Skin Folk (12 page)

Gloria quirked an eyebrow, crinkling her face like running a fork through molasses. “Then I go take the rest of the afternoon
off. You and Mister Samuel should be alone tonight. Is time you tell him.”

Beatrice gave an abortive, shamefaced “huh” of a laugh. Gloria had known from the start, she’d had so many babies of her own.
She’d been mad to run to Samuel with the news from since. But yesterday, Beatrice had already decided to tell Samuel. Well,
almost decided. She felt irritated, like a child whose tricks have been found out. She swallowed the feeling. “I think you
right, Gloria,” she said, fighting for some dignity before the older woman. “Maybe… maybe I cook him a special meal, feed
him up nice, then tell him.”

“Well, I say is time and past time you make him know. A pickney is a blessing to a family.”

“For true,” Beatrice agreed, making her voice sound as certain as she could.

“Later, then, Mistress Powell.” Giving herself the afternoon off, not even a by-your-leave, Gloria headed off to the maid’s
room at the back of the house to change into her street clothes. A few minutes later, she let herself out the garden gate.

“That seems like a tough book for a young lady of such tender years.”

“Excuse me?” Beatrice threw a defensive cutting glare at the older man. He’d caught her off guard, though she’d seen his eyes
following her ever since she entered the bookstore. “You have something to say to me?” She curled the
Gray’s Anatomy
possessively into the crook of her arm, price sticker hidden against her body. Two more months of saving before she could
afford it.

He looked shyly at her. “Sorry if I offended, Miss,” he said. “My name is Samuel.”

Would be handsome, if he’d chill out a bit. Beatrice’s wariness thawed a little. Middle of the sun-hot day, and he wearing
black wool jacket and pants. His crisp white cotton shirt was buttoned right up, held in place by a tasteful, unimaginative
tie. So proper, Jesus. He wasn’t that much older than she.

“Is just… you’re so pretty, and it’s the only thing I could think of to say to get you to speak to me.”

Beatrice softened more at that, smiled for him and played with the collar of her blouse. He didn’t seem too bad, if you could
look beyond the stocious, starchy behaviour.

Beatrice doubtfully patted the slight swelling of her belly. Four months. She was shy to give Samuel her news, but she was
starting to show. Silly to put it off, yes? Today she was going to make her husband very happy; break that thin shell of mourning
that still insulated him from her. He never said so, but Beatrice knew that he still thought of the wife he’d lost, and tragically,
the one before that. She wished she could make him warm up to life again.

Sunlight was flickering through the leaves of the guava tree in the front yard. Beatrice inhaled the sweet smell of the sun-warmed
fruit. The tree’s branches hung heavy with the pale yellow globes, smooth and round as eggs. The sun reflected off the two
blue bottles suspended in the tree, sending cobalt light dancing through the leaves.

When Beatrice first came to Sammy’s house, she’d been puzzled by the two bottles that were jammed onto branches of the guava
tree.

“Is just my superstitiousness, darling,” he’d told her. “You never heard the old people say that if someone dies, you must
put a bottle in a tree to hold their spirit, otherwise it will come back as a duppy and haunt you? A blue bottle. To keep
the duppy cool, so it won’t come at you in hot anger for being dead.”

Beatrice had heard something of the sort, but it was strange to think of her Sammy as a superstitious man. He was too controlled
and logical for that. Well, grief makes somebody act in strange ways. Maybe the bottles gave him some comfort, made him feel
that he’d kept some essence of his poor wives near him.

“That Samuel is nice. Respectable, hard-working. Not like all them other ragamuffins you always going out with.” Mummy picked
up the butcher knife and began expertly slicing the goat meat into cubes for the curry.

Beatrice watched the red lumps of flesh part under the knife. Crimson liquid leaked onto the cutting board. She sighed, “But,
Mummy, Samuel so boring! Michael and Clifton know how to have fun. All Samuel want to do is go for country drives. Always
taking me away from other people.”

“You should be studying your books, not having fun,” her mother replied crossly.

Beatrice pleaded, “You well know I could do both, Mummy.” Her mother just grunted.

Is only truth Beatrice was talking. Plenty men were always courting her, they flocked to her like birds, eager to take her
dancing or out for a drink. But somehow she kept her marks up, even though it often meant studying right through the night,
her head pounding and belly queasy from hangover while some man snored in the bed beside her. Mummy would kill her if she
didn’t get straight A’s for medical school. “You going have to look after yourself, Beatrice. Man not going do it for you.
Them get their little piece of sweetness and then them bruk away.”

“Two patty and a King Cola, please.” The guy who’d given the order had a broad chest that tapered to a slim waist. Good face
to look at, too. Beatrice smiled sweetly at him, made shift to gently brush his palm with her fingertips as she handed him
the change.

A bird screeched from the guava tree, a tiny kiskedee, crying angrily, “Dit, dit, qu’est-ce qu’il dit!” A small snake was
coiled around one of the upper branches, just withdrawing its head from the bird’s nest. Its jaws were distended with the
egg it had stolen. It swallowed the egg whole, throat bulging hugely with its meal. The bird hovered around the snake’s head,
giving its pitiful wail of, “Say, say, what’s he saying!”

“Get away!” Beatrice shouted at the snake. It looked in the direction of the sound, but didn’t back off. The gulping motion
of its body as it forced the egg farther down its own throat made Beatrice shudder. Then, oblivious to the fluttering of the
parent bird, it arched its head over the nest again. Beatrice pushed herself to her feet and ran into the yard. “Hsst! Shoo!
Come away from there!” But the snake took a second egg.

Sammy kept a long pole with a hook at one end leaned against the guava tree for pulling down the fruit. Beatrice grabbed up
the pole, started jooking it at the branches as close to the bird and nest as she dared. “Leave them, you brute! Leave!” The
pole connected with some of the boughs. The two bottles in the tree fell to the ground and shattered with a crash. A hot breeze
sprang up. The snake slithered away quickly, two eggs bulging in its throat. The bird flew off, sobbing to itself.

Nothing she could do now. When Samuel came home, he would hunt the nasty snake down for her and kill it. She leaned the pole
back against the tree.

The light breeze should have brought some coolness, but really it only made the day warmer. Two little dust devils danced
briefly around Beatrice. They swirled across the yard, swung up into the air, and dashed themselves to powder against the
shuttered window of the third bedroom.

Beatrice got her sandals from the verandah. Sammy wouldn’t like it if she stepped on broken glass. She picked up the broom
that was leaned against the house and began to sweep up the shards of bottle. She hoped Samuel wouldn’t be too angry with
her. He wasn’t a man to cross, could be as stern as a father if he had a mind to.

That was mostly what she remembered about Daddy, his temper—quick to show and just as quick to go. So was he; had left his
family before Beatrice turned five. The one cherished memory she had of him was of being swung back and forth through the
air, her two small hands clasped in one big hand of his, her feet held tight in another. Safe. And as he swung her through
the air, her daddy had been chanting words from an old-time story:

Yung-Kyung-Pyung, what a pretty basket!

Margaret Powell Alone, what a pretty basket!

Eggie-law, what a pretty basket!

Then he had held her tight to his chest, forcing the air from her lungs in a breathless giggle. The dressing-down Mummy had
given him for that game! “You want to drop the child and crack her head open on the hard ground? Ee? Why you can’t be more
responsible?”

“Responsible?” he’d snapped. “Is who working like dog sunup to sundown to put food in oonuh belly?” He’d set Beatrice down,
her feet hitting the ground with a jar. She’d started to cry, but he’d just pushed her towards her mother and stormed out
of the room. One more volley in the constant battle between them. After he’d left them Mummy had opened the little food shop
in town to make ends meet. In the evenings, Beatrice would rub lotion into her mother’s chapped, work-wrinkled hands. “See
how that man make us come down in the world?” Mummy would grumble. “Look at what I come to.”

Privately, Beatrice thought that maybe all Daddy had needed was a little patience. Mummy was too harsh, much as Beatrice loved
her. To please her, Beatrice had studied hard all through high school: physics, chemistry, biology, describing the results
of her lab experiments in her copy book in her cramped, resigned handwriting. Her mother greeted every A with a noncommittal
grunt and anything less with a lecture. Beatrice would smile airily, seal the hurt away, pretend the approval meant nothing
to her. She still worked hard, but she kept some time for play of her own. Rounders, netball, and later, boys. All those boys,
wanting a chance for a little sweetness with a light-skin browning like her. Beatrice had discovered her appeal quickly.

“Leggo beast…” Loose woman. The hissed words came from a knot of girls that slouched past Beatrice as she sat on the library
steps, waiting for Clifton to come and pick her up. She willed her ears shut, smothered the sting of the words. But she knew
some of those girls. Marguerita, Deborah. They used to be friends of hers. Though she sat up proudly, she found her fingers
tugging self-consciously at the hem of her short white skirt. She put the big physics textbook in her lap, where it gave her
thighs a little more coverage.