The other thing troubling me is Marcia, because even though we settled and she supposed to be going to school Miss Sissy say it not so. Marcia dress every day in the white blouse and little blue pinafore dress like she got on the uniform and on her way but all she do is cross the road and spend the day sitting down in the house over there doing God knows what according to Miss Sissy except she sure it involve smoking cigarettes and drinking liquor, and sometimes when she come back Marcia got to visit the bathroom to wash the make-up off her face. Miss Sissy say it not decent for a child to be spending time, never mind how much time, with women like that. It alarming. That is what she say. And it going lead to bad business.
‘Bad business? What yu saying to me? Apart from the child not going to school to get her education?’
‘These women, Gloria.’ She pick up the tablecloth and walk out back to empty the crumbs. So I follow her. ‘They are whores.’
It tek me aback the way she spit out the words at me.
‘Yu mean actual real whores or yu just think they loose because they smoking cigarettes and carrying on?’
‘Yu nuh see how much men they got marching in and outta that place? All hours a the day and night? What yu think deh up to? Running a boy scout troop?’ She shake out the cloth in the yard and then she fold it neat and walk back inside.
I say to Marcia, ‘Yu nuh think yu should be trying to get yuself a education instead a spending all yu time across the road?’
‘Yu mean wid Sybil and Beryl?’
‘It nuh matter what they call. Fetching and carrying after them not going do yu no good if yu want something better than working in a shop.’
‘Like teking a more senior position with Miss Vilma? That what yu mean?’
‘Since when yu get so fresh? Yu think yu can talk like this to me after the hours I spend trying to keep us outta the poor house?’
‘More like outta the penitentiary yu mean.’
‘Hush yu mouth.’ And I pray to God nobody standing outside this bedroom door to hear her and start put two and two together to mek ten. ‘Yu got to want something more than this.’ And I look ’round the little room the two a us sharing.
‘Yes, that is what I want and going to school to learn ’bout Oliver Cromwell and the kings and queens a England not going do nothing for me unless I am planning to become a schoolteacher passing down all this same claptrap to the next generation who going sit there just like me wondering what all this got to do with meking a living in Jamaica in 1940.’
Sometimes on a Sunday I sit on Miss Sissy veranda and look out over the road where the radio blasting out the calypso and they jigging and jiving with the curlers in their hair and the cigarette in their mouth wearing some long silk robe they must get from Chinatown, all red and yellow and green embroider with flowers and birds and flowing round them with every swish a their hips. When Marcia not sitting with me looking at them, she over there with them looking at me. And in truth she spend more time over the road because that is her preferred activity. She nuh want do nothing else. Not tek the bus to Hope Gardens, or go listen to the military band play their music in Victoria Park, or even go to the beach. All she want to do is run after Sybil and Beryl fetching the next pack a cigarettes and chipping the ice off the block for the next drink. She taking lessons in drawing on the eyebrow pencil and squeezing tissue paper to blot off the excess after yu spread on the lipstick. She painting their fingernails and even their toenails, with the little piece a cotton stick between each toe. And then after she done that she doing her own. Right out there on the veranda in full view a the whole street. Who would think the girl not even finish school yet.
Miss Sissy say I should keep Marcia lock up in the house. That what she need is for me to march her to school every morning and go fetch her back at one-thirty and lock her in the room ’til dinner time.
‘I cyan do that Miss Sissy. I got to go to work.’
‘The child need a firm hand. That is all I am saying to yu.’
All I hear from Marcia is how Miss Sissy chastising her every day and giving her errands to keep her running to the shop, and fetching this and carrying that like she a delivery bwoy. Miss Sissy even try get Marcia do little bit a housework but Marcia not doing it. Truth is Miss Sissy effort not doing nothing but driving Marcia further into the arms a Sybil and Beryl.
‘She call me a whore yu know that?’
‘She didn’t call yu no whore Marcia. She say yu need to be careful in case yu turn into one.’
‘Yu see. The two a yu the same. Yu think that every woman that paint her toenail and pamper herself is a whore. Having a little fun wid yuself don’t mek yu nothing. Anyway, how somebody going turn into a thing like that? Like it a accident? Yu cyan do that. Yu have to decide. Yu decide that is what yu want to do. And when yu mek that decision that is your business.’
‘A where yu learn to talk like that girl? Yu think yu a big woman now because yu paint on little lipstick and smudge on some rouge? Well let me remind you, you are a schoolgirl and yu would do well to concentrate yu mind on that, not running over the road to go fuss ’round those two with their silk robes and fancy talk ’bout who is deciding what. What you need to decide to do is get a education so yu can earn yuself a living.’
‘Yu mean like you every day trailing after that fool-fool girl Lynette and working like a slave for Mr Ho doing everything he want and everything he not even think he want yet? And then coming home so tired yu can hardly get the spoon to pick up the sour mackerel rundown Miss Sissy busy serving up every night. Fretting every week and counting out quattie because yu dunno if the wages going cover the rent and the food and the bus fare. I wouldn’t ever want to wake up to one single day a worry like that, never mind thinking that this is the rest a my life. At least Sybil and Beryl having themself a good time while they putting a roof over their head and luscious food on the table.’
The thing that worry me is that I think maybe Miss Sissy half right ’bout Marcia state a mind. Not that Marcia already decide, but that she like the company a Sybil and Beryl too much. And from my point a view it is one thing her being over there with the two a them in daytime doing their beauty treatment but it another thing now she playing waitress at night. That is a completely different kettle a fish.
‘Yu busy wid yu mouth running down two women yu never even meet. How would yu like it if somebody do that to you? Just tek one look and decide they know all there is to know. Yu should go talk to them before yu start find fault.’
Maybe Marcia got a point. So when she come tell me that Sybil and Beryl invite us to dinner I think I got no choice but to tek a bath when I come back from work the Saturday and put on a clean frock and go with Marcia ’cross the road, if for no other reason than to be able to say I come face to face wid dem. Miss Sissy huffing and puffing but what I going to do? Marcia not going pay no mind to anything I got to say without me at least taking the time to sit across the table and exchange a few words with these women she calling her friends.
The house got a veranda out front that go narrow ’round the side. It got a room yu step into with some grey and white tiles on the floor but this is not the room we going eat in. Where we going eat is the back room that next to the kitchen with a big, wide door that go straight out into the yard that sufficient and pretty with a almond tree and some yellow hibiscus and white periwinkle, and a purple bougainvillea running all over the back fence. The kitchen is a good size with a little maid room just off it that nobody live in because is only Sybil and Beryl in the house, even though it got another living room with sofas to lounge in and two bedroom each side a the house with a bathroom in between. Four bedroom and two bathroom. Beryl serve up curry goat with rice and salad and afterwards she bring out a pineapple upside-down cake and some gizzadas. She got ice cream as well and what look like a gallon a rum punch. These women know how to entertain, and it taste good. Marcia right ’bout Miss Sissy cooking, but we been eating it so long I almost forget what good food taste like. Beryl’s curry goat is rich and thick, hot and heavy. Not thin and watery like everything Miss Sissy put on your plate.
‘Yu see much a Kingston since yu come from country?’ Sybil cutting her eye at me while she lighting a cigarette.
‘No. It well over two years now and all we do is look for work and find it and a few months later look for work again.’ Sybil laugh and Beryl follow suit.
‘Yu nuh think that maybe the work yu finding yu should be leaving for somebody else to find?’
‘Yu have to work. What yu going to do otherwise?’ The two a them look at me and then they look at one another and laugh. Marcia start join so I shoot her a stare and she shut up.
Sybil drag on her cigarette, and then she say, ‘Yu a good-looking woman, Gloria. Anybody ever tell yu that?’
I look at her through the curl a blue smoke. Sybil is tall for a woman and she sturdy. She heavy set but she filling up her body. She solid. She not carrying no spare pounds. She lighter complexion than Beryl, sorta fudge brown, whereas Beryl is more like chocolate. A square chunk a dark chocolate. She got good teeth as well, Sybil, and a smile that would mek yu forget yu troubles and believe that she was the only person on God’s good earth that yu could trust.
‘They been telling me that ever since I young enough to tek it vain, and then old enough to know it was trouble.’
‘The old women dem say “beautiful woman beautiful trouble” because she attract the man like a moth to a flame. They nuh understand that the beautiful woman not the one that cause the trouble, she the one that get it. That nuh right, Beryl?’ And Beryl say ‘yah man’ and the two a dem exchange a glance.
Beryl say, ‘So tell me ’bout life in country. What it like?’ I tell them ’bout the sugar cane and banana plantation, and the hills full a orange trees and the river with the water so clear that when yu stand in it up to yu neck yu can still see yu feet clear as day. And then Marcia start talk ’bout Mama and Leroy and Babs and then Beryl just say, ‘So how come yu come to Kingston?’ And a hush fall on the room.
Marcia start shuffle and Sybil say, ‘Marcia tell me some man in a shack would have ruin her if it not for you busting through the door with a big stick in yu hand.’ I cyan believe Marcia go tell them ’bout that. I so shocked I cyan even bring myself to look at her. And then Sybil say, ‘Yu nuh need to fret yuself. We not going tell nobody.’ She turn to Beryl and then back to me. ‘Yu secret safe wid us.’
I look at them sitting there so satisfied like they already done figure out the whole a life and know the secret. ‘What yu trying to do Sybil?’
‘I trying to help yu Gloria that is all. Marcia say yu working in the Chinaman shop all hours a day and night and even though it wearing yu out yu not got tuppence to show for it come the end a the week. And all I am saying to yu is yu could put the gift God give yu to better use. Better use for you. So yu can have something more than the see-through fish soup Miss Sissy feeding yu and the strip-down room yu sharing wid yu sista.’
I reckon Marcia the one putting Sybil up to this.
‘What you do Sybil is your business. I got no quarrel with that.’
‘What is it yu think we do?’
I cyan believe she go ask me a thing like that. Right out loud. I want to say to her ‘I think yu entertaining men for money’ but I cyan say it. I don’t know it for sure. Not the money part anyway. The men, I seen plenty and I can guess what going on inside, but the money, I don’t know. And still, when all is said and done, I cyan believe I nuh figure it right. The only thing that meking me hold back is remembering what Marcia say to me ’bout how everyone think a woman who paint her toenails and dance on her own veranda is a whore. And also, that it would be so downright rude to say it.
So I just sit there and look at her ’til Sybil eventually say, ‘It not what yu think.’ And then she say, ‘Yu only a young woman Gloria and already yu see so much man trouble. Yu going spend yu whole life running from them?’ She get up and reach over the table to pour more rum punch into my glass. ‘Yu nuh think that maybe there got to be something better than that?’
So I say, ‘Something better than being poor and feeling shame?’
‘Yu feel shame, Gloria? When yu feel shame? When every man want to stop what him doing just to look at yu? When they whispering and laughing behind yu back or maybe it worse when it to yu face? Or when they don’t even bother whisper, they just say what they want to straight out so everybody can hear and join in the joke and yu too fraid to say nothing back to them? When even the bwoy pickney is chasing after yu down the road repeating all the dirty things him hear from somewhere else?’
I think about Auntie’s yard, and the man rubbing himself on the bus, and the crowd that making fun in the shop, and him leaning on every doorpost and saying to me, ‘Since when a thing like that matter to a girl like you.’ I think about the youths on the road when Henry Wong turn up. And I think about Barrington Maxwell. But I don’t say nothing to her.
Sybil sit there a good long while before she say, ‘To them every woman is a whore so they can tek what they want from her because she is not a real person. She is a thing. A thing for their comfort and pleasure, their pride or amusement. She there to mek them feel good. People think being a whore got to do with what gwaan in the bedroom but it not. Being a whore is about who is in charge. And who can mek who do exactly what they want the other one to do however menial or shameful. However much it against the person’s own self-interest or self-love. Because we just here to work for them, including in the bedroom. That is what they think. Every woman, from baby to old gramma, is only there to serve some purpose a theirs. And that is OK wid dem because one way or another, they reckon they paying hard cash for it anyway.