If I Never Went Home (8 page)

CHAPTER TWELVE

They say two wrongs don’t make a right and that was definitely the case with Mummy. She thought he was a maxi-taxi van. He thought she was a cow. Two wrongs and she gone. I don’t remember how we got from the hospital to Aunty Indra’s house. They gave me Priya’s room and Priya’s clothes. Nanny promised to take me to my own house but I heard her crying in the kitchen saying how she can’t face seeing all Nalini’s things. The next day a doctor came to the house and gave me two pink tablets that made me sleep whole day till six o’clock in the evening. He tried to get Nanny to take the pink tablets too but she shout at the man that nothing going to stop her from doing right by the dead. She go have plenty time to sleep after the dead bury.

I certainly did a lot of sleeping. I would get up and it would hit me like a cricket bat cracking a six that Mummy not coming back to take me home. As soon as I start crying someone would make me take more pink tablets. This morning at breakfast my cousins all had on their school uniforms. My school must be opening today too but Aunty Indra want me to stay home this week while things get sort out. I don’t want to ever go back to school. People will look at me strange – the girl with no parents. No other child in my school missing both parents. I could hear them already, happy that the winner of the recitation competition ain’t all that. Poor Tina – she used to only have a mother, now she don’t even have that. Maybe I won’t be able to attend normal school now. Maybe the principal doesn’t like to mix normal children with orphans in case that jinx the proper families.

People keep coming by Aunty Indra house to sit around, cry and drink juice. Some bring food to share. A lady I never see before came and put a bag of sugar cakes and tamarind balls in my hand. People I don’t know coming up to hug me. They tell me my mother was an angel and I should pray for her soul in heaven. Of course she was an angel. I don’t know how they know since I never see them before.

One old lady made me sit on her lap. She asking if I know her. I told her straight – I have no idea who she is.

‘Yes man. You must know me. I see you with your mammy and your cousins in our hardware. You don’t remember the time all you come in for paint because you wanted your room paint pink? You remember that?’

That was last year during the August holidays. Mummy don’t like pink. I mean didn’t like pink. But she let me have a pink room. She said as long as is only my room she don’t care. Or she didn’t care. I don’t even know how I suppose to talk about her now.

The old lady damp with old lady sweat. She put her hand down the front of her dress and took out a handkerchief to wipe her face. I tried to get up but she hold me down. She not even talking to me any more but she still pin me down on she lap. She and Nanny start to talk about me as if I not even there.

‘She went to school yet?’

‘No. I say leave it till after the funeral.’

‘Yes, that is the best thing to do.’

The sweaty old lady took another swipe of her face with the hanky and then stuffed it back into her bra. She keep trying to jig me up and down on her lap even though I’m not a baby. I will be eleven this year.

‘All you decide what to do with Tina?’

Nanny didn’t answer. Aunty Indra passed by same time carrying a tray of empty glasses.

‘Indra, what all you going to do with Tina? She staying by you from now on?’

Aunty Indra and Nanny both screw up their faces like they smelling something bad.

‘Nothing fixed for certain yet, Granny Gwen. And the way you holding on to Tina it look like you want to take my niece home with you.’

‘She have a sweet little face. And you know something? She remind me of my granddaughter Bea when she was little so. I wish I could take her home. Still, I too old to look after more children.’

The lady Aunty Indra had called Granny Gwen was sweating even more. This time she wiped her face on the back of my T-shirt. Then she held my cheeks and pulled my face close to her. I could see big beads of sweat in her hair.

‘Tina child, you must think of me as another granny. When the funeral and thing done, and you settle, get your Nanny or your Aunty to come bring you by me. We have a big chenette tree and pomerac in season now. I will get one of the yard boys to pick for you.’

She loosened her grip a little and I tried to make a dash for it.

‘Come back here, child.’

She catch my hand. Oh Lord, I stuck with her again. She opened her purse and put a crumpled-up twenty dollars in my hand.

‘Take that to buy sweeties.’

Nanny give me one hard look.

‘What you say to Granny Gwen?’

‘Thanks, Miss Granny Gwen.’

I ran to Priya’s room so fast. I couldn’t take another hug-up from that lady. I rather give back the twenty dollars than get pin down on her damp lap again. But twenty dollars is a lot of money. Me and Priya will share it. When Priya came home from school I showed her the money. She didn’t look too happy.

‘So she give you all that money just because your mother dead?’

‘I guess so.’

‘Well, that don’t seem fair to me. A whole twenty for nothing.’

Priya doesn’t get it, that I would give all the money in the world to have my Mummy back. I hate Priya.

But hate her or not, I am staying by her house and sleeping in her bedroom. I heard her complaining to Aunty Indra that she need her room back to do her homework. Aunty Indra tell her something in a whisper and she start whining how that’s not fair and how I should go stay by Nanny. Whatever Aunty say make her march off and slam the door to her brothers’ room. I wanted to go and tell her I don’t want to live in her stupid house either. I want my Mummy so bad.

There doesn’t seem to be a moment when the house empty of people coming to say they sorry about Mummy. I can’t even cry in peace or think about her without someone wanting to hug me up and kiss me or look at me like they never see anything sadder than me. But I guess she was loved. All her church group came. The people from the dentist office came, even the big dentist Dr. Cameron. I heard him say that the cheque in the envelope is what was owed to Mummy and some extra to help with the funeral. Nanny said we will manage by the grace of God. She said Nalini had life insurance plus an insurance to pay for funeral expenses. And, not that they counting on it, but that driver’s insurance go have to pay up. The problem is what to do with Tina.

I was sitting on the other side of the living room so Nanny must think I can’t hear her, but I hearing real good. She telling Dr. Cameron that how they not sure where I should live. Indra already have three children and she could manage a next one but it go be a stretch. Her husband okay with it. Still, is a big deal to take on another girl child. Nanny not sure she able. The question is whether she have any choice. At least she said she love me bad. It’s only that she getting old and don’t know where she will find the energy for a youngster.

‘In two-twos Tina will be in high school and then it go be boyfriend problems and all that. I tired just thinking about it. Bringing up Indra and Nalini was enough, you hear.’

‘What about Tina’s father?’ Dr. Cameron wanted to know.

‘As God is my witness I don’t know who the Daddy is,’ said Nanny.

‘She never tell anybody?’

‘No. She always say she wanted the baby and so that is that.’

Nanny leaned closer to Dr. Cameron. ‘But that don’t mean I ain’t have my suspicions.’ She rocked back in the armchair and shook her head. ‘We don’t know for sure and now she gone, Lord rest her soul, we will never know unless he come forward. That poor child. It not easy never knowing who to call Daddy.’

I went in Priya’s bedroom and lay down with the blanket over my face and pretended to be sleeping. I want my Mummy. The sun hot outside but it feels cold even under the blanket. I want to stay here and never come out. Why God would take away my Mummy? They have plenty bad people on the news that he should take first. But no. He had to take my Mummy who everybody loved. I want my Mummy back now. My head hurting. I want to scream and scream but I must be quiet. If I make plenty noise they could put me out. This is not my house, as Priya keeps telling me. Strange how she used to be my best friend and now she’s such a pig.

And Nanny has no right to be talking we family business with strangers. Not because people come to say they sorry about Mummy don’t mean they have to know about my not having a father. She not thinking how embarrassed I am with everybody telling me they sorry for me. When they find out I don’t have a father they look even more sorry. One church lady even ask Aunty Indra if we don’t have relatives in Canada or America that could take me in. She sure somebody must like to have a girl to help around the house and I will still get to go to school. Aunty Indra said she can’t think of anybody off the top of her head but she knows we have some pumpkin-vine family living in Alberta.

The thing is that not once has Nanny or Aunty Indra asked me where I would want to live. Nobody even take me back to the house to get my clothes. Uncle Ricky went and got clothes for me like he know what I like to wear. He pick up some things and shove them in a bag. So what going to happen to the place now? I know we were renting it from Mr. George so I suppose he will take it back and rent it to someone else. In fact I heard the receptionist from the dentist office already asking if the place go be free soon because she looking for something in the area that not too expensive. Mummy not even bury yet and people want our home. And what going to happen to Boo-Boo? Nanny and Aunty Indra both hate dogs. Apparently Miss Celia looking after him for now. Lord you know how much I miss my puppy.

I am so mad at Mummy. She should have stayed under the shelter. It was raining too hard to know if it was a taxi from so far. She should have stayed under the shelter and see what it is when it reach us. And that stupid, stupid man. I know they sometimes have cows in the field near the shelter but how he could think Mummy was a cow? She wasn’t even fat. In the hospital the doctor said she died instantly. At least she didn’t feel the blood flowing from her head. But she had no right to die and leave me here alone. And to die without telling me who my father is make me so vex. How he going to find me now and take me home with him?

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

The endless nothing days at St. Anthony’s stretched out to ten weeks, shaped by therapy sessions and mealtimes. Bea saw others come and go, and was no longer surprised by who might join their ranks. A few from her original group were still there. Sarah was back home and seemed to have accepted she would not become a mother. She still attended sessions twice a week. Dave remained, slowly gaining weight and getting colour into his sallow cheeks. He looked less like a lost child. A Japanese diplomat joined them for two weeks. She never said much and rarely left her room, but it was understood that she had stopped taking her medication for manic depression and had suffered a difficult and public relapse. A college student entered their world for a few days plagued by obsessive, compulsive anxiety that was making it impossible to do his courses. His mother swooped in from Texas and took him home before anyone had made friends with him.

Bea still had days when the escape route of suicide would overwhelm her and she would be unable to leave her room. She gradually learnt to be grateful for the longer gaps between such days. New patients, unsure of the routines, found her quietly helpful. It gave her some fleeting self-worth, to be useful like this. She had more privileges now. She could go for walks in the grounds outside by herself, though the freezing conditions made that a redundant concession. The staff occasionally took patients at Bea’s stage of recovery for accompanied walks to the coffee shop nearby or the Wal-Mart for essentials that were not stocked by the on-site kiosk. She was allowed a laptop and cellphone.

But Bea was working up the courage to ask for another concession. She was ticking all the boxes – taking her medication, practising daily mindfulness, and taking her therapy seriously. It was time to put this progress into practice. When Dr. Payne came for one of his now twice-weekly visits she was ready. In spite of all the lines she had rehearsed the words tumbled out just minutes after he sat down.

‘So what do you think?’ she asked, anxiously searching his face for approval.

He looked at her for a long moment then smiled.

‘You have no idea what a big step this is. I’m really delighted for you.’

‘So I can go?’

‘Of course.’

It felt like Christmas in February. She was being allowed to go out on her own to have her hair done and walk around the shops. Her whole demeanour changed. She could not have been happier if she had been given a trip to the moon.

‘You’ll make sure the nurses know I have permission to go on my own?’ she asked.

‘I’ll do it right away.’

The next morning she showered and changed carefully, layering up against the cold. When she stepped outside she wished she had her sunglasses to face the dazzling, cloudless blue sky. Sinking her hands deep into her coat pockets she set off trembling with excitement and barely feeling the cold. People on their regular morning rush hustled past. They had no idea what it meant to be able to do what you like, go where you like, without your competence being constantly scrutinised and analysed. She breathed in the freezing air and didn’t mind that it burnt her throat. When you are floating, little can spoil the moment. She thought of taking a bus into the shopping centre of Boston but pulled back. That was too much to navigate. She would go where her feet took her: and her feet took her to a row of trendy Somerville shops she vaguely knew.

After a while she found herself in front of Universal Cuts, a glass-fronted salon. Inside, an older woman was having a haircut and chatting intensely to the young woman with the scissors. Two other people, probably stylists, were sitting unoccupied. Bea stared inside. One of the idle stylists, an Asian woman, looked up and returned her stare, absentmindedly twirling the ends of her long jet-black hair. Bea suddenly felt intensely nauseous and dizzy. 

The memories were as sudden as a violent earthquake. She clutched her stomach tight and kept walking. When she was young, friends would taunt her about her long rod-straight hair. Her mother had explained that eating tomatoes encouraged curls like those of adorable Carlene who lived on the same street. But munching a daily tomato instead of an apple had failed to cajole a single strand into a beautiful bounce or charming curl.

As she got older, Bea’s hair had acquired another significance. Men in particular found it dazzling. The more praise it attracted, the greater her discomfort. Slowly she became aware that her hair merely crowned a blossoming body with breasts that filled a decent-sized bra.

‘Stop pushing yourself up so by every man you see,’ Mira complained.

Thirteen year-old Bea hung her head.

Mira continued to badger her. ‘You should see yourself laughing and carrying on like you is a big woman. Have some decency about you. You is still a little child.’

If only she had inherited Alan’s coarse wavy hair, life would have been easier. She said this to her maternal grandmother.

‘Listen, little madam,’ her grandmother had replied. ’Stop right there. You don’t know how lucky you is to get good hair from we side of the family. That so-called father of yours have hair picky-picky and curl-up. Them does have to straighten it regular to make it good. You don’t have to do nothing and your hair come down straight. Young people today! They never appreciate what the good Lord give them. Always wanting what they don’t have.’

‘But, Ma, I want it bouncy like Carlene’s hair. Why can’t mine be like that? And it’s too long. I don’t want it past my shoulders.’

‘You mad or what?’ shrieked her grandmother. ‘Don’t let me hear a scissors touch that head. Cut it and it will never grow back long so again. Mark my words.’

‘Well, I don’t like it,’ said Bea, pulling it into a bun.

‘When you get to be a big woman you could do what you want. But right now I can’t see your mother letting you cut the hair. Take it from an old lady. Leave the hair alone.’

‘Daddy said I could cut it if I want.’

‘If your mother hear you talking like that she go wash out your mouth with blue soap. He does do anything for you? When was the last time he come and see you, eh? Mira tell me how he forget your birthday. I lie? Didn’t do nothing. Not even a card. That is any kind of father to have?’

Bea did not answer.

‘School holidays come and gone and not once he say, well, he go take you to the beach, or take you to spend a two days by he. You think he give one shit about you? You hear me? You only have father in name.’

Bea had fought back tears, retreating to the relative safety of her room and her books.

The next opportunity came when she was at the hairdresser’s, waiting while her mother had her hair done. Bea dared to ask directly if she could have shorter hair. Judy, the hairdresser, ran her fingers through the dark thick mane.

‘Let we cut it in layers,’ Judy said. ‘Man, that go look real good. Mira, the child have good hair.’

‘Nah. Nah. Nah. We not doing nothing so,’ her mother had retorted. ‘Leave the hair. You can’t see how she hot with sheself already? If you give she some fancy style I go can’t control this force-ripe madam.’

Her mother had swung her chair so she faced the rest of the salon. ‘I look like I ready to be anybody grandmother?’

The half-dozen ladies in the cramped salon all burst out laughing.

‘Put the pill in she Milo-tea,’ urged Judy, grinning. ‘It never too early these days. You ain’t see in the papers how that high school girl, must be same age as Bea, making baby for a schoolboy still in short pants?’

The women nodded in collective agreement.

‘Mira, girl, you have your hands full,’ Judy continued. ‘I thank the Lord I don’t have no girl children to worry about so. My two sons don’t give me no trouble.’

‘Judy, you don’t know how hard it does be. Sometimes I wish I had a son, yes.’ Her mother had sighed. ‘Bea looking innocent because she so small. But let me tell you something. She ain’t easy, you hear? Just the other day we was on the beach and she laughing and running up and down playing cricket. Next thing you know a fellow come and want to take out she picture. Well, I make she sit down by me straightaway. The child need to learn some decency.’

Bea had sat next to her in silent humiliation. The salon ladies picked her over with their gazes like vultures pecking on a rotting carcass.

‘I don’t know what to do,’ said Mira. ‘Is me alone. I have to be mother, father, everything.’

‘She father don’t help out?’ asked a woman from under her hair dryer.

‘Help out?’ echoed Mira. ‘He feel if he give me a little change for the child that he done he work as a father. But ask him to keep she to ease me up little bit and he can’t do that. He always have somewhere to go running behind all them Jezebel.’

‘Man, forget about he,’ said Judy. ‘You still young. Take a next man.’

‘You see any nice man between Port of Spain and San Fernando? If you see any that ain’t going to thief your money or horn you with your best friend then let me know.’

The salon ladies laughed in agreement.

‘Oh Lord, you talking truth, yes,’ Judy laughed. ‘Them man them real worthless. And mind you, all of them the same. Coolie, black, white, mix-up. Them all make the same damn way.’

‘I don’t know if they all the same. My mother cry when I tell she I was marrying Bea father. Man, that woman cry for days. She say how if my father was alive it would have been licks for so. He wasn’t having no black man for a son-in-law. And she say Bea father look like he go run down plenty woman. Well, so said, so done. If you go against your parents it does come back to bite you in your, excuse my French, bite you in your backside.’

Judy nodded. She was spraying Mira’s hair. ‘Right, I done,’ she said. ‘Take a look.’

‘Judy, you real know how to do my hair,’ replied Mira, inspecting the back of her head in a mirror. ‘Thanks. Let me settle up with you.’

Judy waved away Mira’s purse. ‘Man, put that away. You think I forget is your birthday?’

‘Oh, Lord, girl, is how you know I turn twenty-one again today? You is a real good friend. Thanks, Judy.’ Mira turned to the rest of the salon and waved. ‘Ladies, I gone. Bea, hurry up and come.’

Bea had gone home encrusted in a loneliness and isolation she could not understand. If only her father would take her away. He used to love her. She was sure of it. As a little girl she went everywhere with him – every cricket match he played, every visit to friends and relatives. She was his little Beezy, his princess, and he would boast to his friends about how bright and pretty she was. But after he left them, the time between visits gradually stretched from days to weeks, and then months would go by without even a phone call. She thought about the distance between their homes. Less than five miles separated them, but he might as well have been living in a different country.

Bea hid in her room reading until Mira shouted it was time to change for the small birthday celebrations they were hosting at home. She had slipped into a long blue dress when she heard a soft knock on the bedroom door.

‘Who is it?’ she asked.

‘Uncle Fred,’ said a low voice.

‘I’m changing. Be down in a minute.’

To her shock he pushed the bedroom door open.

Bea quickly pulled the dress down and smoothed it out. ‘I’m changing.’

‘Yes, well, I come to see you. You looking real nice.’

‘Uncle Fred, let me finish changing. I’ll come down just now.’

Instead he moved further into the room and sat on the edge of her bed. ‘We could talk right here. You look like you nearly ready.’

Bea anxiously took a brush and attacked her hair. Uncle Fred, a long-standing family friend, was not someone she had private conversations with.

‘I never tell you before but I always love your long hair. Don’t cut it. When you bathe I bet it does look nice wet, hanging down your back.’

In one swift move he reached out and pulled her backwards so that she was pinned between his legs, his hard crotch pushed into her backside.

She froze. She wanted to say something but couldn’t. His hands groped her hips, stomach, thighs and breasts. He whispered in a deep low voice she had never heard him use before.

‘Oh God, you growing up sweet, girl. Them boobies like two ripe mango.’ He moved his grip from her hips and massaged her breasts. ‘You like me, Bea?’ he whispered. ‘Ain’t I is always nice to you? I bring a big Fruit and Nut chocolate for you. It downstairs in the kitchen.’

His fingers clamped her nipples hard. She felt tears spring up in her eyes. ‘Please stop, Uncle Fred.’

‘No, man. You feeling hot. I know you want me.’

The tears dripped down her face. ‘Please, stop.’

‘I know you don’t want me to stop nothing. You do it yet, Bea?’

She shook her head. ‘Please, stop.’

‘You worried about your mother? Don’t worry. She busy downstairs.’

His huge rough hands reached between her legs and rubbed back and forth. ‘You ever let anybody fuck this pussy, Bea?’

‘Please. Please stop.’

‘It must be a real tight pussy. I go break you in good. You go love it. I know you going to be a real good fuck.’

‘Please stop.’

‘I fuck your mother already. You know that? Remember when I come to fix the microwave last week? I fuck she in the spare room right there when you was watching TV. Your mother know how to suck a cock dry. She beg me. You should hear she. Fred, I don’t want nothing from you. Fred, come and fuck me. Please, baby, I ain’t get it long time. Fred, nobody have to know we business. But is really you I did want. I just give she a little something to keep she sweet.’