Small Island by Andrea Levy
Now, the man that answer the door was not Winston. True, him look likeWinston, him talk like Winston and him dress like Winston. But Winston was half of a twin. Identical as two lemons on a tree. This was his brother Kenneth. To tell them apart, try to borrow a shilling. Winston will help you out but pester you all over London till him get it back. Kenneth, on the other hand, will persuade you to give him a shilling, assuring you that he could turn it into a pound before the week’s end. Kenneth’s home was in Notting Dale with an Irish woman named Noreen. I knew this was not my friend Winston when, after I asked him to help me with my wife’s trunk, the man before me said, ‘So you tell me she jus’ come from home? You know what she have in that trunk?’
‘No, man.’
‘Come, let us open it. Mango fetching a good price. You think she have rum? I know one of the boys give me half his wage to place him tongue in a guava.’
‘Is my wife’s belongings in that trunk.’
‘Me caan believe what me ear is hearing. You a man. She just come off the boat – you mus’ show who boss. And straight way so no bad habit start. A wife must do as her husband say. You ask a judge. You ask a policeman. They will tell you. Everyt’ing in that trunk belong to you. What is hers is yours and if she no like it a little licking will make her obey.’
And I asked this smooth-tongue man, ‘How come you in Winston’s room? Noreen throw you out again?’
Silly as two pantomime clowns we struggled with this trunk – but at a steady pace. That is, until the trunk fell back down one whole flight when Kenneth, letting go, insisted that a cigarette – which I had to supply – was the only thing that would help him catch his breath. How long did it take us to reach the room? I do not know. A fine young man when we start, I was a wheezing old crone when we eventually get to the top. And there is Hortense still sitting delicate on the bed, now pointing a white-gloved finger saying, ‘You may place it under the window and please be careful.’
Kenneth and I, silently agreeing with each other, dropped the wretched trunk where we stood, just inside the door.
It is not only Jamaicans that like to interrogate a stranger with so many questions they grow dizzy. But the Jamaican is the undisputed master and most talented at the art. And so Kenneth began. The hands on a clock would have barely moved but he had asked Hortense which part of the island she came from, how many members in her family, her daddy’s occupation, where she went to school, what ship she sailed on, did she meet a man on the ship from Buff Bay named Clinton and, of course, what did she have in the trunk? Now, him never wait long enough for any answer and Hortense, although listening polite at first, gradually come to look on Kenneth like she just find him stuck to her shoe.
‘Thank you for your help, Kenneth,’ I say.
‘Oh, you have curtain up here,’ Kenneth say.
‘Goodbye,’ I tell him.
‘You goin’, man?’ him say.
So I have to give him the sign. All we Jamaican boys know the sign. When a man need to be alone with a woman, for reasons only imagination should know, the head is cocked just a little to one side while the eye first open wide then swivel fast to the nearest exit. Even the most fool-fool Jamaican boy can read this sign and would never ignore it in case it should be they that needed it next time.
‘Oh!’ Kenneth say. ‘I must be gone. And don’t forget what I tell you, Gilbert. Winston know where to find me.’
As he left the room Hortense turned to me to sneer, ‘He your friend?’
I shut the door. Now, to get back into the room, I have to step over the damn trunk.
‘What you doing?’ she say.
‘The thing in me way.’
‘That is a valuable trunk.’
‘What – you wan’ me sleep in the hallway? You no see I caan step round it. Your mummy never tell you what caan be step round must be step over?’
She rub the case like I bruise it.
‘Cha, it come across an ocean. You tell me this one skinny Jamaican man gon’ mash it up. What you have in there anyway?’
She sat her slender backside down on the trunk averting her eye from mine, lifting her chin as if something in the cracked ceiling was interesting to her. Stony and silent as a statue from Trafalgar Square. I began to crave the noise of her ‘English live like this?’ questions again.
‘You wan’ take off your coat?’ I say, while she look on me like she had forgotten I was there. ‘You don’t need on that big coat – the fire is on.’
Cha! Would you believe the gas choose that moment to run out? I know I have a shilling somewhere, but where? Searching my pocket I say, ‘Oh, I just have to find the money for the gas meter.’ It then I notice my shirt was not buttoned properly. I had not done up a garment so feeble since I was a small boy – me shirt hanging out like a vagabond’s. And now she is watching me, her wide brown eyes alert as a cobra’s. If I change the button on the shirt I will look like I am undressing. And this, experience tell me, would alarm her. So I just tuck the shirt in me pants like this mishap is a new London fashion.
Let me tell the truth, I had been asleep before she come. But I had gone to the dock. You see, she tell me she coming at seven and I know she is sailing with bananas, because she coming on the Producers boat, to Jamaica dock. Everything work out fine – I am on the late shift at the sorting office, and when I finish around six in the morning I go to the dock. The sun is rising pretty as an artist’s picture, with ships sailing through a morning mist slow up the river. Romantic, my mind is conjuring her waving majestic to me, my shoulders, manly silhouetting against the morning sun, poised to receive her comely curves as she runs into my arms. Only they tell me, no. She and her bananas are coming seven at night. Am I to wait there all day? I get a little something to eat, I go home and I even tidy up a little. Then I lie on the bed intending to doze – just doze. But I have been working twelve hours, I have been to the dock – man, I have even tidy! Is it a sin that I fall asleep?
The shilling must have drop out the pocket of me pants into the bed. So now, she is watching me having to look under the bedclothes for the money. ‘You keep your money in the bed?’
Cha, I knew she would say that. I just knew it! ‘No, it’s just when I was sleeping . . .’
‘Oh, you were sleeping, then.’
‘I just lie for a minute and I must have—’
‘So, that why you no there to meet me?’
‘No, I come but—’
‘I know, you tell me, you tidying the place.’ And she look around her and say, ‘See how tidy it is?’
I was not foolish enough to say, ‘Shut up, woman,’ but I was vex enough to think it. But instead I show her the shilling and tell her, ‘I will put this in the meter.’ She is looking on me, sort of straining her neck to see where I was moving, so I say, ‘Come, let me show you how to put the money in the meter.’ And you know what she say?
‘You think I don’t know how to put money in a meter?’ and she turn back to that fascinating crack in the ceiling, patting at the tight black curls of her hair in case any should dare to be out of place.
But this is a tricky meter. Sometime it smooth as a piggy-bank and sometime it jam. Today it jam. I have to stand back to give it a kick so the coin will drop. But, oh, no, one kick did not do it. I hear her demurely sucking on her teeth at my second blow. How everything I do look so rough?
When I light the gas fire again I say, ‘Take off your coat, nah?’ And victory so sweet, she finally do something I say. Mark you, she leave on her little hat and the blessed white gloves. I had no hanger for the coat. ‘You wan’ a cup of tea?’ I say. I had been meaning to get another hanger – the only one I have has my suit on it. ‘I’ll just fill the kettle,’ I say. I go to throw the coat on the bed but, I am no fool, just in time I hang it over me suit instead.
Now she is walking about the room. Looking on the meter. Perusing the table, wobbling the back of the chair. As I am filling the kettle she is running her hand along the mantelpiece. She then look a
‘Everything filthy,’ she tell me.
‘Then stop touching up everything with white glove.’
‘You ever clean this place?’
‘Yes – I clean it.’
‘Then why everything so dirty?’
‘Is your white glove. You touch an angel with white glove it come up black.’
Everywhere she feel now – the wall, the door-handle, the window-sill, the curtain. I tell her, ‘Now you are just putting dirt on everything – those gloves are too mucky.’ A smile dared on to my face but she stern chased it away again. ‘Come,’ I say patting the armchair, moving it nearer the fire, ‘sit down, I make you a nice English cup of tea.’
Oh, why the little bit of milk I have gone bad, the cups both dirty and the kettle take so long to boil on the ring? I am wondering what I can say next by way of chit-chat, but then she say, ‘Who is that woman downstairs?’ Let me tell you I was relieve for the conversation.
‘Oh, Queenie – she own the house.’
‘You know her?’
‘Of course, she own the house. She is the landlady.’
‘She married?’
‘Her husband lost in the war.’
‘She on her own?’
‘Yes.’
‘You friendly with her?’
Wow! Friendly. Every Jamaican man know that word breathed by a Jamaican woman is a trap that can snap around you. Tread careful, boy, or she will think this woman hiding three children for you.
‘I knew her during the war,’ I say. ‘She was kind to me and now she me landlady. And lucky I know her – places hard to come by, especially for coloured boys.’
‘She seem to know all your business.’
‘No,’ I say.
Now, why Queenie choose that time to knock on the door calling out, ‘Everything all right in there, Gilbert?’ Of course I trip over the damn trunk getting to the door. I open it just a crack. ‘I can smell gas,’ Queenie say.
‘It just go out, but I see to it. You want something?’
‘Just checking everything was all right.’
‘Yes, thank you,’ I say, and shut the door.
When I turn back the rising steam from the kettle has Hortense fading away. A lady in the mist, she just sitting there swallowed up in vapour. I trip over the damn trunk again.
‘You no see the kettle boiling?’
‘So, she no wan’ know your business?’
I so vex I forget to use a cloth to pick the wretched kettle off the ring. ‘Ras,’ I drop it quick it scald me so. ‘The thing hot,’ I tell her.
‘Then why you no use a cloth?’ she say.
Reason tells me if I am not to kill this woman I must take a deep breath. ‘Please forgive my language,’ I say, while she is looking on me like I am the devil’s favoured friend. ‘Come,’ I tell her, ‘I will show you how to use this gas-ring.’
‘Why?’
‘You will need to know so you can cook on it.’
‘I will cook in the kitchen.’
‘This is the kitchen.’
‘Where?’
‘You see this ring and that sink, that is the kitchen. The dining room is over there where you see the table and two chairs.’
‘You tell me you cook on just this?’
‘Yes, that is what I am telling you.’
‘Just this one little ring?’
‘Yes, so let me show you how it work.’
And she is back looking round the room, her mouth gaping like a simpleton’s.
‘You watching me? See when you come to cook you have to turn it . . .’ I stop. She looked so quizzical I wonder if I am talking in foreign tones. ‘You can cook, can’t you?’ I asked.
‘I was taught to cook in domestic science at college,’ she tell me.
‘It not science we need, it food. Man, you telling me you caan cook . . .’
She stood up. ‘Where is the lavatory? I presume there is a lavatory?’
‘Downstairs,’ I tell her, and she is stepping over the trunk to leave the room so quick she is a blur before my eye.
I am making the tea in the little pot when I hear, ‘A dump it may be, ducky, but you ain’t weeing in here. What’s the matter with you lot? Does this look like a ruddy toilet?’
I am chasing down the stairs now. Jean, the woman in the room underneath, does not like to be disturbed at this time of night before she is about to go out for work. She is standing in her doorway wearing only a pink slip and underwear. Half her head has hair rollers, the other half, in the process of being combed, has the brush stuck in it like a hatchet.
Hortense is asking, in slow deliberate English usually reserved for the deaf, ‘Would you be so kind as to tell me where I might find the toilet?’
Jean, frowning, says, ‘What? What? This is not the toilet.’ Then seeing me, ‘Thank bloody God! Gilbert, can you help me? This one thinks I’m a bloody toilet.’ Then suddenly Jean laughs, a cackle like pebbles falling down a washing-board. Placing her hand on Hortense’s shoulder she leans in close to her, all the while sniffing like she is smelling something. ‘Bloody hell – she’s so fresh off the boat, I can smell the sea.’ Hortense still smiling wide-eyed polite then feels Jean’s door shut in her face.
It was with a frantic whisper that Hortense shouted at me: ‘You tell me the toilet is downstairs. This is downstairs.’ The frown that pinched her eyebrows was from a little girl confused.
I touched her arm. She pulled away. ‘Okay – I am a disease not to be caught,’ I say, stepping away from her. ‘Just follow me.’ I take her to the toilet, which is at the bottom of the house opposite the front door. ‘You can find your way back?’ I ask.
‘Of course,’ she tell me. ‘I make a simple mistake but I am not a fool.’
Puffing noisy as a pipe organ I hear her returning from way down the stairs. She was breathless but still she find air enough to chide me. ‘You mean to tell me that every time I must go to the lavatory I must walk first down then up all those stairs?’
Now, I know plenty boys would have told her to stick her skinny backside out the window if she no like it, but I tell her, ‘No, you can use this.’ And I stoop down to feel under the bed for the potty. Cha, nah, man, I was so pleased to have a solution that I pick up the pot without any thought. Only after I place it under her nose did I ask myself, Gilbert, why the hell you no empty it before Hortense come? The contents is slopping over the side and spilling on to her dainty-foot shoes.
She jump like a flea. ‘Disgusting – you are disgusting,’ she cry. ‘This place is disgusting. How you bring me here?’
Now I am having to calm her, to raise a finger to my lip to shush her. ‘I caan believe you bring me to a place like this. You tell me you have somewhere to live. You wan’ me live like this?’ She is waving her arms so her white gloves could bring a plane safely into land. And I am still holding this pot saying, ‘Listen, Hortense. Hush now. I sorry.’ But the thing spilling more as I am trying to compose her.
‘Get away from me,’ she say. ‘I caan believe you bring me here. You live like an animal . . .’
There is no room to put the pot back down and I am making it worse following her round slopping this stuff everywhere. So I throw the contents down the sink. Oh, why the two cups still in the basin – surely I had already washed them for our nice cup of English tea? For one blessed moment she was silent. You know, I heard a clock strike and a woman giggle in the street before she began, almost tranquil: ‘Wait. You tell me you wash your cup in the same place you throw your doings.’
‘No, no, I don’t,’ I say, ‘I take it down to the toilet but—’
She is not listening. She rage at me, ‘You wash in filth! This place is disgusting. I caan believe you bring me all this way to live like this. You make me come here to live like an animal?’
Man, this woman is a barb under my skin – she irritate me so I lose me temper. I tell her, ‘Yes, and you know what else, li
Before
Three
Hortense
The sound of my father’s name could still hush a room long after he had left Savannah-La-Mar. Every generation in our district knew of my father and his work overseas as a government man. His picture was pinned to parish walls – cut from the newspapers of America, Canada and England. My father was a man of class. A man of character. A man of intelligence. Noble in a way that made him a legend. ‘Lovell Roberts,’ they whispered. ‘Have you heard about Lovell Roberts?’
When you are the child of someone such as he, there are things that are expected that may not be expected of someone of a more lowly persuasion. And so it was with I.
I was born to a woman called Alberta. It was she who suckled me until I was strong enough to drink from the cow. I recall a warm smell of boiling milk. Being rocked in the sun with a gentle song and ‘me sprigadee’ whispered until my eyes could do nothing but close. I remember a skirt flapping in the breeze and bare black feet skipping over stones. I do not recall the colour of her eyes, the shape of her lips or the feel of her skin. Alberta was a country girl who could neither read nor write nor perform even the rudiments of her times tables. I was born to her out of wedlock – it would be wrong to say otherwise. But it was she who gave birth to me in a wooden hut. And it was she who bought me shoes for the journey I was to take holding the hand of her mother, Miss Jewel.
I grew to look as my father did. My complexion was as light as his; the colour of warm honey. It was not the bitter chocolate hue of Alberta and her mother. With such a countenance there was a chance of a golden life for I. What, after all, could Alberta give? Bare black feet skipping over stones. If I was given to my father’s cousins for upbringing, I could learn to read and write and perform all my times tables. And more. I could become a lady worthy of my father, wherever he might be.