Sissy took a Checker Cab to meet me at the Carib in Cross Roads. She loved going to the pictures so once a month that is what we did together. Anything with Doris Day, or Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire.
That afternoon it was Doris Day. The Glass Bottom Boat. That was what she wanted to see.
‘How yu gwaan?’ is how she greeted me. I smiled. Four years since independence so she figured she could talk that way to me now. Like a kindred spirit. Her tease at the etiquette of how things used to be. Except we both knew that things hadn’t changed. Not that much. Not really.
I linked her arm as we walked into the theatre together. Gently, because Sissy was frailer and slower than she used to be.
Afterwards we had dinner. Nothing elaborate. That wouldn’t have been to her liking. Just a quiet, homely place, with wholesome Jamaican food.
‘Yu likkle bredda done get himself a gun. Yu know that?’ She was stirring the water with her finger, swirling the ice in a vicious circle. Then she reached into her wide-open mouth to search for a stringy piece of callaloo that was wedged between her back teeth.
‘How yu know?’
‘Like how I know everything.’
‘On the breeze?’
She looked at me sternly. ‘Dis not no laughing matter. Things getting real serious over deh. All sorta shooting and rape and murder. Person cyan even set foot outside deh door no more without vengeance raining down on deh head. It get so bad only last week a child go to di corner to di shop and somebody catch him and cut him wid a cutlass. That is how perilous ordinary everyday life is in West Kingston. And as fah every woman dat walking down di street or laying in her bed, well dat not even worth talking about. Dem kicking down people’s door at night and doing whatever deh want.’
‘What about the police?’
‘Di police?’ She laughed. ‘Deh cyan do nothing. All deh do is beg and plead wid di people dem but what good yu think dat doing?’ She shrugged her shoulders. ‘Any minute now it will be all guns blazing. Not Calamity Jane singing “Whip Crack Away” and dancing on di table waving her gun in di air, but real honest-to-goodness gunshot wid bullets dat not fretting ’bout where deh landing.’ She paused. ‘So yu better get yu bredda outta deh. Dat is what I am saying to yu.’
‘I talked to him the other night. About Louis.’
‘DeFreitas? Dat bwoy been nothing but trouble since di day he born. Not even his own mother can stand di sight a him. Even though she living in di house deh doing like a mother supposed to.’
She reached for a toothpick. ‘He busy lording it over Tivoli Gardens right now, shouting ’bout how he fighting fah di poor and dejected. Di sufferers. Don’t get me wrong, dat struggle sure is righteous. But Louis? He mean and nasty. Only in it fah what he can get fah himself. No sensible person would trust him further than deh could spit.’ And then she spat the stringy callaloo that was bothering her into the little square of white paper napkin, which she crumpled and placed on the table next to her plate.
‘Di whore, Gloria Campbell, her mother tek sick. So she and di sista go back fi country in Westmoreland where deh come from and di old woman last just long enough fi say hello and wave dem goodbye. But no sooner than deh come back fi Kingston she close her eyes and never open dem again. So deh have fi go back fi face di funeral.’ She sipped her ginger beer. ‘And now yu going say how I know that?’
‘On the breeze?’
‘Same so. On di breeze.’ And then she scraped the last piece of fish on to her fork and put it in her mouth.
I asked her: ‘Yu think I would be that interested in what happening with Gloria Campbell?’
‘Mock me if yu want, but who else would a tell yu all di things I do all these years?’
She was right. If it wasn’t for Sissy I would never have known about Pao and Gloria. And Papa. And Kenneth and Louis. Actually, I wouldn’t even have known about where babies come from, or the diseases that pass between men and women. If it wasn’t for her.
‘And if it wasn’t fah all di palaver over di jade necklace all dem years back, what would yu know, eh? Where would yu be without di news I bring?’ She looked contented as she nodded her head and sucked up the last drop of her ginger beer. Through the red-and-white-striped straw.
It was the news of the gun that did it. Made me realise just how deep Kenneth was getting. And that I needed to talk to Papa. So next morning I went to find him. Downtown. Because ever since the Samuels incident and me going back to Lady Musgrave Road, he’d made himself completely absent. Gone to Chinatown for his breakfast, sitting in the shop in North Street all day, back to Barry Street for his dinner and mah-jongg until all hours, hoping that by the time his feet passed over the threshold at home Mama would be asleep in her bed with no chance of him getting caught in the crossfire between me and her.
But when I got to Hong Zi Wine & Spirits the place was empty except for his assistant, Alvin, who was busy loading liquor on to the old truck out back.
‘He know I got to drive these things to Ocho Rios and somebody got to be in di shop when I go.’
‘Have you seen him at all this morning?’
‘No, Miss Fay, not yet. Most likely he still having his breakfast. But he soon come, fah sure.’ And he carried on loading his crates.
I left Alvin and drove down to Barry Street. Too far for me to be walking in this heat and certainly not in this part of town. Not with some urchin holding out his hand and pleading with me every step of the way. ‘Miss Chin, yu ’ave someting fah me?’ To them every Chinese is a Chin and every Chin spells money. Serious money. So I drove with the windows closed for the air-conditioning and the tinted glass to ward off inquisitive eyes.
I squeezed the Mercedes into a space just down from the post office and made my way to Mr Lowe’s cookhouse. And even though that walk from the car was such a short distance, still I could feel all eyes upon me. Every passing woman and man. Every higgler and juicy with their beer and sodas, shaved ice and syrup, coconuts, sugar cane, and strings of oranges. Heavily scrutinised I was. Not for being Chinese in Chinatown. But for being so elegantly dressed because looking like I did I should have been in King Street shopping for accessories and fineries not trudging around like a domestic searching for the week’s best buys or dropping off the dry-cleaning.
Papa was sitting in front of rice and sausage. Bamboo steamers with char siu bao and shrimp dumpling at his elbow.
‘Fay, what you do here? Yu want rice? Dim sum?’ He waved his arm at the young waiter dressed in a traditional Chinese jacket. Mandarin collar, toggle buttons, patch pockets, black edged in gold.
‘Soup?’ Swinging his head towards the boy so his grey hair brushed his collar. Not like the crew cut so many of the other Chinese men preferred. Like Pao.
‘Maybe some tea.’
‘Yes,’ he said and then shouted to the waiter, ‘Cha.’
The boy poured the jasmine tea and rested the pot on the table. After he walked away I watched Papa’s hands manoeuvring the chopsticks between mouth and bowl. Scooping the rice, picking up the sausage in his pincer grip, even cutting through the bread of the bao. And I thought of Mama with her afternoon Earl Grey, and knife and fork that she considered so civilised, even if most of the time she preferred to use her fingers.
‘Yu have something on mind?’
‘Kenneth, and all dis money he got in his pocket.’
‘You talk Jamaican, Fay. Wait till your mama hear you.’ And he laughed. A warm-hearted, bright-eyed laugh, which made me smile.
‘She hear me already.’
‘Yes?’ He laughed again, throwing his head back in delight.
‘She cuss Kenneth over it the other night. Saying yu tell her praying not doing no good.’
‘No good, Fay. Not one drop. Not with Kenneth or anything else. Though I not mention that part to her. I just stick to Kenneth. That way she and me worry ’bout same thing.’
‘So yu worried then?’
‘I worry enough, talk to her weeks back. But just yesterday, Yang Pao ask me same thing.’ He finished eating and rested down his chopsticks. ‘Say if maybe I can have talk with Kenneth because the boy bad outta hand and heading for trouble. So I tell him, I have no idea what Kenneth do. He have money. That is for sure. And he back-chatting everybody. And not go school. I know that. But what to do with him?’ He wiped his hands on the napkin.
‘He got himself a gun. You know that?’
Papa’s eyes widened. ‘Gun? Yu sure? How yu know?’
‘Sissy.’
‘Oh this not job for me, Fay. Yang Pao he know what to do. But he holding back. Want somebody else put leash on boy. But yu know, when it come to children, that is your mother’s business. Me, I stick to wine and groceries.’ He piled his dirty crockery together. Shamefaced.
I sat there thinking about her and her business and then I said to him, ‘How come yu never lift a finger or even raise yu voice to stop her treating me so bad?’
‘Fay.’ He paused, clasping his hands together. ‘Yu still not forgive me for that even though yu big woman now and all that misery behind yu?’
‘I forgave you, even as a child. But I never understood it. Yu a big man, Papa. Successful. Determined. But not with her. Never with her. No matter what she say or do. No matter how bad she gwaan. There is always something that has you kowtowing to her.’
His jaw took on a guilty, hangdog look. So I said, ‘I know yu love me. I’ve always known that. It just hard to remember sometimes when you never ever had the breath to say “Cicely, leave the child alone.”’
He reached across the table and took my hand. ‘Fay, yu know I love you. That is good. But remember, it is through your own strength that you survive and even if everybody see you as spoilt little girl, it not true. Yu strong. Yu full of courage. And to tell yu truth is only recent times I come to understand that yu can never judge a woman from what yu see on outside.’
‘How come?’ I poured some more tea just so I could lower my eyes and not have to look at him as he answered. In case it was to do with Gloria Campbell.
‘It nuh matter. I see yu now.’ And then he said, ‘Life turn on a sixpence, Fay. Everything always changing. Yu can never tell what is in the future. How something unexpected can change everything. Change the way yu see yourself. Change the way yu see other people. Change the way yu see the world.’ So it was about Gloria after all.
We sat in silence, him drinking some ice-water and me sipping the tea thinking about how much he liked that phrase about life and the sixpence.
Then I remembered what I’d come there for. ‘What about Kenneth?’
‘You talk Yang Pao?’
‘Me? No.’
‘Well, it already catch his attention so I know situation bad. I will think. Find something say to Kenneth.’
‘Good, because he certainly isn’t listening to me.’
Papa looked at his watch. ‘Ah. Truck. Ocho Rios!’ He stood. Grabbed his jacket from the back of the chair and started out of the door.
‘It’s OK, you go. I’ll pay.’
‘No need, Fay. All on account.’ And he was gone.
I slowly finished the pot of tea and walked to the post office to check my rented box. As soon as I opened the slim grey metal door I saw it. The flimsy blue aerogramme from London. I slipped it into my purse and stepped outside back to the car. And drove to Constant Spring.
Tyrone was standing just inside the door. ‘Fay.’ He came over and hugged me. ‘Looking good, gal.’ Then he stood back. ‘I still cyan get over how much yu look like Beverley. Honest to God, if I see yu in a dim light I would swear yu was my own sista. No wonder those boys down the wharf got no idea what going on.’
‘Yu say that every time yu see me.’
‘And every time I see yu, and every time I say it, it is true.’
We laughed. ‘She upstairs?’
‘Where else? Go on up. She expecting yu.’
I walked the full length of the store and climbed the pine staircase. Beverley was on the telephone discussing a shipment. I went over to the coffee-maker still gurgling with a fresh brew. Poured myself a cup. No milk. One spoon of raw cane.
I gazed out of the expansive plate-glass window and surveyed the neat counters in row after row of perfect order now busily browsed by the afternoon shoppers. And Tyrone, strutting the strut he developed right after Grandmother Chung told him that his mother had named him after Tyrone Power. That same swagger he had paraded in every nightclub we ever visited together.
She hung up the phone. ‘So yu get a letter then? From Stanley.’
I pulled it from my purse and waved it in the air.
‘Open it, gal.’
I tore into it and read.
Your situation sounds impossible. Trapped between Donaldson and Pao. You’ll never get away from them as long as you live.
‘So?’
‘He says I must come to England.’
Her excitement turned to disappointment. ‘I thought he might say that.’
‘You disagree?’
‘No.’ She lightened. ‘It makes sense. Jamaica not big enough for you to disappear out of reach of those two. Especially without a divorce.’ Then she came over and hugged me.
‘Not that I want yu to go. Yu know that.’ She eased back and studied me. ‘But I understand yu cyan go on like this. England got a future for yu, where yu don’t have to be looking over your shoulder for Pao or Donaldson. Or Louis or Isaac, for that matter. Or bump into Gloria Campbell in the street.’
‘It still a big decision. Not just for me, for the children as well.’
She stepped back and set herself while I marvelled at how she got away with wearing a tight red cheongsam like that. Edged in gold with some black embroidered birds on it. In the middle of the day. Never worrying that someone might mistake her for a different kind of businesswoman. But then Beverley never worried about anything.
‘True. Big decision.’ And then she added: ‘And Father Kealey?’
‘He doesn’t come into it. I just want to make the right decision, that is all.’
‘Well if England don’t work out yu can always come back.’ She grinned. ‘I will still be here and, as long as I am, there will be a welcome for yu. Even mek yu a bona fide partner in the Emporium if yu want.’
We drove over to the Sheraton for lunch. Lobster salad and a cool Red Stripe beer. Sitting on the terrace overlooking the swimming pool with its almond trees and plumbago hedge.
‘What yu tell Stanley anyway ’bout why he having to write to yu at a post-office box number?’
‘I tell him the truth. That I think the maid steaming open the letters that going between us and that I rent the box in your name because it safer. Nobody can trace anything back to me.’
She took a forkful of salad and wiped away a little dressing from the corner of her mouth. With her lips open so as not to smudge her lipstick. ‘Yu know if yu decide to stay that is alright as well. I don’t want yu thinking that I’m pushing yu to go. If you stay I will be pleased to see you. We been laughing and scheming together for too long to have a little thing like this set us back.’
She was right. But then I started to think about the children and what it would mean for them to leave. Or stay. And I said to her, ‘Yu ever think about what happen to Junior?’
‘What yu asking me that for?’
‘Is just that we never ever mention him. Almost like he never existed.’
‘And?’
‘I was thinking about Karl and Mui, that’s all. And Junior came into my mind.’
‘Well yu can get him outta yu mind. He is outta mine.’ She looked across at the swimming pool with the tourists bathing themselves in the sun. And then she turned back to me and smiled as she raised the beer glass.
‘You have to choose, Fay. Your decision. Absolutely. But yu have time. So let’s just tek it easy and not feel like we got to rush into anything.’