Small Island (12 page)

It was while he was placing an advertisement in the
Daily Gleaner
for his services – as a storeman or a driver or a clerk or a watchman or a dairyman or a messenger – under the ex-servicemen’s section headed, ‘Help Those Who Helped’, that he saw the notice about a ship that was leaving for England. The
Empire Windrush
, sailing on 28 May. The cost of the passage on this retired troop-ship was only twenty-eight pounds and ten shillings.

‘Of course, this is twenty-eight pounds and ten shillings I have not got,’ he said.

And at that moment – as Gilbert became demoralised for the first time in the face of his impossible endeavour – I had cause to thank Mr Philip and Miss Ma for a lesson they had long taught me. Prudence. A small amount of my wage every week I placed into the building society for a rainy day. And the days before Gilbert left were the rainiest the island had ever seen. ‘I can lend you the money,’ I told him.

Dumbstruck, he gaped like an idiot before a smile turned one corner of his mouth. ‘Your mother never tell you, neither a lender nor a borrower be?’

‘You can pay me back.’

‘Oh, I know that, Miss Mucky Foot. But what I don’t know is why you lend me the money.’

‘So you can go to England.’ Again he was silent, so I carried on: ‘I will lend you the money, we will be married and you can send for me to come to England when you have a place for me to live.’

‘Oh, woe!’ he shouted. ‘Just say that again because I think me ears playing a trick on me there.’

‘You can send for me when you are settled.’

‘Not that bit. I know that bit. I hear that bit. It was the bit about a marriage.’

‘How else will I come? A single woman cannot travel on her own – it would not look good. But a married woman might go anywhere she pleased.’

It took Gilbert only two hours to decide to ask me if I would marry him. And he shook my hand when I said yes, like a business deal had been struck between us.

In the breath it took to exhale that one little word, England became my destiny. A dining-table in a dining room set with four chairs. A starched tablecloth embroidered with bows. Armchairs in the sitting room placed around a small wood fire. The house is modest – nothing fancy, no show – the kitchen small but with everything I need to prepare meals. We eat rice and peas on Sunday with chicken and corn, but in my English kitchen roast meat with two vegetables and even fish and chips bubble on the stove. My husband fixes the window that sticks and the creaky board on the veranda. I sip hot tea by an open window and look on my neighbours in the adjacent and opposite dwelling. I walk to the shop where I am greeted with manners, ‘Good day’, politeness, ‘A fine day today’, and refinement, ‘I trust you are well?’ A red bus, a cold morning and daffodils blooming with all the colours of the rainbow.

Gilbert cut a surprisingly smart figure at the wedding. We were both astonished to see the other looking so elegant. He in a grey double-breasted suit, his trousers wide, his cuffs clean, his shirt white, his tie secured with a dainty knot, his hair nicely oiled and waving. I, in a white dress with a frill at the hem, white shoes with heels and a hat trimmed with netting sitting at a fashionable angle on my head. Gilbert, taking my hand in front of the altar, whispered softly, ‘You look nice.’

Gilbert’s side of the congregation was made up of his cousin Elwood, who was his best man, and Elwood’s ageing mother. Elwood was the cousin who lost the bees, a tall lolloping man who spent the service swatting away flies from his face with such regularity I thought him waving to me. His mother, an old woman with a face as sour as tamarind, sat poking her son, asking, ‘Who is he marrying?’ through most of the ceremony.

Mr and Mrs Anderson and their two sons made up my wedding guests. But after the service was completed all they wanted to say to me was ‘Where’s Celia?’ No word of congratulations or comment on my attire, just what a shame Celia could not come – she being such a good friend to me. They liked Celia, they told me. They had been looking forward to seeing Celia. And could I tell them again why Celia had not come to my wedding? I did not utter a word, for what business was it of theirs that my erstwhile friend now chose to ignore me? When they had exhausted me with these questions they started on Gilbert, who told them, ‘I have not seen Celia for a long time. Hortense tells me her mother is ill. It is a pity she could not come, I would have liked to see Celia one more time before I left.’

On returning to the Andersons’ house the family insisted on making Gilbert and I a party, no matter how I protested. Mr Anderson perused his records asking, ‘Gilbert, you like Count Basie?’

‘Basie is the best.’

Mrs Anderson brought a mound of chicken from the kitchen and placed it before Rosa, who asked, before devouring, ‘Where is Celia? Such a lovely girl. Where is Celia, Myrtle?’

‘You must ask Hortense. She is her friend.’

Luckily the old woman was not interested in asking anything of me – she was more concerned to begin her nibbling and gnawing. But for once I paid this intolerable situation no mind, realising that I would soon be living in England and able to rise far above these people, higher than any disdain could ever take me. It was of no significance to me that the wedding present from Elwood and his unpleasant mother was a not-quite-full jar of honey. I thanked them, told them it was a pleasure to meet them and wished them good day as they left.

What did it matter to me that the tuneless music was so loud my head throbbed? Or that the man I had married was prancing around the room screeching while the two little Anderson boys stood one on each of his feet, clinging to his legs, calling out for everyone to watch them? I did not care that on eight occasions I had to find an excuse for why I would not dance as everyone else was. Or that Mrs Anderson painfully landed her abundant backside on me after a complicated step and spin from her husband.

‘You like Ellington, Gilbert?’

‘Ellington is the best.’

I only smiled when Mr Anderson, leaning on Gilbert, both of them drunk on rum and giggling like schoolgirls, finally said, ‘Gilbert, you know nothing about jazz, do you?’

‘Well you have me there. No.’ Then, as they toasted each other, Gilbert, now leaning on Mr Anderson, said, ‘And let me tell you one more thing – I caan dance. But, hush, do not tell Hortense. You see how this woman likes a party? She will regret marrying a man who has two left feet.’

So when I said, ‘Gilbert, don’t you have to get ready for your trip tomorrow?’ and everyone looked at me, I was not as embarrassed as I might have been.

Even when Mr Anderson winked at Gilbert, slapped his back and said to me, ‘Of course, Hortense, you want to get your husband on his own on your wedding night.’ And Mrs Anderson clapping her hands squealed with amusement.

Gilbert came to the room with two boys still clinging to his legs. ‘You must go, boys. I have to play with my wife now.’

He tried to peel them off but they clung tighter, rattling with childish laughing. Mrs Anderson had to be called. She came into the room, grabbed the boys and tucked one under each of her arms. ‘Come, we must leave,’ she told them. Looking to me she smiled, saying, ‘Hortense has something she must show Gilbert.’ Then, with both boys howling, she took them from the room.

‘So we are alone,’ Gilbert said.

He had just one small bag. One small bag for someone travelling so far to start a new life in England. ‘Is this all you have?’

He looked to his meagre luggage, then said, ‘And I have you, of course, Hortense.’

I took a breath before asking, ‘You will call for me? You won’t get to England forgetting all about me and leave me here?’

He came closer to me from across the room. He put his hands on my shoulders. ‘Of course not – we have a deal. You are my wife.’

‘There may be women who will turn your head in England.’

‘Hortense,’ he said, holding me firmer, ‘we have a deal. I give you my word I will send for you.’

Then, for the first time, he kissed me gently on my mouth. His breath smelt of rum but his lips were warm and soft against mine. I closed my eyes. When I opened them again he kissed me once more but this time the man poked his wet slippery tongue into my mouth. I choked finding myself sucking on this wriggling organ. I could not breathe. I backed away from him, panting with the effort of catching my breath.

Turning away, I took off my hat to place it delicately in the cupboard. I could have been no more than five seconds but when I turned back Gilbert stood before me as naked as Adam. And between his legs a thing grew. Rising up like a snake charmed – with no aid, with no help – it enlarged before my eyes, rigid as a tree trunk and swelling into the air. I could do nothing but stare.

‘Come to me, Hortense,’ this man said, holding out his arms for me.

I was going nowhere near that thing. ‘What is that?’

‘What this?’ he said, modelling it for me like it was something to be proud of. ‘This is my manhood.’

‘Keep that thing away from me!’ I said.

‘But, Hortense, I am your husband.’ He laughed, before realising I was making no joke. The fleshy sacks that dangled down between his legs, like rotting ackees, wobbled. If a body in its beauty is the work of God, then this hideous predicament between his legs was without doubt the work of the devil.

‘Do not come near me with that thing,’ I screamed.

Gilbert crossed the room in two steps to place his hand over my mouth. ‘Ssh, you want everyone to hear?’

I bit his hand and while he leaped back yelping I, trembling, ran for the door.

‘Hortense, Hortense. Wait, wait, nah.’ He sprang at the door, closing it with a slam. And as he stood panting before me I, terrified, could feel that thing tapping on me as a finger would.

But Gilbert’s hands surrendered into the air and that wretched ugly extremity began deflating, sagging, drooping, until it dangled, flip-flopping like a dead bird in a tree. He held his palms up, ‘Okay, okay, I will not touch you, see,’ then, glancing down, cupped his hands over his disgustingness. ‘It’s gone, it’s gone,’ he said.

He struggled into his trousers hopping round the room like a jackass while saying, ‘Listen, listen to me.’ Buttoning his trousers, he tried to look into my face. ‘Look at me, Hortense, look at me, nah.’ When I finally looked on him he let out a long breath. Calming himself he began, ‘Good, now listen. You listening to me?’ As I turned my face away, he tenderly took my chin and moved it back to him. ‘You sleep in the bed and I will sleep here on the floor. I will not touch you. I promise. Look – I will give you my RAF salute.’ He stepped back saluting his hand to his forehead, smiling, showing me his gold tooth. ‘There, that is a promise from a gentleman. I will sleep on the floor. And tomorrow I will rise early, go to the ship and sail to the Mother Country for us both. Because, oh, boy, Miss Mucky Foot,’ he shook his head slowly back and forth, ‘England will need to be prepared for your arrival.’

Eight

Hortense

‘Tell me, Mrs Joseph, how long you say your husband been in England without you?’

Normally I would not have answered a question so direct and presumptuous as that. Especially from a woman such as she. A woman whose living was obtained from the letting of rooms. But I was leaving Jamaica. Getting on a ship the very next day. And I thought I could afford to be charitable. This woman was, after all, very old and probably lonely for company.

I had had to stay in her lodgings the evening before I left in order that I might catch my early-morning sailing in good time. She had been kind. She had prepared me a meal of rice and peas, fried chicken and green banana. ‘The last supper,’ she joked, as she laid it in front of me. She talked all through my meal, telling me elaborate tales of every member of her family – a saintly dead husband, a thoughtless sister, a feckless son – until chewing felt like an improper response to her tales of woe.

After the meal she had helped me pack. Then, warning me of rationing and the cold in England, she disappeared and returned carrying a blanket she had knitted during the war. She explained, ‘You see, Mrs Joseph, I had no time to get it to a cold soldier. I start knitting this blanket from when the King first announce to the Empire that we were at war. And I finish the thing as they all dancing in the street in joy of the conflict over. I am not a fast knitter but this was not taken into account.’ She pressed her war blanket into my hand. Squares of brightly coloured uneven knitting sewn together to make a blanket big enough to shelter a platoon. I had room in my trunk so I took it graciously.

So when she asked her question of me instead of evading her prying I answered, ‘My husband has been without me in England for six months.’ Gilbert was true to his word. He had written to me regularly, sometimes our letters crossing – him asking something I had only just informed him of. But he kept me abreast of his plans. And they came along with a pace that sent excitement and trepidation racing around my veins. Soon everything was set. Everything was go.

But now the old woman’s jaw dropped to her chest. Her breath ceased for so long I feared for her health. Then she recovered enough to tell me, ‘You must go to England straight away. Those Englishwomen will be up to funny business with him. A young man alone in England. You know these white women like to make sure they brown all over. And these young men have urges. I know, I have a son who would never let an urge pass by him.’

I only smiled at her rudeness and told her, ‘Please do not fret on my account. I will take my chances.’

But she carried on with curious anxiety, ‘You must go straight away, Mrs Joseph, before him forget him marriage vows and all the Lord’s Commandments too.’

1948

Nine

Queenie

For the teeth and glasses.

That was the reason so many coloured people were coming to this country, according to my next-door neighbour Mr Todd. ‘That National Health Service – it’s pulling them in, Mrs Bligh. Giving things away at our expense will keep them coming,’ he said. He might have had a point except, according to him, they were all cross-eyed and goofy before they got here.