The next day I go over to Franklyn Town even though I knew that all I had to do was sit on it and wait for him to be gone. But I don’t. I kid myself into thinking that something had to be done, which most likely was just an excuse for me to go see him.
When I get there he is standing in the back yard painting that same fence Pao labour over all them years back. I pour some sorrel from the fridge and take it to him and then I ease away and gather my skirt and sit down on the concrete step.
‘Yu not got nothing better to do than this?’
‘This is for daytime.’
‘Daytime?’
‘Evenings I go with Sybil to her Party group to exchange ideas with the comrades.’
I smile and then I say, ‘We got enough trouble here, Ernesto. We don’t need you to come stirring everybody up.’
He put down the paintbrush. ‘People are already stirred up. And what they seek is an end to their poor conditions. Perhaps my experience is of help.’
‘Jamaica not the place for no armed uprising Ernesto.’
‘What did you say to me? You said inequality is unjust and must be overcome.’
When I talk to Sybil ’bout how she change her attitude to him, she say Ernesto is inspiring. That people can’t get enough of how he listen and think about things, and reflect back to them their own thoughts and experiences woven together with stories of Cuba and the wisdom of Fidel and Che. She say the referendum coming up over whether Jamaica should stay in the West Indies Federation and Ernesto helping them to get people interested and involved.
So how it end up was with the three of us, me, Sybil and Ernesto, going all over Kingston talking to every woman and man that would listen, about how Jamaica would do better as part of a regional federation as opposed to going it alone like Mr Bustamante say. Ernesto stand and sit and smile. And shake the hand of every man that come near him and kiss every woman on both cheeks and every now and again he say something like, ‘A better life is not like an apple that falls from the tree when it is ripe. You have to make it happen.’
And just like this the days turn into weeks because the fighting and mayhem that go on after the US try to invade Cuba at Playa Girón meant that Ernesto couldn’t make it home. So he stay and we carry on. And what I felt was pride. Proud of Sybil for the energy and commitment she put into caring all of these years. Proud of every Jamaican who take the time to listen and talk and think. Proud of Ernesto for having faith in us as a nation even though we weren’t going to take up arms and storm the British at Up Park Camp. Proud to be standing next to him in the street, or watching him deliver a speech to a local Party group, or grabbing a patty with him at Monty’s, or a soda at the pharmacy. Because wherever Ernesto go the sun was shining on him. Day or night. And I didn’t even have to fret that Pao would see me. Or Henry for that matter. After all, what was I doing? Political work for a better Jamaica.
What I discover was that I had something to offer. Not only the personal experience that I share with Margaret Morrison’s girls but also the thinking that I could do. I was uneducated but I wasn’t stupid after all. I could actually think. And I could talk about what was best for Jamaica. Think and talk with complete strangers. And even though I couldn’t quote Norman Manley or Che Guevara the way Sybil and Ernesto do, the struggle was still real and important to me. And I could add my voice to it. Not just sit on the veranda and hope for the best. I could contribute to our future.
But the night I decide to stay at Franklyn Town was the mistake that maybe half of me had been planning all along.
We come back to the house after a rally where Ernesto stand on the platform and tell the crowd in that cricket ground packed to the hilt that we have to learn to overcome our oppression. Capitalism made us weak. But with hard work, unity and sacrifice we can do it. Victory is ahead. They love it. They clap and cheer so much he could hardly finish what he was saying ’bout how we have to be firm in our faith and go forward with our eyes on the future and our feet on the ground.
The whole place erupt when he was done, bringing their hands together high above their heads and making so much noise they must have hear it all the way to Montego Bay. Whistling and hollering with so much excitement and appreciation it could have been Che Guevara himself standing there with the gentle smile in his eyes and the breeze fluttering the bunting behind him.
And it was in the spirit of that jubilation that I step up to him and throw my arms ’round him and held him to me. And he held me. And we stood there like we were alone again on his terrace overlooking the coffee hills. So alone I couldn’t even hear the crowd no more or remember where I was. Not ’til Sybil tap me on the shoulder and I turn ’round and see the blanket of outstretched arms waiting to carry him off ’round the park.
When we finally come back to the house our feelings were running high. And a couple rums later it seem like the only thing to do was stay. I telephone Auntie so she wouldn’t fret and I go with Ernesto to the room he sleeping in that used to be mine.
And the excitement I felt even before he touch me was filled with a yearning and longing I never imagine existed, never mind was possible for me to feel. He lay there looking down at me for some long time and then he take a finger and slowly encircle my lips. Round and round until all I wanted to do was take it into my mouth and suck. And just doing that one single thing set my whole body soaring as I taste him and watch him watching me. And then he kissed me with a mouth so firm, yet so gentle, while my arms closed fully ’round him.
The next morning when I wake up I realise I sleep with Ernesto naked. And that all night long all I wanted was to feel the warmth of his back or the firmness of his arm ’round me. Even his feet I wanted to feel resting gently on mine. And whereas with Pao I always put on a nightdress, and he pull on his shorts, with Ernesto it would have seemed like a retreat. A withdrawal from what we had shared.
I lay there in the early light of dawn thinking about him and me. And Esther and Auntie, and Marcia. And Pao. And Margaret’s girls. And how Sybil so eager for every minute that Ernesto is with us talking about the marvels of Cuba and the revolution. And the great achievements of the women’s federation with their daycare centres and education and work programmes. She cannot get enough of it even though it not all glorious because there is also plenty people wanting to shout down Ernesto and tell him to go back to Cuba because they don’t want no communism here in Jamaica. One time it get so bad even I had to stick in my oar and say to them, ‘Yu forget what all a this about? It nuh matter whether yu call it communism, or socialism, or democracy or anything else. The point is we want a better life. Fairness, equality, opportunity. That is what we want. Education, good health, a respectable job, a decent home. So we all on the same side. Remember that. Because at the end a this is people. Ordinary people wid ordinary lives. Not Party members who got nothing better to do than sit down here arguing and bickering with one another.’ And they simmer down. But it is still there. The quarrel.
So even though I agree with Sybil that what happening in Cuba is truly marvellous, there is a part of me that is still holding back. Not from the good I think we doing right here right now, but from where this kind of pressuring people’s opinion and party-line debating might tek me. And the expectation that Ernesto might have about what this time together mean.
Because in truth there was no future for me and Ernesto. After all, what did I ever hear from him apart from another quotation from Che or Fidel? We hardly knew each other. Except for what go on in the bed, and even though it like nothing else on this earth, it wasn’t enough to build a life on. Not when you leaving behind everything and everyone you know, and uprooting your child for a foreign land. Because that is what Ernesto have in mind. He wouldn’t give a second thought to him coming to Jamaica. So I get up and leave.
When I get back to Barbican Auntie was vex. Stirring Esther’s porridge and crashing and banging every pot and pan she could find to boil an egg and butter some bread.
I don’t say nothing to her, I just go take a shower and go to my bed. Later when I get up the house was empty. Esther gone to school and Auntie about her business. But before I could even turn ’round twice Ernesto was at the door asking me why I run off from him.
‘I didn’t run off from you.’
‘So what happened?’
I look at him standing there on the veranda in his khaki pants and white shirt but I didn’t say nothing.
‘I am leaving tomorrow. Sybil’s friends have found a way for me to return home via Moscow.’
‘I know.’
‘Will you come to Cuba? Not now but some time. Come and be with me.’
‘Ernesto.’
‘What do I have to do to make you say yes?’
I want to step across and hold him and stroke his head and calm his worried brow but I don’t do it. I just stand there.
‘I shouldn’t have stayed with you last night. It was selfish. I let my feelings rule my head.’
‘You regret it?’
‘No Ernesto.’
‘So come.’
‘I can’t. I belong here. Just like you belong in Cuba. But the gift you have given me, the truly wonderful gift, is me realising that I do have something to give and I want to do it. All those nights at the Party meetings and neighbourhood gather-ins, listening to you and hearing my own voice with ideas I am sharing with others, that was my awakening. My revolution. And now I have to carry on and build like yu said.’
He stand there a long time not saying anything, just getting more and more sad, with the realisation of what I am saying.
‘I love you, Gloria.’
And right then all I want to say is ‘I love you too’ but I don’t do it. I just hold myself still and hope the ache in me will pass.
‘You will always be special to me Ernesto. Always in my heart and on my mind.’
‘And I will always love you.’ And he turn ’round and walk away. And I wept.
When Esther come back from school she wasn’t talking to me. She wouldn’t even look in my direction. So I just say to her, ‘Cat got yu tongue?’
‘You stayed with him last night?’
‘What I do isn’t your or anybody else’s business.’ Which I realise afterwards was sort of curt, covering over the guilt I felt.
She wait and then she say, ‘I am not sure my father would agree.’
The next day I can’t decide whether or not to go to the airport. And with all my dithering I leave it too late so by the time I get there he had already gone through the departure gate. I see Sybil waiting by the glass window and I walk over to her. And as we standing there looking out on to the empty runway she reach out and put her arm ’round my shoulder.
A month later I get a letter from him.
I have been trying to forget. It seems the only thing for me to do to keep my sanity. So I tend to the coffee, and I eat and drink and go about my daily business, and once in a while, for a minute or an hour, I am free. But each evening when I sit alone on the terrace with my coffee and cigar, and I go to my empty bed all I do is remember.
Your back is on my mind
with the little mole in the middle that I stroked and kissed.
Your lips are on my mind
As I slowly encircle them with my finger
Your eyes are on my mind
with their yearning and longing and laughter.
I hope that you are well, and Esther too. I send you the best of all things.
As always. Ernesto.
So the referendum happen and Mr Bustamante get his way. Jamaica withdraw from the West Indies Federation. After that Mr Manley say the only way forward was for us to get self-government, so he and Busta go to England where Queen Elizabeth say we can have our independence from the mother country and they set the date for 6 August 1962.
The celebrations include eight days of rejoicing all over the island and a right stately visit from Her Royal Highness Princess Margaret and her husband the Earl of Snowdon. And to top it all they say we going have a big to-do in the new National Stadium the night when they take down the British flag and haul up the yellow, black and green that was for us and our future. Yellow for our natural riches, black for the struggle and green for hope.
But when the time come hope was the last thing I was feeling because instead of Norman Manley being the first prime minister of an independent Jamaica it was Busta and somehow I couldn’t see him managing to do what Jamaica needed because no matter how much the elected government felt itself committed to a cause it didn’t have the power to get the people to organise. And no amount of instructing or cajoling was going to make it so. Not like how the Cubans want to do everything for Fidel. There wasn’t going to be no national literacy campaign that was for sure. No mass volunteering. There wasn’t enough unity for that. We could sing and eat and dance. But was there enough love of the people? Enough love of the cause? I didn’t think so.
So we nuh bother take ourselves to no street parade or the National Stadium to sing the new national anthem and watch the firework display. We just sit there in Franklyn Town, me and Sybil and Beryl and Auntie and Marcia, and watch Esther get entertained by the nonsense songs Trevor was busy making up and singing to us like he think some record producer going seriously take him on. Not that there wasn’t music pouring outta every young man on this island because there certainly was that. Every one of them thinking that Prince Buster or Leslie Kong was going produce their record for the sound systems they got blasting out at the lawns. But Trevor, I didn’t think so. For one thing, he only had the one song even though he switch ’round some of the words every time he say ‘Here is another one’, but it was still the same song. And whereas everybody else was singing ’bout independence and forward march and freedom sound, all Trevor had on his mind was how everybody and everything in this world let him down. The other thing, he only had the one tune. And when you hear that same tune over and over, even if it got different words, your mind switch off. So there was only Esther listening to him. Not that it matter to Trevor because all day long he was coming and going from the house with that twangy little guitar of his telling us ‘Here is another one’ like he just make it up in the hour or so since we last see him.