‘Let me ask you Sister. How many children Esther’s age know so much details of what their father do? Is that common to you?’
‘I am not here to debate the issue with you, Mrs Campbell. Or should I say Miss.’ And then she straighten the few pages on the desk in front of her and sit herself upright and prim.
‘Is there something else on your mind Sister apart from what Esther say about how her father earn his living?’
‘As I have already said, I am not here to debate the issue. This is a liberal-minded school. It is 1961 after all. But we have our reputation to think of and well, suffice it to say, there is a problem.’
‘A problem?’
She sigh and then she say, ‘Perhaps you could have a word with the child.’ And then she stand up and smooth down her white-white habit and tidy the ebony rosary beads hanging ’round her waist.
But when I talk to Esther she got nothing to say. She just shrug her shoulders like she don’t know what all the fuss is about. And when I ask her why she telling these lies she just say, ‘What do you expect me to say?’
‘Say he is a shopkeeper. He Chinese. They will understand that.’
A little while later I got to go up the school again because they say Esther giving too much backchat to the teachers. I sit in that deadly office sweating and leaning over to catch some relief from the electric fan the Sister got standing on the edge of her desk, but nothing is making me feel any better. All I can do is remember how I used to hear the other children laughing at me in that yellow schoolroom, and feel the dryness in my mouth, and listen to my own heart pounding like it is me that Sister Emmanuel is reprimanding for the trouble I have caused. And maybe that is just what is happening because what she got to say to me?
‘I suggest you take a firmer hand.’ And then she gently close the Bible she have open on her desk like as to say we finish. Conversation over.
But nothing was over because three weeks later I was back in her office again. Only this time Esther been fighting with her classmates, scratching and kicking and screaming, and rolling ’round in the schoolyard dirt.
‘Do you know what they were fighting about Sister?’
‘That is of little relevance, Miss Campbell. The point is, such behaviour cannot be tolerated. Not in a reputable school such as this. Not with our responsibilities to parents. Respectable people with expectations about the sort of children with whom their child associates. Not with a child who is so obviously delinquent.’
‘She is nine years old Sister. Are you telling me that all the adults in this school cannot control a nine-year-old child?’
‘Our responsibility is to educate children, Miss Campbell, not control the excesses of their insolence or wanton acts of violence against each other, or property for that matter.’
‘She damaged property?’
Sister exasperated. ‘No, Miss Campbell. I simply mentioned it as an ancillary.’ She take off her glasses and give them a wipe with a little pink cloth. And then she put them back on her skinny nose.
I sit there feeling like my whole body burning up from the inside. And what I want to do more than anything else is reach over and slap the stupid little glasses off her face. All that is stopping me is the picture in my head of a Cuban mountain school and my worry about what will happen to Esther if she don’t get a good education.
So I calm myself and I say, ‘What can we do to help the situation Sister?’
‘Do? Surely I have already made myself clear. The situation cannot be tolerated.’
‘So you throwing her out the school?’
‘That is not how we would put it. But that is the only solution we can see.’
‘That is the Christian answer all you educated people come up with?’
Her whole body stiffen and her eyes flash with a sudden anger that come over her.
‘To be frank, Miss Campbell, certain matters have come to my attention. Firstly, Esther’s father is not a hotel manager in Miami, nor is he a shopkeeper come to that. We know about him and his escapades.’
‘Escapades?’
‘Further, there is the question of your, let us say, occupation.’ And she open her eyes wide. ‘You asked about help and since it is my opinion that Esther’s difficulties originate in the home I would suggest that you concentrate your attention in that direction.’
I open my mouth to speak but she just ignore me and carry on. ‘Guidance can be found in the teachings of the Good Book and the Grace of the Lord.’
So at least we get to the bottom of it and since no amount of arguing was going to change anything I just stand up and take my purse and walk to the door. When I get there I turn ’round and say to her, ‘So maybe yu not so Christian and liberal-minded as yu think if all yu want to do is punish a child for the sins of her father and mother.’
When I tell Pao he angry, which is the first time he ever show any concern over what happening with Esther.
‘She cyan treat the child like that. It outta order. Yu want me go over there and talk to her?’
‘I don’t think talking going do any good.’ And then I quickly say, ‘I don’t want yu doing nothing else either.’
‘Cho, Gloria. What yu tek me for? I just trying to help that is all.’
And then he strut off into the kitchen. When he come back he swigging from a Red Stripe and toying with the bottle cap in his other hand.
‘If she don’t want the money there is plenty other places that will be happy to tek it.’ Which is true but Esther still struggling with something that she going take with her wherever she go.
All Esther got to say is she don’t care. She don’t like the school anyway. Even when I ask her what she fighting over she just say it nuh matter.
‘Esther, baby, something is troubling you. Yu don’t want to talk ’bout it?’
But all she do is shrug her shoulders and carry on reading the comic book that resting in her lap.
So it was Sybil who say to me, ‘What about the priest Henry tell yu ’bout?’
‘The priest! Yu serious?’
She just sit there on the veranda looking at Miss Sissy ’cross the road and then she turn her head back to me.
‘So what, yu think because Henry bring me over there he be the one to point me in that direction as well?’
‘Yu got a better idea?’
‘Henry don’t know the priest. All he do is see him knocking at his door and hear the commotion going on between Fay and Miss Cicely over it. Yu think that is a recommendation? Anyway, I tek enough Catholics already.’
‘What is more important to you, the shame yu feel with Sister Emmanuel or the chance that maybe this man could give Esther the help she need?’
‘Since when you start falling on the side of God?’
‘It is a suggestion, Gloria. That is all.’ And then she peer at me sideways and say, ‘Ernesto is here.’
I can’t believe my ears so I just look at her but I don’t say nothing.
‘He come to find yu and was staying in a boarding house downtown but I tell him to come here. No point him spending his money like that.’
‘Here? In this house? Yu not worried that maybe Pao come here and find him?’
‘Pao don’t come here no more, Gloria. Not since you leave.’
And just as she say it Ernesto step on to the veranda with a coffee cup in his hand and a smile of confidence that he had no right to feel. When Sybil see him she get up and walk inside.
‘What yu doing here Ernesto?’
He jut out his chin towards me. ‘You, Gloria.’
‘Yu shouldn’t have come.’
‘No?’
‘No.’
But what I realise is even though I still angry all I want to do is reach out and touch that hair and stroke that face and put my lips to his.
‘Yu should know when to leave something alone.’
‘I cannot leave this alone.’
I didn’t say another word. I just take my purse and walk down the veranda steps, out the yard and into the quiet afternoon.
Three hours later I had Sybil on the telephone asking me what I am going to do about Ernesto. So I tell her I wasn’t the one to invite him and she say she didn’t invite him either.
‘Well, I am not the one that got him sleeping over there in the house.’
She wait and then she say, ‘He didn’t come here for me, Gloria. He come for you.’
‘I don’t know what to do with him Sybil.’
‘So what?’
‘So he just going have to stay there ’til I figure out what to do.’
When I ask Henry ’bout the priest he tell me that he called Father Michael Kealey and he downtown at Bishop’s Lodge. I think to hell with Fay. The man is a priest. It is his job to keep people’s confidences. So I forget about Sister Emmanuel and I telephone the Lodge because I can’t think where else to turn.
Father Kealey is a handsome man with a gentle face and grey hair at his temples. And a dimple in his chin. He mixed, maybe African and Indian. I don’t know and I not about to ask him.
‘Miss Campbell.’ And he put out his hand to shake.
‘Thank you for seeing me Father.’
‘It is my pleasure. What can I do for you?’
I explain to him all about Esther and I ask him to excuse me as well because I am not a Catholic but brought up Baptist even though I can’t say I been to any church in recent days, or years.
And he just smile and say, ‘What would you like me to do?’
‘I was wondering if yu would consider seeing Esther. Having a talk with her about all these troubles she having at school.’
He sit there nodding his head with his hands clasp together across his chest. ‘I don’t really know how you think I might be able to help.’
‘I don’t know either Father. But Esther not talking to anybody.’
He think on it and then he say, ‘Who did you say the child’s father is?’
A dumbness suddenly come over me. I never expected him to ask me that. Not right now, just like that. There no point in lying so I just say it: ‘Yang Pao.’
‘Yang Pao?’
I don’t know whether the expression on his face is horror or just ordinary surprise. So I sit there and wait.
And after a while he take out his little book and say, ‘Why don’t you bring Esther over next week. Monday, about 3 p.m. Will that be agreeable?’
‘Yes Father. Thank you.’
Father Kealey sit with Esther for well over an hour while I was waiting outside in the garden lush and peaceful, and full of poinsettia and bird of paradise and little wild banana plants.
Afterwards, when we travelling home she suddenly say to me, ‘I miss you when you go to Cuba you know?’
‘Yu did? I thought you and Gang-gang had a real pleasing time together.’ And then I say, ‘And Uncle Clifton too.’
She sit quiet for a while and then she say, ‘I saw the letter that came from Cuba.’
‘The letter?’
‘Yes. And I heard you on the telephone talking to Aunt Sybil.’
‘That isn’t nothing for you to be worrying about, Esther.’
She turn herself ’round and look straight at me. ‘Are you going to leave me, Mommy? Because if you do I will have no father and no mother either.’
My heart leap out to her because it pain me to hear that this is what she think. So I put my arm ’round her shoulder and pull her to me and I say, ‘I not going to leave you Esther. I never going leave you. You and me, we going to be together for ever and ever. Long after you get yourself a husband and have your own children and even after that, I will be loving the grandbaby and looking out for all three of you, or maybe four or five. Every little one that come along. That is how it going to be. Nothing on this earth could take me away from you.’
But was it Esther that was keeping me from Ernesto or was it because I was still angry with him, because the day I come home and find him sitting on the veranda anger was all I felt.
I tell Esther to go inside the house and then I say to him, ‘What yu doing here?’
‘I have been waiting days, Gloria, and nothing from you.’
‘I didn’t tell yu to come here. In fact, I already tell yu that yu shouldn’t have.’
I rest myself in the chair across from him.
‘And what we have means nothing to you?’
‘What we have is a night and morning at your house and some trips to the mountain.’
He stand up and brush himself down and then he say, ‘We cannot talk like this. I will be at Sybil’s if you want to see me.’
And then he step off the veranda into the early evening street with his soft hair blowing on a gentle breeze.
When I go inside I take one look at Esther’s guilty face and say to her, ‘Yu should be in your room seeing to your business not listening to people’s conversations.’
‘Did he write the letter?’
‘It doesn’t matter, Esther. It don’t concern you. What you need to be doing is getting yuself ready for the new school the Father sort out for yu.’
‘I don’t want to see any more nuns.’
‘What you want? I will tell you what you want, and that is to make sure yu get yuself an education. Yu see those children in Cuba they marching over that mountain every day just so they can sit in a shack and understand how one word follow the next. They not bad-mouthing the teacher or fighting with their friends. They receiving their learning like it a gift not a chore like how you want to gwaan. Father Kealey had to make special arrangements for them to tek yu at the Convent of Mercy and what you should be is grateful. Not standing there telling me what you want. Yu understand me?’