if this whole trip was a waste of time? What if she didn’t even get a chance to see her child?

Thirty minutes later she was easing out of the taxi by the bus stop in front of a bakery flanked by a row of shops, and for a while she just walked, noting her surroundings. A sign told her she was on Red Hills Road.

The sun was high and hot and she sweated inside her sleeveless white dress and white pumps. Even the mangy dogs roaming the empty streets seemed stunned by the heat. Four men played dominoes on a table under a tree.

Empress! One of them called.

She hurried on.

The address was on a side street, more residential. The houses were long and rectangular and they all had the same red clay roofs and glimmering white walls and sprinklers spinning madly in the yards, which had rosebushes and fruit trees growing behind the wrought-iron gates. She found number ten. A Bombay mango tree stood beside the gate and she rested underneath its branches for a while watching the croaking lizards as they stuck out their yellow tongues at her and nodded.

She smoked two cigarettes while an hour passed and still she saw and heard no one except for the rhythmic thwacking of a machete trimming grass two or so houses away. It was midmorning. Inside her chest a mix of feelings battered against her heart. The red mailbox latched to the gate had two airmail envelopes. She stuffed them in her purse. Then she scaled the fence, one eye turned over her shoulder in case there was a dog—she had the piece of old pipe ready—and tiptoed around the barred windows. The heavy drapes were drawn. She could not see in.

In the backyard there was a playpen and a swing. She noticed shoes under a coconut tree … red sneakers good for climbing … the size of about ten-year-old feet. She brought them to her nose and that was when she heard the growl.

Before she could turn, a dark gray blur had turned solid and heavy against her chest. The shoes and her purse flew from her hands. The pipe fell out and slid across the grass. She rolled clumsily toward it. The dog pranced forward, pawing her as it barked. It wanted to play but she couldn’t really tell. Its eyes were small and hard and dark and otherworldly. Its nails were ripping at her dress. She was on her back but still turning when she felt the metal in her hand. She swung. The dog, its hot mouth near her neck, yelped and flopped down shivering. There was blood on its face but not much. She could tell from its eyes it was stunned.

She went back the next day and the day afterward. She went at all hours of the day and night peering through the barred windows, walking by the gate and pretending not to look though she had the corners of her eyes peeled. The dog kept his distance. If he came close, even looked like he was going to bark, she just raised her arm and glared at him.

Hullo, can I help you?

She spun at the sound of the voice. It was early evening. Shadows creeping in.

I notice you come by all the time. The woman wiped her hands on her apron and extended them. You looking for the people next door? Mr. Errol and them?

She swallowed at the sound of her ex-husband’s name.

Them on vacation. Coming back tomorrow. She paused. Boy, you favor the little girl, bad.

Moira, you mean?

Yes, you must be relation. You have the same eyes, the same cheeks. I think the mother dead, not so? She shook her head slowly.

Mita started to answer.

Anyway, my name is Winsome, if you need anything. They’ll be back tomorrow. Is summertime now and they travel often, especially with the children out of school and everything. But my name is Winsome. All right. She smiled big and bright and sashayed back inside the house.

Mita stalked down the road.

So she was dead. That’s what the fucker who had sent her to prison and stolen her child was telling people. She was dead. That’s probably what he’d told her daughter too.

Well, she was going to show him dead. She was going to fucking show him.

That night her friend, or was it her lover—she wasn’t sure how to think of him—drew the bath and lit the candles. It was becoming ritual for them now, except that tonight she wanted to scream. She paced the two small rooms, moving from the couch to the bed to the couch again, her breath shallow, her eyes wide, the TV on the wall mute and brilliant with pictures.

Will you just stay still? he cried out finally.

She looked at him, turned away, fell into one of the couches, drew her knees to her breasts, balled her fists, and wailed.

He stood and watched her for a while. He didn’t ask her a word. That was the understanding between them. After she’d wept until she’d emptied, he moved behind the couch and she sat up and he massaged her neck and shoulders till she fell asleep. He brought her to his bed and undressed her, closed the door behind him, and went to sleep on the couch.

When Mita returned to Valentine Castle Avenue the next day, the front yard was filled with bands of children—children shrieking, children crying, children shouting and jumping and tugging and fighting and spitting and doubled over laughing.

Was it some kind of birthday party? She didn’t want to draw attention to herself, so she walked by without stopping, glancing every now and then as she passed the long line of cars parked against the curb. On the veranda she saw people who walked and talked and looked like her ex-husband. But she did not see him. And she did not see her girl.

She walked by the house a second time and paused in the shade of a mango tree. She would snatch her if she saw her, just so. She would take her girl. Bring her back to California. Find work again. Make her a home. The piece of pipe was in her bag. Just in case. What was good for his dog would be good for him. A gun would be better. Just to scare him. But she had no gun. That fucker had fooled her.

She lit a cigarette and imagined Errol’s face as she last saw it. Saw the gun pressed to his Adam’s apple. Saw his eyes big and wild with fear. If push came to shove she’d use it, she told herself. She would. She wouldn’t back down. She’d go back to prison if it came to that. At least it would be for something she’d actually done.

Then she saw her.

Moira was standing by herself under a tree off to the side. Tall and straight. It had been many years, and the girl was at a distance, but Mita knew in her heart it was her. And the cigarette slipped from her fingers and lay smoldering in the grass.

She watched her daughter talking to herself. She couldn’t hear what she was saying, but from twenty yards away she could tell that her voice was high and thin.

Moira, she called out, careful not to speak too loudly, not to draw attention. She didn’t want the other children to see, but some were already looking and pointing. She moved closer to the white concrete fence, and called again over the hedge: My love, is that you?

She held her breath. The girl turned. Her face was framed by two long plaits that fell halfway down her chest. Her eyes were big and wise, an old woman already.

Just that morning, Mita had gone to the store and bought her a polka dot dress with spaghetti straps. Just that morning, she had bought her a pair of barrettes for her hair, colored clips. She had bought her a set of six panties with assorted stripes.

Moira? she called again, as the girl eyed her with interest.

Who are you? said the girl.

I am Mita.

Mita, the girl said, moving closer. So close Mita could smell the castor oil in her hair.

The little girl pulled back. My mother’s name is also Mita, she said.

Yes? Mita said. Hope filling her voice. And where’s your mother?

Dead. Dead like a door post. And whatever light had been in Moira’s face was blown out now. She cocked her head then cackled for a long time. My mother is dead, she told Mita again.

And it was like a knife in Mita’s belly. Who told you that? she cried. She was trying not to scream.

She went to sleep one night and did not wake the next morning. My dad woke to find her dead beside him.

Who told you that?

For me to know and you to find out.

If it’s your father, he lied to you. If it’s anybody, they lied to you.

My daddy is not a liar. My daddy is good to me. He loves me.

Look at me good, Moira. Come closer. Can’t you see it’s me? It’s me, Mita. Your mother. Don’t you remember?

You are crazy, Moira said, taking several backward steps. She began to glance toward the veranda at the adults. Her voice turned cold and flat.

My mother is dead, she said. And whoever you are, Miss Mita, you are crazy with a capital C.

She spun away after that. Mita watched her trot across the grass, ignoring the other children, and disappear inside the house.

From a place outside herself Mita could see the children in the yard watching her and pointing. She could see their lips open and close. But heard no sound at all.

That night, she took off her clothes and called Wallace into the bedroom. She had no sensations at all in her limbs.

Fuck me, she said to him.

Not like this, he said, sitting on the bed next to her in the dark. It’s like you’ve seen a ghost. He ran his hand across her face. Her eyes didn’t register. You’re not even here, he said.

There was the sound of water running in the tub, there was the scent of ylang-ylang perfuming the air. There were the candles already turning to grease.

She couldn’t feel herself. She wanted to feel herself. You’re a faggot, she hissed.

He laughed.

Come he said, reaching out his arms to her.

But she pulled away, got dressed in the living room, grabbed her purse, and shunted out. She could not stand still. The elevator took more than ten seconds to come. She walked the ten floors down to the bar, where she demanded a double scotch.

It was a slow night. The place was almost empty. She began to look around for Ralph. Three men sat studying their amber drinks at a table in a corner. Smooth jazz piped in from tiny speakers in the walls. As she ordered her second drink she made out that there was a woman eating by herself at another table. A plump, fair-skinned woman digging into something meaty.

Then she saw him. Ralph. He was sitting at a table in a far corner talking with a man whose back was turned to her. Still, she recognized the steeply sloping shoulders right away. It was Errol. The ex-husband. Errol.

Her breath grew shallow. She turned her lips inside her mouth to wet them. He had grown large and bald. From the width of him, she could see he’d grown a gut.

But there he was throwing back his head and laughing, a sound she would recognize anywhere, the hearty roar of it. He had his feet perched on the rung of the chair. He still wore brown loafers with the penny in the groove. And there was Ralph. That fucking little rat. It was obvious now they were friends.

As if they could feel her eyes, the two of them turned in her direction at once. A flicker of smile crossed the ex-husband’s face. Ralph, though, looked terribly unhappy.

Everything that happened afterward happened quickly.

She woke up in Wallace’s room. And when she saw his face swollen and bruised, she started to cry. Every bone in her body hurt. Every muscle in her body hurt. He had put ointment on all her wounds and bandaged her up.