Authors: Austin Clarke
And Bernice would always remember the night when she herself first made love in Canada, with the student-man; creeping down the stairs with the man’s smell in her thighs and his arms round her throbbing waist, to let him out like a woman letting out a dog or a cat, that night when she heard tears in Mrs. Burrmann’s voice, saying, “But Sam, I am a woman. I am a … the unhappiness you talk so much about, in our marriage, lies …” (Bernice was finding it difficult to hear each word) “
… right here
!” She thought she heard a muffled sound, like somebody banging a bed. “ … it is here! here, here, here!” The banging stopped shortly after. On the way back upstairs, Bernice wondered whether the children were having a pillow fight; or whether it was Mrs. Burrmann banging her mattress. “She couldn’t be saying that. A young man and a young woman, and
she
saying that?” She thought about it for a long
while; but she couldn’t make up her mind about it; she hadn’t been concentrating because her own body was still throbbing from love.
Beethoven was coming to her where she was working. It was a Wednesday afternoon; and in her mind, she was putting in order the things she had to do the next day. She had to go to the bank. She thought of her low wages again, and wished that something would happen to make somebody say something about a raise soon. But she wasn’t going to complain now. Estelle was living in the house. She would wait until Estelle went back to Barbados. “Three years, it is three years I been slaving for that princess in there!” She had waited so long; and still defeat followed upon defeat: Estelle’s visa extended three more months; and her utter failure to get a room in which to banish her. “Lord, sometimes I have to wonder who the hell side you are on! You hailing for me, or you hailing for Estelle?” She brushed aside this unsavoury thought, and went back to her raise. “I have to get that raise. If Brigitte herself thinks it is unfair, well it must be unfair, in truth!” She thought next of Mammy. Wonder what Mammy doing right now? She glanced at the electric clock on the wall, over the sink, and it said a quarter to six. “Since seven forty-five I been standing up on these two blasted foots!” “She hurried up drying the dishes; and she put some of the initialled cutlery into the drawer without wiping them. “They could tarnish. I need that raise.” Mammy came back into her thoughts, and she looked at the clock again, and wondered what time it was back in Barbados. At this time, a moment before dusk, she knew Mammy would already have brought in her grass-stuffed mattress, from the clothes line and from the sun, and would be shaking it out,
and cursing because she never owned a store-bought, spring-and-cotton-stuffed mattress; and soon she would be lying down, in the front bedroom of her small house, fifty yards from the evening waves. Probably dreaming, too. “Poor, sweet, Mammy.” Estelle didn’t say much about Mammy; she never wrote Mammy once. Bernice had written a letter last month, telling Mammy about the hard times she had with Estelle, and she had sent the letter to Mammy’s house in the village. Now, she had write another letter to Mammy, this one, within the regions of her mind; and she hoped it would fly through the air, and get to Mammy right now, and ease some of the painful things she had written in the earlier letter.
Dear Mammy, I love you so much; and we are so far from one another. What I wrote to you four or five weeks gone, concerning Estelle …
(“But Mammy always used to answer back quickly. It is almost four months that I haven’t heard a word outta Mammy. Christ, I wonder if it is the money that didn’t get posted to Mammy, that have Mammy … ”)
the things I wrote to you about Estelle, well they are not so bad now. Estelle made a complete somersault in regards to her behaviour to me. I think she likes Canada. And if God work out things the right way, mayhaps, I will even begin to take out papers for Estelle’s landed immigrancy …
(“Over my dead body, blind you! All you want is man? Always saying you going out with that Agaffa? But one o’ these days, I am going to see who the
real
Agaffa is!”) …
But do you know what I been thinking recently, Mammy? I was thinking that it would do you the world of good to come up here, on a vacation. The little journey in a plane would not kill you, although I know what you think about planes and things that fly. But I am dying to see you. Sometimes I think I will never see you again, in the flesh. However, God understand. In a few minutes, I am going to send down
the plane ticket for you. You come up here, and rest your old bones, Your loving daughter, Bernice
. She felt happier now that she had communicated with Mammy. And in the same spirit, she decided to drop a line to Lonnie; just to inquire how he was, what he was up to these days; and whether he had visited Terence recently. But before she put the pen to the paper of her imagination, she pondered the wisdom of bringing an old woman like Mammy in all this cold weather; whether she should withdraw the money for the ticket, tomorrow, and whether she should send the ticket for Lonnie. (“No! I am going to borrow the money from Mrs. Burrmann. She would respect me more, and treat me better, because she would want her money back, heh-heh!”)
But Lonnie, are you a man, too? Every little piece of woman in this place, Canada, have a man going out every morning in the cold, from eight till five, providing for her. And it only you West Indian men who sitting down on your behinds, begging women for money. Lonnie, you don’t know that behaviour is gone out of fashion? And Lonnie, you should be ashame. But then, how the hell would you know when and when not to be ashame? But let me tell you this …
She wasn’t satisfied with the way this letter was going, so she destroyed it; and the paper petals floated and dropped finally to the bottom of her consciousness, like heavy feathers.
She was almost finished drying, when a chill went through her entire body. Once before she had had a similar spasm; and then a fierce thought; something more than a thought, a kind of vision, in which she saw her father, Pappy, dead. And before she reached home, she had heard Estelle screaming, and the whole village gathered at the front door. Pappy had been washed in, at low tide, drowned. When Bernice told them she had seen it in a vision, at five o’clock (the same time Pappy was
first seen, like a bundle of old rags on the shore) they called her superstitious, an
obeah woman
. Now, she was having that kind of vision; but she laughed it off, as they had laughed at her, once before. In this vision, she saw Mammy dead. “Looka me, dreaming damn foolishness! It must be the hard work and the cold weather.” She slammed the last cupboard door shut; switched off the lights, and got ready to go up to her room. The time was nine o’clock. Before she moved, she looked right and left, and then hastily and stealthily dropped the greaseproof paper parcel into her bosom. And then she smiled. It contained about a pound of Mrs. Burrmann’s favourite mild Canadian Cheddar cheese. The cheese had hardly settled itself between her warm, sweaty breasts, when Mrs. Burrmann appeared, smiling.
“Well, well, well!” she said, still smiling.
“Oh God, ma’am, you frighten me.” Mrs. Burrmann patted her on her shoulder. “Man, I nearly catch a heart-affection.”
“You said that so dramatically, Bern.” She handed her her wages, in the customary manilla envelope; and also an air-mail letter. “Tomorrow is Thursday.”
“The whole day, ma’am.”
“You needn’t come down. I won’t be here for breakfast, and Mr. Burrmann, well …”
“I understand what you going through, soul …”
“That’s all right,” Mrs. Burrmann said, interrupting; and cutting off further sympathy from Bernice. “Mr. Burrmann won’t be eating here tonight, he’s gone back to the office. It must have been a long day for you, today, Bernice.” (In her heart Bernice asked, “Woman, you think only today was a long day for me?”) Mrs. Burrmann rested her hand on Bernice’s shoulder again, very affectionately. It was a gesture of sincere
appreciation. “Don’t open the brown envelope till you get to your room. There’s a surprise in it for you. And have a good night, Bernice.”
“Thanks.” But Bernice was suspicious: she would always be suspicious with this woman. This time, it was the fear of being dismissed, without notice. Perhaps it was because Estelle had remained too long in the apartment.
“Is Estelle liking it here?” she asked. “I hear she’s going out quite a bit, lately, and meeting some of our young men …”
“Well, I going up now, and rest these old bones, ma’am,” Bernice said, giving Mrs. Burrmann the sweet smile which she had practised to please her mistress. But hearing about her sister going out with
“some of our young men”
— well, this was nothing for Bernice to smile about. Mrs. Burrmann stood watching her, until she got to the stairs, and then she followed her, and caught up with her. Bernice stopped and looked down from a step higher, looked into the pain and the unhappiness of her eyes. And Mrs. Burrmann knew it; and said in a voice that was deep with sorrow, “Thanks, Bernice, for everything. You’ve been very good,
really
, to all of us — even though things haven’t always been easy for you. Thanks again, and have a good rest.” She removed her hand; and went back downstairs. Bernice was shaken: but more important, she did not believe a word of it. It was to her, like a greeting from a stranger, on a crowded subway train. She climbed the rest of the journey to her room; holding on to the bannister where there was a bannister; and where there was none, on to her knee, her left knee which gave her such trouble. When she opened the door, Estelle was writing at the table. Bernice imagined that she was writing on the polish of the table itself. Estelle saw her come in, and she folded the paper, and put
it into her handbag. She was already dressed. Bernice went straight for the chair by the window. “Lord!” she said, massaging her knee, pretending it was paining her unbearably. She rolled down her stockings and continued rubbing, saying all the time, “Lord!”
Estelle was ready to go. She said nothing. She napped her handbag shut. She put on her coat (Bernice’s coat, really). She went through the door.
When the door was closed, Bernice said, “Lemme see what this one have to say …” and she opened the letter, to see Lonnie’s handwriting. Before she got involved in it, she watched for Estelle coming out of the house. Agatha was to pick her up, she remembered Estelle saying. But there was no car parked nearby. Estelle came out. She looked up towards Bernice. Bernice held her head out of sight. And she watched Estelle wagging and stepping high, as if she owned the Boulevard. She was really a beautiful woman. With Estelle gone, there was a great burden taken off her spirit; and Bernice found out that moment, for the first time, that she really was happy that Estelle could find some place to go; and that she had friends — other than Dots and Boysie. Bernice now set her mind to Lonnie’s letter, without interruption.
Darling love, Bernice, honey
, (it began) I
missing you bad bad, in a certain fashion. You know what I mean. I am one man who have not start fooling all about the place the moment his woman left the island. I faithful as hell with you, even though you have not write much and say much in the way of how you miss me. But I want you to know this. You may be up in Canada for three years going into four years, but you is still in my heart as you was before you even think about pulling out for the outside world. The child living with me now. I mean Torrence. Your mother treated me
worst than if I were a dog. But she is your mother, and I am not going to say nothing bad concerning her. However, something I have to tell you in regards to Mammy and Estelle, before she left Barbados. Estelle was spreading it all over the island that she is not coming back down here. She staying up there. I hear from a friend of a friend of yours who Estelle write to last week, that you are taking out papers for Estelle. I am only the father of your child. Estelle is your flesh and blood. Work scarce as anything down here. The poor people getting more poorer. I broke as hell, too. So I beseeching you, Bernice, that if you ever put your hand on an extra dollar bill, think of Lonnie, and send down one, because I do not know what I going to do. Roses are red and skies are blue and the sea is green and I love you. xxxx. They is kisses for you. Respectively yours, Lonnie, your No. 1
.
Bernice went straight to the chesterfield and sat down. The things in the letter: about Mammy; about Estelle; about home; about her child, Terence, and about Lonnie himself. It was a good letter; she liked it, and she found herself liking Lonnie too. At least, he had begun to show some interest in Terence. She was hearing Lonnie’s voice, and the sweet words he had written at the bottom of her letter:
Roses are red and skies are blue
… and the four kisses! And she felt very lonely, with a great urge, a great desire for Lonnie, lying on top of her. She lay back on her back; and spread her legs as if it was Lonnie who had pulled them apart. And she imagined Lonnie on her, making love to her; and she began to pant and breathe heavily, in rhythm to the stirruping which she remembered so well; and she was feeling good, as if it was real and she was coming to the end of the race, with the tape in front of her eyes, and then she jumped up from the bed.
“What sort o’ worthlessness is this? Me, Bernice, jerking-off ’pon myself? God, a shame, a shame …” and she went to the bathroom to draw a bath; and wash away the sin of loneliness. She had tried it before (in recent weeks, with Estelle around, not as often) by rubbing herself with her finger to stimulate an orgasm. But each time, the meaning of it frightened her; and she would take a hot bath. Before this bath was ready, she opened the manilla envelope Mrs. Burrmann had given her, and into her lap fell four crisp twenty-dollar bills, an old crumpled ten and a five. Her income had been increased by five dollars a month.
“You make me feel like a man again,” the man was telling Estelle. She was looking at the coloured beads, strung on cord, that were the curtains in the Penny Farthing coffee house, on Yorkville. Tension had crept into their friendship, though, because she resented being taken each time they went out, to the small hotel on Avenue Road, where they would rush through an hour of hectic love-making; and where he would rush her on through the lounge, past the desk clerk with the eyes of a spy. Worst of all the compromise in the transaction, was the
look
on the clerk’s face, and the
look
in the man’s face. And once, when she was struggling with the cigarette machine (although she had two packages in her handbag) while the man paid his cash and got his key, she thought she heard the clerk say, with a laugh in his voice, “She must be a damn good screw, eh, Sam?”