Next time Marcia come over the house she sitting on the veranda leaning down playing with the baby crawling ’round her feet. So I tek some cool lemonade out there and I settle down in a chair across the way from her.
‘It good of yu to keep coming here to see Esther. She enjoy the time she have wid yu and it mean a lot to me as well.’
She look up at me. ‘She my only niece. What else would I do?’
‘I just saying it good of yu that is all.’
She ease back in the chair and tek a sip a lemonade. ‘Things not the same over the house since yu gone.’
‘No?’
‘No. It different wid three. Especially since, well, Sybil and Beryl go a long way back together and even though they ask me if I want to join in wid them when they buy the house from Pops I didn’t feel like it was what I wanted.’ She wait a minute. ‘Wid you and Auntie there it was more like family. Now it more like, well, what it is.’
‘Yu nuh happy there Marcia?’
She think on it and then she say, ‘I am as happy there as I reckon I going be anywhere. I don’t think me and happiness going mek likely companions.’
I can see the sadness deep inside of her. It not loneliness like me. It more empty than that. Like a void. Like there is nothing there beyond the body that everyone can see.
‘Yu want come live here?’
She laugh. ‘Here? Where I going sleep? In the backroom wid Auntie squash up in the bed? Or maybe under the table in there.’
I get up and move my chair closer to her. ‘I never mean for yu life to turn out this way. When we come to town it was because I didn’t know what else to do.’
She reach down and fiddle with a couple a the little wooden shapes Esther busy fitting into the slots. The red square in here, the green triangle in there, the yellow circle in this one. And while she still bending down she say, ‘There wasn’t nothing else to do. I didn’t blame you for nothing to do wid that.’
‘So what yu blame me for?’
She look up. ‘I never say I blame yu for anything. What happen is what happen. Moving in with Sybil and Beryl, the sailor, and everything. It happen. It done. No use crying over that.’
I sit there a long while watching her make funny faces trying to amuse the child. Then Esther smile and hold up her arms to Marcia and say, ‘Up.’ So Marcia lift her on to her lap and start bouncing her up and down while Esther throwing her head back and laughing.
And then she turn to me and say, ‘I don’t know what to say except I sorry how I treat yu over the necklace.’ She wait and then she say, ‘I was angry wid yu. Angry that yu a better person than the rest a us. Because no matter what happen there always seem to be some goodness inside yu that mek you right. No matter how shocking things get.’
‘I am not good Marcia.’
‘No? But yu still all right, Gloria. Yu still know who yu are. Me, I got no idea. Every day I just tek the next customer and once in a while I come over here and look at you and Esther and Auntie living like yu normal and for a few hours I forget. But that is all, because then I go back to Franklyn Town and it all start over again.’
Marcia turn to Esther and start playing with her fingers like incy wincy spider but even though Esther usually like it, right now she not interested. She want to come to me so I get up and go take her. And right then Auntie step out and say maybe Esther need to go get her afternoon nap, so she take her from me and go back inside.
‘Yu got Esther. Yu a mother. Yu even got Pao for what that is worth, and yu have a home. Yu life change. I don’t know what it would tek for my life to change.’
‘One day it will Marcia. Who knows, maybe yu go back to school and learn something to get yuself a good job. Or maybe yu meet somebody.’
‘Really? Doing what I do?’ She drink some lemonade and I drink some too.
We quiet. Then I say, ‘I am so sorry, Marcia. Sorry for everything. Sorry for the mess I get yu in when I beat Barrington and bring yu here to Kingston and Franklyn Town. All of it. It was my doing.’
‘It was my doing as well. The two a us did what we had to. Anyway, that is all in the past. I am a grown woman now. Have been for a very long time. So the situation I am in is my responsibility. Nobody else but me.’
‘I am here too. Your sister. Remember that.’
I see the tears welling up inside her, but nothing come and we fall quiet again.
Then she say, ‘That policeman, the one that come knocking on the door the day we arguing over the necklace. He come back.’
‘For me?’
‘No, that part funny because it seem he already know yu move.’
‘So what he want?’
‘Him nuh say. He just come and sit down and stare at me like there is something he think I got to give him.’
‘He come from Montego Bay yu know.’
‘How yu know that?’
‘Pao. The two a them tight-tight.’
‘For real?’
Marcia quiet a minute and then she say, ‘Yu know that bwoy Milton that Pao got working for him? He been hanging ’round the house every week when Hampton come to collect the money. He just stand there in the doorway while Hampton drinking so much rum he can hardly walk straight. It a wonder he nuh fall down flat on his little baby face.’
‘Yu think maybe Milton know something?’
‘They all a them know everything. That is how they are. But Finley and Hampton wouldn’t never tell yu nothing. Only Milton young enough and innocent enough to maybe let something slip.’
A few weeks later Marcia tell me that when Pao tek Milton on it was for the sole purpose a following Clifton Brown.
‘So what he see?’
‘He didn’t see nothing because in no time at all the sergeant grab him in a alley and had him bent over a barrel with his pants down threatening the worse and telling him he wanted to see his boss. And Milton so fraid he never tell Yang Pao for two whole months, meanwhile Clifton was going about his business free and easy.’
‘So what happen?’
‘Clifton go meet with Yang Pao at the Blue Lagoon bar and they mek some deal, and next thing Clifton in the fold doing what Pao want him to do and taking his cut.’ Marcia pause. ‘Milton say Clifton Brown all right though. He a good man. Trustworthy. Reliable. He say everything going fine with Clifton.’
‘How come Milton tell yu all a this?’ She just ease back in the chair with a satisfied smile on her face.
I telephone Mr Chen in the grocery store I used to work at back home in country.
‘Gloria, such a long time since me nuh hear from yu, though yu mother keeping me abreast. How yu going girl?’
‘I am fine and well Mr Chen. Thank yu. I have a little dawta now I name Esther after Mama.’
‘That is good, Gloria. Very good.’
And then I ask him if he remember back all those years after Barrington Maxwell get killed and the name of the policeman that come from Montego Bay, because everybody was talking ’bout waiting for the man to come.
‘Ah Gloria, that was when yu leave us so sudden. They enquire after you yu know. Even tek yu mother to the police station but nobody would say a word about what happen to yu and yu sista even though they know yu tek the bus to Kingston. So in the end they just forget about it.’
‘Yu cyan remember the name a the policeman?’
‘No, not the sergeant but I can find out for yu if yu want. I remember the young constable that come wid him though because it was that little whippersnapper Clifton Brown who spend all his time worrying my chickens in the yard chasing dem dis way and dat just for fun. And every day I would talk to his mother but it wouldn’t do the damnedest bit a good.’
‘Mr Chen, yu saying Clifton Brown was a bwoy near to where yu live?’
‘Right next door, Gloria. Right next door. Live there ’til his mother die and then later he go join the police in Mo Bay. You most likely nuh remember him because he a fair bit older than you.’
Then after that, Marcia tell me that Beryl go get Hampton so drunk he got no idea what he saying, and tell her that Clifton Brown a battyman. That he and Pao catch Clifton in a alley one night wid some bwoy and that is how come Pao hire Milton to follow him and then go mek the deal so Clifton got to do what Yang Pao say. But, according to Hampton, none a them care ’bout the battyman thing because he a good man Clifton, and it reassuring to have him on their side.
And then she say, ‘Beryl say to tell yu that she do that for yu to make up for what happen over the necklace.’
After Marcia finish visit with Esther and leave I telephone Beryl and thank her. And she just say, ‘It nothing.’
‘It not nothing Beryl. I know that.’
‘That good a yu. But yu nuh owe me nothing. It was the least I could do after all what happen.’
I can see Clifton Brown got a situation and how that would wind him up with Pao, but that still don’t explain what he want with me. So I find the piece a card he give me that day on the front step in Franklyn Town and I ring the police station. They say he not there and I must leave a message but I don’t feel like I want to do that.
It was almost a week a me ringing every other day before I actually get hold of Clifton. When he pick up the telephone he say, ‘So you are my mystery woman?’
‘What mystery woman would that be?’
‘The one that cyan stop ringing the station and getting all these constables into a sweat ’bout what I been up to that have some woman so eager to talk to me. And so private she won’t even leave her name nor no message.’ I don’t say nothing. Then he say, ‘I think I must be talking to a Miss Gloria Campbell. Miss Gloria Antoinette Campbell if I am not mistaken.’
And still I don’t say nothing, so he say, ‘It time we talk. There is a place over Windward Road call Club Havana. It busy-busy at night but early evening not too bad. The food is good as well. How about we catch a bite together? This evening? Six-thirty suit yu?’
And I just say OK and hang up the telephone.
I tek a Checker Cab over there and the place dark and empty except for a barman and one waitress and the Cuban Son playing low in the background. Clifton Brown sitting on a bar stool with a highball glass in his hand full of mint and liquor that later on, when he ask me if I want one, he tell me is a mojito. But I don’t want no cocktail not even if, as he say, it a Cuban special.
We go tek a table booth in the corner and I order some Appleton on ice.
‘So now, Gloria, what mek yu decide to come find me after this long time?’
‘Clifton, I know yu thick with Yang Pao. That is your business. But what is it yu want wid me?’
‘Well now, what do you think that could be?’
‘If I know I wouldn’t be sitting here asking yu.’
The waitress put down the Appleton and look at us. And then she kiss her teeth before she turn ’round and walk off.
‘All the waitress in here so facety?’
‘Only because she suspect you a business woman working in her bar. Yu know what I mean?’
And I think, yes. After all these years it still the same. One look and they already know all there is to know about me.
‘Yu going tell me what yu want or just have me sit here and play yu guessing game?’
‘I was in the police station in Montego Bay when a request come through from Kingston for any information we had regarding two young women who skip Petersfield in 1938, maybe in suspicious circumstances. And what we had from the time was an unsolved murder and two missing girls. And when I follow up wid the constables that mek the request, it seem like maybe these two girls had turn up in Kingston. And I thought it curious. Yu see where I am going wid this, Gloria?’
I sip the drink and inspect him over the rim of the glass.
‘And wasn’t you the little constable they send wid the sergeant from Mo Bay when he come to investigate?’
‘I was.’
‘So yu going arrest me?’
‘Now that is a very good question. What do yu think I should be arresting yu for? What crime you committed, eh Gloria? And was that before yu leave Petersfield or after yu get to Kingston? How should I take my pick?’
‘Did yu invite me all the way over here so yu can toy wid me? Or is there something concrete yu got on your mind?’
Clifton taste his mojito and stir it up some more spinning the mint round and round.
‘This is the thing, Gloria, evidence. Suspicion I have. Evidence I don’t. So what can a man do?’
‘What can a man do who is in your position?’
‘My position?’ And then he think and say, ‘Oh yu mean with Yang Pao. Well, Gloria, you need not worry yuself about that. That little arrangement not stopping me from carrying out my other important duties in the Jamaican Constabulary. And chief among those is to bring murders to justice.’
My heart tek a leap and I think I musta physically sit back in the chair from the grin a satisfaction he give me.
‘Tell me Clifton, why you and me sitting in a dark nightclub off Windward Road having this conversation when rightly we should be in North Street in one a them little yellow room wid the grey tiles on the floor? Why is that?’
It wipe the smile off his face.