Pao (33 page)

I just say to her, ‘So I take it you not going come live with me in Beverly Hills then, which is what I come here to ask you.’ And she just look at me like she reckon she already say enough.

I go away and I think about it, and I can see Gloria got a point. It true I never had to go get no education or job or any of the things Gloria talking ’bout, but then I dunno what she expect from me. After all, what she expect one man to do? Isn’t it the masses that got to rise up? Isn’t it the masses that got to seize their ideal and take back their land? Isn’t it the masses that got to shake off the yoke of oppression?

And I supported that. I give Michael Kealey all that money and I support Manley. So fair enough, a lot of US dollars leave the country illegally, but that would have happen anyway, with or without me. And for my part I give back a good chunk of that money.

And if she think I should have done something more than pass over the money then it because she just choosing to forget. Like she don’t know how many PNP supporters was getting shot in their bed after somebody kick down their door in the middle of the night; and how they stab the Peruvian ambassador to death in his own house, and gun down national security minister Roy McGann, and the PNP candidate Ferdie Neita in broad daylight; and how they shoot Bob Marley in his own back yard because they think the Smile Jamaica concert was him supporting Michael Manley. And that was way before him get Manley and Seaga to join hands on stage at the National Stadium that night. And all the time we saying ‘Better must come’, every political rally end up in a shootout or confrontation like what happen at Old Harbour, or the night me and Hampton get pinned down by gunfire on the road coming through Spanish Town after we go listen to Michael Manley address a meeting. It because she choose to forget what happen to Kenneth Wong, and because she nuh seem to realise that the only involvement yu could have was to either run for government or pick up a gun. And I wasn’t about to do neither.

So I go buy the house anyway, from a Chinese man that was heading for Canada. It right up the top of the mountain, with a front gate guarded by two stone Chinese lions and a winding driveway, and five round white columns running from ground to roof on the far side of the semi-circular carport. The front door was a double door, wide and red, and above it the Chinaman already paint the Tai Chi surrounded by the eight diagrams of the Pa Kua for good luck and prosperity. The garden set to lawn, with shrubs, mahoe trees, mango, calabash, tamarind, and a single lignum vitae that stand all alone at the far end. The white of the house look good with the red roof, and the red awning that shade the terrace ’round the back where the swimming pool at. I pleased with it. It big and bright, and it catch the sun, but it cool on the inside.

Hampton and Ethyl move with me, and Finley and him wife, and Milton and Tartan Socks because McKenzie not got no family and he got nowhere to go anyway. I sorta turn the place into Yang Compound. Sun Tzu say, ‘
When you conquer territory, divide the profits
.’

I hire up some boys to make the place secure because I didn’t want nobody coming in here and shooting me the way they waltz in and shoot Bob Marley just for organising a concert. I reckon the gunmen would really fix me if they ever find out how much money I give to the PNP.

When I leaving Matthews Lane I have to go fetch out the knife Meacham daughter use to murder them boys down at Club Havana, but when I go take it outta the safe I find it not the only thing in there. There a little notebook as well. So I open it and start to read.

Today

Merleen Chin: Crying as she is leaving Papa’s shop. What makes a young girl cry so much?

The little book turn out to be some kinda diary thing that Mui been keeping all them years back. She got everything note down in it. Mama kneeling down in the confessional one side of Father Michael while they got a chain drape ’cross the curtain of the compartment the other side of him so that nobody can go in there. Merleen Chin crying as she coming outta the shop that afternoon. Mrs Samuels in such a state Hampton got to drive her home. Papa and Mama fighting and Mama leaving Matthews Lane. Father Michael visiting Lady Musgrave Road and Mama and Grandma Wong arguing. The sad policemen that arrest Karl. The ugly grey English car park outside the shop with the young girl sitting in it that Karl say is a Rover 100 four-door saloon that belong to the English army man. Uncle Kenneth and fingernail man standing on the corner of King Street and no matter how much we shout and wave at him he just ignore us and carry on pointing and yelling at some big group of men across the street.

But I didn’t see no fox’s head all I saw was the shiny silver top of the walking stick and him, fingernail man, sitting on a orange crate at the bottom of King Street with his chin resting on his hands leaning on the top of the stick. But Karl say it was a fox’s head and he say that the English chase the foxes down on horseback with a pack of dogs that tear them apart. And then the hunters smear the fox’s blood on their own face and cut off the fox’s tail to keep for a trophy.

I nuh read the whole thing but I start think that if she so smart taking all of this in, and writing it down like this, and using the safe for her own personal hiding place, then maybe she deserve to have the knife as well. Maybe I shouldn’t go throw it in the sea like I planned. Maybe I should just keep it for her and the little book as well in case one day, who knows, she might find some use for them.

That first night in Beverly Hills I take my cot and put it out on my bedroom balcony and I go to sleep under the clear Jamaican sky. I smell the freshness of the eucalyptus and I listen to the silence, which my heart welcome after all them years of sound systems booming out the ska and rocksteady and reggae that drift across town on the evening breeze. And I think to myself maybe I finally find some peace. Maybe I finally find myself a place to put down my head and call home.

Sun Tzu say, ‘
Your aim must be to take All-under-Heaven intact
.’

39

Desolate Ground

I pick up the telephone and ring Daphne Wong the minute Ethyl tell me Miss Cicely take a turn for the worse.

‘How she doing?’

‘Well you know, they’ve been trying to control the situation with drugs, but right now it seem like we fighting a losing battle.’

‘How she doing in hersel
f
?’

‘She comes and goes. Some days she is better than others.’

Miss Cicely start take sick a few month before we move from Matthews Lane. So just as we thinking that Ethyl going stop working for the Wongs it turn out that she travelling down the hill to go maid for Miss Cicely every day because she can’t stand, after all these years, to go let Miss Cicely down when she need her most. So whereas the main traffic in domestics is travelling to Beverly Hills, Ethyl is busy doing the journey the other way ’round in this little Toyota that Hampton buy for her even though I don’t think Ethyl got no driving licence and the only lessons she get is driving ’round the garden with Hampton at her side. Still, Ethyl just like half the drivers in Jamaica and the car is a automatic so that can’t cause too much trouble.

When I go see Miss Cicely she in a bad way. She so weak she can’t get up and she can barely open her eyes. Not that it matter because Daphne tell me that her sight failing so bad she can hardly see nothing anyway. She pleased me come to see her though and she hold out her hand and I take it as I sit down in the chair next to the bed.

‘Philip. How is Philip?’

‘I am good, thank you, Miss Cicely. But I come here to see how you doing.’

‘Well, all I can say is the good Lord is taking his own time getting ready for me to come and join him. Least I pray that is the direction I am heading in. Who knows, He may be thinking about the other place for me.’ And she give a little chuckle and I laugh with her.

‘I don’t think you need to be fretting yourself over that.’

‘Oh, Philip, you always had such faith in me. But in all honesty, I was not the best of mothers. I wasn’t good to Fay. I know everyone tired of listening to her complain about how badly I treated her, but it doesn’t mean it wasn’t true. And I had no time for Daphne. Not really. I was too busy arguing with Fay to even notice what Daphne was doing. I just expected her to carry on without me. And as for Kenneth, well you know all about that. I didn’t have one idea in my head about what to do with Kenneth.’

I interrupt her and I say, ‘You sure you want to be telling me all of this, Miss Cicely? You sure this is what you want to be talking about right now?’

She turn her head to the side a little, her eyes still shut.

‘You know, Philip, I think it is. Who else can an old woman tell? And I feel I need to tell someone before I go to meet my Maker, just so I can acknowledge to Him that I know the mistakes I have made. Well, some of them at least. Silent prayer is a wonderful thing, but it is also very healing to have someone to talk to. That is where the Catholics have the advantage with their confessions. But is it alright with you, Philip, that is the question?’

‘Whatever you want to do is fine with me, Miss Cicely.’

‘You know that when Fay went to England she went to stay with her brother, Stanley. Stanley was my firstborn, but Mr Henry was not his father.’

Miss Cicely stop and I look at her wondering if she expecting me to say something. I can’t think what to say. Still, I reckon I should try, but just as I go open my mouth, not even knowing what going come outta it, she start up again.

‘Stanley was born out of sin. The worst sort of sin you can have between a father and daughter.’ And she pause, and then she say it again. ‘The worst sort.’

I so surprised she telling me all this, I feel like my body gone into shock. It cold but it clammy at the same time. It feel like my joints seize up rigid. It feel like I going get stuck in this position leaning forward on the chair with her hand in mine.

‘It has taken a whole lifetime to try to wash off the shame of what Mr Johnson did to me. Because even though I was only a child, it felt somehow like it was my doing. Especially since Mr Johnson didn’t seem to have any shame himself about what happened. And then Henry had the good grace to marry me.’

She stop, and I breathe. And then she say to me, ‘Philip, take a look for me and see if that window is still open. It is so hot in here and I can’t feel the slightest bit of breeze.’

I look over and I see the window wide open. Then my eye catch a fan resting on the side table, a Chinese paper fan, so I walk over and pick it up and when I come back, I sit down and start fan her with it.

‘Oh that is good. Thank you. I just can’t stand the noise of that ceiling fan.’

We silent for a little while and then she say, ‘Did I ever tell you the story about how Henry and I met and how we happen to get married?’

‘No, Miss Cicely, you never did.’

‘Henry came to Jamaica in 1903, the year the great hurricane destroyed most of the north-east of the island. His Chinese name was Hong Zilong, so the British immigration officer turned that into Henry Wong. And of course, the same thing happened to you. Anyway, Mr Johnson had gone to Kingston to get somebody to help out, not to work in the fields, you understand, but somebody who could do washing and cooking and things like that. And when Mr Johnson came back to Ocho Rios to the banana plantation we lived on, and where he was the foreman, he brought Henry with him.

‘Henry was just a boy, and his mother had put him on the boat from China with a fine collection of hampers of preserved food, crystallised fruit and pickled vegetables. Needless to say, by the time he had made the sea journey and arrived at the plantation he had nothing left. Not because he had eaten it all, but because he had been robbed every inch of the way. What Henry did have, though, were his clothes, into the lining of which his mother had sewn pieces of gold.

‘Henry ran a cookhouse for the plantation workers because Mr Johnson thought it was more economical and time-efficient if the workers shared communal food rather than everybody cooking for themself. So Henry made his money from that, and he earned some extra doing laundry that they brought down from the great house. He also ran errands for Mr Johnson taking messages here and there, going to fetch and carry, and sometimes cooking some special dinner for one of Mr Johnson’s women friends, of which he had plenty.

‘When Henry finally left he bought himself a grocery store in Ocho Rios, with the money he saved on the plantation and the gold from his mother.’

By this time I starting to feel the heat myself and my arm getting tired like it going drop off. Ethyl must have read my mind from the kitchen because right then the door open and she come in with a jug of ice-cold lemonade. I rest down the fan and I pour out two glass for me and Miss Cicely. Then Ethyl start point to the tray that the jug and the glasses sitting on, and I see a drinking straw laying there. She carry on pointing but I dunno what she mean, so eventually she just lean over and pick up the straw and stick it in the glass. So when I hold out the glass to Miss Cicely, and she reach out with her hand and steady it, I just hold the straw firm so she can find it with her mouth and suck. Next thing I hear is the click of the door as Ethyl close it behind her.

‘My mother ran off to Panama with another man and left me with him, my father, Mr Johnson. That’s how come I was there with him. Then along came Henry, and he showed me the first bit of kindness I experienced in my life. Henry Wong was the sweetest, gentlest man. A kinder man you could never meet. So when Mr Johnson told Henry that I was pregnant and I needed someone to care for me Henry just said yes. In truth, Mr Johnson talked him into it. He told Henry that now he had his shop doing so well he needed a wife. And pretty soon, because of my condition, he would have a whole family, and that was good for him. And when Henry asked him why he wasn’t going to be looking after me any more Mr Johnson said, “I don’t want a life with no baby running under my feet.” And when Henry asked him who the father of the baby was Mr Johnson just said, “Don’t you be worrying yourself ’bout that. I know the man concerned and he won’t be bothering you none.” Actually, I think Henry just felt sorry for me and thought that since he wasn’t planning on marrying anybody else he might as well marry me. I think that is how it was. Years later he got a woman in Ocho Rios. He thought I didn’t know, but I did. I just chose not to say anything about it, that was all.’