Gloria (17 page)
And then he raise his hand and point. ‘That is White River Gorge down there. And from up here, you can see Cuba on a clear day.’
Afterwards we call by Dunn’s River Falls but Henry not putting on no bathing suit. He just stood at the bottom while I climb the six hundred feet over the rocks and through the water to the top of the falls. And then he sit in the shade while I take a dip in the clear blue sea.
That night when we turn in I just go straight to his room. I feel I owe it to him, he been so good to me. But it is more than that. Henry Wong in his own quiet, gentle way is a wonderful man. Yu feel secure with him. Yu feel like he is genuinely interested. Yu feel like yu spirit can rest with Henry. And for him, I feel there is something he wants with me as well, because even though he hold himself so still the night before he didn’t tell me to go. He let me stay there curled up against his back, the whole night through. So I go to his room and get in the bed.
I was laying there when he come through the door from the bathroom. He didn’t say nothing. He just walk ’round the bed and get in the other side. He lay down and turn to me. So I wait a minute and then I kiss him. And even though he had a little hesitation, he kiss me back. Soft and gentle. I ease back and start unbutton the shirt of these blue cotton pyjamas he wearing. But when I reach halfway he raise his hand and rest it on mine.
We stop like that a time and then he say, ‘I can’t, Gloria.’ He think some more. ‘This is special what we have. After all these years I finally find someone who seem happy to be with me.’ He stop. Then he say, ‘I can talk to you, Gloria. I whole person when I with you. Not just fraction of Henry Wong. That is joyous to me. This other thing, that would change it. And me, I would feel like old man who don’t know right way to respect friendship. It would be shameful.’
I was like a statue, laying there on my side with my hands on the button. I never thought a man would ever refuse me. All my life it was always them wanting me whether it was out of lust or greed, or just because they was paying. That was what I was used to. That was what I come to accept. This I never expected.
I ease my hand from under his and I button up his pyjama shirt and pat him on the chest. Light and playful. And I say, ‘Turn over.’ And with his back to me I wrap my arm ’round his waist. And what I feel, in truth, was relief that I didn’t go do something else to make my life more complicated than it already was. So I was grateful to Henry for that. And wrap up together we fall asleep.
Henry didn’t want to do it. But I make him tek me to the Jamaica Inn. I just wanted a glimpse of this hotel that Pao take Fay for the honeymoon. Maybe I was punishing myself. That is what Henry think. But something in me had to see this place.
After I get dress I fetch out the jade necklace that I bring with me and hang it ’round my neck. I look in the mirror and it gleaming.
When Henry see me he say, ‘So that is necklace?’
‘What yu mean?’
‘I catch everything on wind, Gloria. In house. With Sybil and Beryl.’ And then he say, ‘Fay know about necklace as well.’ And he lower his head and nod.
‘How she know?’
‘Assistant in jewellery store think Pao buy for her and ask her how she like. So she find out he buy it. How she know it for you? That is a mystery. But her mouth busy at Lady Musgrave Road telling everyone who want to listen ’bout woman Pao have in East Kingston.’
The Jamaica Inn is everything I imagine and more. The white sandy cove, the banana and coconut trees, the blushing jacaranda and bougainvillea, the shrimp plant and red ginger filling up the flower beds, the blue-blue sea stretching out as far as the eyes can see. It gorgeous. Honeymoon, that is what this place is made for.
Henry say, ‘Pao tell me Marilyn Monroe and Henry Miller come here for their honeymoon as well.’
‘Who is Henry Miller?’
‘Her husband?’
‘The photograph standing on the piano in there say Arthur Miller.’
‘Arthur Miller? Pao say it was Henry. I remember because it my name. Henry.’
‘The bottom of the photograph say Arthur.’
‘Arthur?’
‘Arthur.’
It quiet between us for a while and then he say, ‘Last night. What happen. And the night before that. We never need mention. Not even between you and me. A mistake. Too much rum and night air.’
We sit on the terrace while Henry order up some rum punch, which come on a little silver tray carried by a waiter in a white jacket. It was class, even though the waiter look sideways at me when he put the glasses on the table. And then he look at Henry and I could see in his eyes what he thought was between us. Me, a black woman, with a old Chinese man in a place like this. Who wouldn’t want to make something out of that?
When the waiter gone Henry say, ‘Too much shame inside your head, Gloria. Too much disapproval and doubt. Waiter not think nothing at all. He just serve drinks.’
What I know for sure is that Fay wouldn’t have bothered herself. She would have just sit here in the necklace and smile, and admire the view while she drink her punch. And as for whether it was Arthur or Henry, she wouldn’t have give a damn.
When I get back I decide it time to stop. I not going tek no more customers. Sybil say it up to me what I want to do.
‘What yu think I should say to Beryl and Marcia?’
‘What yu want to say?’
I think on it. ‘That everybody got to do what she think is right for her. We got choices now. Not like how it was before.’
‘Before Henry’s money yu mean?’
I nod. ‘Yu think they going see it as me disapproving of them?’
‘Gloria, every woman makes her choices. Should I feel criticised by what you do?’
So I tell them and they wounded but they don’t say nothing. And then Sybil just stand up and say, ‘When I start out in this business it was my liberation. Freedom from the shackles of bowing down to some man. So let us not go put chains on each other now.’
A couple days afterwards Sybil say she want me come do something with her.
‘Me?’
‘This not no job for Beryl.’
I got the next question on the tip a my tongue but I can see she not fixing to tek no more queries. She just waiting for a simple yes or no.
When we get there it a butcher shop in Cross Roads. Sybil walk through the place and give the man a nod like she know him and then she go behind the counter and tek some back steps up to a landing with a toilet yu can smell soon as yu pass it and little further down the corridor she open the door and I see him laying there in the bed wid his big feet sticking out the end. Dry and cracking. And black, like the rest a him. A full-size African wid giant hands that pulling up the sheet under his neck.
‘Junior tell me yu sick bad.’
‘Yes, bad-bad. It good to see yu, girl.’ And he smile, showing off teeth that shiny and even, not coarse like his voice.
‘Never yu mind good to see me. What is it yu want?’
‘Wait yu hurry nuh. Yu cyan tek two minutes to exchange a how yu do?’
‘I can see how yu do Isaac. I don’t need no two minutes to do that.’
Sybil walk ’cross the room and pick up a shirt and pair a pants off the chair. She do it with her two fingers pinch together like she would prefer not to be touching them at all. And then she drop them on the floor, and dust off the chair before she sit down.
‘So who dis?’ And he motion his head towards me.
‘That is no concern a yours. She wid me. That is all yu need to know.’
‘Yu mean yu cyan even come see me without yu bring protection? After all these years, Sybil? And me in dis condition? What yu think I going do to yu?’
‘Isaac, I didn’t come here to have no chinwag wid yu. The boy tell me yu sick and want see me so here I am.’
‘So where Beryl? She nuh want see me? She nuh care how I almost at death’s door?’
Sybil sigh hefty and then she reach in her purse and pull out a cigarette and light it.
‘Yu got a ashtray in here?’
He raise up his arm and point to the little table in the corner. So she get up and go over there and search under the newspaper and ’round the plates a leftover food and empty beer bottles and some odd socks and receipts and a can a Campbell’s chicken soup and a couple pencils and a bottle opener and two spoons and some loose change until she find it, so full up that she couldn’t even pick it up without spilling ash and a few dead butts. All this time I am still standing in the doorway.
‘Yu nuh worry ’bout causing a fire?’
‘What fire? Anyway, is only me and few pigs and cows in here and dem dead already.’
She tek the ashtray and sit back in the chair. I say to her, ‘Yu want maybe I go wait downstairs?’
‘You stay right there. This not going tek long.’ And then she turn to Isaac and say, ‘So what yu want?’
‘I bad sick well over three weeks now. Just lying here sweating in dis bed. So the man downstairs not paying me no wages and I falling behind wid the rent and not got nothing to pay for the medicine I need.’
‘Yu go to the hospital?’
‘I cyan go to no hospital! I can barely raise myself to go tek a piss. I cyan do nothing, girl. Not even fix no food. All I got is the little soup and leftover him downstairs bring me when him feel like it. I wasting away here, girl.’
‘So how yu know what medicine yu need?’
‘I know. Believe me. I know.’
Sybil look ’round the room with her nose turn up and that is right because the place stink not just from the stench a raw meat that wafting up from down below but the heavy air a sweat and dirty clothes.
‘Yu not got nobody to come see to yu, Isaac?’ She wait but he don’t say nothing. He just look at her like she should know better than to be asking him a thing like that. ‘I not going tek yu in, Isaac. That is the last thing I would do.’
‘It not that. But if yu could find yu way to leave me some money him downstairs know a woman can come by daily to help me out. That is all I need, girl. That is all.’
I hear the pleading in his voice and I see the determination in her face and I can tell these two got history, and it hurtful and ugly.
‘So how much money yu want?’
‘Whatever yu can spare, girl. But I need it regular ’til I can get back on my feet.’
She laugh, good and loud. ‘’Til yu get back on yu feet! Yu joking? Knowing you, Isaac, yu will be laying here playing dead ’til hell freeze over. No man. I am not the fool yu tek me for. I never was.’
‘Sybil, yu cyan see the pitiful condition I am in?’
She tek a long look at him while she crush out the cigarette in the ashtray. And then she get up and walk over to the table and put it down in the mess where she find it.
‘What say I should even help yu anyway given everything yu do to me?’
‘Ah Sybil, girl, that was such a long time back. Yu nuh think enough water already pass under that bridge?’
She reach into her purse and pull out some bills and put them on the table. Still standing there with her back to him.
‘That is it, Isaac. I not going give yu another shilling. Yu going have to reach out to somebody else after this. I sure there is plenty other women yu got to lean on.’ Then she turn to him and say, ‘The money on the table just the same way yu show me all them years back.’
She close her purse and come over to me and rest her hand on my shoulder to turn me ’round and we walk back down the stairs.
‘Yu not worried ’bout the poor condition he in?’
‘Isaac? Not a damn thing wrong wid him. I seen it all before, Gloria. He will be back on his feet ruining women again in no time. Believe me.’
Then she say for us to go get something to drink. So we jump on the Constant Spring bus to Half Way Tree and mek our way to York Pharmacy.
We walk up the stairs to the soda fountain and sitting there in the booth she say, ‘Yu wondering what all that about?’
‘I only wondering if yu want to tell me. Otherwise that is between you and Isaac . . . and Beryl.’
She twirl the ice cream ’round on top of the cream soda.
‘Isaac used to run Trench Town. Back in his day. He used to supply things, yu know, that people need. Yu want a cook pot, a frock, a hat, a pair of shoes. Even food. Isaac could get it for yu. So everybody owe him. Not just money, but favours, if yu get what I mean. So one way or another yu pay. Not always immediately, but sooner or later. Sooner or later yu pay, one way or another. That is how it was. And people so poor they couldn’t do nothing else but deal with Isaac.’ She stop mess with the soda and light a cigarette. ‘Then one day my mother owe him so much money he tell her he wanted me.’
‘To have sex wid yu?’
‘No. He wanted her to give me to him.’
‘Give yu to him? Like you his property?’
She nod her head. ‘So that is what she do. She give me to Isaac. I was thirteen years old, cooking and cleaning and washing his clothes while he go about his business or just lay on the nasty couch he had or sit outside in the yard drinking a beer and smoking a cigarette or maybe some weed. And when he feel like it, or couldn’t track down any a the grown women he was running, I do the other thing as well.’
