After that, things get bad. What with the almighty mess Flora leave behind, and unemployment and poverty getting worse even though the government was telling us we got more money circulating on the island than ever before. And yes I could see it with the fancy houses they building up the mountain in Beverly Hills and the cars on the road that so pricey and elegant. That was for some. For others it was a gunman waiting behind every corner of West Kingston or somebody with a machete wielding through the air to slice any man, woman or child who belong to, or someone think belong to, the other party be it the Labour Party or the PNP.
Martin Luther King even come here with his message ’bout how we had to face the challenges of the hour with creativity and determination but it didn’t make no difference. As if him talking to the privileged at the university could change anything. And then after Mr Seaga make his speech ’bout fire for fire and blood for blood, that was it.
That was when Pao come tell me that Kenneth Wong outta control, running with Louis DeFreitas in West Kingston and getting into some serious business.
‘Gloria, Kenneth is bad. The bwoy got a gun sticking outta every pocket. Everything Louis tell him to do, he do it. I try talk to him but it nuh do no good. All he say is Louis his friend. Can yu believe that? And even though I tell him that Louis DeFreitas is a punk who would just as soon put him out front to take a bullet as shoot him in the back if it suit him better Kenneth not taking a blind bit a notice of me. I even talk to Henry ’bout it but that not no good either. The thing is, Kenneth setting a bad example because all Xiuquan can see is how a boy little older than him can make fast money and get a reputation.’
I want to tell him ‘I told yu so’ but I don’t do it. No need to be rubbing salt into the wound.
‘What mek yu think Xiuquan would have his head turned that way?’
‘Turn that way! The boy already get himself arrested two years back for thiefing outta Times Store and I have to sweeten Mutt and Jeff to let it go.’
‘Mutt and Jeff??’
‘The two constables that arrest him.’
‘Thieving not the same as shooting down somebody in the street, Pao.’
‘Yu think?’
Pao not the sorta man to get agitated over nothing. Most times I reckon he could do with paying a bit more attention to what going on ’round him so right now it seem the situation really serious.
‘And yu know what happen now?’
I don’t say nothing because I know he going to tell me.
‘Henry Wong drop down with a stroke in the middle of the street.’
I just stand there silent like maybe I been struck deaf and dumb. Pao look at me hard and then he come over close and say, ‘You all right?’
‘Yu telling me the man is dead?’
‘No, Gloria. He have a stroke that is all. Right now he is sitting up in bed in the Chinese Sanatorium begging everybody that visit him to bring rice and peas and chicken with them. What it matter to you anyway?’
I gather myself. ‘Nothing. I just don’t like you coming in here telling me somebody is dead. It not the sorta news yu announce just like that.’
He look at me and then he say, ‘Sorry.’ He wait a while just standing there staring at me like there is something else he want to say. And then just before he turn and walk to the door he say, ‘Esther, she all right?’
The next day I go up the sanatorium after visiting hours and pay the nurse to let me see Henry. When I go in the room I shocked to see what a pitiful state he is in. A big man like Henry struck down in his prime. Paralysed down one side of his body. Even his face lopsided.
I draw up a chair close to the bed and take his good hand in mine. And I stroke it just like I did that night in Ocho Rios and before too long he open his eyes.
‘Gloria.’ He say it in a sort of whisper, which I think is all he could manage. So I just smile at him.
And he say it again, ‘Gloria’, and smile at me with the bit of his face that he could still move.
‘No need for yu to say anything. I can do all the talking for both of us.’
He laugh, but it was just a tiny sound that come out his nose like he just breathe out heavy. Then he start move like he want to sit up in the bed so I get up and fix the pillows and help ease him.
‘There many kinds of love, Gloria.’ And he swallow hard. ‘The love of mother or father for child. The love of man for woman. The love of a brother. The love of a friend.’
I say ‘Henry’ like to stop him because I can see how much he struggling and I don’t think he need to be carrying on this way. But even though he have to wait to catch his breath, he gather himself because there is still more he want to say.
‘And there is love that fills the heart and soul with joy. Love that is happy just to look up and see you sitting there and hear your voice and see your smile and know you are all right. And that love, Gloria, is all of love. Every kind of love rolled into one.’ He stop and breathe. ‘Sometimes it takes many years for that kind of love to grow. Other times it happen just like that, in a flash, a look, a conversation, a joke you share, because that connection is all it takes to turn a life on a sixpence.’ He stop again. ‘The physical thing, a lot of times is empty. All body and no heart. A recreational activity.’
I reach for a Kleenex and wipe away the spit that dribbling from the corner of his mouth.
‘That is what people do even though it not take away their loneliness. It add to it. But when there is love, Gloria, the physical part is an expression of that love. And even then, it is only the finger pointing at the moon. It is not the moon itself.’ He stop. ‘With you, Gloria, the moon is what I have had all these years and the one thing it is so very hard to let go of.’ And then he say, ‘The bit about the finger and the moon, that not me. That the Buddha.’ And he smile his half-face smile.
‘Henry.’
He close his eyes and squeeze his shaky hand over mine. And I feel the life draining out of him.
‘You, Gloria, is all any man would want or need. A man younger than me that is.’ He open his eyes and look at me with a tenderness that make me think Henry want to cry. But he don’t do it.
‘Another time, another place, Gloria. Different circumstances. Different ideas about who we think we are or what we should want or deserve, or what is decent or honourable or fair. That is what was needed.’
And then he close his eyes and a little while later I realise Henry gone to sleep.
The next time I go visit Henry I go in daytime because the other night was too late for a man in his condition. I reckon I was taking a risk so I just pray that nobody recognise me and go report to Pao that they see me there. When I open the door Henry sitting up in bed eating ackee and saltfish that he say Hampton bring for him earlier.
‘Yu looking good.’
‘I know that not true, Gloria, but I thank you for saying.’
He put down the empty plate on the side and want me to get a cloth for him to wipe his hands and mouth so I go to the sink and wet up some paper towel and bring back to him. Henry got his businessman face on.
‘You remember Alfred Ho? You work for him in shop.’
I nod my head.
‘Want you see him.’
‘What all this about Henry?’
‘You see him. Ho know what to do.’ He pause, and then he say, ‘And the money that everybody owe that is for you. You carry on business or not. Whatever you want.’
‘Henry.’
‘And the house in Ocho Rios, that same as always. Abraham still there but it your house now. Nobody know about it. Not Cicely, nobody. Just you and me and your women friends from Franklyn Town. So no need you do anything. Just use it. Make it home we never had.’
‘Henry, there is no need for you to be doing this.’
‘Not need, Gloria, want.’
I think on it and then I say, ‘What yu going to do about the businesses Henry? The supermarkets and such?’
‘You want give Yang Pao? That how it is?’
‘The two a yu been running supplies to the hotels for a long time.’
‘For you, Gloria. For you.’
I think. ‘What about Miss Cicely?’
‘Cicely? No need worry ’bout her. She well provided for. All you have to do is see Alfred Ho and collect money he have waiting for you.’
‘Waiting for me?’
‘US dollars, Gloria. That is the thing to have. You go see him and make it soon. I not be here much longer and I want know you have in your hands. Go now. Go on.’
I stand up and lean over and I kiss him. Just light on the lips and then I ease back and look at him. ‘That wasn’t for the money. That was for what yu say about love the last time I was here.’
He sit there upright in the bed but he didn’t say nothing. He just motion his head towards the door like as to say gwaan, be on your way.
I step outta the room and start off down the long corridor that open to the elements with the banana trees and yellow hibiscus. And as I turn the corner I walk straight into Fay Wong.
We stop and she look at me, but this time it was different. It not like the ‘you poor thing’ she do to me that first time in her father’s wine shop. Nor was it like the way she look down her nose at me the last time we meet. This was completely different. It had gentleness in it. Maybe it was because her father was dying. But that look mean that it didn’t alarm me when she say, ‘Would you like to get some coffee?’
We go down to the restaurant that they have there in the sanatorium and it nice. Not what I expected for a hospital at all. The tables even got a white damask cloth on them and flowers in a vase. We collect the coffee cafeteria-style and sit down. She careful, Fay. She position her skirt neat and tidy, and rest her purse on the table, and check where the chair legs going before she ease it up and settle herself to reach for the coffee. And after she pick up the cup she put a paper napkin in the saucer and rest the cup back in it to make sure nothing drip off the bottom and catch her blouse, which is a beautiful cream silk with a ruffle down the front.
And then she just look straight at me and say, ‘Do you love him?’
‘Pao?’ She nod her head.
So I say, ‘Do you?’
‘Never even liked him, not in the slightest.’
It startle me. The frankness of her.
‘So what you marry him for?’
She take a sip of coffee and then dab the corner of her mouth with another paper napkin.
‘When I was a child I had very fair skin and blonde hair. Can you imagine that? And everybody in the house was so pleased and proud all the maids wanted to do was brush and comb it, and every night Mama would have them plait rags into it, you know, so the next morning my hair would flow out into magnificent blonde curls.’ And she do a little twizzle with her hands to show me what she mean.
‘Everywhere I turned, all I could hear was them telling me I was just like Shirley Temple on the
Good Ship Lollipop
. Actually I have never seen that movie and hope never to for as long as I live.’
I can’t believe Fay is talking to me like this so I just sit there mesmerised, wondering if I am in the middle of a dream.
‘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.’
I sit there in amazement, so she carry on.
‘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 turned to brown when I was five years old.’
‘You think it was disappointment?’
‘I think it was shame. The shame of a black African woman who thought she had escaped slavery by virtue of her blonde, fair-skinned baby, only to find that the baby wasn’t blonde after all.’ She take another sip from her cup and do the same routine with the napkin.
‘Why you telling me all this Fay?’
‘I am explaining to you why I married Pao. The context. Because every decision we make has context.’
So I nod my head and settle down to listen.
‘It was after that, that she started to beat me and scream and shout and find fault. Not that I want to paint myself as a victim, but I was a child and she was my mother. I expected her to look after me, to protect me, but she didn’t. She let me down in the most unforgivable way. And so as I grew, we argued and argued and continue to do so to this day.
‘Mama was brought up Methodist but she converted to Catholicism so when it came time for me to go to school it was a convent school she chose and then later it was Immaculate Conception because as far as she was concerned it was the best secondary school for girls on the island. To me, it was heaven. Heaven to be away from her, so I pestered Papa until he let me become a boarder because it meant I would no longer have to go home to her at the end of each day. But even though it was she who wanted me to be at Immaculate, she was enraged by the fact that I was happy there and decided that the only reason was because I was playing at being white with my new friends. In fact, nothing could have been further from the truth. The white girls didn’t mix with me, and neither did the Chinese because I wasn’t full Chinese and that mattered a great deal in those days. Still does. And the black girls, few and far between as they were, stayed together. I was in no man’s land, but that didn’t matter because the most important part for me was I was away from her.’