‘Why yu nuh just give the woman the money and save everybody’s time and trouble?’
‘I don’t like the woman, Clifton. I don’t like what she try to do to Henry.’
‘The man is dead and gone. Yu think it matter to him? It don’t matter to nobody now what she do.’
I know Clifton right. After all, nothing ever come of all her investigating. Not even Miss Cicely was interested. But still, I couldn’t stomach the idea that she was going to get the better of me.
It stay on my mind ’til Sybil telephone and say that she tell Fingernail our decision but she didn’t say nothing.
‘What, nothing at all?’
‘Not a single word. She just sit there on her veranda looking at me and then she turn her head and stare at the street. And when she finally open her mouth she just start talk about how good it was that Trevor got to make his record.’
‘Trevor make a record?’
‘Yeah man. It turn out that Fingernail was serious ’bout knowing some record producer and she fix a meeting for Trevor and he do the record. Some song ’bout how the police not got no right to be chasing innocent criminals.’
I laugh. ‘Innocent criminals?’
‘Something like that. Anyway, it not doing so good in the hit parade but at least he have the satisfaction of knowing he do it and he got the record spinning on the turntable over and over every single day so the whole street can appreciate it. If appreciate is the right word.’
I think on it a minute. ‘So what yu think Fingernail going do?’
‘Your guess is as good as mine.’
I telephone Clifton to congratulate him on his promotion to police captain.
‘It wasn’t no easy thing yu know. They put me through my paces. Well and truly.’
‘I wouldn’t expect anything less. Giving a man a responsible position like that. You got to know he up to the challenge.’ And we laugh.
‘Anyway,’ he say, ‘Trevor in the hospital if yu want to go visit him.’
‘What happen to him?’
‘He get knifed.’
‘Yu serious?’
‘Straight up. A rumble over some card game. Another inch to the side and they would a slice his liver and mek him bleed out right there on the floor like a stuck pig. That bad it was. Or nearly was anyway.’
‘He all right?’
‘All right? He sitting up in that bed there showing off his stitches to everybody and harassing every pretty nurse that passing him by. Go take a look at him. I think he would appreciate it.’
When I go over the hospital Trevor just like Clifton say. Boastful and happy, and full of charm for the nurses.
‘What happen?’
‘Deh just bust in wid gun and knife. One a dem even had a cricket bat. Can yu believe that? And deh just grab up everything on di table and tell everybody to empty him pocket and when I try wrestle wid one a dem he stick me.’ And then he smile and say, ‘Yu want to see?’ And start raising up his pyjama shirt and pull down the pants little to show me.
‘It nasty Trevor. And it not no stick. It more like slice.’
‘That not nasty.’ He examine himself and sorta rub the stitches light with his finger. ‘It mannish. Yu nuh think so?’ And then he look over and smile at some young nurse passing by about her business.
‘How many men yu think so lucky to have a thing like this to show off?? And to say, I get knifed in a card game?’ And he smile.
‘Trevor, this not no joke. The man nearly kill yu!’
‘Nearly, Miss Gloria. Nearly.’ And then he smile again. A big, broad grin.
‘How they find out ’bout the game and how much big money was passing hands over there?’
He cover himself up and pull the sheet to his neck. ‘I think that my fault.’
‘How so?’
‘Since the doctor gone it not so easy, yu know, to get all dem white men. So maybe I talk little bit too much trying to get people interested.’
‘Who yu talk to?’
‘Too many people, Miss Gloria. Too many.’
I think on it and then I say, ‘Yu think maybe Fingernail got anything to do wid it?’
He quiet at first and then he say, ‘I think maybe.’ He pause a minute. ‘She been complaining bad ’bout how you and Miss Sybil stop the lending and rob her over it. She real sour ’bout it. Real sour.’ He stop again. ‘Sorry I mek such a mess a everything.’
‘You didn’t mek no mess, Trevor! It was me and you don’t need to be apologising for anything. It me that should be saying sorry to you.’
He laugh. ‘Well, it done now. Card club over. And since my latest record doing so good in the hit parade it likely time for me to be thinking ’bout other things anyway.’
‘Yu not going get the police to do something ’bout it?’
‘Di police not got no time for a thing like this. Not wid di nonstop armed combat they contending with. Anyway, all a them was wearing kerchief over their face like it a cowboy movie.’
When me and Sybil go over Passmore Town we find Fingernail and her friend sitting on the veranda in some brand-new frocks and high-heel shoes. They even wearing hats, sitting there in the shade of their own front yard.
‘So Sybil, Gloria, long time since we nuh see yu.’
We walk up the veranda steps and sit down in the sticky plastic chair.
‘Yu mek yuself some big money then?’
Fingernail stand up and twirl ’round two times, smiling with her hand raise in the air. ‘Yu like it?’
We just sit there and look at her. So she rest herself back down.
‘Yu bwoy all right in the hospital?’
I feel like I want to get up and slap her spiteful face. And then maybe take the hat off her head and stamp it into the ground.
‘Yu lucky this thing didn’t turn into no murder.’
‘Murder! Cho, people getting shot for just walking down di street in di wrong-colour shirt. Trevor was nothing.’ And she motion her hand like to say enough already, I don’t want to hear no more ’bout this.
So I get up and say, ‘It over then. We done.’ And she just shrug her shoulders.
When we reach the street and drop the gate latch we see the other one with her hand half raise like she tempting to wave but she too nervous to actually do it. Next thing I know Sybil lift her arm and sway it little bit in the breeze. Like a farewell and I think all right, she her friend in the first place.
Sitting in the taxi Sybil say to me there is something she want me to come do with her. And what she want is for me to go to some dancehall with her to listen to Junior playing his trombone.
‘What, like in a band yu mean?’
‘Yes.’
‘He must be a grown man now eh, Sybil?’
‘Twenty-two years old. Making his living as a musician. Can yu credit it? And I watch him grow all these years just like he was my own. First in the orphanage and then all the way through school, which is where he learn to play the trombone. Yu know Alpha see that boy right from the first day he set foot in that school yard.’
‘I always hear tell how good they do with the boys and the music there.’
‘Them nuns save that boy’s life. That is the truth.’
The dancehall in a downtown backstreet behind a wooden door that got a wrought-iron gate to protect it. Inside it packed, and hot-hot. There so many people in there you almost couldn’t even move your arm to reach into your purse for change to pay for your drink. And the outfits these women wearing? Outlandish wasn’t the word. Like maybe she got on a lime-green catsuit that so tight the zip only pull up halfway. Or a orange brassiere and some leopardskin something that I not sure if it shorts or dress except it not got no front and barely cover her backside. Or maybe she got a long skirt to the ground but she draped from head to toe in all sorta beads and bangles like she a Egyptian belly dancer. And the hair, that was something else because there was every colour under the sun. Blue, purple, pink, green. You name it, it was there on somebody’s head, excepting for the ones that go bleach their hair blonde. But the one thing all of these women have in common is that every one of them dress so they could show off everything they got.
And if that wasn’t enough, then the dancing was showing off everything they could do. Winding up every inch of their body in a way that put you in mind of just one thing. And what going on with the men on that dancefloor wasn’t anybody’s business. While the rest of them stand ’round and watch like it was a floorshow for their entertainment. Which maybe it was. To me it was shameful. Me, a woman who been in the business I been in all those years.
All I feel when the records stop and the deejay finish his toasting, which is what Sybil tell me it called, was relief. And I thank God when Junior’s band finally turn up with him blowing some real sweet music outta that trombone.
Afterwards when he come say hello he greet Sybil like she was his true mother. Wrapping his arms ’round her and kissing her on the cheek with love and real affection. And then he shake my hand and say, ‘I sorry ’bout what I bring yu to.’ And he sorta gesture with his head ’round the room. ‘I didn’t know it would be like . . . like this. It’s just, yu know, my first live gig and I wanted Sybil to come see me because up ’til now all I do is play trombone in the studio for somebody’s record.’ And he smile. ‘Sorry.’ And then he kiss Sybil on the cheek again.
Junior was courteous. A gentleman, with manners. Dressed in slacks and a breakneck shirt, with soft, sensitive hands that would never see the blood his father’s had. Not the way he play that trombone. And eyes that had the telltale hint, especially when he smile, of a little Chinese, right there in his African face. Just like Esther.
‘And so my life its way will wend.’
Clifton was waiting for me when I get back from my trip with Hyacinth enrolling her into the community college book-keeping course. And what a happy day that was after years of her trying to get all the qualifications for the entrance.
I see the grave look on his face, so I say, ‘What happen?’
‘It Auntie. She just collapse and Esther ring a ambulance to tek her to Morrison and he call me.’
‘Morrison say what wrong with her?’
‘He think it a heart problem that mek it beat funny and that is why she fall down unconscious but then she wake up and she OK. But she off her legs if yu get me.’
‘Yu mean she cyan walk?’
‘Not at the moment. Morrison say maybe not again, or maybe she get up OK but she always going be unsteady. So anyway, he put her in a nursing home up Constant Spring Road but it expensive and he want to talk to yu ’bout that.’
‘We lucky he was on hand.’
Clifton laugh. ‘Yah man. Good that he only last six months in Scotland before he had to come back home and open a bottle a rum. He say to me that the cold and sober Presbyterian life was killing him. Yu like that?’
We pull into the car park and the place is beautiful. Gorgeous lawns and gardens and paved walkways with arcades of pink English roses over them and flower beds with hibiscus and anthurium and oleander and periwinkle, and a plumbago hedge sitting right under the big tiled veranda where the nurse greet us and say she will take us directly to Auntie.
Auntie’s room is clean and bright and airy. It spacious and the decoration gracious. It seem more like a first-class hotel than a place for sick people. So I think Morrison done good no matter what it cost.
I walk over to her and kiss her head as she sitting there in the wheelchair looking out the French window that got the little balcony on the other side. And then I pull up a chair next to her and sit down.
‘How yu doing Auntie?’
She reach over and take my hand in hers. ‘I doing fine, Gloria. Just fine. Di people here, deh good to me. Nothing fi yu to fret over. Every long lane have a turning.’
So maybe this is what she needed to finally stop her from doing all the chores she always busying herself with and refusing for me to get some help.
We talk some more while I was pushing her in the wheelchair ’round the garden and then just as I was ready to go she say to me, ‘Clifton going talk to yu. Di things yu want to know, I not got di strength fi it but I tell him to tell yu because I understand it not fair fi me to go die and tek all a dat wid me.’
‘Don’t talk like that. Yu alive and well.’ I want to ask her what she mean but there don’t seem no point. She already tell me Clifton going do it so that will be soon enough.
Esther serve stew peas and rice for dinner. She home for the holidays before she go to university.
‘Yu have a good day with yu father at the races?’
‘It was fun but I’m afraid I lost a lot of money.’
‘His, I hope.’ Clifton laugh. And then I smile to myself about how measly that musta sound.
Me and Clifton step on to the veranda while Esther inside seeing to the dishes. He pick up two glasses and a bottle of rum as we walking out so I know this going to be some long conversation.
He settle himself and pour the drinks. ‘I have something to tell yu.’
‘Is it something I want to hear?’
‘Well yu been asking ’bout it for long enough and Auntie think it time.’