Daphne turned out to be quite a good companion for our evening at Club Havana. Taking to the floor with Audley and Tyrone like she’d danced with them a hundred times before. Turning and swirling in their arms. I didn’t even know where she’d learnt to move like that. Laughing with an abandon I had never ever seen. Swallowing the beer straight from the bottle and licking her lips to savour every last drop of that bitter taste. She was like a butterfly that night, emerging from her chrysalis. Radiant as she spread her wings.
‘You not going to tell Mama, are you?’
‘You don’t want her to know?’
She looked at me with wide, fearful eyes. ‘I don’t think she would approve.’ And then she lowered her gaze to the table.
So what I told Mama was that we were at Grandmother Chung’s, which actually wasn’t much more palatable than the truth. But at least it didn’t immediately conjure for her a vision of men intoxicated with drink and driven uncontrollably to lust by the devil’s pulsating rhythms.
The important thing about it was that Daphne and I finally recognised each other. Saw the other as a separate being. Distinct from Mama and who she thought we were. No longer viewing each other as though through her eyes.
And the important thing about that was that when the headaches started I had someone to tell. Not that Beverley lacked sympathy but she took things less seriously so that in the end it was Daphne who put me in the cab and held my hand as she sat next to me on the way to the hospital. Because, as ordinary as it seemed – the vomiting, dizziness, sore breasts; even the itchy, blurry eyes, which everyone told me was normal – I always knew something was wrong. How? Because I could feel my body telling me that lying in a dark room with a cold compress on my head, and drinking plenty liquid, and eating and resting, wasn’t going to solve the uneasiness I felt deep inside.
When I told Dr Howard about the numerous trips to the toilet, dramatic mood swings and craving for pickled vegetables and hot red-pepper sauce, he laughed. And the pain in my chest?
‘Do you mean your stomach or your chest?’
‘In my chest, doctor. But low down. Not high.’
‘So in your stomach then.’
‘Not exactly.’
He scribbled in my case notes lying open on his desk. Then he said, ‘Indigestion. Maybe a little heartburn. Some milk of magnesia should do the trick.’
When I talked to him about the exhaustion he said, ‘What do you expect, carrying all that extra weight? In this heat. Bound to feel a little tired, don’t you think?’
My anxiety? ‘A little hypertension. Nothing to worry about.’
So I just carried on doing everything the same way I always did. Worrying as I went. Especially when the swelling started. Not too noticeable at first, but it was definitely there, in my hands and feet and face. And as it became more pronounced, so too did the headaches increase that everyone said I should have gotten over by now. So it was Daphne, the afternoon she pressed my hand and left an indentation, who made the decision that we should go to the hospital.
And even after we arrived Dr Howard was still unconvinced. It was the skinny nurse in the starched, white cap who said to him, ‘She is swelling, doctor,’ which forced him to look at me properly. ‘How long has this been going on?’ When I told him, he said, ‘Why didn’t you come to me sooner?’
‘Because I have been coming and coming only to be told that everything was fine and just as to be expected.’
And Daphne added, ‘She thought she was becoming a nuisance.’
That was when the nurse stepped back through the door – I hadn’t even noticed she had gone – with two porters and a trolley that they put me on and wheeled me to a private room.
What happened after that I have no idea. There was a drip feeding something into my arm. I could feel that. People were coming and going. I could sense that. But mostly what I did was drift in and out of sleep. So tired I could barely keep my eyes open for more than five minutes at a time.
High blood pressure. Protein in my urine. And a busyness in the room that had a distinct air of concern bordering on panic.
Sometimes when I came to Daphne or Beverley would be there. Michael too. Papa. And Pao. But the moment I knew for sure that I was dying was when I opened my eyes and saw my mother sitting by the bedside. Still and composed and silent. I just lay there gazing at her without saying a word because I had never seen her like that before. With a face absent of criticism or disdain, and a tongue devoid of cruelty. For the first time in my life she actually looked like she didn’t hate me. So when I involuntarily closed my eyes again I was convinced it was for the last time.
What shocked me back to life was the sound of his tiny voice. Crying out because he wanted me to wake up and know that he was here. How he managed to get born without me I didn’t know. It was almost like I’d slept through the whole thing while he, determined as he was, brought himself into the world. When the nurse placed him in my arms I felt a surge of energy. An electric current pulsing through an invisible umbilical cord. Direct from him to me. A gift of life.
I put my face to his tiny body and breathed in. And what I smelt was vanilla. Not the essence you get from a bottle but an actual open vanilla pod. Fresh and warm and damp. Soft and tingling sweet. I pulled back the shawl to check if the yellowness was all over him, not just in his face. And it was, which surprised me because in some distant dream I thought I heard someone say he was blue. So I guess it had been both. Blue from the breech birth and being so premature. Yellow from the jaundice because my liver had been failing so badly. So much so that they had him in a tiny cabinet with a fluorescent lamp for days trying to get as much light as possible on to his skin. There he lay with minute goggles over his eyes like he was sunning himself on the beach.
When that was over everything went back to normal. I was just another extremely tired mother with a healthy baby boy. And Mama never came back, despite me spending three weeks in the hospital drifting in and out of sleep and recovering from the trauma of what had happened. Vowing that I would never put myself through it again.
That Michael came to the bedside with rosary in hand did not surprise me. The most holy of rosaries. The Seven Sorrows of Mary. The prophesy of Simeon; the flight into Egypt; the loss of the child Jesus in the temple; the meeting of Jesus and Mary on the way to Calvary; Mary stands at the foot of the cross; Mary receives the dead body of Jesus in her arms; Jesus is placed in the tomb.
The suffering of Mary. That is what it was all about. Her suffering in union with her divine son who was made to be born and suffer and die to save mankind. Prayed by Michael with an open and repentant heart so that I could have God’s forgiveness for my sins and my soul would be free from guilt and remorse. Because he, like everyone else, was convinced I was about to die.
‘Hail Mary, full of grace. The Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen.’
What did surprise me was Pao. Sitting there day after day looking at me in earnest even though he had nothing to say. Wringing his hands most of the time because he didn’t know what to do with them, although in his heart I knew he wanted to touch me. So every now and again I reached out and stroked his arm just to let him know that I appreciated him being there, because, despite everything, right then it seemed appropriate that he should be there and fitting that I should be grateful.
And lying there like that, looking at him so quiet and fretful, I understood for the first time that he wasn’t any different from Isaac. Doing what he thought he had to do to survive. And then I remembered what Michael had said to me. ‘The fall, Fay, does not happen in one sudden transgression. It occurs in incremental stages. In tiny steps almost insignificant in themselves, imperceptible to the naked eye.’
So I thought of Pao, a bewildered youth of fourteen, marooned in a strange land. Disorientated but grateful for being saved from the Japanese and a war-torn China. Fatherless. In search of a new beginning. A new identity. A new home. Being instructed by Zhang into what my own father considered an honourable way of life. For wasn’t Zhang the saviour of Chinatown? A hero of the people. Why wouldn’t the young Pao follow in his footsteps? First one thing and then the next. Sweep and stack. Run some errands for the shopkeepers. Collect Zhang’s gambling money from the pai-ke-p’iao. Then the war, and Zhang retires. So he expands, purloined chickens and eggs; surplus goods from the US navy; glut from the wharf; Gloria Campbell and her friends.
Incremental stages just like Michael said. And before you know what, Yang Pao is no longer a boy but has become a man and the Uncle of Chinatown. ‘Uncle,’ he once told me, ‘because Uncle is family. He not yu papa but he watch over yu just the same. He got your interests at heart.’
Sitting there in the hospital he didn’t even look threatening. No fiendish hoodlum, just a terrified husband and father hoping against all odds that everything would work out alright.
‘Yu want me to go get yu something? To eat. To drink.’
I shook my head slowly from side to side. ‘No.’ And then after a short while I said, ‘Just sit there. It’s nice to see you.’ Which made him smile and relax the tension that was gripping his body.
And after some more silence: ‘The baby looking good. All the yellow gone and he eating and everything just fine.’
I smiled. ‘Yes. So the nurse told me.’
‘I been thinking ’bout names and I wonder if it alright with you if I call him Xiuquan after Zhang and my brother.’
‘Your brother who went to America?’
He nodded. Funny thing was I hadn’t thought of the baby as Chinese. Not as Chinese as that name. I’d seen him as Jamaican. And even though I was anxious that the name Xiuquan would set him apart and make him feel an outsider in the way I had done my entire life, I still said, ‘Yes, OK.’ Because right then I thought I owed it to Pao. To give him something to salvage from this mess of a marriage with me.
When Papa came that evening he said Hong Xiuquan was the peasant schoolteacher who led the Taiping Uprising when the masses took up arms against the foreign capitalists, feudal landlords and Qing ruling class who had, through burdensome taxes, driven them to poverty, bankruptcy and the menace of death from starvation.
‘A man who way back in 1845 wanted to confiscate land and give it to poor. And have equality between women and men. How about that, Fay? Long before Sun Yat-sen talk of liberty, equality and fraternity.’
‘So you think it’s a good name for the child?’
‘Me?’ He held his palm to his chest. ‘I am not saying anything about baby. I am remembering Hong, that is all. Hong like me. Hong Zilong.’
Beverley was indifferent. ‘Well, I suppose if that is what he wants.’
Daphne: ‘I think it is nice he wants to name him after Zhang. Wants to show that respect to his stepfather and benefactor, if you like.’
Michael said nothing but his face fell.
‘You don’t like it?’
‘It is not for me to like or otherwise.’
But his refusal to speak up didn’t fool me. So I just asked point blank, ‘What is it?’ Because that was the level of intimacy between us. No longer parishioner and priest.
And after a slight hesitation he said, ‘The name Karl came to me.’
‘Came to you? Where from?’
‘It just came to me.’
‘Don’t be coy, Michael. It came from somewhere.’
He eased back in the chair. ‘There was a child I came across when I was at the seminary.’
‘In Washington?’
‘Yes. He was just a few months old. Sick with meningitis, which they thought he would not survive so his mother sent for a priest and I accompanied him.’ He paused. ‘Father Perry and I held hands with the baby’s mother and prayed all through the day and night non-stop for three days, until his fever broke and the doctor said he might be through the worst. And after that we carried on visiting and praying. And three weeks later he recovered and was sent home. That was the healing power of faith.’
‘And the baby was called Karl?’
When I was finally well enough to go back to Matthews Lane it seemed like I had left the old world and was about to re-enter a completely different one. Or maybe I came back as a different person because I no longer resented the squalor quite as much as before, or felt as agitated by Ma’s high-pitch whining, barking in Chinese like every utterance was the continuation of some ongoing argument. I didn’t even feel that irritated by Pao any more.
Why? Because I had faced death and survived. And Karl too had faced death and survived. So maybe God had not forsaken me after all.
‘He just like Pao when he baby.’
Ma had Karl gripped under his armpits, tossing him into the air and catching him again.
‘Pao strong baby and smart. Very smart. He learn everything quicker than any baby and he happy. His papa throw him up in air and Pao laugh. Just like throw baby.’ And up she hurled him again while I held on to the table to steady myself of my anxiety, which was soon relieved as she quickly tired from her exertion.
Then she talked to me, for the first time, about missing China. The rice fields and open skies. The village. The farm. Missing Pao’s father, now dead so many years. Murdered by British and French soldiers, Pao told me, supporting strikers on a peaceful march. Missing Xiuquan, Pao’s brother who went to America in 1943, to help with wartime farm work.
‘Ah,’ she said. ‘Too much talk ’bout miss. What good it do you? This happen, that happen. War, death, a new country, a son leave, a baby born. Who tell the world to make these things happen? That is why the Buddha say to be happy is to suffer less, and to suffer less is to be free from wanting.’
I realised then that I had lived in the house for almost two years, on and off, and still had no idea who this woman was. Actually, I couldn’t even remember ever having had a conversation with her. And now suddenly here she was with her own past, her own sorrows. Suffering that she let go of with an attitude that said: ‘You accept what you have. Now I am here with Pao and Zhang.’
I was there with Pao and Karl even though his birth certificate said Xiuquan and everyone in the house frowned and shuffled every time I used the K word. But, in some way, it didn’t matter. Because what I sensed was everyone’s relief that I had finally settled. That motherhood had calmed me in some way. I was no longer running away to Lady Musgrave Road at the drop of a hat. I was changing diapers, mixing and warming and delivering feeds, bathing and dressing, making him comfortable. Even softly singing a lullaby as I rested a hand on his cot and gently rocked him into sweet slumber. It didn’t even bother me when he awoke at two or three in the morning crying with hunger. Because every wave of his arm or kick of his leg or burst from his lungs was a miracle that might never have been.
The funny thing? It also made me feel more at home, with more attention to the daily grind of Matthews Lane. Of Ma and Tilly boiling and picking the saltfish and beating the batter for the fritters, plucking the duck feathers, cooking and cleaning, washing and ironing. Things I had taken for granted from a young age because a dependable army of women had tended to my every need and desire without a single murmur about the food I had left uneaten, or amount of laundry I produced, or personal items I’d left carelessly strewn, or demands I made or changed or revised. Never a complaint or suggestion of criticism did I ever hear from them, because nothing was ever too tedious or menial for them to do for me. Including Sissy brushing every strand of my hair over and over every night of the week. And Mother Murphy washing and replenishing my sanitary napkins. A ghastly chore that I continued to avoid by returning to Lady Musgrave Road at that time of every month.
But that is not how life is. Not for the majority of Jamaicans the majority of the time. Even the drudgery at Matthews Lane was still less arduous than the gruelling labour of the yards of Back-O-Wall and Trench Town. If Isaac was to be believed anyway. And what reason did I have to doubt him? Didn’t Sissy herself tell me that West Kingston was hell?
‘The baby,’ Zhang said, ‘is reminder.’ He leant over the crib and gently stroked Karl’s head. ‘A lesson to learn from.’
‘You want to hold him?’ I asked.
‘No. I just look and see how fresh and new he is. Like young sap. Bend in breeze. Not old man. Dry and brittle like me. He light and supple. Float on water. Not drown in sorrow.’ He patted me on the shoulder. ‘You not run so much since he come. Maybe you take time now. Look into own suffering. Deep. Into roots. So you understand where it come from and have compassion to make self new again. With original heart you born with. Like baby.’
And then, before turning and clattering back to his room, he said, ‘No need remember unworthy deeds you do or do unto you. No need worry for past or future.’ He paused and looked down at Karl with a kindly smile in his eyes. ‘It time for the Buddha’s other shore.’