‘How many times yu going ask me that? And how many times I going tell yu I happy here? Since deh move me to dis nice little apartment I got everything I need. And on di days I good enough to walk wid di stick I do fah myself. And on di days I not so good, there is plenty people here to do fah me. There is company when I want it and quiet when I don’t. It perfect, Gloria.’
Michael Manley win the election and every week after that Pao was over the house telling me what wonders the government performing with their minimum wage and workers’ co-operatives.
Sybil ecstatic as well because, for the first time, the government actually making jobs for women.
‘The Women’s Auxiliary doing everything, Gloria, to support the work we doing. They even setting up special women’s centres so that pregnant schoolgirls can have their babies and still finish their education. That is something eh? Mek your work a bit different. And women’s groups as well, all over the island to help raise consciousness. Raise consciousness! It lovely.’
Next thing she tell me is the government re-establishing relations with Cuba and she going on an exchange visit with the Cuban Federation of Women. ‘Yu want to come?’
‘I cyan go to Cuba.’
‘Yu nuh want to see how the federation forging ahead?’
‘That is good for you Sybil. My contribution is right here.’
‘Yu not even interested to see how Ernesto doing?’
‘That ship sailed a very long time ago Sybil. You go and when yu come back yu can tell me all about it.’
Sybil go to Cuba and when she come home she say Havana is magnificent. It bold and proud and mobilising women into the workforce and political work and government administration. Even the ice cream is wonderful. And then she say she going there long-term. To help with some big conference the federation organising.
‘To Deepen Women’s Revolutionary Action. That is what it is called. Can yu believe that?’
I laugh. ‘Yu in yu element girl. But what Beryl going do?’
‘What Beryl always do?’
‘Stick with you.’
‘Same thing.’
‘What about Manley?’
‘It not going to last, Gloria. Jamaica not got the stomach for what needs to be done.’
I wait a minute to see if she was going to say something ’bout Ernesto but she didn’t. And I didn’t ask. What would I do with news of him anyway?
Two weeks later we go to the airport, me, Esther and Marcia who come back from Miami so she could say goodbye to them. When time come Sybil squeeze me real tight. Long and close.
‘Until such times, Gloria Campbell.’
And then she kiss me, Cuban-style, both cheeks, and she turn ’round and the two of them walk through the departure gate together.
We wait ’til they well and truly gone and we walk outside to catch a cab. And as we standing there in line Esther turn to me and say, ‘There is someone I want you to meet.’
Me and Marcia just exchange a glance and raise our eyebrows.
‘His name is Rajinder.’
‘Indian?’
‘You have a problem with that?’
‘I just asking that is all.’
Then I say to her, ‘Yu never want to introduce me to anybody else before?’
‘He is the first one, Mommy. I didn’t want to . . .’ She stop and look at us and then she say, ‘I wanted to think about it.’
Rajinder come to dinner. He is as quiet as a mouse and thin as a rake. But he muscular. Athletic, which make sense because of how she meet him. Playing volleyball on the beach. He intelligent too. At the university with Esther studying some managerial something. And he have good table manners. How Esther is with him? Protective.
Pao vex when I tell him ’bout Rajinder. ‘Indian, Gloria?’
‘What it matter to you?’
He sheepish. Like a little boy that know it wrong but he going say what he got to say anyway. ‘Yu know what they say, Gloria.’
‘I know what they say. That coolies dirty and smell bad and rob yu at every turn. But you Yang Pao, of all people, coming in here and saying a thing like that?’
‘I didn’t say nothing.’
‘But yu think it and that was bad enough.’
He stand there a minute and then he turn and hump off, which is what he like to do when a conversation take a turn that displease him. But I didn’t follow him inside. I just sit there on the veranda for a good long while, taking in the night air and finishing my drink. When I eventually go in the bedroom I don’t say nothing to him even though I know he was laying there wide awake. I just wash myself and brush my teeth and put on my nightdress and get in the bed with my back to him.
And then outta the dark he say to me, ‘I didn’t mean nothing by it yu know.’ He pause. ‘I am sure Rajinder a good man. After all Esther choose him nuh?’
‘Yes, she choose him.’
He quiet for a while and then he say, ‘They say all sorta things about the Chinese as well.’ And then he pause before he say, ‘But you still chose me.’
I turn ’round. And then I open my arms and welcome him into them.
When I get the postcard from Fay I realise that I still not done nothing ’bout Junior. He just turn up on the doorstep one day saying that since Sybil gone to Cuba he think maybe I could help him.
‘How you find me Junior?’
‘I telephone Sybil and she say for me to come see yu.’
I tell him to come up on to the veranda outta the sun and I ask him if he want some lemonade and he say yes.
Few minutes later I come back with the jug and glasses and rest them on the table. And then I notice that he still standing there. So I tell him it all right he can sit down and he do it. Careful and gentle with his knees together and his feet firmly on the ground. He tell me what he want and I just say, ‘Yu waste yu time coming over here Junior. I sorry but I cyan help yu.’
‘The thing is, Miss Gloria, I got the chance to join a band that going on tour. To Europe, and London, England. And I thought since I going there I might take the opportunity to see her. That is if she want to see me.’
‘Junior, yu not listening to me. I don’t know who yu mother is.’
‘Yu do, Miss Gloria. Yu know her.’
And right then I know it true. Looking at those Chinese eyes and finally admitting to myself that I have always known since the first time I meet him in that grisly dancehall. And Fay sitting in the restaurant at the sanatorium sipping coffee and telling me ’bout Isaac.
‘Maybe yu father should be the one to be helping yu with this Junior.’
‘He don’t know how to reach her. All he know is that she go to England.’
‘So he actually tell yu who she is?’
‘Yes. Little while back but it only now that it have any purpose to it. Yu know, because I going to England. So that is why I wondered if yu know where she is.’
I breathe out heavy and pour some more lemonade.
‘What mek yu think I might know?’
‘Because yu with Yang Pao. And although I can appreciate that you and his wife probably not likely make the best of friends I reckon that maybe he would know where she at.’ He pause and then he say, ‘And you could find out from him for me.’
All I say is that I would see what I could do. But actually I didn’t do nothing even though I had his telephone number burning a hole in my purse. I didn’t feel like I could go give him Fay’s address just like that. It felt like I should check with her first. And I didn’t know where to begin asking her ’bout a thing like that.
Fay’s postcard got a picture of the Queen and Buckingham Palace and soldiers with big fur hats. It say,
‘Congratulations on Esther’s graduation.’
And then she write that Mui tell her about it, which make sense because I know Mui been exchanging letters with Pao.
I put the card in the old shoebox with the rest of them that I get from her time to time. The same box in which I keep Ernesto’s letters. And looking at them like that I realise it a very long time since I hear anything about him. So I start wonder if he all right and spend days turning over in my mind if I should telephone Matilde. And in the end I do it.
We exchange a few pleasantries and then I say to her, ‘Do you see Ernesto, is he OK?’
‘He is fine, Gloria. He got married. A little while after Che died. Just like that, having ignored so many women Rodolfo and I introduced him to. Suddenly he started to see one of them and the next thing we knew they were getting married. Two children. Two beautiful, bright, cheerful girls. And he started playing golf.’
‘Golf?!’
Matilde laugh. ‘Yes. Dressed in army fatigues just like Che used to.’
And so I decide to write to Fay. For Junior’s sake and for Fay’s as well. I think it must be hard to lose a child like that and never see him again. So I reckon I owe it to her as a mother that she should know even if she don’t want to do anything about it. And maybe there was another reason. To forgive myself for never having written a single word to Ernesto in all of these years.
‘What is wrong with you that yu cyan leave this alone?’
Clifton turning over in his mind what it is he want to say to me.
‘Yu know, Gloria, yu keep that inside a yu all these years and it eating yu up. I know what yu was doing up at Barrington’s shack. Yu think I don’t? Yu think I am not the one person who know exactly?’
‘Clifton.’
‘You were a child. Barrington was a grown man.’
‘I was fourteen years old when it first happen and I carry on going there for two long years before me and Marcia run here to Kingston. And if we nuh do that, how much longer would I have keep doing it?’
‘Yu have to let it go, Gloria.’
I take a deep-deep breath and then I say, ‘Yu know, that day, I still don’t know if I beat in his head to protect Marcia or if it was outta jealousy. That I should go there and find him doing that with somebody else. And in truth I pick up the stick and start swinging my arm long before I realise who it was he got there under him. It was pure rage Clifton. And it wasn’t to do with her, it was to do with me.’
All the time I am saying this, Clifton is sitting there on the veranda leaning forward in the chair with his elbows on his knees and his hand over his mouth like he stopping himself from talking.
‘Why did I do that? Keep going back. Yu know why? Because I felt wanted. Somebody wanted my company. Because no matter how much Mama try treat me like I was part of her it never really feel like it. I used to even make joke that Marcia was her favourite daughter. That much did I feel outside of something.’ I pause and then I say, ‘Excepting when I was with Barrington. I’m not saying it was Mama’s fault. She grow me up a Campbell and she was good to me. Always. But there was something that set us apart, which now I know what that was, but back then I didn’t. I was lonely, Clifton, and I thought people didn’t want to be with me, except Barrington and doing what he wanted me to do was the price I pay, every once in a while, to escape from feeling so deserted.’
‘Yu was a child, Gloria. Barrington tek advantage of yu.’
‘I went back Clifton. Yu nuh understand that? I went back and back and back. It was me.’
‘It was you but it wasn’t your fault.’
‘It was my fault. My fault for being wanton, and stupid and irresponsible in the first place like the slave that get caught for being too slow and careless.’
‘The slave get caught because somebody is chasing them. Somebody that is more powerful and more conniving. They are not to blame for that. And neither are you. And as for going back all you do was act out of your loneliness and confusion.’
I cyan believe that it could be so simple after all these years.
And then he say, ‘Did Auntie ever say to yu that people have to forgive themselves for the blame they take on to themselves thinking it their fault the way other people hurt them? That you, Gloria, tek on that blame for what happen with Barrington and been punishing yuself for it all these years. She ever say that to yu?’
‘Auntie don’t know nothing ’bout what happen with Barrington.’
‘But yu know what she say is true nonetheless.’
We fall quiet.
‘How can yu forgive yuself for a thing like that Clifton?’
‘Because everything can be forgiven. Because what Barrington do to yu he do out of his own pain and suffering. And what you do with Barrington was out of your pain and your suffering. But he do it to yu, Gloria. And you do it with him. That is the difference. He was a adult man and you was a girl child and right there is that power imbalance we talk ’bout before, you and me. I know what it like to be on the weak end of that power equation, Gloria. I know. And what happen wasn’t your fault any more than it was mine. It time yu let it go and know that you are a fine and decent person, and yu always have been. Yu just human, Gloria, that is all. Yu are a human being who mek mistakes, and sometimes get confused and has weaknesses and vulnerabilities. And being like that we don’t always do things in a way that leave us feeling good. People, Gloria, we suffer. So what that mek you? It mek yu just the same as every other person on God’s good earth.’ He pause and then he say, ‘It seem like yu already forgive Barrington for what he do to yu so maybe it time yu forgive yuself.’