Small Island (49 page)

‘What you all see?’ I shouted on them. ‘Go on, shoo.’

Hortense’s hat had slipped forlorn on her head, just a little, but enough to show this haughty Jamaican woman looking comical. I straightened it for her. She composed herself, dabbing her eye with the tip of her white-fingered glove. I got out my handkerchief so she might wipe her face. However, this item was not as clean as it might have been. For several days I had been meaning to wash it but . . . Hortense held it high between her finger and thumb to pass it back to me. As she took out her own handkerchief from her bag, I saw the pretty white cloth had Sunday embroidered on it. ‘You have the wrong day there,’ I told her. Then, oh, boy, she blew her nose into that poor cloth with the force of a hurricane, before telling me quietly, ‘I walk into a cupboard.’

‘Why you do that?’ I asked her.

‘I thought it was the door to leave by.’

‘Oh dear,’ I said.

‘But it was a cupboard and the women all laugh on me.’

My mind conjured the scene but instead of laughing hearty on the joke of this proud woman’s humiliation, my heart snapped in two. ‘And tell me,’ I said, ‘what was this cupboard like?’

Her expression flashed ‘What is this fool man saying?’ but she answered, ‘There was a bucket and perhaps a mop.’

‘Ah. Now, that was a broom cupboard. I have walked into many broom cupboards.’ Reddened and moistened with tears, her eyes gazed upon me. And I believe this was the first time they looked on me without scorn. Two breaths I skipped before I could carry on. ‘It true! I walk into broom cupboard, stationery cupboard . . .’

‘This one had paper in also.’

‘Interesting cupboard,’ I told her. ‘You say it have broom and paper.’ And then it happen.

She smiled.

I felt sure Hortense had teeth that sharpened to a point like a row of nails. But they did not. They were small, dainty-white with a little gap in the front two. Come, could it be true that I had never before seen her smile? I thought carefully of what I should say next – for I feared a rogue word might chase away that astonishing vision. ‘How long you say you stay in this cupboard?’ I asked. And, oh, boy, that smile take on a voice – she giggle.

‘Enough time for me to know that I am not dead but I am merely in a cupboard.’

‘Long time, then.’

She laughed and I swear the sky, louring above our heads, opened on a sharp beam of sunlight. ‘Enough time for them to think me a fool.’

‘Ah, well, that is not so long, then.’ Man, I had gone too far. No sooner were those rascal words said than I wanted to scoop them back up and stuff them in me big mouth. Like an apparition all trace of mirth vanished.

‘Are you teasing me, Gilbert Joseph?’ she said. I was ready to throw myself to the ground and have her walk across me. But the cloud passed. Playful, she hit my arm.

‘What you do when you come from the cupboard?’ I carefully carried on.

‘I left the room.’

‘You say anything to the women who were laughing on you?’

‘What was there to say?’

‘You must tell them that was an interesting cupboard.’

‘You are fool.’

‘It is what I would have said.’

‘That is because you are a fool. No. I should have told them that their cupboard was a disgrace.’

‘Yes. Good.’

‘Because it was. It needed to be tidied. I bang me foot on a bucket.’

‘Wait. Cha! You tell me you hurt your foot because these people cannot keep their cupboards in a tidy manner? You should tell them that you are used to clean cupboards where you come from.’

‘But I am.’

‘Oh, I don’t doubt you there, Miss Mucky Foot.’

Her face was so pretty wearing merry, I wanted to kiss it. But no, no, no, no. Don’t get carried away, man. One thaw is not the summer. ‘Tell you what,’ I said, for I had an idea that might prolong this glad weather, ‘you wan’ see the King?’

While Hortense looked out from the top of the bus at the city around her, I gazed at her. So roused was she at every site the bus passed even her well-bred composure could not keep her voice from squealing: ‘Look, this is Piccadilly Circus. I have seen it in books. The statue is called Eros.’ Gleeful, her head spun with the effort of seeing. And everything her glad eye rested upon she pointed out to me. ‘Gilbert, can you see? That is the Houses of Parliament and the big clock is called Big Ben.’ Although I had seen all these sights many times before, I too spun my head to feign elation. So pleased was she with her view from the top of the bus, she held her hands as if on a steering-wheel, saying, ‘You can pretend you are the driver of the bus from here.’ However, excitement for that particular experience I could not affect. The driver of a bus – oh, God! – with my luck, one day I probably would be.

A cheeky pigeon in Trafalgar Square deposited his business on the sleeve of her coat. ‘You have your handkerchief?’ she asked me.

‘Excuse me, Miss,’ I said, ‘but what happen to your Sunday cloth?’

‘But mine is a good handkerchief and yours is filthy rag,’ she told me. She have me there. Wiping off the muck she shrieked as two more birds landed on her head. ‘Get them off me – I don’t like them.’ She ran a small circle flapping her hands to scare the birds from her head.

‘So now you need my help?’

‘Gilbert, please.’

I brushed them from her. ‘What you think of Nelson?’

‘He has too many birds,’ she said.

Reverent as the devout before an altar, she gasped, astonished at Buckingham Palace. ‘It is magnificent,’ she said. A small girl carrying a doll touched Hortense’s arm then ran away. No sooner was she gone than a small boy followed. Feeling his touch, Hortense looked around. ‘Yes?’ she asked the little boy.

He stared up into her face with that same expression she had used for the royal palace. ‘You’re black,’ he told her before running off. Hortense, all at once aware of people around her, straightened her hat and pulled at her gloves.

‘You like the palace?’ I asked her.

Stiff and composed she replied, ‘I have seen it in books.’

‘People always stare on us, Hortense,’ I told her.

‘And I pay them no mind,’ she snapped back to me.

‘Good, because you know what? The King has the same problem.’ But her nose had risen into the air and I feared I was losing her once more. I put my elbow out to her. ‘Come let us stroll like the King and Queen down the Mall.’ But she sucked on her teeth and turned her eye from me.

I bought her a cup of tea and a cake at a café. ‘Why you waste your money on cake?’ she asked me. ‘It will spoil your appetite for the food I will make.’

Oh, I do hope so, was my thought. Of course I did not utter those words for this woman’s mood was once more bleak as the dark cold fog I viewed through the window of the café. Who knows how long we sat there in silence eating on our cake, sipping on our tea? Not me, for three boys came greeting me with a cheery nod, looking on Hortense with a wink of: ‘Okay there, man – you have a pretty coloured lady.’

‘You know these men?’ Hortense asked.

‘They are from home,’ I told her.

‘And you know them all?’

‘I know they are from home.’

‘But you don’t know them?’

‘No, but I know they are from home.’ I did not tell her that some days I was so pleased to see a black face I felt to run and hug the familiar stranger. She took off a silly white glove to wipe some crumbs from her lip and I sensed a little thaw. I am not a gambling man but I was a desperate one. ‘So, how you like London?’ I asked.

‘I dreamed of coming to London,’ she said. Her eye was not on me but focused on the stirring tea in her cup.

‘Well, there you see, not many people have a dream come true.’

And hear this – with no warning she start to cry again. Damn – I was losing me touch. Tears were dropping into her tea. Out came the Sunday handkerchief. A shaking hand dabbing once more at her eye. I thought to apologise but feared that do-do might fall from my careless mouth. It was a timid hand I stretched across the table to place over hers. I waited for her to slap it away. But she did not.

‘What am I to do now?’ she said softly. ‘I thought I would come here and teach.’

‘Don’t worry,’ I told her. ‘I can look after you.’

As I suspected, the do-do fell. She pulled her hand so rough from under mine, it slap on the table. Cha, nah, man, this woman had me no longer crafty. ‘I am your husband . . .’ I started. I said it too firm, I know I did. Looking on her pouting mouth I quickly changed, ‘Well, come, let me see. What else can you do?’

She shrugged.

‘Can you sew?’

‘Of course,’ she told me.

‘Is that “of course” like you can cook? Or is that “of course” because you can actually sew?’

‘I can sew. I have been sewing since I was a girl.’

‘Good,’ I said. ‘Then I know where you might find some work.’

‘Sewing?’ She shout this, all tears outraged away. ‘But I am a teacher.’

‘And a teacher you will be even when you are sewing.’

She sucked on her teeth in a most unladylike manner. So I told her, ‘Hortense, your mummy never tell you, “Needs must when the devil drives”? Look at me, for too long I have been driving lorries but one day . . .’ I hesitated.

‘What?’ she asked

‘One day I will study the law.’ Man, those words sounded so foolish. Let out into the cold air of a London night that hopeless dream soared so far from reach I heard the angels laughing. It was my turn to look away. For I was a big-talk buffoon. Suddenly her hand, delicate and tender, gently place itself over mine. I dared not look to see if her touch was real. My doubt might melt it. A minute it rested there before she said, ‘I can cook.’

‘No, you can’t.’

‘My teacher, Miss Plumtree said my cake was the best outside the tea-shops of southern England.’

‘Your teacher taste it?’

‘Of course.’

‘And still she say it better than one she eat in a tea-shop.’

‘Yes.’

‘She tell you where this tea-shop is, because we must be sure not to go there?’

‘Are you teasing me, Gilbert Joseph?’ Just as she said that another boy came to our table. He was old and cold. Two scarves were round his head with a brown hat squashed down on the top.

‘Cold today, eh?’ He smiled, with the few teeth he had left.

‘Yes, man,’ I said.

He did not smell so good, his brown skin dusted grey with dirt. It was a struggle for him to tip his hat to Hortense as it was pushed down so far. But finally it came off. ‘Cold day today, Miss,’ he said to her.

She glanced at him, from his scarf-wrapped head, past his baggy stained trousers, to his dirty shoes. She looked swiftly around her and, in the wink of an eye, she came back to this man. And she answered him, ‘I have found that this is a very cold country.’

The man tipped his hat again. ‘Ah, very cold, Miss,’ he muttered, as he moved on, ‘very cold.’

Fifty-two

Bernard

Felt like a thief. Silly, I know. A man can’t burgle his own home. But the turn of the key in the lock. Unfamiliar objects in the room. Odd smell. Somehow made it all feel clandestine. I knew they’d be out. I’d seen them leave in the morning. Dressed up to the nines. Hardly aware of how queer they appeared. Would have been hard, I know, but they made no attempt to blend. His suit smart but baggy as a tramp. She completely overdressed – white gloves on a weekday. Still, I knocked a few times – just in case. Who knows how many more could be in there? Just a precaution. Not fear. Volatile creatures. No need to arouse them more than necessary.

There was a huge trunk blocking most of the doorway. Hardly room to turn. I banged a shin trying to navigate between bed and chair. A curious smell of gas. I wondered if they knew how to use it properly. Can’t be too careful. Checked the tap but it was firmly off. The unpleasant odour clung like dirt. Tatty cloth sprawled over the bed. Armchair limp and wounded – riddled with holes. Dead flowers in a jam-jar. The place was a disgrace.

Ma used to use this room. Sewing, mending, reading and suchlike. Always when I lost her, me a little boy, I would climb the stairs. If the door was closed I knew she was there. I’d tap three times, softly.

‘What are good little boys?’ she’d say.

‘Seen and not heard,’ I’d tell her. Only then she’d tell me to come in. Beckon me to sit beside her chair. And I’d watch her fingers in the dim firelight nimbly darning socks on a mushroom. Or embroidering something splendid. Any other footsteps heard on the stairs she’d stop. Listen. Her lips silently counting the flights taken. A door shutting and she’d say (not to me, but out loud) a name. That would be the lodger who’d just arrived home or just gone out. Pa rarely came up here. At least, he never got all the way to join us while Ma was alive. She’d know his footsteps, you see. Be up and out, curious to know what he wanted before he’d come too far. Pa was born in this room. His father and a couple of the great-aunts before him. A woman’s room, Ma called it. Not only because of the births. It was the view from the window. She could spy on the whole street without anyone realising, she said. It was the top of her world.

In Brighton (and out east), I often thought fondly of the creaking wooden stairs, the cavernous empty rooms, the stuck sashes of this venerable old house. Sometimes thought of it more than Queenie, I admit. But, funny thing, it was Ma I felt I’d let down, not Pa. The house was going to ruin. Of course, the war didn’t help. Lucky, some would say, to survive still with bricks and mortar to call your own. But I was a poor steward none the less. Couldn’t see anything out of the windows now. The curtains grubby and ripped. These coloured people don’t have the same standards. I’d seen it out east. Not used to our ways. When in Rome . . . Lost on these immigrants. They knew no better, like children, Mr Todd believed. But I was having none of it. He’d never been out east. Never seen how cunning these colonial types could be. Children? Poppycock. Had to put him straight. I was more experienced, you see. The recipe for a quiet life is each to their own. The war was fought so people might live amongst their own kind. Quite simple. Everyone had a place. England for the English and the West Indies for these coloured people. Look at India. The British knew fair play. Leave India to the Indians. That’s what we did. (No matter what a hash they make of it.) Everyone was trying to get home after the war to be with kith and kin. Except these blasted coloured colonials. I’ve nothing against them in their place. But their place isn’t here. Mr Todd thought they would only survive one British winter. I hoped he was right. These brown gadabouts were nothing but trouble.