On the fifteenth day the wind died and Leila saw land; the high and irregular cliffs of England through the cold grey mist of the English channel. She clasped together the collar of her light cotton dress and shivered. Overhead a thin fleet of clouds cast a bleak shadow across the deck, and the sluggish water swelled gently, then slackened. Leila stood at the front of the ship with six or seven more. Nobody spoke. It was still early and they waited, as if trapped in a glass case, while the other voyagers were still getting up, or feeling sick, or sleeping.
The thin white strip of cliff grew vertically as an hour passed and the ship edged its way towards land. Then the word spread and the group multiplied to a crowd and Leila felt herself being pushed.
She turned and walked away towards the rear of the ship, stepping over luggage and prostrate bodies as she did so. It was like a Saturday market on deck, for some had dashed up to see England, though still tired. As they could not be bothered to go back downstairs they simply lay down where they had stood, and they now dozed. The funnels above continued to cough smoke; Leila leaned over the railings and looked at the sea bursting into foam in the ship’s wake. She realized just how far they had come and felt thankful it would not be long now, even though her heart felt heavy and apprehensive, fearful that she had been reading too much hope into her mother’s letters. Unable to share her distress with anyone, she had therefore lived out this passage in more mental than physical discomfort, knowing the world she had left behind no longer held anything of interest for her save Millie and Bradeth. The world she was choosing to inhabit might hold even less if she could not share it fully with her mother. She straightened up and looked out at the sea. She began to hum idly, trying to drain her mind.
After a few minutes Leila felt cold so she left the deck and made her way down the narrow, dimly lit staircase. At the bottom of the steps she walked along the iron rectangle which was the corridor, and at the end of it she passed into the cabin which had been her home for the last two weeks. Michael lay asleep, as he had done for most of the journey, but now his face seemed to have lost its feverish pallor. He appeared to be dreaming peaceably, rather than hallucinating or fighting off illness, and his feet stared out brazenly from beneath the bottom of the grey blanket. Leila shut the door.
The noises in the cabin disturbed her, but it was only the dull rumble of the engine and the loose hum of the glass in the porthole. She covered Michael’s feet before reaching up to the top bunk and retrieving Calvin. Then she peeled back the thin straps from her shoulders and exposed an oversized nipple. Her son had to be fed; she did not know when she would get another chance. As she held him up to her breast she squatted slightly so she could look out of the porthole.
Calvin did not want any more milk. She patted her son on the back, encouraging him to belch. Michael woke up. He watched, as if he had never witnessed such behaviour, then he swung himself out of bed and stooped down beside her. He looked long and hard but said nothing. Leila did not ask him what he was thinking. She laid Calvin back on the top bunk and started to pack their things. Michael, who was dressed only in shorts and vest, stood up and unhooked his clothes from behind the door. The cabin was so small he barely needed to move to reach them. As they prepared themselves in silence Leila sighed.
Most of the journey had been spent nursing husband and son, continually fetching food from the kitchens, bringing Michael a small tin bowl in which to wash, assisting him in his frequent journeys to the toilet, washing Calvin’s clothes and then having to sit up on deck with the damp washing as the cold wind whipped through the ship. She was frightened to leave the washing in case anyone tried to walk off with the nappies; for two weeks it had been a full-time job. It was often late at night by the time both husband and son finally fell asleep, and it was only then that she had some time to herself.
Usually she would go back out on deck and think of her mother, whom she hoped would be well enough to meet them. But it was at this point that her thoughts became too painful and she tried to make her mind stop working. She would look around at the sad brown gazes of her fellow emigrants, men and women who lined up before her like the cast of some tragic opera. There was the old man who sat as if close to tears, his large jocular chin glued to the palm of his hand, his crooked elbow to his knee, his eyes staring out into the distance as if unable to reconcile the conflict of where he had come from with where he was going to. A little to his left lay slumped the woman with the wicker baskets, her hair scraped up on top of her head as if with the sharp edge of a trowel, her dress so short that it rode up over her swollen black frame every time she moved. When she laughed the flabby tops of her thighs were totally exposed and some still turned to look, though, by now thoroughly familiar with the scene, they merely wondered what it was she laughed at. And the drunk occupied the canvas chair. He never left it and he never smiled. The bristles on his face looked so hard that Leila imagined you would cut your hand if you were brave enough to go across and touch him. They were flecked, like guano in colour, and beside him lay the empty rum bottle that would soon, and mysteriously, be replaced by a full one. This deck looked like a slum street, the suitcases houses, and Leila would turn away and stare at the white spits of foam in the distance in order not to get too depressed.
It was nearly 12 now and she had finished packing. Their one suitcase lay on the bottom bunk. For some inexplicable reason there seemed to be more to get into the case than there had been when she and Millie had packed it two weeks earlier. It puzzled her. Calvin, now freshly changed and washed, lay gurgling to himself.
Then Michael came back. He had been up on deck with the rest of the passengers, their jackets, skirts, dresses, ties, all rippling in the stiff but friendly breeze.
‘You ready?’ he asked, all signs of his previous illness having vanished. Leila nodded and picked up Calvin as Michael reached for the suitcase.
‘People up there queuing to get off the boat already so we better take up a place.’
Michael left the room without looking backwards, but Leila stood for a moment and thought. She had grown attached to this coffin-like cabin, for it was a final reminder of home. She broke it, knowing that any weakness now could only be bad preparation for what might follow.
On deck Michael had already struck up conversation with a group of men, three of them in panama hats and double-breasted suits, the fourth in trilby and blazer and Oxford bags. As Leila listened their conversation became loud, fast, furious and exclusive.
‘Me? Know anything about England? Look man, I been reading about the place since I five.’
‘So what you been reading?’
‘Yes, man, what books you read? You read History of the English People by Winston Churchill?’
‘I read that one.’
‘Me an’ all.’
‘Yes, man, I sure everybody read it. It’s a standard.’
‘A classic.’
‘It’s a classic too but I wants to know if you does read it as yet.’
‘Twice.’
‘Twice what, my arse?’
‘Twice straight through but if it’s a text you looking for you should read Encyclopedia Britannica.’
‘Which volume?’
‘All of them.’
‘I read them.’
‘All of them?’
‘Sure, man.’
‘Me an’ all.’
‘So what it do tell you about England?’
‘Everything.’
‘And more.’
‘Much more.’
‘Industrial Revolution.’
‘It’s right. It’s a big thing in England, man. I can see you is a scholar for true.’
‘I tell you it’s a classic text as well. Churchill don’t be nobody’s fool, boy.’
‘So who lead it, then?’
‘What you mean who lead it? It’s not fucking Russian revolution we talking about.’
‘I know that, man, but I mean who is in charge of it.’
‘You hear him, you hear him! He wants to know who is in charge of the Industrial Revolution.’
‘Well, somebody must be in charge if it’s that big.’
‘You talking shit, boy.’
‘Why?’
‘Coz it’s shit talk.’
‘I think the king lead it.’
‘But it’s not the same thing.’
‘Anyway, if I does remember my history lessons right it’s a queen ruling then.’
‘So it’s queen who leading the revolution?’
‘If you like.’
‘So where you study history lessons, man?’
‘London University external student.’
‘Well, no wonder you know so much about it, then.’
‘Yes, man, no wonder. You must come half-English already.’
‘Me arse.’
Leila listened to them, but she watched the drama unfolding around her. The crew in their blue woollen hats were preparing to dock. On the decks of the smaller boats the owners took a break from their summer repairs. They stood up and watched as the emigrant ship slid smoothly past the beacons, the sea wall and the lighthouse. Then the ship’s engines were cut, almost as a mark of respect, and Leila watched as they took their place among the cranes and cargo. A colony of white faces stared up at them. The men finished their conversation.
‘Me, I don’t never see so many white people in my life.’
‘Well, I suppose they don’t ever see so many coloured people either.’
‘It’s true,’ said a wise man, ‘but we all the same flag, the same empire’.
For the first time in two weeks the ship shuddered to a halt.
Leila looked at England, but everything seemed bleak. She quickly realized she would have to learn a new word; overcast. There were no green mountains, there were no colourful women with baskets on their heads selling peanuts or bananas or mangoes, there were no trees, no white houses on the hills, no hills, no wooden houses by the shoreline, and the sea was not blue and there was no beach, and there were no clouds, just one big cloud, and they had arrived.
The walkway was pushed into place and jammed up against the side of the ship. Gathering up their luggage, they began, one by one, to disembark in front of the television and newsreel cameras. Leila watched as she participated. A windswept plank down to the shore, somebody’s hat blowing away, babies wrapped up like Christmas gifts and clinging desperately to mothers, women with dark mournful eyes, headscarves and petticoats of fiery pink peering out from beneath their knee-length dresses; more men in panama hats and leather trilbys, some in colourful sleeveless sweaters, white shirts, handkerchiefs large and clean and prominent. She followed Michael, and the man in front of them knelt and kissed the ground. They both stepped around him and followed the rest of the passengers into the customs hall.
Like everybody else, they had nothing to declare except their accents. Leila dug deep in her bag and pulled clear their joint British passport. It was brand new. It was stamped in silence, the customs officer just glancing up once to make sure the faces in the passport matched those standing before him. Then they passed out into the next hall where relatives and friends were gathered. They were all coloured. The white people on the quayside must have been local people just watching. Still, thought Leila, it was the same back home when a big ship came in.
They moved through this hall and followed a sign which said, ‘Trains’. Leila searched for their rail vouchers while Michael looked up ahead. There was a gate, and slowly they began to move towards it as the noise of escaping steam grew louder and more frightening. Calvin began to cry. It was as if, hidden away and out of sight, some huge snarling monster was about to pounce, but Leila comforted him and he stopped crying. When they reached the gate Michael took the vouchers from his wife and passed them to the man, who pointed unnecessarily towards the solitary train.
Leila gazed through the cold window of the train. She watched as her warm breath misted up the glass. The fields had little in them save a few sheep here and there. Some cows stood silent and still, like statues. Where was the food they grew to feed themselves? As they plunged further inland, she wondered how it was that people managed to live so far away from the sea. Leila looked across at Michael, but he was already fast asleep. She turned her attention back to the window. Then, just as she was acclimatizing herself to the tall electricity pylons which spoiled the view, the train plunged into a black tunnel. Then a thick road cut along the fringes of the fields. The cars, tens of them, rushed madly along, all different colours and different sizes. Then the chimneys began to multiply, and the greenness disappeared, and they were in a town, and Leila could no longer keep her eyes open.
When she awoke she could see that they must have passed through the town, but the new fields seemed bigger and less shapely. She could sense too that soon the chimneys would be upon them again. Outside it began to rain. It was a sort of half-rain which left whole drops of water compressed against the window. Leila watched them silently running into each other. A few minutes later the world turned grey and black, the sky took on an ashen hue, and Leila thought it looked like a hurricane was going to blow up. Again she glanced across at Michael but he seemed calm, as did Calvin, whom she held in her arms. They both, father and son, dozed lightly and peacefully.
The houses and the streets and the cars seemed to be going on for ever. The huge jug-shaped towers, and the great posters advertising coffee and cereal and cigarettes, and the broken, crumbling lips of the chimneys, all of this caught Leila’s eyes. Already she was used to the red double decker buses, but she worried slightly for she could see no end to this town which fought off the freedom of the fields and the low hills. Then the train began to slow down. It jolted to a halt and Michael woke up. Leila looked through the window at the sign which read, ‘Victoria Station’. She knew now they were in London.
Michael pulled down their case from the rack and opened the sliding door. The passengers in the corridor were moving past, single file, seemingly reluctant to let them out. Eventually the train emptied and they could move.
Leila stepped down on to the platform, but it was like stepping into a spacious black room for there was a ceiling and birds circled overhead. There were other trains too, neatly arranged in parallel lines, blowing off steam like long distance runners catching their breath after a hard race. Michael joined his wife.
As they approached the front of the train they began to bunch up together as if preparing to enter the narrow end of a funnel. One by one they squeezed through and found themselves in a large pen bounded by makeshift wooden fencing. Behind the fencing were rows of spectators. The emigrants stood silently and shouted with their eyes for their friends and families. Michael put down the suitcase while the English people looked on. He listened, fascinated, as up above a huge voice continually boomed out, talking about the trains, and the platforms from which they would be leaving, and the times at which they would be leaving, and the times at which they would be arriving.
A woman in a Salvation Army uniform came towards Leila and offered her a cup of soup. But Leila looked away, so the woman gave the soup to an old man; she watched over him as he drank it. Leila looked for her mother but could not see her. It was useless. And the truth was she did not now expect to find her among these English people, so she moved away.
After the black interior of the station the sharp daylight caught Leila by surprise. It was not a particularly bright day, but at least she felt able to breathe freely again. Once outside she looked at her mother’s address while Michael looked at the cars and the traffic.
‘Which way is it to the address?’ Michael managed to ask the question without seeming in the slightest bit interested. Leila looked at him as if ready to give up now.
‘I don’t know, Michael. I’ve never been to England before.’
Then maybe we better take a taxi.’
The square black taxis came about one every two minutes, and soon there was only a tall Englishman ahead of them. A taxi came and the man climbed in without glancing back. Then, as the taxi swished away, another one arrived. The driver rolled down his window.
‘Where to, guv?’
Michael read the scrap of paper with the address on it, then he stood half-questioning the existence of such a place. He offered the piece of paper to the driver.
‘Can’t you pronounce this?’ asked the driver. ‘Quaxley Street.’ He leaned back and opened the door for them with his trailing hand.
‘Well, come on then, unless you want to stand out in the rain all day.’
The door had opened the wrong way. Leila bent down, carried Calvin in and sat at the far side. Michael eased his way into the back beside her and the driver slammed the door shut.
Eventually he spoke again. ‘That’ll be £2 10 shillings, guv.’
Leila gave the man a £5 note. She checked the change carefully, folded it and put it away in her bag. She did not fully understand the sarcasm of his ‘Well, thanks a lot, missus’, but she did not care.
From the outside the house looked thin and flat, as did all the other houses on the street. It had two small steps up to the door and it stood three storeys high.
‘All this house can’t belong to your mother,’ began Michael.
‘I don’t know,’ was Leila’s reply.
A small group of coloured children gathered in the street. Leila turned and smiled at them, coyly at first, then more confidently when they smiled back at her.
‘I going sound this bell and see what happens.’ Michael pressed the bell and waited. Nothing happened.
‘You think I should sound the next one?’
Leila jogged Calvin up and down in her arms, trying to keep both of them warm.
‘Sound it, then.’
Michael pressed it, then stood back. Almost instantly a window on the second floor flew open and an irate head snaked out.
‘What the hell it is you all want?’
The head belonged to a coloured man who seemed a very tired thirty.
‘We’ve come to see Mrs Franks,’ shouted Michael. ‘We’ve just arrived from home.’
The man looked down at them, his eyes narrowed against the afternoon light, and he continued to speak aggressively.
‘So wait. You think that because you just get off the boat you can wake me up?’
‘What we want to know is if Mrs Franks lives here. My wife here is her daughter.’
‘So what you want me to do about it?’
Michael looked at Leila, then back at the man. After a long pause the man relented.
‘Okay, I’m coming down.’
The window slammed shut and Michael turned to his wife.
‘At least we know she lives here.’
Leila could not answer.
The badly hung door almost fell open, and the man stood before them in striped pyjamas. The children began to laugh and point. His feet, like his hands, were bare and rough, as if lightly brushed with chalk.
‘Look, I’m tired, so if you want to come in then come.’
He turned and led the way up the dimly lit stairway.
‘We keep going on,’ said the man as they began to go up another set of steps. Leila’s eyes grew accustomed to the dark.
‘In here,’ he said, opening a small door and stepping back to allow them to pass into a hallway crammed tightly with newspapers and unwashed clothing. Leila could immediately tell that no woman lived here. He pushed the door shut and pointed with a jerk of his thumb towards another door.
‘People asleep in this room here. Over there is the kitchen.’
Leila could see a small room. It had no door. In it was just a cooker and some huge pans.
‘Over there is the bathroom, and that door there used to be Mrs Franks’s own room but Earl staying there at present. You can wait in there for him but I know he did go to meet you. Make yourself at home for I have to sleep now.’
The man spoke quickly and yawned as he did so. As he turned to go, Leila stepped forward.
‘Who’s Earl?’
‘Earl?’ said the man beginning to yawn again. ‘Earl?’
‘And what about my mother? Where is she?’
‘Well, Mrs Franks back in the hospital for test or something.’ He saw Leila’s face drop. ‘But I don’t think it’s serious. And Earl is the chap who owns the place and who does the collecting up of the rents.’
‘What hospital?’ asked Leila.
‘I don’t know,’ he said, eager to leave, ‘but Earl soon come back.’ With that he went into the room where he said people were sleeping.
Michael led the way into Earl’s room, feeling for the light switch. Leila shut the door. The curtains looked dark green; at one time they had probably been light green, and they were torn at the bottom. Now they successfully blocked out all the daylight; they looked as though they had never really been opened. And the furniture in the room was sparse; an untrustworthy double bed, twin wardrobe, tall and wooden (though clothes were still scattered on the floor), and in the centre of the room a naked light bulb with no shade.
Leila sat down on the bed. Michael stood and looked at the crooked floor. Eventually Leila broke the silence. ‘I’m going to wash and change Calvin.’
Michael nodded as she left the room.
When she came back Leila felt the bed with her hand. She peeled back the bedspread and the two blankets underneath it. The sheet looked quite clean so she laid Calvin down to sleep.
The noises of the children playing in the street were quite clear, as were the noises from the next room of the men snoring. At first Leila had thought it was only the one man, then she realized that she could hear two, maybe even three. She waited.
By the time the early afternoon sounds were replaced by the fiercer ones of lashing rain and cars struggling into the night, Leila was asleep and curled up next to her son. Michael spread himself out at the foot of the bed. He fought a long battle to stay awake and vigilant, but eventually the room tilted to the left and the naked light bulb slipped from the ceiling, and he too was asleep.
Earl was a thin man and he looked as if life had done more than its fair share of living in his small body. His speech was thick, his stance uneasy, his clothes shabby but unique. He wore a suit that was slightly too big in the arms and legs, a tie that sprouted away from his chest like a bent aerial, and a hat that looked as if it had been shrunk in the rain. He staggered noisily and pushed at Michael, who sat up and looked. Leila just turned and opened her eyes.
‘Well, what happen to you all? I’ve been waiting since twelve o’clock down by the station.’
‘We were there,’ said Michael, rubbing his face.
‘Well, I miss you then,’ said Earl, ‘and you been waiting all this time for me to come back?’
‘We managed to fit in a little sleep,’ said Michael.
‘So I notice, man. So I notice.’ He laughed, then hushed himself up. ‘Don’t want to wake up the lodgers.’ He could see they looked puzzled. ‘It’s my business. I have my own room here and I watch over chaps. In the daytime I usually follow a few horses, or have a drink or something.’
‘What about my mother?’ Leila twisted around so that her legs fell from off the side of the bed. ‘The man who let us in told me she was in a hospital.’
‘Sure she in hospital. Sure, sure, but you sounding a little confused so I guess I better tell you what happen. You see, I was down there at the station waiting to see if I spy a young boy who wants a bed in a flat, and I looked at the lady and I’m thinking I do know her for true. So I edge forward a bit and I catch her eye, and she catch mine, and suddenly it dawns on the pair of us that neither one of us know who the hell the other one be. I had to laugh, man.’ Earl paused for breath. He went on. ‘Anyhow, I don’t know why, maybe it’s because she don’t look too healthy, but I just ask her if she have any place as yet to stay, and she must trust me for she say “no”. I say, well come then, I have a place. It’s only when I get her on the bus that I realize I can’t put her in the spare bed with the other fellers so it looks like I have to move out of my own home and stay by a next friend, so that’s what happen till her health begin to really give up and the doctor find an emergency bed for her in the hospital.’ Again Earl paused. “But don’t worry, I go down and see to her from time to time.’
Calvin woke up and Leila took him into her arms.
‘You can go to see her first thing in the morning. It’s only a short bus ride away.’ Earl smiled broadly at Leila who stared back at him. She spoke into his smile.
‘I want to sleep and I have to feed my child.’
‘Well, I done a bit of thinking about this,’ began Earl, ‘and I think the best thing is for myself and your husband to sleep in here, head to foot. You and the child can sleep in the bathroom. It’s alright, for you can lock the door so there don’t be nobody who can get in.’
Leila followed Earl into the bathroom where he arranged the bedspread in the bath. He left the blanket on the floor for her to pull over herself once she was ready. He noticed that one item of luxury was missing.
‘I going get you a pillow.’ He dashed out but was back in a few seconds. ‘I have it.’ He placed it at the end of the bath, away from the taps.
‘We don’t want you getting a drip on your head in the night.’ He laughed. ‘I see you in the morning.’
Leila said nothing. She locked the door behind him and sat on the side of the bath. She would have to sleep in what she had on. Her other clothes were in the suitcase, but she was not going back to that room. And as she sat, her thoughts dissolved. But the nonsense of her confusion only puzzled her further; it was too soon to make or expect sense. At this stage all she knew was that her mother had lied to her or protected her, for she had not mentioned an Earl in her letters, or said anything about the place in which she lived. Maybe it was her own fault but Leila had always imagined her mother just resting up in a nice house with a special doctor coming to visit her and nurse her back to health. The shock of what she had found made her wonder what else her mother had left unsaid. It made her wonder if tomorrow would throw up some discovery more awful than this one. As she closed her eyes she simply waited, knowing she would sleep very little. On top of it all the room was cold, the enamel bath freezing, the bedspread too old and too thin to block out the chilliness. She found herself having to cradle Calvin in a position so uncomfortable that her arms were soon numb.
The next day Earl told them how to get to the hospital, but he chose not to make the journey himself. Michael, in turn, chose not to stay once he had arrived, preferring to ‘go for a walk’. And after her first unsuccessful conversation (more an interview) with her mother, the nurse took Leila to another part of the hospital where she said ‘the doctor’ wanted to talk with her, even though Leila had expressed no desire to talk with him.
He greeted her warmly, then shut the door. He was a thin man. Leila looked closely into his face and saw the creases and folds in his middle-aged skin which reminded her of an old and beaten goat-hide.
‘Please, take a seat, Mrs Preston. Your mother’s asleep now and she probably won’t wake up until the morning.’
He gestured her to the low seat on the other side of his desk and he swung playfully on his swivel chair.
‘I assure you there’s no point in your staying with her any longer.’ Leila sat in silence.
‘I can see from your mother’s face that she’s glad to see you here.’ He smiled. Leila watched him and waited.
‘Look, I don’t wish to make it any more painful than it already is, but the simple fact of the matter is that your mother is very seriously ill.’ The doctor’s voice became more resonant and distant.
‘It all depends upon her strength of mind, but I think I can honestly say that your coming here will do her the world of good.’
Leila looked at him, this awkward man, knowing he did not care, though she could not as yet prove it.
‘All I can say, Mrs Preston, is that the medical profession is not an…’
Leila stood up and, holding Calvin with one arm, she turned away from the desk.
‘Please, Mrs Preston.’ The doctor stood. But Leila had already left the room.
He reminded her of the men for whom she had worked at Government Headquarters, the white men, who spoke to her with a smile on their face as if afraid that to release it might be interpreted as sexual aggression, or colonial bullying, or both. And so the sugary smile became a part of their uniform, and whenever Leila saw it she knew that behind it a man was frightened, not of her but of himself, and she hated cowards.
Michael was waiting for her by the entrance to the hospital. He had finished his walk and he stood leaning against the white wall and listening to the low droning of an invisible piece of hospital equipment.
Once back at the flat Earl went to make them both a cup of tea. Leila said nothing and again Michael came over to her.
‘You want to come and look for a place to live, for I thought we could do that this afternoon?’
She shook her head. Earl came in with the tea. He had overheard. ‘Don’t worry,’ he assured Michael. ‘It’s only two o’clock, plenty of time.’
Leila looked up at them both and then down at her inadequate sandals and the threadbare carpet. For most of the afternoon they sat in silence. Then Earl made a long overdue excuse about ‘business’ and reluctantly left his own flat.
For a few minutes Michael stared into space, watching the light fail. Then Leila got up and changed and fed their son. The noises from the street eventually faded away, as did the daylight. Then the lodgers from the day shift came home to sleep, and the night workers left their unmade beds. Then it was quiet again and there was no longer anything for them to think about except this day slipping away into tomorrow and yet another new beginning.
Leila peeled the bedspread back from off the bed and Michael, standing near the window, turned to look at her. She began to undress.
‘She’s going to die. The doctor at the hospital wouldn’t tell me, but I know.’
Michael began to take off his clothes and prepare for bed. He moved the sleeping Calvin to one side and, as he folded Leila into his arms, she smelt the stale smoke which had become trapped in the tight curls of his hair.
It was almost one o’clock in the morning when a drunken Earl came back. He kicked off his shoes but only stopped singing when he realized that Leila was in the bed too. He crept out of the room. The door to the bathroom was locked. Earl stood and shivered in the cluttered hallway until its occupant had finished.
The next morning Leila stood by the window and bounced Calvin up and down in her arms. Below her a car shot swiftly through the puddles. It had rained all night. Earl went on, ‘I got a hangover like someone trying to bury their damn way out of my skull. English beer is something else, boy, something else.’
Michael laughed, and Earl cleared his throat. He could see Leila looking at him. He spoke nervously to her.
‘First of all I was thinking that we can take a stroll around by the park area where there is quite a lot of rooms to let. Then you and the child can go down by the hospital and visit your mother, while your husband and myself can go and look for a job for him. Alright so far?’
Leila said nothing.
‘Anyhow, after you finish at the hospital we can all meet up back here and if we don’t find nowhere to live as yet then we should just walk some more until we can see what we can find.’
Leila still remained silent.
They walked slowly, Leila noticing that it was slightly colder than the previous day, and they followed the half-deserted morning streets which were decorated with drifting strands of fog. Leila had listened to Earl referring to this as the park area but there did not seem to be any sign of either tree or vegetation in the run-down back streets through which they passed. Large white women stood on well-washed doorsteps, their arms folded over dirty aprons, their cigarettes drooping lazily out of the corners of their slanted mouths, and they watched them, keeping a wary eye on their own children, or somebody else’s children, while talking loudly to each other. The cold did not seem to bother these women, and the presence of coloured people signalled only a momentary lull in their staccato conversations.
Michael thrust his hands deep into his trouser pockets.
‘You want me carry the child?’
Calvin was awake and restless, but Leila could manage.
‘No.’
‘I think we should maybe start trying from here onwards,’ said Earl, his thin body almost invisible underneath his bulk of clothes. ‘There’s usually a few signs round these parts.’
Michael agreed.
Leila followed as they turned abruptly into a long straight road with houses along one side only. On the other side of the road was a high steel-wire fence and behind it were tractors and bulldozers and building equipment. The ground was churned up and the men seemed like ants doing their little jobs in busy isolation. This must be the park, thought Leila. They walked along this empty road looking up to their left for signs, but the first three they saw gave Leila an idea as to what to expect. ‘No coloureds’, ‘No vacancies’, ‘No children’. Nobody said anything and they walked on. Then, twenty yards down the road, they saw a hastily scribbled sign on a piece of cardboard that had been thrust into the downstairs window of a house. ‘We have vacancies’, it announced confidently.
‘This looks like a place for us,’ said Earl.
They climbed the half dozen steps and Earl knocked loudly at the door. A white woman in her fifties, small, well-dressed and with her hair carefully brushed back, stood before the three adults and the child. She spoke first, giving them no time to state their business.
‘I’m sorry, but it’s only a small room and I can’t take all of you.’ She moved as if she was going to shut the door but Earl leaned forward.
‘But it’s just for my friends here. A married couple.’
For a moment the woman looked hesitant, her eyes meeting Leila’s. Then she broke contact.
‘Look, I’m sorry, but it’s only a small room and I really don’t want any couples or babies.’
Earl continued to argue, but Leila turned and walked back down the steps. The woman’s eyes followed her, and Leila now stood with her back to them, looking out across the road. As Earl began a new sentence the door slammed.
Five houses further down the road there was another sign. It too looked hastily written. ‘Rooms to let’. Earl rang the bell and a younger woman of about thirty answered the door. She kept her composure, raising just the one eyebrow.
‘Hello. I expect you’ve come about the rooms, but I’m afraid I can’t make any decision until I’ve talked with my husband, and he’s not here at the moment, and anyway the rooms are occupied at the present time. It was the future that we were thinking of, so if it’s now that you’re thinking of moving in somewhere then I’m awfully sorry but we just can’t help you at this particular moment.’ She smiled, or rather beamed, as she closed the door.
They walked a little slower now, but the rest of the signs were explicit. ‘No vacancies for coloureds’. ‘No blacks’. ‘No coloureds’. Leila felt grateful for their honesty. Earl was philosophical about the whole thing.
‘Well, some people just don’t like us and I guess we have to deal with it.’
At the end of the road Earl stopped.
‘Look, you see this bus coming.’ He spoke quickly to Leila. ‘You can get a threepenny from here to the hospital. Just keep looking out of the window and you going see it on your left after you pass over a big roundabout. Then this afternoon it’s the same bus you get back to here. We should be back before you so don’t worry about knocking anyone up.’
Leila listened carefully. Then she climbed aboard the bus. It did not take long to get to the hospital.
Leila sat for over an hour with her mother, who slept with her mouth open, clearly still finding it difficult to breathe. She held Calvin close, hoping he would not cry out and wake up his grandmother. Then the nurse came in with a cup of tea. After Leila had drunk it the nurse whispered she would like to speak with her in the corridor. Leila left her mother, knowing that she would not wake up for at least a few hours more.
‘The doctor is very concerned over the way in which you left yesterday.’
Leila looked at the woman, not caring what she or the doctor thought.
‘Do you have an address or a telephone number where we might contact you quickly if we need to?’
Leila shook her head.
‘Are you looking for somewhere to live?’
‘Yes.’
‘I see,’ said the nurse. ‘It’s difficult these days.’ She paused. ‘Look, I rent a small flat from an estate agency in Marble Arch. I know they have properties, so I could let you have their address if you like, and I’d be happy to let you use me as a referee.’
‘Thank you.’
The nurse disappeared. She came back and gave Leila a card.
‘It’s really easy to find. You just get on a number 6 bus and ask the conductor to put you off at the stop before Marble Arch. Then it’s right there on the left. Just show them this card with my name and I’m sure it’ll be alright.’
Leila listened and wondered. Then, when the nurse had finished, she went back in and sat with her sleeping mother.
She asked to be put off the bus at the stop before Marble Arch, and the conductor came to her personally and told her when it was time, and how to get to the estate agent’s, and she thanked him. Leila pushed open the door and stepped forward on to the carpet, which was so soft and deep she felt as though she was going to fall with every step she took. The woman behind the desk looked up and knocked the ash from her cigarette into an ugly thick ashtray.
‘Yes, madam, can I help you?’
Calvin fought with her and Leila nearly lost hold of him.
‘Please, take a seat as we don’t want you to drop the baby now, do we?’
Leila sat down. She handed the woman the card. She looked at it and gave it back to Leila. It did not seem to be important.
‘And what is it that we can do for you, Mrs…’
‘Mrs Preston.’
The receptionist stubbed out her cigarette and turned her attention to picking her teeth. Leila noticed that the woman’s teeth were crooked and too big for her mouth.
‘I’m looking for somewhere to live.’
‘For just yourself and the baby?’
‘No, for my husband too.’
‘I see. Well, we have somewhere that I think you might find suitable. It’s a small house, a terraced property, near to a bus stop and shops, and close to the schools so you can be assured that it has all the conveniences. The rent is very reasonable at £3 a week. Interested?’
Leila nodded.
‘Fine.’ The receptionist picked up the telephone. ‘I won’t be a moment.’ She dialled a number and waited a few seconds before speaking. As she waited she curled a watery smile in Calvin’s direction. Then she had her short conversation and put down the telephone.
‘It’s awfully cold for this time of the year,’ said the woman, flicking disinterestedly through a diary on her desk.
‘Yes,’ said Leila, and together they waited.
‘Mrs Preston.’ He stretched out his friendly hand to greet her.
‘My name is Jansen and I understand that you’re interested in our Florence Road property.’
‘Yes.’
‘Good. Well, the property is available immediately which, as I’m sure you understand, is very unusual. You need only pay us £12, which is a month’s rent in advance. If that’s alright with you we can draw up the lease this afternoon, you can come in with the money in the morning, then we can give you the keys and you can be well and truly installed by this time tomorrow. Do we have an agreement?’
‘Yes, thank you.’
Mr Jansen beamed cheerily. ‘Right, then, we’ll see you tomorrow morning.’
Leila hesitated. ‘About nine o’clock?’ she asked.
‘Just fine.’ Mr Jansen held the door open for her.
Leila stood in the street, suddenly realizing that she would have to go all the way back to the hospital to catch the bus back to Earl’s. This was complicated, but at least she had ensured that this would be their last night with Earl whom, almost without realizing it, she had come to loathe.
‘When you move in?’ asked Earl.
Michael cleared his throat. ‘Tomorrow. We pick up the key in the morning according to Leila.’
Earl stood up. ‘I guess you all better go out tonight and celebrate, for even though you still don’t have a job you really arrive in England now. I can babysit for you.’
Leila wiped some food from Calvin’s mouth. Michael stood up and went across to Earl and extended his hand, but Earl turned away from him like a spurned wife.
‘I just want to say thank you for looking after us.’
Earl laughed. ‘Now wait, you mean to say you think that is it? It’s over now and you can deal with this country on your own.?’
Michael looked puzzled. Then Earl laughed again and slapped him on the shoulder. ‘You two go out and have a good time. You both deserve it.’
At the time when things were normally stopping back home they were just beginning in England. The night was wet after rain, and the glare from the streetlights dazzled. They were going to the cinema. Sheltering in the doorways they walked past, Leila saw men huddled together, collars erect, bodies shivering, hands striking matches to burnt-out cigarettes, and in the brief flicker she could see the stubble that lay thick on their faces like a salty mask.
The shaft of light crashed through the rising smoke. The colour and noises left Michael spellbound for the full three hours of the film. In the darkness Leila cried, for her mother. And then it was over.
As they got off the bus she looked up in momentary alarm. The sky hung so low it covered the street like a dark coffin lid. The cars that passed by were just blurry colours, and the people rushed homeward, images of isolation, fighting umbrellas and winds that buffeted their bodies. Leila wanted to sleep, wanted the day to end painlessly so she could begin again tomorrow. They walked home in silence.
It was sunny outside as Leila took Calvin, and Michael took the suitcase, and they made their way to the estate agent’s to sign the lease and pick up the keys. Then they went to the tube station where they would begin the real journey. As Leila signed the lease she had made sure that her writing was more than just a name, it was a signature.
The underground frightened Leila, and Calvin cried. But, beside the ever-present fear that they might have got on the wrong tube, there was also the fear that the train was going so fast that it would not be able to stop. Each time it braked they seemed to be already halfway out of the station, and they held on to the straps and swung back and forth into each other until they reached the end of the line.
On stepping back into the daylight, the houses offered precious little comfort to Leila’s eyes. Like Earl’s neighbourhood they disappointed in their filth. Unlike Earl’s neighbourhood they were small, clearly cramped and uncomfortable, even on the outside. Again they were all joined up, and although Number One, Florence Road was not hard to find it was hard to believe.
It stood at the corner of a main street which ran downhill and away under a railway bridge, and a side-terraced street that ran dead into a brick wall. Leila stood at this junction and looked up at their home. Two of the upstairs window panes were broken in, and the door looked like it had been put together from the remains of a dozen forgotten doors. Like the street down by the park where Earl had taken them yesterday morning, the women stood, arms crossed, out on their doorsteps, and they watched the newcomers’ every move. Luckily, thought Leila, children played safely in this street, for the traffic was easy to control as it came only from one direction.
Michael pushed the key into the door, opened it and groped the wall. The light switch did not work. The house was dark and smelled of neglect, and there were no curtains to open to let the light in, and there were no doors to prop open to let the air circulate. In the living room there was an old settee, an empty fireplace and a table so scratched and battered that it looked as if someone had made a bad job of shaving it. Michael put down the suitcase and went to open a window. He strained and pushed till the veins stood out on the side of his head, but it would not open. Leila stood in the centre of the room and rocked Calvin in her arms. Michael gave up and turned and walked past her.
‘I’m going to take a look upstairs.’
Leila heard him but she looked away through the dirty and stubborn window.
Upstairs there was a solitary bedroom. A soiled double mattress lay prostrate in the middle of an otherwise naked floor. The two broken panes of glass stared at Michael and he slammed the door behind him in anger. The small bathroom consisted of a toilet bowl and a wash basin. That was all. There was no bath, and the door to this room hung from its hinges. What looked like a door to another room turned out to be a cupboard, and it was in here that the water heater was. Michael made his way down the wooden steps and into the front room. Leila had not moved. He strode to the far side of the front room.
The kitchen was small and filthy. The cooker looked as though it had never been cleaned in its life. It was complemented by a set of ill-matching and ill-fitting cupboards, some full of dirt and empty packets, some bare. He left the kitchen.
‘They tell you what this place was like before you handed over the money?’
Leila looked across the room at him. ‘They told me it was a terraced property near to the shops and all the conveniences.’ Leila turned Calvin over in her arms.
‘Well, when you done take a good look at your terraced property I think you better think again about whether decent people can be expected to live in a place like this.’ Michael pushed his fingertips into one of the damp patches on the wall. ‘We don’t travel halfway around the world to live in a place like this.’
‘It was all they had.’
‘Well, it won’t do.’
Again Leila turned and looked out of the window.
‘I’m going out to seek some work but I don’t expect to find the place like this when I come back.’ Michael moved past her.
‘I have to go to the hospital,’ said Leila.
He slammed the front door and Leila remained still, feeling suddenly cold, like last night when she had felt cold in the bathroom, unable to decide if the greater mistake was coming to England or agreeing to spend a third night by Earl.
Leila waited a few minutes, then sat down and wondered about her mother, whom she knew she would not see today; but this was hardly solace for her mind and she felt angry, not so much at Michael’s disappearance but at the fact of his blaming her for the state of the house. After all, neither he nor Earl had found a place, and despite the state of the property it had a roof and four walls, and for a while, at least, was theirs. As the sun began to catch the filth on the windows Leila blinked vigorously, then rubbed her eyes. Though she saw again the filth on the glass the day was brighter now, but also dirtier, and she felt sleep creeping back into her body.
It was on the train coming up to London that Leila had realized all her old worries about Michael were now much more intense. Two weeks of non-communication on the ship had only served to deepen her distress. So much between them still remained unspoken. Back home, before they were married, but after she had agreed to marry him, they had sat together for almost a whole day just looking down the street at nothing in particular, but without speaking. As hour after hour slipped by, Leila grew more anxious until she finally recognized this state of anxiety as one she lived in perpetually, his silence baffling and hurtful, his moods unpredictable, his distrust obvious and murdering any chance of a durable base to their relationship.
Then Michael had stood up and walked away a few paces, his hands in his pockets, his feet playing loosely with the dust. The sun was setting.
‘I think I better go back down to Sandy Bay now,’ he said. Leila squinted and tried to shield the sun from her eyes. She stared into the back of his head.
‘Alright,’ she said. ‘Are you going to come up tomorrow after I’ve been to church?’
‘Maybe,’ said Michael. ‘It depends on how Bradeth’s feeling. Things are a bit slow at the moment, so maybe he don’t want no work doing.’
From inside the house they both heard Leila’s mother cough and then it was quiet again.
‘I better go now.’
He did not turn around to look at Leila, or come and kiss her. It was as if there was something on his mind of which she was no part; he simply shut her out, left her on the ground like an extra nut, his mind having spent the day assembling the other pieces.
Slowly, as Michael rode down the road and into the bend and out of sight, Leila stood. She went through to her mother’s bedroom to see how she might help, but her mother was asleep and had merely coughed without knowing it.
And now the two-week passage seemed to have reintroduced her to the unhappiness she felt on that day, and on many others like it. It made a nonsense of their reunion, for her marriage was again to be tolerated, not shared. It seemed to her that no matter what she said or did Michael had decided to give her nothing in return, except for his anger or his all too familiar silence. But Leila preferred this to conflict, fearful that her mother might think her a failure if they were to separate yet again.
On her first night in their new home Leila lay in bed alone. She could hear Michael outside the front door feeling for the key in his pocket. But he had forgotten his key and she had left the door open. In his absence Leila had worked unceasingly and now every muscle in her body ached.
The cupboard doors were either put back on their old hinges or taken off completely. It looked neater that way. The windows were washed and the floor swept clean. She found an old bedspread which she draped over the settee in the front room. It was now alright to sit on it. Leila gave the crooked shaven table a tablecloth for a companion, and around it there stood three proud but shaky wooden chairs. Most important of all, she had started a fire burning in the grate and put a bundle of wooden staves in a metal pail so the house would be warm.
In the bedroom the mattress was now covered with a bedspread, with sheets, with blankets. The two pillows were in pillowcases. The broken panes were neatly covered by cardboard. The panes that were intact were clean. The room had curtains and a lampshade, it had a bedside table and a cot for Calvin (which he was sleeping in at the moment). Leila watched over him and made sure he slept peacefully.
‘Leila!’ Michael shouted, but though Leila heard him she did not answer. For the past hour she had lain in bed staring at the ceiling whose cracks looked aged, like the veins on a dead leaf.
‘Aggh?’
She heard him fall over and she sat bolt upright. She looked to make sure he had not woken up Calvin. The moonlight crept into the room and she lowered herself back into bed and waited. Calvin was still asleep.
Michael held one hand against his temple and swore. He had hurt his head as he fell through the door. He sat on the settee and looked at the glowing embers in the fireplace until his head stopped spinning. Then he launched himself upright and began to stumble upstairs. He turned the lights on in the bedroom.
‘It’s the right house I’m in or what?’
Leila did not answer. She pretended to be asleep, and Michael sucked his teeth, then turned out the light before taking off his clothes and sliding into bed beside her.
‘Leila’, he whispered, breathing beer into her ear. But she was sleeping. So he propped himself up and breathed it into her face.
‘Leila?’ Michael forced his hand down between her legs and prised them open. Then he hauled himself on top of her, unable to take any of the weight himself. As Leila moved, scared she would be crushed, Michael again reached down his hand. But it was no good. He leaned over and vomited beside her head, catching the edge of the pillow and running back some of the vomit into her hair. Then, having emptied his stomach for a third time, he lay unconscious and draped across her like a dead whale. Leila heard him beginning to snore but she dare not, in fact could not move. She looked at the side of his head and waited until morning came. But, when morning did come, Leila was finally asleep and Michael left the house without waking her up.
Michael climbed past the flat caps, through the mud-caked boots, and went to sit on the top deck of the bus. Across the aisle from him were two men, both of whom were as fat as armchairs and both of whom had veins and moles sketched on their faces in random patterns of ugliness. Michael thought they must be brothers. He arched forward and looked out of the window. Then a sudden escaping cloud lit up the cold day. He thought this might be a good sign for the interview.
The girl was painting her nails. She sat, one leg tucked underneath the other, behind a desk with a bulky typewriter on it. Her face looked like a mask, her features simple and hard.
‘You saw the job in the paper?’
Michael nodded. She tossed her head in frustration.
‘Well, go on. Go on in or are you waiting for something?’
Michael sat on the near side of the man’s cluttered desk and felt the silent mockery. Occasionally Mr Jeffries (his name was on a plaque) took a drink from the cracked mug of tea that stood by his right hand, but it was a few moments before he addressed Michael directly.
‘Have you ever been to prison or to a courtroom in front of a judge?’
Michael shook his head.
‘How many wives, one or two?’
‘One.’
Mr Jeffries smashed his cigarette dead and smiled gently. Michael followed the slight curl of the man’s lips.
‘You’re ready to start straight away, are you?’
Michael nodded and Mr Jeffries stood up. For a large man he moved easily, as if his shoes were made of velvet, the carpet of some cloud-like material. Without turning around Michael had no idea of how close to him the man was.
‘Follow me.’
Michael stood.
As they crossed the courtyard Mr Jeffries shouted to an Englishman in overalls, ‘You can put up the ‘COLOURED QUOTA FULL’ Sign now.’
The man turned his thumb skyward.
As they neared the large brick building Mr Jeffries began to speak again.
‘Now then, do you know what a paper clip is?’
Michael nodded.
‘Well, all you have to do is to scoop up as many of them as you can hold in your left hand, and holding a small box in the other hand, put them in. I hope you’ve got that.’
Again Michael nodded.
‘Now, I don’t expect…’
Suddenly the man’s words were drowned by the noise of thundering machines. Mr Jeffries looked around, then gestured with both arms to the only other coloured man in the building. Michael’s ears began to hurt.
The tea break was to last fifteen minutes and Edwin went to get them both a cup of tea. He was a short man with a bald patch shining in the middle of his head which made him look like a powerful black monk. His nylon shirt was buttoned from the collar down to his chest, then for some reason it buttoned no further and just flared out into a tent-like finish. His pants were held up by a belt which seemed to bear no relation to the loops that were there for it to be threaded through. He looked casual, but affable, and he returned with two hot dirty-looking cups and sat.
‘You know you do favour a chap I used to know, but them is the sort of people who come from nothing back home to be even bigger nothings over here, so I glad you’re not family to them.’ Michael smiled nervously.
‘So how long you been over here now?’ asked Edwin, kicking off some dirt from his workboots.
‘Close to a week now.’
‘Well, all you need to remember is they treat us worse than their dogs. The women expect you to do tricks with your biceps and sing calypso, or to drop down on one knee and pretend you’re Paul Robeson or somebody.’
Edwin took a long loud sip on his tea.
‘English people do wear overcoats in the summer and short jackets in the winter and mark my words good, don’t put no money in no chocolate machines on the tube platforms for it’s just a way of robbing off a coloured man’s money.’
Edwin paused and thought. Then he looked up at Michael and spoke quietly.
‘Though of course you not going make any money here. And before you been in this job a week you going start dreaming of home. And I don’t mean dream, dream, I mean nightmare, dream. And then, unless you watch your step, before you know it you soon be going out in the evening and meeting the kind of coloured man who like to tell everyone he’s Brazilian, that he’s Pelé or somebody.’
‘Who’s Pelé?’
‘Young boy, sixteen or something, just win the World Cup for Brazil in Sweden or some place.’
Edwin paused a moment, then grinned.
‘I hear Swedish women nice, boy.’ Again he paused. ‘But I don’t want no son of mine kicking no damn English football. He going be a cricketer, like his father.’ Edwin was interrupted by the screaming of a hooter. He stood and encouraged Michael to finish his tea.
‘By the way, what you think of Jeffries?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Michael, draining the cup.
Edwin took the cup and laughed.
‘Well, you better know. He’s a cunt and he’s going to call you names, man, and you going to behave like a kettle for without knowing it you going to boil. It’s how the white man in this country kills off the coloured man. He makes you heat up and blow yourself away.’
That evening Michael joined Edwin and his two friends at the newly opened Caribbean Club. Edwin had said that he preferred it to the pub, and as they eased their way down the concave steps Michael heard music.
Edwin’s friends sat at the far side of the dingy, deserted club. For an hour they all talked loudly. Then Edwin pushed the table away from him and shifted his glass, as if making room for plans. But there were no plans, just more idle talk.
Eventually Michael left the club and stepped out into the black night. The driving rain lashed down, only visible when it speared past the lamp-posts or broke the surface of the slack water puddles. He lowered his head, turned up his collar and began running.
Back at Florence Road he fumbled noisily at the lock, unable to direct the key into the door. He sat on the doorstep, his head pounding, before trying again. His already strengthening hangover was not Edwin’s fault, but by tomorrow morning he would have learned how to blame Edwin. The key went in the door.
Already England was more than Michael had dared hope for. On the ship his mind had ached trying to arrange the words of his grandmother, the memory of his grandfather, and the warnings of Footsie Walters’ brother Alphonse into a meaningful pattern. He seldom thought of Bradeth, for he doubted if he would see him again before the grey years. As he gave him the bike Michael had sensed that Bradeth knew this too. In addition, Bradeth had neither the wisdom of age nor the luxury of experience to help now, so Michael put him to the back of his mind. It was the immediate future he found himself having to deal with, not the past. But as the days slipped by, and the ship edged its way towards England, Michael came to admit that his future might not include Leila, in the same way that his present did not include Beverley. If England was the place that Alphonse Walters had led him to believe it was, then how much energy could he afford to waste continually patching up this newly repaired but still leaky marriage? The more he thought about it, the more he realized the nurturing and pretence would have to stop. On the threshold of a new life, he could not afford to fail in fulfilling the wishes of his grandparents.
And now, as he began to drag himself up the stairs, he could hardly wait for the next day to begin. Michael spun the ring his grandmother had given him around on his finger, and again he thought of his grandfather. There was no chance of his leaving this country with nothing, that was certain. How much he left with seemed to depend totally upon how much he wanted, and how hard he was prepared to try. This being the case Michael would sleep soundly and defend his mind against thoughts of Beverley or Leila or the children.
It was some weeks later that Leila put the cup of tea in front of her neighbour, ashamed that she had nothing better in which to give it to her. She had called around to see if she could offer Leila any help but, as the minutes ticked by and the woman relaxed, it became clear that she really wanted to talk. Leila did not resent this.
‘Well, what did you think it would be like?’ asked Mary, as she put more wood on to the fire.
‘I don’t really know. I thought it would be much warmer than this.’
‘Ah, well, there you are. This is the summer and you just wait till you get to January and February. It was awful last year. I used to say to Harry – Harry’s my husband – I used to come home and say to him how I’d seen some of you, coloureds that is, shivering by the bus stops and I just wanted to go across and hug you and say, “don’t worry, love, you’ll get used to it.” ’ She laughed. ‘I never did, though.’
‘What does Harry do?’
‘Oh, he does alright for himself these days. He works in a factory, foreman though, but he used to have a stall on the market when I first met him. And then there was the war when he was overseas, France most of the time. You do know about the war, don’t you?’
Leila smiled. For a moment Mary did not know whether to be embarrassed or annoyed. In the end she was neither as she just stared at the laughing girl.
‘I was only small when the war was happening, so I don’t remember much, but they told us about it at school.’
‘What I meant, though, was that you didn’t have any actual fighting where you were, did you, or did you?’
‘No, but I think we used to see the planes going overhead sometimes, German ones as well. My mother used to tell me they were just big flies in case I was frightened. But other people in my village used to dance around singing, “Jerry, Jerry, Jerry.” The bigger ones, that is.’
The fire began to rise and its glow caught Mary’s face and picked out the lines of her age.
‘You used to live in a village?’
Leila nodded, unsure as to whether she had ended their friendship by her confession.
‘What was its name?’
‘St Patrick’s, after the Irish saint. I think there must have been some Irish people there at some point.’
‘You mean some Irish people used to live in your village?’
Leila looked at Mary and wondered to herself how she was possibly going to explain this. At school her teachers had already done their best to confuse what little history of the island there was, and she had never really worked out for herself the relationship between the English, the Irish, the French, the Portuguese, the Africans and so on. The teachers had talked about each group as if it had made the most important contribution to the history of the island. If Leila said to Mary that Irish people had been there, then she knew she would be giving the wrong picture, even though they had, but she could not really tell the truth. It was too complicated, even for her.
‘Some Irish people used to live there, a long time ago, but I don’t think any do now.’
‘Were they eaten? I don’t mean now, I mean a long time ago,’ asked Mary. ‘They might have done something wrong.’
‘I don’t think anybody ever ate anybody whatever they did,’ said Leila, ‘but they used to kill each other.’
‘Just like the war over here. Though God only knows what some of them got up to in the desert. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if that lot ate each other.’
Mary came and sat down by Leila. She stretched her legs, rubbed her thighs and sighed. Then she began to chuckle.
‘You know, this reminds me so much of when I moved in with Harry into our house. We thought we’d won the bloody pools.’
‘The what?’
‘The pools. The football pools. Don’t worry about it. It’s just a funny way we folk have of throwing our money down the drain every week and hoping some of it will come flooding out when we turn the taps on.’
Again she laughed to herself.
‘Do you have any children?’ asked Leila.
‘Hah! Do I have any kids? Two of the beggars, though, they’re at an age now when I shouldn’t have to worry too much about them. The oldest one, Kevin, he’s twenty, and Val’s sixteen. They’ve both got jobs, and a home, and boyfriends and girlfriends, but from the way they go on you’d think we were back in the thirties all of a sudden. The world at their bloody feet and all they do is moan, or in the case of our Kevin, moan and dress up like a bloody clown in his teddy boy gear. You want to be thankful you’ve only got one and he’s not big enough to answer you back as yet. If I were you I’d start to train him up now. Buy a big stick and everytime he opens his mouth clock him one on the head. That’ll save you so much trouble you’ll thank me in ten years’ time.’
They both laughed, and Leila looked across at Mary who closed her eyes, though her shoulders still rippled. She was friendly and helpful, but she puzzled Leila, for she could not work out why she would want to be so towards a total stranger. But then Leila thought of home, and what would happen if Mary had moved into St Patrick’s with her family, or into Sandy Bay, or any place on the island, and suddenly it did not seem so strange.
That afternoon they went shopping and Mary’s shopping bag looked as if it was going to burst at the seams. Leila could carry no more, both arms stretched and still stretching, making her feel sure that if she did not put down her bags her knuckles would soon be scraping the sidewalk.
‘Look, love, I can’t go any further.’ Mary slumped on to the bonnet of a parked car. She rested her feet up on the rear bumper of the one in front of it.
‘It’s alright for you but I’m an old woman, Leila. There’s hardly any life left in these old pegs now.’
‘You’re not old,’ said Leila, as she rested down her bags on the bonnet with Mary’s. ‘You’re just tired. We must have walked miles.’
‘We’ve walked a mile and been pushed three, I reckon. Let’s get out of this madness and have a cup of tea.’
Leila watched as Mary slipped off a shoe, squeezed her toes, then slipped her shoe back on. She did the same with her other foot, then stood up and picked up her bag.
‘Well, come on then, I’m the tired one, remember.’
Leila grabbed at her bags and tagged on to Mary like a daughter to a mother.
The café was almost empty. They sat heavily. At first the young girl behind the tureens and yards of silver piping seemed oblivious to their presence. The girl wiped her nose on the sleeve of her once white coat. Then she emptied some rusty looking tea out of a huge tin pot and into one of the sinks before making theirs.
‘No doubt by the time I get back Kevin’ll be complaining about his food and Harry will be sat there looking at me as if it’s nothing to do with him.’
Mary took a sip of her tea and went on, ‘My mother was right. “It’ll take the war for the buggers to realize how important we are,” she used to say, “but as soon as Hitler hangs his clogs up we’ll be back skivvying and scurrying like there’s nothing in our heads.” ’
They sat together, Leila drinking her second cup of tea and trying to imagine what Mary and Harry talked about when they were alone; Mary staring out through the steamed-up window. Then Leila touched Mary on the arm and threw her back into the world.
‘Have I been asleep?’
‘No, just daydreaming,’ said Leila.
Mary stood and picked up her heavy bag. She opened the door and the roar of the rush hour traffic startled them.
At home Leila dropped her two bags on the kitchen floor and took Calvin to sleep upstairs. Then she made herself a coffee and again she waited for Michael, whose remoteness continued to grow with every day. These days he just seemed to use the house as a place in which to change his shoes and clothes. What it was he was thinking she had no idea, and whether or not she could be of any assistance to him seemed, at this stage, an irrelevancy. In England, and without Beverley, he still did not want her. But until he spoke with her she would let him remain as a passenger on the same train, in the same carriage. She knew she would have to wait to find out his destination, unless of course something forced her to get off the train before him.
It was some weeks later that Leila noticed people were beginning to retreat into themselves and wear long coats. The leaves were falling from the trees.
At the hospital the nurse held Leila by the shoulder and whispered she had better go now as her mother needed some sleep. She also told her that there was someone here to see her. Leila walked slowly out of the ward, glancing back all the time. She always got the impression her mother was fooling with her, that she was not really tired and she just felt what had to be said had been said. But, as Leila neared the door, she looked again at her mother. There was no sign of mischief in her face, and no sign that the relationship Leila had dreamed of for so long would ever materialize.
Earl stood in the corridor, his face heavy. Untidy and stooping, this was not the Earl who had so confidently introduced them to London. Leila could see he had been drinking. She could smell it.
‘I’ll leave the pair of you to it,’ said the nurse. She spoke to Leila. ‘I’ll be around the corner if you need me.’
Earl waited until the nurse left.
‘How is your mother?’
‘Tired,’ said Leila. ‘Apart from that she’s fine.’
‘Good.’
Leila waited for him to carry on, but he just looked at her. As she steadied herself to leave, Earl began to speak.
‘You hear of the department of public health, like sanitary inspectors back home?’ Leila nodded. ‘They say I must have only two lodgers.’ He paused. ‘I lost my business to the people.’ Earl shifted his weight from one foot to the other.
‘Maybe you would like a cup of coffee at the flat?’
‘I have to pick up Calvin from the lady next door.’
Earl understood.
‘Well, maybe I see you later then?’
Leila turned and left.
Leila went to bed alone. She thought of Earl and felt uneasy. She switched off the light and settled down. Of late Calvin seemed to be sleeping right through the night, but Leila lay in darkness knowing that at some point Michael would come in, wake her and perhaps try and quarrel. These days she waited, for she hated being woken up and then not being able to get back to sleep. But, against her will, she fell asleep and for the first time she woke up in the morning still alone.
Leila dashed downstairs and found Michael on the settee. Even though he was still sleeping he looked angry and moody. She wandered into the kitchen where she made Calvin’s food and a pot of tea. Michael heard her. He rubbed his face and sat upright. He had a hangover.
‘Tea?’ shouted Leila. Her voice betrayed no anxiety. Michael nodded gently, even though she could not see him. Leila brought the tea and he drank it but said nothing. She was upstairs bathing Calvin in the sink when Michael left for work. Leila heard the door slam.
That afternoon Leila looked at her mother across a crowded ward. She could see she was in a deep sleep. When she woke up her mother’s conversation was odd. She spoke of beatings, and asked if Michael had ever beaten her. Again Leila wondered if her mother was going to die in England, but the thought was banished as soon as it appeared.
That night it was Leila’s turn to sleep on the settee. She did not mean to but she just fell asleep there; and when she woke in the morning, and heard the children playing in the street, she knew a new day was beginning.
She took Michael a coffee and he began to drink it as if nothing was the matter, as if he had not noticed that his wife had not slept beside him. He lit a cigarette and blew a premature cloud of smoke. Leila took Calvin out of his cot and cradled him in her arms. Then she crossed the room and looked out of the window.
‘You’re late for work.’
Michael laughed. She heard him resting down the cup on the floor by the bed.
‘I’ve decided to give up work now. Edwin and myself are thinking of going into business together.’
‘Business?’ asked Leila, turning to face him. ‘What kind of business?’
‘We don’t know as yet. We still have to discuss it, this morning maybe.’
‘How are we going to live until this business materializes?’ Leila spoke quickly, as if already arguing.
But Michael, having finished his coffee, slid his naked frame out of bed. Leila looked at him as he first put out his cigarette, then touched his toes as if anxious to demonstrate his flexibility.
‘You see, you don’t got no ambition, girl. You come to this country just to sit in this house and play with the child? Well? You come here to push pram around London with the old woman next door?’ Leila turned away from him.
‘You don’t want to look, then don’t frigging look. What you can see is good enough for some people even if you don’t think so.’
Leila felt as though someone had struck her. Michael went on, ‘Why you can’t back me up like any wife should do? Why you can’t say, Michael, I think it’s a good idea, or Michael, I’m proud of you showing some ambition and spark even though I know it’s a risk, or something like that? Other fellers have wives who help them, why I must be different? Why?’
‘Because,’ said Leila, ‘You have a wife who cares more about her child than pubs and drinking.’
‘So you don’t think I’m interested in Calvin or what?’ Michael shouted. ‘You don’t think that what I’m planning is for the benefit of my son or what!’
‘Is it, Michael? Is it? And if it is, why can’t you talk to his mother about it?’
‘Because his mother is a selfish, superior arse who think she do me a favour by marrying to me.’ Michael kicked over the coffee cup. He stalked towards her.
‘You know nothing about this country,’ he said, pushing her back up against the wall, ‘and it’s maybe about time you started to ask instead of complain, to support instead of looking down your long nose at me, understand!’
Leila could feel his finger in her chest, and Calvin twisting and turning in her arms, but she dared not look Michael in the face. Then, after a long pause, longer than she thought she dared wait, she nodded, first once, then twice, then three times, just wanting him to leave her alone. Eventually he turned and walked naked from the bedroom and into the bathroom.
She waited a moment, then moved from the window. Then she bent down and picked up Michael’s cup from the floor. She went downstairs to the kitchen and lit the cooker. Mary’s daughter, Val, was off work this week with a cold. She would ask her to look after Calvin while she went to the hospital. Michael would no doubt go out to see to his new ‘business’, and she knew she could not rely upon his help. Then Leila looked up and water began to drip from the ceiling into a well-placed bowl on the kitchen floor. Michael had flushed the lavatory. A few minutes later she heard him tumble down the stairs, and then the door crash shut as he left the house.
Leila prepared herself for the journey that only seemed to depress her. After four months it had not become any easier. This time, she thought, she would try and ease her depression on the bus by calculating how many times she had visited the hospital.