The Small Fortune of Dorothea Q (31 page)

‘I’m glad you won the scholarship,’ she said. ‘But I don’t want you to go.’ Her voice faltered. ‘What’ll I do without you?’

‘You could come too.’ Rajan’s hand on her back felt warm and comforting. ‘Not yet, of course. But in two or three years? When you’re eighteen? Didn’t you say that’s what you planned?’

‘Really? You mean …’

She hardly dared say it, think it. It was too big a thing; too easy, too soon. But then, what else was there for her to do?

‘You said you wanted to be a librarian. You could be that over there. Better than working in a bank, don’t you think?’

The lump in her throat grew so big she couldn’t get a word past it, so she only nodded.

‘You’re the best friend I ever had,’ said Rajan, and his hand on her back pressed her closer. ‘More than a friend. Rika, I – I’ll miss you too. I’ll wait. Please come! You’ve got O Levels coming up – next month, right?’

She nodded. She tried to swallow the lump in her throat, but it wouldn’t budge.

‘OK. Do your best. Your maths is quite good now – you’ll pass. You should get six or seven subjects. Get those, and then maybe work a year or two; maybe you can even take A Levels. And then come and join me.’ He stopped, and then said, again, ‘I’ll wait.’

Those last words: not explicit, but she knew what they meant, and he knew that she knew. It was a pact, a promise, a proposal. A declaration of abiding love, even though the word
love
had not been uttered. But it hung between them, unspoken, quivering in Rika’s heart. Sure and true. Why had she not known it before? Why had she gone chasing after the shadow of Jag, when the real thing was so very near? She sighed in contentment, buried her face in his shoulder, and in reply Rajan pressed the small of her back.

When they returned to the table at a break in the music Uncle Matt teased them.

‘So what’s the difference between a boy friend and a boyfriend?’ he asked Rika, who found the question incredibly embarrassing. She had never once been embarrassed with Rajan, not even when she’d told him the most distressing things about herself; but this question of Uncle Matt’s discomfited her, made her feel shy and set off a swarm of butterflies in her tummy. Rajan only chuckled, as if he knew the answer.

T
he next day
, Sunday, Rajan phoned her. He had never done so in his life before; there seemed no need. He sounded different; a little shy.

‘Would you go to the cinema with me tonight?’ he asked.

She didn’t hesitate for a second. ‘Yes! What’s on?’

‘There’s
My Fair Lady
back at the Astor,’ said Rajan. ‘Have you seen it?’

‘No!’ said Rika. ‘When it came two years ago a lot of my cousins went with Granny but I had flu at the time and so I missed it. I’d love to see it!’

‘Ok, then. I’ll pick you up.’

She wondered briefly if he’d pick her up in the donkey cart. And she realised she didn’t care an ass’s hoof.

O
ne day
, when the doorbell rang, I opened it to find a tall thin black woman about Mum’s age standing on the threshold.

‘Myrtle Patterson,’ she said, beaming. ‘You must be Dorothea’s granddaughter?’

Yes; but Gran was out, I said warily. Another reporter? I thought the Quint was stale news.

‘I’m the head of the Bishops’ High School Old Girls’ Union in London;’ said Myrtle Patterson. That changed things. I opened the door wide.

‘Gran went to the shops,’ I told her. ‘She’ll be back in about half an hour. But come in and wait for her.’ I let her in anyway, sat her down in the dining room and served her coffee and biscuits, and sat with her to wait for Gran’s return, and while waiting we chatted.

It was actually called ‘Old Students’ Union’ these days, she said, as Bishops’ had gone co-ed about ten years ago, much to the consternation of the Old Guard; the addition of boys into the hallowed halls of Bishops’ was tantamount to sacrilege. Boys spoilt everything. For her generation it would always be the Old Girls’ Union. She’d come to invite Gran to an Old Students’ Reunion of Bishops’ High, right here in London.

‘I’ve been getting so many calls,’ she said. ‘Over the last few weeks. Ever since your Gran became famous, and all the Old Girls found out she’s here. But even before that, through the grapevine. I made some enquiries and found Doreen, who had the phone number. You know we have hundreds of Old Girls here in London?’

No, I didn’t. I’d never heard of Bishops’ High School, much less their Old Girls/Students Union.

‘Small world, eh? Anyway, they’re all clamouring for me to invite her to our next Reunion. That’s in two weeks’ time. Everybody wants to see Dorothea van Dam again.’

‘van Dam?’

‘Yes. Your Granny’s maiden name. You don’t know your Granny’s maiden name?’

No, I didn’t.

‘Well, it’s about time. Your Granny was famous in her day, you know. A legend, even while she was at school. Back home, back in the days. She was Head Girl in her last year of school, in Upper Sixth. By then she’d changed her name to Quint; she married young, while still at school, as an exception, considering the circumstances – war, and everything. After she left school she became known as Dorothea Q. Such a pity about …Well, never mind.’

‘About what?’

‘Ask her. I’m sure she’ll tell you. I didn’t know her myself at the time, of course. I wasn’t even born yet, but these things become legends. Growing up in BG we had certain
names,
everybody knew them. Dorothea van Dam is one of those names – later, Dorothea Q. Now everybody wants to see Dorothea Q. All the old Bishops’ girls. All old ladies now, of course, and middle-aged women like me. Between your mother’s generation and Dorothea’s, that’s a whole lot of women. If she comes it’s going to be packed. We might even have to look for a new venue. How’s your Mum? How’s she coping with the hullabaloo?’

It turned out that Mum, too, had made a splash, but a different kind to Gran’s. Mum had first made a small splash by going out with some boy who all the girls were crazy about; and then she made a big splash, and headlines, by disappearing.

‘She ran away,’ said Myrtle. ‘Just vanished. I remember the hullabaloo well; they couldn’t find a trace of her on any of the airlines’ passenger lists so everyone thought she was hiding out with a boy. Then a month later we heard she had run off to Peru. A bit of an anti-climax. Anyway …’

A key turned in the front door. Myrtle stood up as Mum entered the room, still peeling off her jacket.

‘Inky, there you are. Have you …’ She stopped in her tracks.

‘Hello, Rika, remember me?’

Mum obviously didn’t. She frowned, trying to place our visitor. I calculated that almost forty years had passed since Mum’s schooldays; unless they had been best buddies she could hardly be expected to fall into Myrtle’s arms. But remembering her manners, she smiled and held out her hand.

‘Can’t say I do,’ she said. ‘Remind me.’

‘Myrtle. Myrtle Patterson.’

‘Ah. Myrtle.’ Mum’s forehead relaxed and her smile broadened. ‘Excuse me. It’s been a long time. I didn’t know you were in London too.’

‘Hundreds of us Old Girls ended up here,’ Myrtle said. ‘I happen to be head of the London Chapter of the Old Girls’ Union, so I’ve kept in touch with many of them.’

Right then, Granny’s scooter whirred up the garden path and came to a stop. I helped her get down and took her arm to lead her into the house, setting her rollator down in front of her.

Gran waddled forward and stood in the doorway to the living room, me right behind her.

‘Ah. You mus’ be Myrtle Patterson.’

Obviously, Gran was expecting Myrtle. No doubt one of her myriad friends and relations had warned her of the imminent visit. She turned around and with an impatient gesture shooed me and Mum away. After which she closed the door, sequestering herself away with Myrtle. Once again I had to suppress my curiosity; I shrugged and turned away.

O
ne thing about Gran
: she certainly knew how to make a grand entrance, rollator or not. She wanted me, not Mum, to push her into the hall for the BHS Reunion. We were the last to arrive, and a trio of women, including Myrtle Patterson, stood waiting for us in the cold outside the building. We bustled Gran into her wheelchair and, me pushing, off we went.

Up a short flight of stairs via a wheelchair ramp, across a hallway; then Myrtle and another women flung open a pair of double doors and Gran rolled in. She made me stop just as we crossed the threshold. The animated buzz of conversation came to an abrupt halt. In that silence, a sea of faces, of every shade from white to black, turned our way. A moment passed, then a thundering crash of applause burst out and a rush of bodies lunged towards us. Faces, lit with joy, converged upon her. And she just sat there smugly, basking in the adulation.

It was only then that I really, truly understood that my grandmother had been a legend in her own time, an icon in her own country. I should have known. Mum, of course, had never told me a thing, but that was to be expected. But those Sunday after-church meetings at Doreen’s house. Why, they had practically told me. I remembered now, all the comments: ‘Your grandmother is such a wonderful woman!’ ‘What a remarkable person she is!’ ‘She was quite amazing in her day, you know.’

Yes, they’d told me. But I hadn’t taken it seriously. ‘Wonderful!’, ‘Amazing!’, ‘Fantastic!’ – all words that have lost their meaning in the hyperbole of modern language.

But with these women, the words were real. When they said Gran was great, they meant it. It was not just a word. I knew this with an instinct as sure as a baby’s discernment between its own mother and a stranger. It was as if I’d played with glass beads all my life, throwing around superlatives like confetti and receiving the same in like manner. And now, diamonds. The difference was stupendous.

As the granddaughter, I was engulfed in the sea of goodwill. The women, having claimed Gran as their own, nudged me away into a huddle, where they plied me with food and drink and mollycoddled me like a long-lost relative.

‘How
proud
you must be of your grandmother!’ I kept hearing those words. I’d heard them before, at Doreen’s, after church. Back then, my first reaction had been ‘Hello? Proud? Me? Why?’

I was accustomed to people saying those words to Mum.
‘How
proud
you must be of your
marvellous
daughter! How
brilliant
Inky is! What
amazing
GCSE results! What
brilliant
A Levels! She’ll be Top Lawyer in no time!’
In our crowd it was generally accepted that Mum was a loser and I was the surprise trump she’d somehow pulled out of a hat. But since Gran had come into her life it was
she
who was reaping all the praise. And today, for the first time, I realised that somehow, that praise must have been deserved. And I had no idea how.

I could not, of course, let on how little I knew of my own grandmother and whatever grand things she had accomplished in her heyday. They assumed I knew. So I smiled and nodded and agreed about her amazingness. I played the game as well I could, while all the time I longed to ask,
but why?

But then again, I reasoned, all this was only in Guyana. It's easy to make a mark in a small insignificant country. They make mountains out of molehills there. Gran would have been a big fish in a small pond. Still, I was curious to know what had given her this marvellous reputation. I’d have to ask Mum. Later.

Mum, meanwhile, had disappeared into her own little bevy of middle-aged ladies, contemporaries, apparently, from her schooldays. People mentioned her, too, to me, but more with a twinkle in their eye and an amused shake of the head, rather like parents recalling past antics of their children that were frightening when they happened but now, in retrospect, could be safely laughed at.

A twinge of compassion for Mum went through me, immediately followed by a wave of protectiveness. Poor Mum. It can’t be easy, living in the shadow of such a mother, and then having a daughter so much more successful than herself. I vowed to be nicer to her, kind and loving and more understanding in future. I’d never mention her silly novel writing. Let her do it, if it made her happy. Now that I knew about it I could maybe cushion the disappointment of her rejections, make it easier for her. Yes, I realised, that was my role in Mum’s life. I loved her to bits, and in future I’d show it more. And I’d make her even more proud of me. Mothers identify with their children. I would make up for her own lack of achievement.

All of this occurred to me while I stuffed myself with a delicious dish of ‘curry and roti’. By now I was sitting at one of several long tables, still surrounded by chattering women, all peppering me with questions. I told them what I was studying and other details of my life, and reaped their ‘ah’s’ and ‘oh’s’. I realised that as Dorothea van Dam’s granddaughter they expected great things of me; in our case, as so often, success had skipped one generation. I looked around for Mum, and saw her further down the table. She seemed happy enough, chatting with a skinny middle-aged woman. Mum looked up at that moment and caught my eye; she whispered a word to her companion who looked up too, smiled and waved at me, then blew me a kiss. I smiled back. Mum signed to me that she wanted to speak to me and that I should not run off; to come to her after the meal, which I did.

‘
I
nky
, I’d like you to meet Trixie MacDonald. She used to be a good friend of mine, back in the day, though we went to different schools.’

Trixie and I smiled at each other again and shook hands. I noticed two perfect rows of teeth, huge, dark limpid eyes.

‘We lost sight of each other way back in – when was it, Rika, when you ran off to Brazil? 1969?’

‘’67,’ Mum corrected.

I looked at Mum.

‘You ran off to Brazil?’

I always thought it was Peru. That was the legend; that’s how I got my name. Mum and Dad on a bus to Huancayo, climbing Machu Picchu, back-packing along the Inca Trail.

Mum nodded. Trixie laughed. ‘And how! It was a case of now-you-see-her-now-you-don’t. Poof. She just disappeared. Not a word of goodbye. We didn’t even know where she’d gone until …’

‘Rika, Rika! How wonderful to see you again! Remember me?’

A rather corpulent woman, light skinned and with plainly dyed blonde hair, butted in, all smiles; she grabbed Mum in a huge hug. Mum seemed somewhat disoriented.

‘Um … yes well … Inky, this is …’ She stopped, it was plain that she either didn’t remember the lady in question, didn’t recognise her, or had forgotten her name.

‘Jen! Jennifer Goveia! From St Rose’s – though I’m now Jenny Baker. I heard you were coming so I had to be here to say hello … and this is your daughter?’

She turned, gushing, to me, and was obviously about to sweep me, too, into a generous embrace when, thank goodness, a hush descended on the hall, and we all turned to the front. Somebody was tapping a fork to a glass. The buzz of conversation dwindled into silence. Myrtle Patterson stood at the edge of the crowd on a podium. Most people sat down so we could all see her.

‘Ladies,’ she said, ‘we have the great pleasure and honour of having among us today a legend in her own time. Let’s give another round of applause to the unforgettable … Dorothea Quint!’

Applause, cheers, knives drumming on tables.

Myrtle launched into a never-ending homily, a homage to Gran, and after Myrtle a woman called a Darleen spoke and then a Kathleen and then a Maureen, grey-haired women, creaking up to the podium with the help of walking sticks and daughters’ arms. Each one had stories to tell of my grandmother. Each delivered anecdotes and accolades, honeyed words in honour of my dragon of a grandmother, interspersed by outbreaks of chuckling or clapping or open laughter. Sometimes, a single keyword was enough to propel the audience into a roar of laughter. There were groans and there were sighs, and none of it I understood. I was an outsider in a secret society.

Finally, Gran herself rolled up to the podium. A chair was pushed up for her to sit on; and then she gave her own little speech. She was unrecognisable. Gracious and humble, she thanked them for their kind words and pronounced that the praise was undeserved.

Another crash of applause brought the day to an end.

Through it all, not one person had mentioned the Quint.

A
s for Mum
: she had obviously been well-loved, if not as triumphantly victorious as Gran. And she needed to be well-loved again. Deep inside she must be lonely, and drastically lacking in self-esteem. I could help her. I could encourage her and strengthen her. I positively soaked in all these kind and loving thoughts, lolling around in them like in a warm bubbly bath. It made me feel so good.

We were on the way home when her mobile rang. In typical Mum fashion she answered it. While driving.

I
n my upside
-down relationship with Mum, she was the child most often and I the parent. I’d strictly forbidden her from answering the phone while driving. But Mum considered herself a multi-tasker and repeatedly disobeyed; she thought nothing of holding the phone to her ear with one hand and the steering wheel with the other. She’d been doing it for years.