Daphne wanted me to go with her. To buy a dress. A dress for a date. I grabbed both her hands and danced her around. Swinging her arms in joy and excitement.
‘Who it is?’
‘Someone I met on a shoot.’
‘Really?’
‘Assistant hotel manager.’
‘Called?’
‘Lincoln.’
‘Daytime or evening?’
‘Daytime.’
I suggested we visit GC’s dressmaker instead, but she said no, there wasn’t time. Chung’s Emporium? She said not something Chinese. So the next morning we went to town, into the hustle and bustle, battling the traffic, the crowd and the noise. What we found eventually, after searching every downtown store, was a high-necked shirtwaist dress, sleeveless with a full pleated shirt in polka-dot navy and white cotton.
Afterwards, we took a late-afternoon lunch in an upstairs balcony restaurant overlooking King Street. That was when I saw them. Across the street. Pao on bended knees, tying Mui’s shoelaces. Karl standing next to her while twisting and turning his head to survey the people brushing past. Then Pao straightened up and said something to him, after which he took Mui’s hand and they set off up the street towards me.
I watched them for two blocks. From Harbour Street to Tower Street. Hand in hand. Pao holding Mui. Mui holding Karl. Only letting go whenever they encountered a person or obstacle that refused them linked passage. Resuming their connection at the earliest opportunity, their hands seeking and finding each other like magnets. Without even the need to look down. They were together. For the whole world to see. A father strolling blissfully up the street with his two children on a sunny Saturday afternoon. No one could mistake that.
The most astonishing part? They were talking. Chatting all the way along. Mui looking up side to side. Karl directing comments to her, or to Pao. Over her head. Pao answering and waving his free hand about. Acting out his conversation the way he liked to. All three of them smiling and laughing. With a casual, easy familiarity I could not believe.
‘What you so busy staring at?’
I jut out my chin towards them. Daphne turned around to look, but didn’t say anything as they reached the corner by the post office and headed off down Barry Street.
On Monday morning I went to visit Papa. Sitting with him until just before Hampton was due to arrive with his lunch. Ackee and saltfish, which would still be piping hot in the shut-pan from Ma. I excused myself. A meeting with Dr Morrison. It was later, while on my way back to say a final goodbye to him, that I came face to face with her in the corridor. Almost like she had been spirited there in some bizarre twist of fate to give me the opportunity to look this woman in the eye and come to terms with who she was and what she meant to both my husband and my father.
So I invited her to join me for coffee. Just like that. Like it was an ordinary everyday occurrence. The words spilling from my mouth before I had even considered the implications or consequences. And she said yes, which sort of surprised me. Why would she do that when I had been so high and mighty at our previous chance meetings? But now here we were strolling next to the banana trees and yellow hibiscus edging the corridor, breathing in the fresh, damp air after the rain.
We walked in silence to the restaurant, collected the tray cafeteria-style and waited for the woman to fill the cups. Which she did, pouring in milk before I had a chance to decline. So with that already done, I decided to leave the sugar. And even as we approached the table with its damask tablecloth and small vase of anthurium, the same question echoed over and over in my head. ‘What are you going to say to her?’ I had no idea.
So I just said: ‘Do you love him?’ Like we were already in the middle of a conversation.
‘Pao?’
I nodded even though I wondered if perhaps she’d thought I meant my father.
She was shrewd, this Gloria Campbell, trading one question for another.
‘Never even liked him. Not in the slightest.’ That is what I said even though I knew the truth is always more complicated.
‘So what you marry him for?’
I took a sip of coffee and dabbed the corner of my mouth with a paper napkin. Then I placed the cup back in the saucer, resting it on the napkin I had positioned there to soak up the slight spill from the woman behind the counter. Playing for time. Just the same way I had straightened my skirt and pulled the chair up to the table with careful deliberateness.
And then I told her about being the fair-skinned, blonde-haired child of a black African mother. And Mama’s nightly ritual of instructing the maids to plait rags into my hair so that come morning it would flow out into a magnificent display of cascading curls. And how everyone called me Shirley Temple and talked about ‘On the Good Ship Lollipop’ as if this was the highest accolade that could be bestowed upon me.
She looked at me in disbelief. Gloria. Toying with the handle of the cup but scarcely raising it to her lips.
‘This will probably be the only time that you and I talk like this, so I think we should just be open and honest. There is no reason not to be.’ Why did I say that? Why did I even think it? What was it that was driving me to disclose all of this to Gloria Campbell? Of all people. And then, sitting there gazing across the table at her smooth black skin and troubled but patient eyes, I realised what it was. I wanted to be included. With her. Because she was something to Papa, Pao and Michael that I was not.
‘Everybody thought that Mama resented it, my hair and the attention, but that is not true. She was the one, after all, instructing the maids to make the curls. She was the one who had me twisting and turning in front of company to show off what a beautiful blonde daughter she had produced. Mama only turned sour after my hair changed to brown when I was five years old.’ And then I thought about the other things. With Stanley. But I didn’t mention that to her.
Instead, I told her about pleading with my father to let me board at Immaculate so I wouldn’t have to return from school to Mama each day, and about her accusation that I was playing at being white with my new friends.
When the server came to the table to collect the dirty crockery I asked her to bring me a top-up. She seemed startled, sour even, at my request. But she did it anyway, noticing when she lifted up the cup that I had taken milk and enquiring if I wanted sugar. It felt like too much effort to explain. And really it didn’t matter. So I just smiled and said, ‘No, thank you. That’s very kind.’
It was after she brought the second coffee that I told Gloria about Isaac. Meeting him outside the Carib as big and as black as a man could be. Putting him in a taxi and taking him to Lady Musgrave Road so that Mama could silently seethe. A black man on her veranda. Not serving her afternoon tea but sitting there, sipping her beer and acting like a welcomed guest.
The surprise on Gloria’s face was to be expected. Especially at my mention of Isaac. But there was also a look of recognition. So I guessed she’d heard some of it before. Maybe from Papa.
‘The steam was practically coming out of her ears. It was the most gratifying sight I had ever seen.’ I laughed, still relishing the memory of Mama’s indignation.
‘The funny thing was, Isaac was actually good company. Not too bright but very humorous and I thought caring. And after a while I really grew to like him and I thought he liked me. So when Mama told me to marry Pao I thought Isaac would have something to say about it. But all he did was sit there with the cigarette in his hand as if it had nothing to do with him. And eventually, when I pressed him, all he said was, “Do whatever yu want.”’ Which I said in real Jamaican just to show Gloria I could do it.
So it was done. It was out. The sordid tale of Isaac Dunkley and the stinking little room above the butcher’s shop in Cross Roads. The whole story served as sufficient explanation of why I took up with Isaac to spite Mama. And then married Pao to spite Isaac, which was the question she had asked me. It made some sort of sense. Even if it wasn’t the truth. Not the whole truth.
But why belittle Isaac to her? Calling him ‘not too bright’ when actually I’d learnt so much from him. Maybe I didn’t want her to think he meant more to me than he did. Maybe I was protecting him. Him being a communist and all. Maybe it was bitterness over the last time I saw him. Or maybe it was just my light-skinned snobbishness. That old habit. Anyway, the truth was, it was a relief to say his name. Out loud. After all this time.
‘All of my life I thought that everything could be solved inside my own head. All I had to do was to be smart enough. And I would disappear into this head for hours and days, thinking and thinking and thinking some more. But you know the problem with that? You can only think what you can think. You can only see things the way you see them. You can only understand them the way you understand them. So in the end you just go around and around in circles getting even more confused and exhausted. And when I tired I would just stop and decide that everything would be fine. Just to get a rest. Then I would rally myself and carry on with nothing having been resolved. That is what I did running between school and Mama, and then Matthews Lane and Lady Musgrave Road. It was all I could do because escaping from that internal madness takes courage. You have to step outside of your own head. You have to be prepared to let someone else in and believe that it is possible to expose your vulnerabilities and inner torment to them without feeling invaded.’
And then I told her about Michael because I wanted her to understand that I had learnt something. That I’d learnt to give up fear and embrace hope. I’d become brave enough to trust someone.
But what I saw in her face wasn’t comprehension, it was astonishment. So I simply said, ‘I know you know.’ And she smiled. ‘I know about your daughter as well, at St Andrew.’
She waited awhile and then she said, ‘Fay, what is all of this about?’
‘I want you to know that I don’t hold any malice towards you. I also want to apologise for my mention of the necklace the last time we met. It was spiteful and I am sorry. The past is the past, Gloria. What happened happened. So be it, but the future is a different matter. I suppose I just wanted you to understand something about me. Know me, not only what is said about me. We have shared such a lot it seems there should be more between us.’
I stopped. And then I said, ‘How old are you, Gloria?’
‘Forty-three.’
‘I have just turned forty and I have spent almost all of that time trying to spite someone: first Mama, then Isaac, then Pao. And I have never ever stopped to think, I mean really think, about who I am or what I want. I have never had any sense of direction about my life. I have just stumbled from one disaster to the next trying to make the best of a bad job.’ I thought of Stephenson and Hutton. Meacham and Donaldson. ‘Trying to salvage something from my misery. And now, finally, I want to change my life.’
But as soon as I said it, I knew I’d made a mistake. Given too much away. Because what was on my mind was the UK Ministry of Labour work voucher I had applied for and my letter to Stanley asking him to enquire about a clerical position at the builders’ merchants where he was working.
And, realising my error, I got up from the table abruptly and said, ‘Walk with me to the car park and I’ll give you a ride back to Barbican.’
The drive was straightforward. I already knew the way, which, if it surprised her, she didn’t mention. She just sat there quietly in the car while I negotiated the uptown traffic feeling grateful for her lack of curiosity over what I meant about changing my life. Strangely, the silence was comforting. Like two old friends resting easy in each other’s company.
When I pulled up outside her house she opened the door and stepped out. Then she bent down and stuck her head into the car and said, ‘Thank you.’ And I got the feeling she wasn’t just talking about the ride. There was a look of appreciation in her eyes like she had seen something new yet familiar. And in that single moment I understood what my father had fallen in love with, and Pao too. The irresistible combination of intelligence and compassion that made Gloria Campbell so completely beautiful. She took you in. Without questions. Without conditions. Without judgement. Because what she had, and offered, was an absolute acceptance of you. Gloria Campbell had faith in humanity. It took my breath away. So much so that I didn’t even manage to say goodbye before she closed the door and walked to her veranda.
I waited at the kerbside and watched her as she climbed the steps and disappeared into the house. Regretting that I had not known her sooner. Not known her differently.