My father spoke quickly, anxious to explain. He’d gone that morning to the cemetery to visit my mother, as he had every morning since hearing about Eddie Casama’s consortium. He fell silent now thinking about it, and Lorna, without lifting her eyes from the baby, started up in his stead. She’d seen him there, she said, and followed him without his knowledge. She’d watched from behind the larger crypts as he wept quietly, privately, without display. She looked up at me. ‘I went to the priest first, after I left the jetty. The one with the yellow hair. He told me they could help me find a home for my baby but I don’t want to give her away.’ She lowered her head gradually as she spoke so that these last words were murmured into the baby’s scalp.
The apartment was clean now and smelled of disinfectant. Missy had left, but she’d promised to return later after Lorna had had time to rest. But Lorna, eager that I should first understand that my father was not at fault, pushed herself upright in the bed so that she would not succumb to sleep, and continued. ‘For two nights I lay down between the crypts, in the shadows where the sun hardly touches the grass and where there’s moss so the ground is soft. It was cold. I didn’t sleep at all. Every sound woke me: the men drinking nearby, the dogs sniffing around. I was afraid of the living, not the dead. I don’t know why I followed your father this morning. What else was there for me to do? When he went to the church to pray and he cried again, I decided right then that I wasn’t going to spend another night in the cemetery.’ When he got up to go to work, she’d approached him, seizing the fabric of his shirt as she asked for his help. She offered to cook and clean for him, to wash his clothes. She even offered herself – at which my father shook his arm free in fury and she had to run after him into the churchyard and almost halfway down the street, begging him to listen, before he stopped again. He agreed, finally, to take her home, though he wouldn’t promise that she could stay. He left her there, after making sure she ate something, to go to work. He was late at the jetty for the first time since my mother had died, and he looked so tired, so preoccupied, that Jonah didn’t persist with his questions.
Before leaving her, my father had told Lorna that when he returned he’d bring her parents with him, but she’d begged him not to and eventually they’d compromised on Missy, the midwife, for the baby’s sake. My father was relieved at that, the weight of such a secret sitting rather heavily with him. Missy was more forceful with the girl than my father would have dared to be and Lorna, worn out from the labour, agreed quickly that her parents ought to know of her whereabouts. Besides, by then my father had acceded that, if Lottie and Lando agreed, she could stay. ‘Perhaps it’s a good thing to bring life into this place again,’ he said. He went through my mother’s things, the few that remained, and took out a dress that, till now, he’d been unable to part with. He gave it to Lorna while Missy was still around to help her get into it, so that she would look clean and rested when her parents came, her own dress being stained beyond remedy.
I wanted to leave, to return to the comfort of the boarding house’s routine, but my father wouldn’t let me go. He didn’t want to be alone with her, was afraid of how it might seem. So I stayed, but it was a long while before Missy returned.
Lorna slept for much of that time; the baby slept too, bound in cloth against its mother’s chest. Intermittently she woke to its cries and lifted its head to her breast to try and feed it. From watching her mother raise four more after her without the privacy of walls and doors, Lorna, at fourteen, seemed already to know what to do. In contrast, I saw on my father’s face a look of utter helplessness.
My father and I took it in turns to watch over them through the open door, averting our eyes when the baby fed. He didn’t want Lorna there, I was sure of it. He wanted no complications in his life, but I also knew that he wouldn’t ask her to leave.
When Missy returned, she brought with her not just Lottie and Lando but also Jonah. The House children were left to play in the yard, listening out for when their mother might call them up.
The sun was low now behind the apartment blocks and the sky overhead was streaked like the throat of an orchid. Lottie sat on the bed, stroking the baby’s foot as Lorna repeated her story. Lorna told my father’s part entirely now for he stayed silent. When she had finished, Lottie let go of her granddaughter’s foot and, growing agitated, turned to my father and said, ‘They came. The Police. They took our House apart, found the number trays. They’d heard rumours, they said.’ And she mimicked their speech as she repeated it, ‘“Rumours of an unlicensed gambling operation.” That’s what they called it. They talked to me slowly, as if I was an idiot. They said that not paying a license “deprived the correct authorities of money”. Deprived the correct authorities of money!’ She turned to Lorna. ‘They almost arrested your father, handcuffed him, gave him a few blows to his legs and head and back to show what they were capable of, what they might have to do if we didn’t cooperate. You think they teach them at police school how to speak like that?’ she said bitterly. ‘Like TV cops.’ Lottie had parted with three days worth of takings. ‘“A reasonable fine,” the officer said.’ She pulled a face. ‘They took the big tin. Sure, they didn’t find the small one. That was buried in the rice sack and they didn’t waste time going through that. Still, it didn’t have all that much in it.’ It was over in minutes, their money gone, the gaming tables broken and Lando covered in cuts and bruises, the blood around his mouth already drying. ‘A few minutes is all it took.’ Lottie jabbed a finger at her daughter. ‘And you disappeared without a word for two days.’
But Lorna was drunk now with the sight and smell of her baby. When she spoke her voice was soft, placatory. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I didn’t want her to be born on the street.’
‘Street was good enough for me,’ said Lottie.
‘You knew but you didn’t say anything,’ said Lando to my father. ‘Were you planning to tell us some time?’
‘I asked him not to,’ said Lorna. ‘It’s not his fault.’
‘Is it your baby?’ said Lando suddenly to my father, his voice rising.
My father stepped forward, his fists clenched. ‘You think that I—’
‘It’s all right, Dante,’ Jonah broke in, and to Lando: ‘He’s all right.’
‘Why can’t you just ask me if it’s his baby?’ said Lorna sullenly. ‘Anyway, it’s not.’
‘We can’t stay in Esperanza now,’ said Lottie. ‘You’ll have to pack up today. Where’s your dress? Whose dress is that?’
‘It was Carmela’s,’ my father said quietly.
‘Jesus,’ said Lando.
‘Mine got covered in blood,’ said Lorna. ‘He’s never touched me.’
‘My father’s a good man,’ I said loudly. I’d said nothing till now and the sound of my voice breaking into the room surprised even me. Lottie and Lando’s eyes flickered in my direction but my father didn’t even turn to look at me. ‘He’s a good man,’ I said again more quietly.
‘I want to stay,’ Lorna said stubbornly. She looked at my father but his face gave nothing away. It was his apartment but I could see he didn’t believe it was his decision to make.
‘I don’t know,’ said Lottie.
‘Will it be safe?’ asked Lando, but he said it to Jonah and I was angry with him at that. I stepped forward, but now my father stirred and put his hand on my arm.
‘She’ll be safe,’ said Jonah. ‘Dante’s all right.’
Missy, who up till now hadn’t offered an opinion, said gruffly, ‘You could look for years and still not find a better man than Dante Santos.’ After that little else was said on the matter. Lottie called the children up to see their sister and her new baby and then they left the apartment to make up their bedding for the night in the safety of the yard, in readiness to leave early the following morning. They weren’t going far. ‘Maybe only the next town, to repair the House and do some quiet business before we come back, to check,’ Lottie said, glancing at my father.
The sun had long set when I reached the boarding house. Aunt Mary came downstairs on hearing the door. She was still in her day clothes, though ordinarily she’d have bathed and changed for bed by now. She looked tired and she was frowning as she met my eye. I wondered if she’d waited up for me. I wished I’d been able to go to her rather than have her come to me, if only to demonstrate that I hadn’t forgotten my obligations to her. I started to apologise but she shook her head. ‘Missy Bukaykay sent Fidel with a message,’ she said. ‘Have you eaten anything since morning?’
I hadn’t expected the question. ‘No, ma’am,’ I said slowly, struggling to remember. She sent me straight to the kitchen where America, in her nightclothes, had already started warming food for me. And it was now, at Aunt Mary’s generosity, at the sight of the food America laid out wordlessly on the table, that I finally yielded. I cried as I ate, and America, wise enough to know when to ask and when not, left me to do so in peace.