PART SEVEN

I

The evening Gwennie’s first batch of children was to come, catch her at her house on Evelyn Street pacing through the rooms. She quit the live-in work with the Professor, since Dorothy fix her up with something temporary at the hospital, and Lu and Tom allow her the weekend off. So, all in all, she did have a whole week to herself and her children. She wish all of them could come at once, but according to how she and Samuel figure, it was best that the older ones come first so they can help her work and get a bigger place, and of course the baby as well, then later on Peppy and Jeff, since them would still need to finish up school. It was about five o’ clock the Friday evening and the plane wasn’t due in till around eight. Clive was planning to come by around seven to pick her up and then drive her to Bradley International over in Windsor Locks.

Gwennie step inside the room that was going to be Rudi’s and Dave’s. She know Rudi probably want his own room, but everybody will just have to make do for now. Painted white with a yellowish-brownish rug covering the floor, she hung peach curtains to add a little brightness. Other than that, the room was just big and square and empty. But it couldn’t go any better than that, for after buying a similar set of twin beds for Delores’ room, she’d only have money left over to take care of the children should any emergencies arise. She couldn’t buy the lovely oak and dark mahogany bureau and chest of drawers and nice standing lamps she saw, as nice as them look and as badly as she wanted them.

Gwennie get up off the bed and open up the closet. It was empty except for the few pairs of trousers Samuel figure Dave might be able to fit into, if not Rudi, and some shirts. She run her fingers longside the top shelf checking for dust, and with one last sigh, she shut Rudi’s room door behind her, fingers lingering on the shiny door knob. She make her way down the passage into Delores’ room, but she didn’t stay long, just long enough to straighten out the wine-red comforter and shut up the wine red curtains. Then she shut the door behind her and step inside the kitchen. It was only ten past five.

Gwennie serve out a small saucer of food from the pots of rice and Escovitch fish with baby red tomatoes and Spanish onion and steam spinach she had on the stove, and fill up her glass with juice from the white jug in the refrigerator. She make her way into the living room with the plate of food and switch on the colour TV Clive gave her last Christmas. But by the time she settle down into the light brown all-around settee, and the face on the screen start to come into focus, she wasn’t in the mood to either eat or watch the five o’ clock Headline News.

After about two spoonfuls of rice, she reach over and turn off the television. Everyday the same thing, President Nixon sending more troops to kill off the people down in Vietnam, riots and civil rights activities going on about the place especially in New York and over in Boston, where her friend Daphne’s daughter live. Gwennie walk back inside the kitchen and pick up the wall phone. She dial the number on the pad, her fingers folding and unfolding the telephone cord.

‘Hi,’ she say into the receiver after the operator pick up. ‘Please if you could tell me whether or not airplane number 32785 leaving Kennedy International at seven-nineteen and arriving in Hartford at two minutes past eight going to be on time?’

‘Thank you,’ Gwennie mutter into the phone after the operator tell her yes. Then she hang it up and sigh. It was only five-twenty.

She wonder if the children catch the plane on time, if them tell Walter goodbye, and if him hug them and cry a little. But she should know better, Walter not going to cry, him probably find something to curse about instead. She wonder if him give them any message to give her.

She wonder how him look now after five years. Maybe little bit more meagre, eyes sink in more. Rudi say him don’t eat much, drunk mostly. Gwennie shake her head. No, she wasn’t sorry she left him. For when a man who used to be so religious turn his back on God, only retribution can follow. For how can he live with himself after turning so many people to Christ. She can’t remember whether or not it was the drinking that started first or the back-sliding. But after the problems at the church with the missing collection money and the hiring of the new deacon, him wasn’t the same anymore.

She wasn’t a regular member of his congregation, for like Grandpa she was Baptist. Walter was Pentecostal, and that jump up-jump up, clapping, singing and loud preaching she wasn’t into, but she used to hear about all that go on nevertheless. And although Walter couldn’t understand why them needed to hire a new deacon when the congregation was showing him so much love and affection, she’d already suspect them out to frame him.

But even then the drinking wasn’t so bad. It escalate around the time when Peppy was on the way. But then him did stop. For when she move back in, after leaving school, him never even used to keep liquor inside the house, but according to Rudi’s letters, it seems as if him worse now.

She wonder if Walter wear any of the trousers and the shirts she send down in the last barrel. She made sure to send the colour shirts him like: baby blue, bright yellow, puke green, tan. She send matching man’s socks too, and handkerchiefs, spotless white ones, for she know him like to have clean handkerchief each morning, iron neat and fold up into small squares so them can fit neatly in his back pocket with just the tip showing. Him used to look so smart in his khaki pants that she’d starch and iron out stiff the way him like it, shoes shiny as usual.

Him used to conk Dave and Jeff with his knuckles fold up when them wouldn’t clean them shoes properly. Not so much Rudi, for Rudi was always neat and tidy. ‘You can tell a decent man by the spotlessness of his shoes,’ him would say to Dave and Jeff, as them try to dodge the shoe-brush sailing towards them. ‘By the looks of the two of you, anyone can tell you won’t amount to any damn good.’

She know that all the clean shoes business and conking of head come from the soldier training. That was before them start to courten, before she’d meet him again at Open Bible’s church harvest, April 1958. Him was just returning from four years of training at Maybe Soldiers’ Camp. She never spot him herself, it was her friend, Lucille Powell, who point him out.

‘Gwennie, look. Mass Lindon Glaspole’s son! The one who turn soldier.’

Gwennie take her eyes off the minister delivering the harvest service and turn towards Lucille’s finger. ‘Who?’ Gwennie scan the group of young fellows leaning against the wall outside, waiting for the service to end, so them can buy up the harvest food. Walter was standing up out there, with about four other fellows his age, his face turn to hers.

‘Mass Lindon’s son, Walter. See him in the uniform.’

‘Him change in truth,’ Gwennie say more to herself than to Lucille, for him was staring at her bold and outright, the fellows behind him grinning, fingers deep inside trousers pocket, hugging crotchs. Him was wearing the gray uniform then, with red stripes spotting the sides of the trousers and shirts, the beret tossed rakish over his eyes.

And Gwennie remember the Tuesday night when him was walking her back from Bible study, for ever since the harvest them been going steady. They were walking slow and holding hands. The night was dark, the air still, everyone else walking up ahead. Now and then one or two cars drive pass or a motorbike roar out loud in the distance. Up ahead girls shriek as boys pinch bottoms and touch bosom on purpose then cry excuse, face cover over in wide grins. Then all of a sudden, she and Walter start to walk more slow. His hands move from her side to settle somewhere near her shoulders, so fingers can easily reach down inside her sleeveless blouse. And him was smelling of Jergens skin lotion, Lux beauty soap, Palmolive hair oil, Mum scentless underarm deodorant and sweat mix up together.

Him ease her onto the trunk of the green skin mango tree without much propelling, lips spread out wide over hers; breath short and hot; hands, hard and sweaty fondling her face, neck, down her bosom, up her skirt. And she wanted to tell him no; she was still a virgin; them should probably wait till marriage; but not a sound would utter out. She wanted to tell him that her mother, not so much her father, would kill the two of them stone-dead if she ever find out, that him was much too big and might hurt her bad, that him was going too fast, too hard, and must slow down, for it was hurting and tearing and feeling like hell but feeling good at the same time. Maybe she could actually grow to like it, for she like him a whole heap, but right now him was going to have to hurry up and stop before the others find out and . . . Something wet and warm and silky was crawling down her leg. Him was breathing even again. His hands relax from around her neck. Him roll off.

Gwennie wasn’t sure whether or not it was the phone she hear ringing first or the singing of the kettle she’d put on for tea. She pick up the phone.

‘Hello? Oh, is you, Clive. No, I was just sitting here. No. Right out here in the kitchen. I just have plenty things on me mind. No, sir, I not nervous. What to be nervous about?’ Gwennie kiss her teeth. ‘Yes, them say it on time, eight. Yes, them change over in New York. Alright, I will call again. About seven-thirty. Alright. No, man, I’m alright. Yes, sure. Alright. Ba-bye.’

Gwennie hang up the phone and stare off into a far corner of the room, arms akimbo, face furrow-up, her eyes distant. She know Walter must have women friends. Rudi don’t mention any, so maybe him don’t bring them to the house, but now that the children gone, or at least the older ones, him will bring them. Him don’t know shame. She used to find French letters in his pockets Saturday mornings as she sort through laundry. At the school, people who know them both would tell her about the girls sitting-up on his lap inside bar rooms, sipping beers and blowing him kisses. The funny thing about it all was she never use to feel one iota of jealousy. She would leave the French letters right on top of the bureau so him could see that she know.

For to tell the God truth, half the time she was so tired between school and the plenty children that she never have time to put Walter and his women friends on her syllabus. To tell the truth, she didn’t really mind the distraction, for at least if him already satisfied from out the street, him wouldn’t have to come to her at nights. Just as long as him don’t bring any sickness home.

Gwennie walk over to the settee and sit down. She could feel the emptiness moving around in her stomach. She couldn’t figure out any a tall why she have this man on her syllabus, when she must just forget him, take him out of her mind. But it wasn’t so easy. She think about him plenty. Especially while at her living-in work, when her bed empty, when she don’t have anybody to turn over and talk to. Not that she and Walter talked much. Sometimes weeks going on months before them exchange a word.

The last month before she left, though, was his strangest. And when she mentioned it to Percy, him never seemed a tall perplexed, just that him think maybe Walter suspect that she was leaving.

‘But him don’t know anything,’ Gwennie tell him. ‘I warn the children not to say a word whenever him around. Everything I plan to carry abroad with me, I bring to Grandma’s and pack my suitcase down there.’

‘Yes, Gwennie. But is the sixth sense,’ Percy say to her, fingers twining around one another as them sit down in his car waiting for a red light to turn green. ‘Sometimes you don’t even realize you have it. When I was in boarding school over in England, one morning I woke up and I just knew something was wrong. First of all, I couldn’t shut me eyes the whole night. And I didn’t want to go classes the morning, I just wanted to stay in bed.

‘And even when I was in class or on recess, I was just distracted, couldn’t concentrate long on anything. And me is a man love to play cricket and when I wasn’t even interested in that, you must know something was really wrong. And right after supper the evening, I got a message in me box saying I must report to the house matron. When I went, she had a telegram from me father saying Grandma Deedy was dead.’ Him turn around and look at Gwennie, eyebrows raise. ‘Things like that I call sixth sense. And I believe you have to trust and rely on it.’

Well, Gwennie figure that that was probably the case with Walter that last month. More and more evenings, him would come home in the most cheeriest of moods. Sometimes him bring home sugar buns, sometimes greta cakes, board games for the children. Sometimes him play cricket with Dave and Jeff, and with she, although him wouldn’t say much, night time when she out in the living room correcting papers him would come and sit down with her. Sometimes him listen to Eric Lisson’s talk show on the radio, other times him just read, Westerns his favourite.

And then two weeks before she leave, him ask her out to the movies. She and the children had just finished dinner, and she was sprawled off on the bed in her room. Walter did just come in from work and was taking off his tie. And after him tell her good evening, she know him say something about movies, but she wasn’t sure, so she just tell him evening in return and leave it at that.

‘Don’t bother to tell me you tired,’ him say after a while, ‘you must want to go and watch a picture?’

Gwennie raise up and rub her eyes. ‘Picture show? Who want to go?’ She couldn’t believe Walter was inviting her out. Since Jeff’s birth, them barely go out as a family. Going seven years now. And she wanted to tell him no, she was feeling too tired, she would rather just lie down and rest before she start to make up a quiz for her class tomorrow, but then again, if him want to go to picture show maybe him wanted to talk, maybe him have something to tell her, and if that’s the case, she might as well go, for she leaving soon and it could be important. She won’t see him again for a long time.

‘Well, you want to come or not?’ Him was looking at her through the mirror, his eye corners creased up into a grin, half of his gold tooth showing.

And she look back at his reflection through the mirror, then at his back, smooth and broad without the shirt, his voice silky, gentle, almost playful.

‘Alright,’ she say to him, ‘I will go.’

‘Sure?’ Him turn to look at her, nostrils spread out wide in a grin. ‘Don’t let me wring your hands, now.’

‘No, I’m sure.’ She turn away from his gaze, for all of a sudden she never like the sadness in his eyes. She wanted to tell him she was leaving in two weeks.

‘Ready in ten minutes, then. I going to eat a little dinner.’ Him step through the bedroom door with a white T-shirt in his hand marked: ‘Crash Program Week, March 16-22, Keep Your Country Clean’.

During the whole time she was pulling on her jeans and looking around for a blouse to match, she was certain him hear from somebody that she was leaving. And even while him was driving her to the movie house, the car working its way in and out through traffic, she know him was trying to make friends with her, so she wouldn’t go, or so she would tell him so him could tear up her papers or prevent her from catching her plane. She remained quiet inside the car, for when him was like this, extra-loving and kind all of a sudden, she wasn’t quite sure what to make of him. One minute she want to soften up to him, next, she know she must be careful.

‘Two shows playing,’ him tell her. ‘One Western with John Wayne, and the other is karate with Bruce Lee. Which one you prefer?’

‘Bruce Lee,’ she tell him, her voice eager. She enjoy watching the various styles of fighting, praying mantis was her favourite, then Shalin. She like it especially when the theatre have plenty people clapping and cheering as the enemy either win or lose, according to how them want it. She and Rudi and Delores and Dave used to attend Saturday afternoon matinees, long while back.

Walter did buy nuts from the vendor at the door. Everytime his fingers knock up against hers, as them reach inside the bag at the same time, she wasn’t sure if it was just accident, playfulness or if him was ready to pounce on her any moment. Nevertheless she enjoyed the movie.

‘What kind of sudden change is this?’ she ask as them make them way back home.

Him face her, forehead puzzled as if him wasn’t sure what she was talking about. ‘How you mean, change?’ Him look in the rear view mirror at his reflection and wrinkle his forehead.

Gwennie smile. ‘You well know what I mean.’ For in truth she couldn’t believe it, just three weeks ago the man was ready to tear down the whole house in his determination to find her papers so him could burn them up. And look at Walter now, face smily-smily like everything peachy.

And as Gwennie stand up in the middle of the living room, eyes fix nowhere in particular, arms akimbo, she was glad she didn’t make that evening at the movies fool her, for two days before she leave, him was crazy again. She went to the meeting with Percy as usual, the last one. And after Percy pull up at her gate and she tell him good night and was about to open the car door and step out, Percy pull her back. ‘Gwennie, Gwennie look up at the window.’

‘Is what?’ Gwennie ask, turning her head to follow his fingers. And just as she see it, the curtain draw back same time and the wooden louvre shut up. ‘Him watching me,’ Gwennie sigh and step out the car. Walter was standing inside the living room when she open up the front door with her key.

‘Might as well you just go home with him,’ Walter greet her. ‘This late time at night, might as well,’ him look at his watch. ‘Why bother to come home any a tall?’ His voice was loud, but it wasn’t angry, just tired. Gwennie tried to brush pass him, but him grab her hand. She pry open his fingers, inhaling the rum high on his breath.

‘Let me go.’ Her voice was low and tired. ‘Just don’t bother with me, tonight.’

His grip tighten even more, and she sigh out loud. The man in front her now wasn’t the Walter of last week, or two weeks ago, or even three weeks. This Walter wasn’t the man she go to the movie with, or the one that would come read with her out in the living room. This man was different. His eyes were red and wild-looking and hard. She couldn’t read them. But him was sad. The whole room was sad with him. And she was starting to feel sad too. The children were already in bed, but she know them would be up listening. Sometimes she wonder what them think, especially Rudi.

‘Walter, come let’s go inside the room. Don’t bother to wake up the children.’

Him allow her to drag him into the room, and by the time his head hit the pillow, him was fast asleep. Gwennie take-off his slippers and socks and straighten him out on the bed. She pull up the cover over him.

But by morning the cursing start up again. Sunday evening same thing. Him tell her she was no damn good for she was keeping men with him. Monday morning instead of setting off to school, she kiss her children goodbye and Percy, who’d taken the day off from work, help her to pack her last pieces of luggage in his car before driving her to Grandma’s. Walter did leave early the Monday morning according to his own plans. Him was going to a convention with people from work.

‘But you know, Gwennie, I think that man love you,’ Percy say to her the Monday morning. Plenty cars weren’t on the road, so the driving was smooth, easy. ‘Love you to distraction.’

Gwennie shake her head. ‘No, that’s not love. That’s something else. Something distorted. I don’t know what. But that’s not love.’

‘Then why you think him so jealous? Why you think him watch you so? Why you think him so possessive? Him know you leaving, and even though him nice to you, you still don’t trust him to tell him. I think it make him crazy.’

‘I don’t care what you say, Percy, the man don’t have all his faculties together up in his head part. How can one person change like that in the course of two weeks. Change from normal loving human being into wild animal. Explain that to me, Percy Clock.’

Percy couldn’t explain it. All him say is that Walter love her but him frustrated, for she Gwennie don’t love him back same way. And since Gwennie never agree with him, she try and change the subject. But her heart was heavy. Her children didn’t even did get the chance to come and see her off and wave goodbye to her at the airport. Here she was, a big married woman, yet she have to be running and hiding away from her own house, leaving her children behind as if she was doing something wrong. As if she didn’t deserve the rights to a little peace of mind and a little rest and . . .

And as the doorbell ring startling Gwennie, for it was Clive ready to drive her to the airport, Gwennie wipe back the eye water that was starting to gather at her eye corners. She didn’t know the day would finally come. It take five years and plenty suffering, but here it was. The door bell ring again and she walk towards the door. It was minutes to eight.

‘I won’t bother to come in and take a seat,’ Clive say to her from the doorway. ‘It’s getting late. Put on your jacket and come. It’s a little windy outside.’

‘Come in, come sit down little. I have to haul on me shoes.’

‘Lord, Gwennie, man. Look from the time I call to tell you I was coming over. What you been doing all this time? Why you not ready?’

‘Clive, go and sit down a little bit and stop rushing me,’ Gwennie call out from her bedroom.

‘Christ, Jesus, why you must take so long to get ready. My goodness!’

‘What I tell you about the bawling out of Jesus’ name in vain, Cleveland Angels.’

‘Lord, Gwennie, just make haste and come. You argue and gripe about Jesus too much.’

Gwennie laugh. She was ready, her bag in hand with four warm sweaters inside. She did have on her coat. ‘Alright, I ready.’ She lock the door behind her, and follow Clive out to the blue Buick. The spring air was a little bit nippy. She was glad she bring the sweaters. It was ten minutes to eight when she buckle up inside Clive’s warm car. ‘We late, Clive?’

‘Gwennie, American planes hardly ever on time, so don’t worry yourself.’ Clive put the car in drive, turn on the lights, and roll out her driveway.

II

When Clive and Gwennie reach the airport, it was a little after eight-thirty. And all the search them search, not a sign of Gwennie’s four children.

‘You think we lose them, Clive?’

‘Gwennie, don’t talk foolishness. How we going to lose them? If them arrive and don’t see you, them can sit down and wait. Them is big children. Furthermore them might have to wait long at customs since them from abroad.’

‘No,’ Gwennie shake her head. ‘Them do all of that in New York already. For that is the first port of entrance.’

‘Well, them must be around here somewhere, then.’ Clive kiss his teeth, eyes squint-up tight as him scan the airport. ‘This place is so damn big.’

The two of them were standing up inside the arrival section of Bradley International. It was packed to distraction with people. Every few seconds, a voice over the intercom report which flight ready to depart, which one touching down, which one the people must start boarding and at which gate. Gwennie was standing up next to Clive, the handbag with the four sweaters clutch tight underneath her arm.

‘Gwennie, I don’t even know who I must look for. What the children wearing, you know?’

Gwennie shake her head slowly. ‘Just look for four of them,’ she tell him, her voice worried and tight, ‘three big ones and one small baby girl.’

But all the look them look, still no sign.

‘You stay right here, don’t move,’ Clive say to her after a while. ‘I going to look over in that section, one more time.’

Gwennie’s eyes lift up in the direction of his finger. She spot a row of seats where people who just come off the plane, sit down and wait. She wonder if the children change so radically that she was probably looking at them right now and didn’t know it. She wonder if Rudi and Dave stout up with beard and moustache, if Del grow turn into big woman and Rosa, big girl. But she don’t think so. Time don’t fly that much.

‘We might as well ask the lady at the counter,’ Clive say over her shoulder, walking up silently behind her.

Them push them way through the crowd and up to the counter. Gwennie’s back was stiff with worry. She could barely carry herself straight. Another plane had just come in from New York, and Gwennie strain her head to look in the face of every child that pass, to see if she recognize Dave’s redness or Rosa’s round face in the crowd, but nothing.

‘You think maybe them never get on the plane,’ Gwennie say more to herself than to Clive. ‘Maybe Walter, out of grudgeful and bad mind because I didn’t send for him, find out that them leaving and stop them, tear up the papers, bar them from leaving the house.’

‘Them have your phone number. I’m sure them would call.’ Clive’s voice was calm. ‘If something wrong, them bound to call.’ Clive was a man slow to rise to any kind of emotional stir. ‘The way you talk plenty about the big boy, Rudi, all the time, I sure nothing the matter that just won’t work itself out.’

‘Maybe,’ Gwennie say to him, ‘maybe.’ But to herself she know that it have to be Walter who stop them. She did have her hand on her jaw. Look how she hope and pray for this day to come. Look how she work hard and suffer, with the hopes that one day—one day her children can come and live with her. That them can be one big family again, even if Walter wasn’t there. And look, now. All of that for nothing a tall.

‘Gwennie, get in line and stop the worrying. I going to call your brother, Samuel, to see if the children phone him.’

Gwennie take the space at the end of the line. Four people were in front. More start to gather up behind. The line was moving quickly. Not as many people were in this section of the airport. Gwennie sigh. Walter no doubt find the letters. That was the only reason she can think of. She don’t know why Rudi wasn’t more careful with them, why him never just read them, or just tear them up, burn them . . .

‘Next!’

Gwennie move up to the counter. Her mind couldn’t even focus on the face in front, her eyes were filled to the brim with eye water. Things like these can only cause her to burn candle for Walter and wish that bad things happen to him. She always use to hope that she and Walter would never come to this, that if she ever go back home, them could behave like old friends.

She always used to hear about women back home who tie cloth and soak it in ashes for husbands who ill-treat them, and the husband would all of a sudden come down with sickness: pneumonia, comsumption, bad belly, all kinds of ailments. She used to hear about husbands who lift up hands to strike the wife and when them don’t cripple up on the spot, them drop down stone-dead as bird. No, she never thought it would come to this between she and Walter, but now she understand what those women were going through.

She tell the lady at the counter, Patty, according to the pin on her chest, the name of her four children, where them coming from and how they were supposed to get on the flight in New York.

Patty’s head float back and forth before Gwennie full-to-the-brim-eye-water eyes, as she shake her brown wavy hair, long, red fingernails knocking impatiently gainst the computer screen. ‘No, ma’am. They aren’t here. They’re registered for the flight, but they never got on. Sorry! Next!’

‘How you mean them never . . .’ Gwennie say to her, ready to argue. But the man behind was already starting to pull his bags closer to Gwennie’s white pumps.

‘Next! Ma’am, you’re holding up the line. Next!’

‘Damn you to blast,’ Gwennie mutter under her breath as she cut her eyes pass the man behind her, and the eye water spill over onto her cheeks. Damn you to hell. My four children are lost and what you care, what you business. She walk over to where Clive was standing, nearby the revolving doors, her eyes red, but her forehead knit-up and her jawbone and top lip stiff and determined.

‘No luck, either?’ Clive sigh as she march over, her footsteps heavy. ‘Eh, might as well go home and wait till them call. Samuel say he and the wife been home all evening watching football. Not a word from the children.’

But Gwennie didn’t even hear him, she was already through the door on her way over to where him park the car, the nippy March breeze blowing cold around her. If she don’t hear from her children by tonight, she would have to send a telegram to find out if Walter was the stumbling block in them path. And if that was the case, she would have to call her friend, Daphne, and ask her about the Montserrat man that have the little one-room, card-reading, candle-burning office not far from her house. She would have to fix Walter once and for all.

During the drive back to Gwennie’s house on Evelyn Street, not a word was spoken inside the car. Shadows cover over Clive’s features and Gwennie’s face was calm, a film of blankness over her eyes. They were focused on the road in front, but them never register the pond near the airport where all the fish have tumour so large, you can’t tell the difference between the tumour and the fish own self. Her eyes never register the railway track that follow the highway for miles and miles, or even the billboards that advertise Liberty Mutual Insurance, and Buick, America’s No. 1 family car, and Howard Johnson’s special weekend rate.

Not even when Clive turn off the highway and move into the Puerto Rican neighbourhood did her eyes register the Spanish-American grocery store, where she sometimes ask the bus driver to let her off so she can buy bulla cake, fifty cents for half dozen, that she like to eat longside with pear and a tall glass of fresh milk. And when Clive slow down to make the right turn on Evelyn Street, her eyes never cut pass the housing project to her right, as usual, that always smell of urine and always have graffitti on the boarded up doors and windows, and where no matter what hour of the day or night, children always outside playing basketball. No, tonight, Gwennie’s eyes weren’t paying attention to Evelyn Street’s big sore.

Instead, it was way back. Back to when she was about eight or nine, trying to figure out what it was she’d done then, why tribulation following her now, thirty years later. She wonder if is because she’d carelessly step on Blossom Pitter’s pair of glasses and break them up in two, lens and all, and wouldn’t admit to it for fear Blossom would tell her mother, who in turn would go to Grandma for the money and after Grandma and Grandpa finish cipher and give Miss Pitter the money, Grandma would turn around and beat Gwennie same way.

Or maybe is when she and Odette Chambers and Lucille Powell were inside the toilet one recess, panties roll down, fingers probing deep inside one another. But no, she wasn’t more than nine or ten. God can’t be punishing her for childhood sins. And Gwennie continue to think about the lies she used to tell, the money she used to take out of Grandpa’s wallet so she and her friends could have more to spend at Harvest, or the times she used to cheat on exams. Yes, she know God is a good God, but maybe all those times she was testing his wrath without realizing it.

No, is the dog. It have to be the dog, Precious and the time when Grandma send her under the house to pick up the eggs. She’d carelessly fallen down, both she and the basket, breaking all thirteen eggs Grandma was going to sell so she could pay Mass Jasshe for last week’s piece of pork. She was so frightened, she stay under the house bottom till Grandma had to call and ask her if she can’t find the nest with the eggs. And Gwennie look-up into Grandma’s face and tell her no, she couldn’t find any, Precious probably eat them, for him was coming out from under the house licking his lips at the same time she was going under.

Grandma did tie up the poor dog to the gutter post and send Gwennie to cut a piece of guava-switch. And after Grandma whip the dog, she give him a poisoned egg, put him to rest. And Gwennie watch as the poor dog sniff the egg, then look at Grandma confused, for it know better than to eat her eggs, or to even go near them. But Precious did open his mouth and nonetheless swallow it down, for after all, a dog is a dog.

But she was young. She used to pray to God several times over asking His forgiveness. She used to hope Precious’ soul would go up to heaven. But that was a long time ago. God have to forgive her by now. Maybe it was a sign because of the common life she living with Clive. It have to be. What else could be causing God to punish her like this, to want to keep her children away from her. And so when Gwennie let in herself and Clive inside the house, she sat down opposite him in a high back chair instead of next to him on the brown-all-around settee.

And when Clive say to her, after sitting down lonely for about fifteen minutes, ‘Gwennie, how come you sitting so far away. I don’t bite, you know.’

Gwennie tell him no, she was comfortable right there in this high-back chair, in a tone chillier than early morning breeze.

Clive never say another word.

Then them doze off, Clive’s head rolling from side to side on the settee, mouth slightly ajar, while Gwennie dreamt about fire and brimstone and eternal furnaces. And so when the phone ring, the first thing Gwennie said was, ‘Clive, open the door, so that whomever will, can come in.’

But Clive say to her, ‘Gwennie, don’t chat nonsense, is the telephone, go and answer it.’

Gwennie jump up same time, nearly tripping over herself in her haste to pick up the phone all the way out in the kitchen.

First it was the operator wanting to know if Gwennie will accept the charges, and then it was Rudi, his voice clear like fresh water, and sweet like church hymn when Miss Morgan play it on the pipe organ. And her heart stop same time and start again. Her eyes roll over and brighten, and she shudder, same way she shudder when she turn the shower on her nakedness each morning.

‘Rudi, is you this? Look down, dear Father! You mean is you, in truth. Lord, look at me dying trial! You talking to me from Bradley. You come, all four of you. And Walter didn’t even prevent you? Thank you, Jesus. I coming right away.’ She hang up the phone.

And she didn’t need to hear any of Clive’s Calypso tunes on the Eight Track cassette in the car. No, her head was playing its own steel band and her heart had its own tune and her fingers and toes found them own rhythm.

When she and Clive push against the revolving door and it let them into the airport, it was the material she recognize first thing. It was a floral print she’d buy in the market that was made in Japan. She remember having to bargain long and plenty with the higgler in order to lower the price. Finally after much going and coming, the higgler suck in her teeth, pull down her mouth corners and give Gwennie the six yards of cloth for twenty-five dollars. Gwennie did make a skirt for herself, one full-length dress for Del and the remainder she send down to Grandma.

And as Gwennie walk over to Del, the steel band moving down into her belly, she notice how Del fill out the dress now. She was no more than stick own self then, her collar bone used to jut out in the wide V-neck and Gwennie had to take in wide darts at the chest, for Del wasn’t even busting yet. Now the darts let out, and her curves and weightiness fill out the frock like any big woman. And it was like a dream, everything moving slow, she just a few feet from Del, Clive behind her, and Del just seeing her for the first time. Del’s eyes darken then brighten and her mouth round up to form the word Mom, and her hands that were on her lap fold up, reach over to Dave on her left and Rudi over to her right with Rosa on his lap curl up asleep. And then Rudi and Dave’s eyes darken and brighten. Then them get up, all of them, and move towards her, Rosa still asleep on Rudi’s shoulder.

And Gwennie hug them, Del first. And the smell of Grandma’s wood fire smoke in Del’s hair cause the eye water to slap Gwennie’s two cheeks, but then the Craven A cigarette smoke on Dave’s breath as his cheeks rub against hers—Dave who look just the same, same colouring as she Gwennie, but who walk and sound and look just like Walter—slow down the steel band and dry up the eye water for one whole second. But then them start come down again, full force now, like rain in July and August months, as she hug Rudi and Rosa all in one. And in all her bliss, she never even notice the emptiness that cover over her children’s face as them eyes brush Clive up and down. But Clive noticed.

And Gwennie’s questions couldn’t wait till the next day, no, she wanted to hear about the flight, them health, Peppy and Jeff, schooling, Grandma and Grandpa, the people who used to live behind Grandpa’s cane field, and little Everton, if him grow into big man now—for when she left, him was not more than a little baby—and if the lady that used to play the pump organ, Miss Imo, still at church or if she dead by now, and the teachers back at Cobbler Primary, if Miss Hatfield marry yet, or Miss Martha have any more children. Gwennie was careful not to ask about Walter and all her furniture that was still in his house; the book case with the set of encyclopedia she save and buy, the set of twin beds in the children’s room that she’d borrow money to buy. Them things she just wanted to cover up for the time being.

And Del was quiet from where she sit down in the back seat of Clive’s Buick, sandwich between Rudi and Dave. She never have much to say as usual. Yes, she’d fill out her frock with curves and weightiness, but she was quiet same way, not quiet-silent, but according to Grandma, ‘a quietness so loud, it could deafen you’. Yes, Gwennie was going have to work on Delores. In truth, Delores was never her right hand, it was more Rudi. Him alone would do everything.

And Grandma used to warn her, ‘Gwennie, make them equally your right hand for them close in age, and jealousy’s not a good thing. It can breed contempt so sour, it sit down and fester like sore and when it burst open, not even the fact that blood thicker than water going to save you or them.’ But Gwennie wasn’t thinking about those things back then.

From the back where him sit down, knee caps straining through his trousers and his feet hook up crooked against one another, for there wasn’t enough room in the back to allow him to stretch out, Dave did have plenty to say about America with all the observations him make so far tonight since his feet touch New York. Yes, him got a chance to peek inside the New York Times, and was quite glad to see that Mr Nixon was trying his best to restore democracy to the war-ridden people of Vietnam.

And yes, he got a chance to walk about a bit in New York, and it seems as if Connecticut is not as busy and of course as important as New York and if Gwennie think she would move to New York anytime soon, for him understand that the West Indian population in New York is quite large, even though the better schools, according to what him understand, are in Boston. And yes, him been hearing lots and lots about the racial climate in America, and was wondering if Gwennie experience any of it yet, for even though his arrival is quite brief, him already observe that only dark people seem to be doing janitorial services at the airport.

But regardless of all that, him is quite pleased to acknowledge that him won’t be tying out Grandpa’s cows anymore and as a result become infected with ticks, and yes, it will be the end to that going-under-house business to pick up eggs and to be chased by those damn peely chickens and yes, that church-going business day in and day out that him had to put up with so much down at Grandma’s will finally come to a full stop once and for all.

And Rudi, well, him never seem to know quite what to say. Between his mother’s plenty questions, and Dave observations and speculations that him hope would hurry up and come to an end, him just relax with Rosa in his lap wide awake now, eye water stains on her face. For from the minute her eyes open and them behold Del and Dave, Rosa start to stiffen up. Yes, them travelled on the plane together, and yes, she recognize them from her frequent trips down to Grandma with Rudi, but that didn’t mean she like them, really. But when she see Gwennie and Clive, faces she didn’t recognize a tall, for Gwennie left when she was only two, she start to hold on even tighter to Rudi.

And no, Gwennie shouldn’t have allowed her feelings to show on her face when she reach out to Rosa and the little girl pull in and cling on to Rudi, whimpering dad-dy, eye water running down her face. Maybe Gwennie should’ve just shrugged it off and try again with Rosa tomorrow after she get a little rest and was feeling more relaxed. But not so with Gwennie. It was like a splinter to her finger-quick.

And Clive, his back stiff and straight, just silently transport Gwennie and her children through traffic and across town. On the way to Evelyn Street, no one directed neither question nor comment to him. One or two times Gwennie try to include him in the conversation, but him never have much to contribute. When them reach, him take out the baggages and drop them off in the respective rooms. Him didn’t tell Gwennie him was leaving, but him never drive off right away. And Gwennie was so busy with her children, trying to make friends with them all over again, trying to make them comfortable, trying to welcome them, she didn’t get a chance to tell him thanks or even to listen to whether or not Clive drive off.

III

Stirring didn’t start-up in Gwennie’s house till early afternoon the following day. After everybody settle in and eat and chat the Friday night and she finally turn off lights, fasten the night latch on the front door and bolt the back one, she never shut her eyes till about five the morning.

It pleased her heart in truth to see the children sitting around together, eating and laughing. No, it wasn’t all of them, but that was soon to come. And no, it wasn’t around the long, oval, mahogany dining table with the six matching straight-back chairs with candles lit-up all around, but that too was soon to come. They sat down around the small enamel table with barely enough chairs. She’d have to borrow a few stools from Clive. Rosa was asleep on her bed in Delores’ room, and Gwennie was using for the first time, the brand new china Samuel and Dorothy gave to her. And even when Delores spill gravy on the new white tablecloth and Dave carelessly drop one of the plates and break it, as him reach across the table for his fifth helping of food, Gwennie was just too content to make things bother her.

Delores remain quiet throughout the entire meal, but Gwennie didn’t care, it was enough to just look in Delores’ face and brighten with pride to see how she ripen into womanhood. And Dave, Gwennie had to shake her head, for every time him open his mouth to speak, she hear Walter’s voice. But not even that was going to interfere with her happiness. When dinner was over and Dave push back his chair and light up a cigarette, with the argument that him understand that children in America can do anything them please, them not as backward and country-like as those back home, Gwennie didn’t even quarrel with him and ask him to please put it out.

But after him take the last several puffs, she let him know that as long as him living under her roof, him will please not smoke in her house, for him couldn’t damn well smoke inside Grandma’s kitchen, so she can’t understand why so soon him ready to come and take advantage of her. But even them things didn’t bother her, for life was too just too sweet for clouds to come and cover it over.

But after Gwennie lay down in her bed the Saturday, her mind rerunning all that happen the day before, she couldn’t help but feel an aching somewhere deep inside. And she know the feeling in her belly didn’t have anything to do with Rosa for she’d already patch up things with her. For after she hear Rosa hollering out in her sleep in the early morning hours, she dragged herself out of bed and brought Rosa back with her.

And when Gwennie’s hazel eyes meet with Rosa’s light brown ones, the hollering ceased. But then it start up again and Gwennie had to pull out the bag of clothes she picked up at J. J. Newbury’s and show Rosa the skirts, full-length ones for church and shorter ones for school, short sleeves summer blouses and boxes and boxes of toys. But nothing a tall could pacify Rosa. It wasn’t until Gwennie pull out the bag with the shoes, that Rosa’s eyes start to pick up interest. In no time she was fast asleep again, but not before she find out from Gwennie if all the frocks and games belong to her in truth.

But the person that cause Gwennie the most grief was Rudi. No, him wasn’t the full-face little boy with knock-knees she’d left back home, he’d lengthen out into a big man now. For when she saw him at the airport: face cool and smooth, eyebrows fluff-up and neat, hair cut close to his head with not a strand out of place, and the moustache just like a line on the top of his lip, she just wanted to shield him from Clive. From out the corner of her eyes, she could see the look that shadow Clive’s face then pass, but not without little of the hardness still remaining in his eyes.

And it wasn’t anything that Rudi said or did, it was just the way him carry himself: clothes neat and close-fitting, colours blending in so well causing both she and Delores to look like butu compared to him. Not to mention Dave, who look just like an old cruff. But she could see the word imprint on Clive’s brain as the little knob in his throat bob up and down: batty-man.

‘Them is an abomination before God and man,’ Clive used to say to her, face cover over with scorn as him point out the young fellows in the mall down town. ‘Look, look at that one, Gwennie!’ And her eyes would follow his fingers to see a nice looking chap, in tight faded jeans walking briskly towards them, earring in one ear, hips swaying delicately; other times towards a group of them sitting down on the bench in the mall that surround the fountain, legs fold up as them chat and laugh, voices high-pitched, hands laden with jewellery of all sorts as them pose and posture to one another. Sometimes a pair of them walk past, fingers almost touching.

And as Gwennie is a woman who don’t love jump to conclusion and pass judgement, for who she to judge, to cast the first stone, she who sin herself, she used to say to Clive, ‘But I don’t see anything wrong with them? Granted them loud and raucous with faces as pretty as money, but . . .’ For in truth, them was regular-looking, even though something about them would always bring to mind visions of Percy, but she couldn’t quite put her fingers on it. ‘Some of them look a little effeminate,’ she would tell Clive, ‘but that don’t mean anything for I know a few ministers at church back home who used to look and even go on like these fellows. Some even married . . .’

As she continue on telling Clive, her mind run on the men she knew back home who people called batty-men, but she didn’t pay much attention to the name calling, for usually they were big and respectable people in the community. She’d even hear that her very own Teacher Brown was that way, that him live in the big white house on the hill with a fellow from Vere. The older gentleman that run the festival each year, Robeson, she hear was that way too, and the young man at the post office . . .

‘Them not always effeminate,’ Clive break into her thinking, trying to explain, distaste written all over his face, ‘sometimes them manly like me, big shoulders and everything, but if you look in them face you can tell . . . it’s just soft and tender like a woman’s . . .’

So when her eyes bless Rudi for the first time at the airport, and after him put down Rosa and started coming towards her, she wished she’d ask Samuel and Dorothy to accompany her instead, for them more tolerant about these things. She remember the evening when she and Clive were over at Samuel’s house watching the documentary on homosexuals, and how Clive had to take it upon himself to let his feelings be known about the matter.

And even when Samuel claimed that him live in America too long and life was way too short to allow anything to bother him except water pollution and nuclear war, Clive was still disgruntled. But Dorothy did shut him up good and proper when she tell him that she used to dabble-dabble in it before she got married and was even still on good terms with the woman.

‘But that’s different you see,’ Clive explain to her. ‘For you married now and was only going through phases then.’ But Dorothy let him know, after Samuel leave the room, that if she was ever to leave Samuel she would probably go back to Dawn for that was one of the most balanced relationships she’d ever have. Clive never have much else to say after, except that him can’t decipher what it is exactly that the women do. And as Gwennie know that Dorothy is a woman who wasn’t bashful to explain things in great detail, no matter who the company, she cry excuse from the conversation and left the room.

She couldn’t understand why her feelings towards the subject was seeming to lean towards Dorothy and Samuel’s argument. But maybe it was because of the hatred and comtempt she hear so much in Clive’s voice that cause her to adopt another view of the matter altogether.

Laying down in her bed the Saturday morning, Rosa fast asleep next to her, the remainder of household just beginning to stir, Gwennie decide she will just have to bring Rudi down to the church and make him meet some of the people down there. Them have young people’s groups and choir and prayer meetings, she would have to make sure him join them and keep himself busy, for it was too easy to fall into sin and bad ways and the devil always have work for idle hands. That one she would have to nip in the bud right-a-way before it grow and fester. Not that she was any strong church-goer herself, but with all the violence she see and hear about, she realize only the Lord alone can be her protector, not husband, not friend, not gun, not dog.

And as Gwennie prepare lunch the Saturday afternoon, it strike her again, as it strike her times and times again, the way life was funny. For maybe if she’d stay with Walter and look after her children, maybe Dave wouldn’t take up smoking and hatred of church, maybe Rosa and Delores wouldn’t be so distant, and maybe Rudi wouldn’t be so different. No, but she didn’t want to think about it, for it wasn’t fair. She didn’t leave them for selfish reasons. Everything she did was for them betterment, so seeds fall along the wayside, she guess, but she was going to fix that, she along with the covenant of God.

Saturday evening Samuel cook as usual, for Dorothy don’t like the fireside much, and invite them over. Sunday morning bright and early, Gwennie parade them off to the little Baptist church not far from her house. After church, she introduce them to all and sundry. The Goodisons that live further down on Evelyn Street and who own the laundry mat chain, the Tomblins whose daughter teach in the same elementary school she plan to send Rosa, the Whiteheads whose son Gerald was in the choir.

She was feeling a little let down when Rudi tell her him not in the choir anymore, but she was going to change that. She bring him up to the director of the church choir, Mr Cruise, to let him know that not only did her son have a lovely singing voice, but him couldn’t wait to audition.

And as if Sunday morning wasn’t enough, after dinner and a fresh change of clothes, she bring them to Young People’s meeting Sunday evening after much grumbling and cursing from Dave, who claim him was almost certain this blasted church-going business was over with. But Gwennie was already determined that no one was going to remain in the house after she lock and bolt the door behind her. At Young People’s meeting, she have Rudi, Delores and Dave sign up for Bible Study, Tuesday and Thursday evenings, eight to nine-thirty, and Rudi for the choir and Rosa for Sunday school.

The remainder of week, she register Rosa and Dave in school, bring the other children downtown to show them around, and so by Monday morning when she started off to work at the hospital, Rosa started off at Eliot’s elementary, Dave was waiting to hear from the Youth Program up in Springfield, and Rudi and Delores knew where to find the grocery store in order to buy the newspaper and scour it for work.

IV

As the spring months began to get warmer, and the snow wasn’t as plentiful, and the trees were starting to look green again, and Rosa started to make friends at school, according to the report from her first grade teacher, and Delores and Rudi found work, and Dave was calling home every weekend complaining about the food and his two roommates, Rudi and Gwennie were starting to fall out. Delores was well into the church now. She’d been going for four months straight, never yet missing one meeting or late for any. But it was a totally different story with Rudi.

Him went the first two weeks, then never again. Him didn’t even turn the black of his eyes to look at Mr Cruise’s phone number, who call and leave messages just about every day begging him to come, the new voice is desperately needed. Sunday mornings when everybody else get up and start to fix-up for church, not so with Rudi, him was just ready to pull up the comforter over his head, stretch out his two feet, and settle back into sleep.

One Saturday night about nine-thirty as she hear him starting to get ready to go out, she make her way over to his room and seat herself on his bed. She wasn’t quite sure how to begin, for them almost like strangers these days. She’d ask Clive if him could please talk to Rudi, but that only made matters worse. Rudi told Clive plain and simple to please stop interfering and trying to run his life, for Clive not his father. Sunday mornings Gwennie curse and quarrel, but it didn’t matter. Rudi refuse to pay her a drop of mind. She didn’t quite know exactly what to say to him as she watch him in the doorway of his closet, pondering his attire for tonight’s party.

‘You hear from Peppy, lately?’ She decide to start off with a bit of pleasantry.

Rudi didn’t turn around. Him barely grind out a ‘no’. Gwennie wasn’t sure if him hear or not.

‘I get a letter from Aunty Cora,’ Gwennie tell him. ‘She say the eye operation didn’t last long a tall, that the eyes worse than ever now.’ Gwennie stop, waiting for a response. She continue on. ‘She say Peppy helping her out plenty, though. But she don’t like the company Peppy hanging around with these days.’ Gwennie pause again and shift round restless on the bed. Rudi pick out a pair of trousers and match them against two shirts.

‘She say her son Buddy from England came out and caused quite a stir in her life, rise-up her blood pressure and almost cause her relapse. She say him ask to see the will. And when him see that him only get the church and few heads of cow, while Peppy get the house, Leslie the shop and few acres of land, George and Miss Gertie get land too and a cow each, him started to go on real bad, demanding that she change the will right away. I don’t know what she ended up doing, but Mama will soon write.’ Gwennie stop to catch her breath.

‘So where you going, tonight?’ Her voice did have a calm and softness she didn’t quite feel inside her belly. She could hear the hangers clinching against the steel railing in the closet, as Rudi pick through the row of clothes hang up, and the tap inside the bathroom dripping. She’s been asking him going on two weeks now to pick up a washer at the lumber place, but it seems as if she might have to do it herself, for Rudi wasn’t showing any interest in the running of the house.

‘Party,’ him sigh out loud.

‘Where?’

‘Downtown. Friend’s house.’

‘Which friend?’

Rudi turn around to look at her for the first time, forehead crease-up, eyes narrow. ‘What you mean which friend?’ His voice was sharp.

‘Church friend, work friend, friend friend?’ Gwennie’s voice rose to the occasion.

‘Work friend.’ Rudi back off.

‘So when you think you will come in? I was hoping all of us could go to church tomorrow and . . .’

‘Church, church, church,’ Rudi fling down the shirt in his hand and slam the closet door. ‘That’s all I hear in this damn house, day in and day out. ‘Mama, when you plan to stop nag-nag me about church.’

‘Please don’t raise your voice to me, sir. Me and you not the same size. Tomorrow I want the whole house to go to church. I don’t know where you and Dave get this nasty habit from. The man call here every day about the choir. But you’re not interested in God, you’re interested in party and friends. You don’t even invite Delores. You don’t tell anybody about your friends, you don’t invite them over or anything. You just come to America, you don’t know what America gives, but every night you pick up your tail and go to party. Your Bible sitting down in the kitchen catching dust.’

By this time Rudi did have on his clothes and was combing his hair. Him rush inside the bathroom and haul on his trousers. Gwennie was inside the room same way when he came out ready to put on his shoes.

‘I won’t tell you that you can’t go out,’ Gwennie tell him as him pick up his keys ready to leave, ‘but we leaving here tomorrow morning eight o’ clock, sharp.’ She brush pass him out the room, her breath coming out light and fast. She didn’t know the day would come when she and Rudi would come to this.

V

Gwennie heard the phone ringing early the Sunday morning, but she was too tired to reach over and pick it up. Seven o’ clock Sunday morning when she wake up and start to prepare breakfast, she still didn’t hear any stirring coming from out Rudi’s room, but she was determined not to wake him. Twenty minutes to eight, she and Rosa and Delores eat breakfast in silence for she wasn’t going to ask any questions, and Delores, who was half asleep when she pick up the phone and wasn’t really sure if she’d talk to him or not, didn’t remember to tell Gwennie that Rudi called to say him wasn’t coming home that night.

Eight-fifteen when them pick up the bus at the foot of Evelyn Street, Gwennie sigh throughout the entire twenty-five minutes bus ride. Several times Rosa have to stop and ask her, ‘Mama, what’s the matter?’ But Gwennie just shake her head, lips clamp shut. The letter she receive from Grandma not too long ago was still dancing around in her head, for Grandma tell her, even though Rudi might not give her much headache, she know Gwennie must be meeting hell with Delores and Dave.

‘The children growing up,’ Grandma write, ‘them don’t take telling as easy. When me and your papa talk to Dave, him turn his back and kiss his teeth. Delores, she, just shrug and go on about her business. The only reason I don’t tear them behind is cause the arthritis gone up inside the hands, can’t grab them and drive that switch crossway them backside like first time. So, you have to watch out. Them children will give you a damn warm time.’ So say, so done.

Gwennie couldn’t concentrate on one word Reverent Simms utter that Sunday morning, her mind was elsewhere. When time comes to sing hymns, her lips could only form over the words, her heart wasn’t there. When service was over, she didn’t gather around and chat as usual, she leave Rosa with Delores and she alone catch the twelve o’ clock bus for home. She didn’t know what she was going to say to Rudi, but someway, somehow those children will have to understand that she is the one running the show. She didn’t have husband to do it, therefore when she talk, she mean business.

VI

Gwennie didn’t stop the bus at Evelyn Street, she continue on. For to tell the truth, she couldn’t face the house, she couldn’t face Rudi, and she just needed to air her mind a bit. She not too long send off a letter to Peppy and one to Aunty Cora. She didn’t have any problems writing to Aunty Cora, but the one to Peppy wasn’t easy.

She start the letter one night as she lay down in bed restless, and by the time she was finished, she’d have several sheets of paper rolled up and crushed on the floor. She finally send off the letter ten days later, but with her heart heavy, for she wasn’t at ease. She could imagine Peppy’s face, after she get the letter. She wouldn’t jump up and down like a normal child when she see the ten dollar bill fold-up, no, she would probably just turn it over in her hand, to make sure it wasn’t counterfeit, then put it back inside the envelope longside with the letter she’d probably read three or four times looking for message Gwennie didn’t put in there.

Gwennie sigh to herself, maybe she not to think these things, for after all she didn’t even know the little girl. When she left back home, Peppy wasn’t more than seven going on eight, but ripe nevertheless, face round and her grin spread out just like Luther’s. What little news she hear about her, come from either Rudi or Aunty Cora. She know Peppy’s the apple of Aunty Cora’s two eyes, for when Aunty Cora start to talk about her, Peppy don’t hear, don’t talk, don’t see evil. She get good marks in school and was inquisitive. Even Rudi was taken with her, too. When him just come, the first month or two, every week him dispatch off a new letter to her, and in almost every conversation she and Rudi have, the little round face girl was always mentioned. No doubt, Peppy’s the apple of his eyes, too.

Him don’t even spend much time with Delores. Him don’t talk to Dave a tall. Him even tell Gwennie him and Dave don’t have anything in common. Dave was too damn slacky-tidy and nasty. And Delores, she don’t even know. Sometime she hear the two of them inside the room talking good-good and then all of a sudden voices start to rise, like heat simmering off hot piazza after a long rainfall. Then she would hear Rudi give out, ‘But Delores, it was only a movie, you know. Why you have to include God inside everything, so?’ And Delores would raise her voice to meet his and to let him know that God was everywhere, was inside everything, even inside the head of the man who write the script.

And Rudi whose face would be already puckered, and whose lips would be slanted to one side, same way the moustache, would suddenly storm out the room muttering, ‘. . . Blasted church brainwash you, you can’t even think straight, can’t even hold a blasted argument.’ And as Delores is a woman who love to hold grudge and malice after any disagreement in opinion or argument, seven going on eight days would pass before she even stretch out her face to grin.

One summer day Gwennie beg Delores to please accompany Rosa to a function at the Youth Camp, since she had to work late the evening. ‘Why Rudi can’t bring her, ma’am. I have plenty things to do down at the church tonight.’ And as Gwennie was starting to notice the blue VW that was always parked up outside the gate half hour going on forty minutes with Delores inside, she was starting to wonder what was really going on down at the church. For Delores just keep on explaining to her how the fellow driving the car was just a church friend, nothing else. And so when it seemed as if Delores didn’t have any intention of bringing Rosa to the function, Gwennie had to raise her voice.

And the evening she stood up inside the doorway of Delores’ bedroom and tell her, ‘Missus, is one bull in this pen, and that is me. I don’t care how big you be, I am still the bull. So you please bring Rosa down there and don’t let me have to open me mouth about it again.’

And Delores bloat up and sour up herself like any spoiled breadfruit, ready to burst forth any day now, and the evening she brought Rosa to the function, but she didn’t say another word to Gwennie going on weeks. So when it wasn’t Rudi, Delores have up inside her crop, it was Gwennie. Rudi say him can’t bother with her a tall, she’s too sometimish. Him just dying for Peppy to come.

The bus was starting to empty as it approach the terminal. Only a handful of people remain. Gwennie get off one stop before the terminal and wait at the bus stop with about five other people for the Hartway bus that would drop her off at Samuel’s house. She never have long to wait.

Samuel was just rolling out of bed when Gwennie ring the door bell, and it wasn’t till the third ring that Samuel open up the door. Him was still in his robe, with Dorothy’s bed slippers to match, heels hanging over the back.

‘But look at me dying trial! Gwennie Glaspole, you know I just finished calling your house to invite you and the children to dinner. I pick up some lovely pieces of oxtail yesterday down at the Farmer’s Market. And I seasoned it up well last night so we can have it today.’

‘Rudi answer the phone?’ Gwennie ask him as she step inside the house.

‘No. No one was home.’

‘Rudi wasn’t home?’

Samuel look at her, a grin forming around his mouth corner. ‘Him didn’t come home last night?’

‘Why? Why you ask that?’

‘The expression on your face. What’s wrong, now? You and the children cutting one another’s throats.’

Gwennie follow Samuel into the kitchen. ‘Where Dor? Still asleep?’

‘No. At work.’

‘Today, Sunday!’

‘Gwennie, money still has to be made.’ Samuel pull out a chair give Gwennie and pour out a tall glass of juice for her and one for himself. ‘Hungry?’

Gwennie shake her head.

Samuel pull up on chair next to her own, take a long drink of the juice, set the glass back down on the table, belch long and deep, ask pardon, and turn to Gwennie. ‘Rudi never sleep home last night?’

‘It seems that way.’

‘Him find a young lady.’ Samuel’s eye corners wrinkle as him try and hide the grin that wanted to cover over his face that look so much like Gwennie’s; same cocoa-butter complexion and hazel eyes and light brown hair and round face.

‘I don’t know what him find out the street. But whatever it is, it must be sweeter than church. For him show no interest a tall in going.’ Gwennie stop, she know Samuel wasn’t the person to talk to about church, for him only go one or two times a year. ‘Every night him out.’

‘Gwennie, nothing the problem if the boy find a woman.’

Gwennie kiss her teeth. ‘I’m not so sure it is a woman, sir. A fellow keep on calling the house asking for him, so I don’t know.’

Samuel take another long drink of the juice and then get up to replenish his glass. Gwennie’s own still wasn’t touched. Samuel sit back down. ‘Gwennie, you can’t jump to conclusion.’

‘I not jumping to a thing. I just telling you who call and don’t call at the house for him.’

Plenty time roll pass. Gwennie sip the drink and Samuel finish off his own. Gwennie sigh and Samuel shift around in his chair. Gwennie’s eyes brush over the pictures Dorothy have on the walls from her photography class. Some were close-up shots of things you see every day: chair leg, somebody’s head back, the base of a kitchen pipe, but by the looks of them now you could never tell.

‘Then the two of you talk about it, Gwennie?’ Samuel’s face was tired. Black stubbles swarm his cheeks like sugar ants on sweetened condensed milk.

Gwennie shake her head. ‘Him there vex, now. Say him tired to hear the word church mention.’

Samuel got up and reach inside the fridge for the pan with the seasoned oxtails. The smell of onion and garlic and black pepper and ginger root and thyme and scallion fill the room. ‘Well, Gwennie, I don’t know what to tell you,’ Samuel say to her, ‘you and him will have to work it out, come to some kind of compromise. You going to have to give a little, take a little. But don’t forget Rudi is a big man. Him almost twenty-one. Which means him going to want to lead his own life, come and go as him please without much interference. His plans for life may not follow the same route you have mapped out for him, but you going to have to give him room.’

Samuel turn on the fire under the big aluminium Dutch pot and pour in the oil. ‘If him don’t want Jesus and church, you can’t force him, try and try as you might. Mama and Papa wanted me to become a minister, but those weren’t my plans. Till this day, me and Mama can’t look in one another’s eyes straight. Papa not too bad, but Mama still have me up somewhere inside her belly. Don’t chase away Rudi.’ Samuel pour out the entire dish of oxtails inside the Dutch pot, and the frying was so loud, not a word mention again for a while.

‘But them have to listen,’ Gwennie tell him after the noise die down.

‘Yes, but careful. Don’t chase him away.’

Gwennie didn’t say anything else. She pick up her handbag with her Bible and hymn book from off the long oval oak table with the six matching straight back chairs and tell Samuel she heading out.

‘You need a ride?’

‘No, don’t bother,’ Gwennie tell him. ‘It’s nice and warm and sunny outside with just the slightest little breeze blowing out hot air. I love to feel it on me face. I just want to get out the house a little and to clear me head. You go on and enjoy your oxtail.’

And with that song Gwennie left. Samuel watch as she step through the door, turn left out the gate and make her way down the street. But Gwennie wasn’t on her way home. She stop off at the telephone booth not far from Samuel’s house, and call Clive to tell him she coming over. And Clive’s response was just dead, no little emotion or anything a tall in his voice. After hanging up the phone, Gwennie wasn’t sure if she was doing the right thing. She have a feeling Clive wasn’t going to be easy to get on with.

Him never kiss her cheeks at the door as usual, nor did his face light up as if glad to see her. His eyes were sombre, they weren’t dancing around. Seems as if the candle inside his heart blow-out for her. Clive’s apartment was on the second floor of a big three-family house. It was spacious and bright, windows open wide and shades pull up, to let in freshness. The stereo in the living room was blasting Calypso tunes. It’s been almost two months now since them last see one another.

Whenever him call to make plans, almost like a bad luck, she always busy. And since the children don’t show him much respect, him don’t come around as often. Only him and Rosa get on well, sometimes through the mail, him send her colouring books, crayon, dolly or jacks set, children’s records and tapes. Plenty times when she want to use the phone, Rosa’s on it with her friend Clive, as she call him. Him and Delores polite with one another, but him and Rudi can’t bear to be in the same room. Up till now him still don’t tell Gwennie why. And she don’t ask.

‘I’m outside on the patio drinking a cold beer,’ him tell Gwennie. ‘Want one?’

She nod.

Outside on the patio, she kick off her black shoes and stretch out her toes with the pink nail polish peeling off. It was cooler up this area than over at Samuel’s. She sprawl out herself on Clive’s open-back chair.

‘Didn’t think you’d ever want to see me again, since your children arrive,’ Clive say to her, as him hand her the glass of beer and sprawl off himself next to her on his own open-back chair. Him wasn’t wearing a shirt and Gwennie could see all his scars from childhood that grow with him.

Gwennie kiss her teeth. ‘How you mean? You know that’s not true a tall-tall. I just busy.’

‘Only Rosa alone call. Everytime I try to make plans, you cancel. Say you’re busy or you’re tired. I thought that with all your children around now to help, you would have more free time.’

‘Yes, you’re right. But here I am now. I come to visit.’ She didn’t want him to get on the subject of how him think Rudi wasn’t helpful enough as a big son should, and how this couldn’t be the Rudi she use to talk about so much. She turn sideways to look at Clive. ‘I wanted to get away from the children and the house a little and just relax meself.’

‘So I am the escape route.’ His voice was scornful. ‘I guess I should be thankful that at least I still serve a function.’

‘Clive,’ Gwennie put out her hand to touch him.

Him pull away. ‘No, don’t stop me, I talking the truth, and you know it. I try with you and your children, I put in plenty hours, Gwennie. But I’m not happy. I’m not satisfied. I don’t feel good. You say you’re interested, but I don’t think so.’ Clive turn around to face her. ‘I don’t think you care about my feelings a whole heap, Gwennie. I don’t think so a tall.’

And to tell the truth this wasn’t the way Gwennie wanted to spend her Sunday evening. She wasn’t sure what brought her over there, but maybe somewhere deep inside she just wanted to put a full stop to things with she and Clive once and for all. And no, it wasn’t that she not interested in him, for she like him plenty, but Clive ready to marry and turn father to Rosa, and she didn’t have married life on her syllabus. Maybe if she was more in love with him. Love. Gwennie stop and smile to herself. The word sound foreign to her. It’s been so long. She was in love with Walter at the very beginning she think, but not since. Maybe for the short while that she knew Luther. But she wasn’t sure.

Gwennie reach over and squeeze Clive’s hands in her own. They were warm and sweaty. She was afraid to look in his face, something tell her his eye water was just waiting to bubble over. ‘Is not that I don’t care, Clive,’ she tell him, her voice soft and calm. ‘But me and you don’t want the same things. You ready for marriage, but I don’t want another man in my life right now.’

And him start the hollering. Not a sound at first, except for one or two short snorts, but his belly was shaking the whole time. And all of a sudden she started to feel sorry. Sorry for the grief she was causing him, sorry if she’d lead him on, sorry that she couldn’t reciprocate the loving. For something tell her him would make a warm and caring husband, an attentive father, a good friend, but she was too afraid to try again. And what’s the point of trying if her heart wasn’t in it. And as she continue think these things, Gwennie feel her own eye water starting to bubble up behind the lids. She pull Clive to her close and hug him, stiffling her tears on his breast.

And after them cry and talk some more, him ask her to spend the night, but she tell him no, she have to get up early tomorrow. Finally him drive her home in silence, and drive off the minute she let herself in. Rosa was fast asleep on her bed when she turn on the bedroom light and Delores was inside her room reading yet another Mills & Boon. No light was on inside Rudi’s room, but his stereo was playing softly. She didn’t even bother to put down her bag and change her clothes and shoes, she step right inside his room, pausing just a little bit outside the door.

She could only make out the white pajama pants and the white of his eyes in the darkness. Standing inside the doorway, she switch on the light to her right. She watch as him shield his face from the glare. She clean her throat. ‘I don’t make many rules inside the house,’ she start off, ‘but if you plan to sleep out, call. Say something. Because you have me here worrying-up meself half to death. Don’t know if something happen to you out the street, if car run you over, people shoot you dead, nothing.’

Rudi never say anything and Gwennie continue on. ‘Next thing,’ and she sigh long and hard before she say it, then she race it out as if she have plenty more important things to get on to. ‘You don’t have to go to church every Sunday, but I expect you to show your face now and again. Goodnight.’ And she switch off the light, pull the door behind her, say her prayers and roll into her bed. She wasn’t sure what brought her to that conclusion, but she wasn’t in the mood to fight with him or chase him away.

By Monday morning, she and Rudi were back to normal again. Him wake up early make breakfast and pack her a sandwich and a piece of cake from Delores’ Sunday baking. Wednesday and Thursday evening, him come home early and sit down inside the kitchen chat and laugh with her while she cook dinner, and later on, him help to put on buttons on the dress she was making on the little Singer sewing machine she pick up on sale.

Sunday morning, him get up early make breakfast and the whole family attended church together. Him never go the week after that or even the one after that, but him did go the following week. And although she wouldn’t allow herself to see too much of Clive, she still miss him, but not as much, for she did have her children back together, all differences cleared up. And since a girl was starting to call the house for Rudi and did even come to pick him up one or two Saturday nights, things were alright now. Well, at least for the time being.