Small Island (20 page)

I don’t know why the fusty waitress posed with a pad and pencil. This woman, looking anywhere but at us, said, ‘That’s off,’ to the teacake, the toast, the muffin, the crumpet, the drop scone.

‘What, they all turn bad?’ I asked.

‘No,’ she said, lazily raising her eyebrows. ‘They’re finished. We haven’t got them.’

‘I always thought when something was off it gone bad.’

‘Well, I dare say. But here we say it’s off. Off the menu.’

‘But it is written here.’

‘Yes, but it is off.’

I looked to Queenie who was giggling into her hand. ‘So, Queenie, would you like tea?’

‘I don’t mind if I do, Gilbert,’ she said, and the poor old ladies jumped as she began to laugh.

Meanwhile those GIs were concentrating on us like we were an exam they must pass.

‘We’ve got rock buns,’ the waitress said.

One of them had tight black curly hair – man, this white boy should never dig too deep in his past: who knows what strangeness could be uncovered?

‘Oh, thank you,’ I said. ‘Then may I have two rock buns as well, please.’

She wrote this down on her pad while telling me, ‘There’s only one left.’

‘One then, for the lady, thank you.’

The third GI was an ugly brute – look like the Lord above had put him face on in the dark: nose flattened to one side, eyes sitting too close. A boxer, maybe.

Queenie was talking about her father-in-law. ‘We’re going back to London. We’ll take our chances. You see, he’s getting on Father’s nerves. You know, the way he is, Father can’t stand it, says he acts like a girl.’

The rock bun landed on her plate with such an almighty thud – hear this – I thought the GIs had thrown a grenade. Queenie picked it up and turned it in the air, leaning forward to me to whisper loudly, ‘This has seen better days.’ And one of the GIs rose from his seat only to be restrained by one of his buddies.

I beckoned Queenie to lean even closer towards me. I could feel her hair on my chin, her breath warm on my cheek as I said, ‘Dare we taste it?’ Sitting back I looked directly on the three. Man, they were snorting like beasts, looking around this cage for justice. Two MPs strolled by the window and the ugly brute motioned their presence to the other two. More furtive discussion passed between them as we calmly sipped our tea.

‘Rock by name, rock by nature,’ Queenie said, trying to break the cake into edible pieces.

‘Tell me, this rock bun, is it an English delicacy?’

‘Well, I’m daft enough to eat it. Excuse me, but there’s a war on,’ she said, as she dipped the bun into her tea to soften it. Then this beautiful blonde-haired woman held up the bun across the table for me to take a bite. And all the time Queenie had no idea that every move she made, every gesture towards me, every friendly word and now this – allowing a black man to bite food from her hand – was reddening the necks and boiling the blood of those GIs. The hothead GI had to be restrained again. I was captivated by the impotent rage in their eyes. What sport!

‘Are you all right, Gilbert? What are you looking at?’ she asked, glancing around. But to her, of course, there was nothing menacing that she could see in this room.

I placed my hand on her arm to say, ‘Oh, it’s nothing.’ When the ugly brute, sure I was watching his threatening move, slowly drew his hand in a line across his throat.

I had to get Queenie out of the tea-shop fast. I knew I could not pass these men to get to the door without a punch being thrown from somewhere. Three against one, I still fancied my chances. But Lady Luck is a fickle woman and I did not wish to be humiliated in front of my impressionable companion. She was talking and, let me admit, I did not know what she was saying so busy was I trying to plot our escape. She was not safe from their animosity. Oh, no. GIs as vulgar as these would have no consideration for a white woman whose afternoon is spent with a nigger.

It was then I saw him in the fading light. Arthur – the wonderful man who had brought me to Queenie’s door – was walking across the road looking, as always, a little lost.

‘There is your father-in-law,’ I said.

She ran from the tea-shop and over to where he stood without even an ‘Excuse me’. There was something indecent about the way Queenie wagged her finger in this grown man’s face while he, head low, kicked at imaginary stones on the ground.

I stood to leave. And so did the GIs. Paying the waitress I tipped her so handsomely she almost smiled on me. The GIs were blocking the door. I needed a plan. It was too late to don a disguise – they would still know me in a blond wig. All my mind could conjure was squeezing myself through some back-entrance window. ‘Do you have a WC?’ I asked the waitress.

‘No, but down the street . . .’ the waitress began. Then, turning to point, she stopped her instructions when she saw the GIs making themselves ready to leave.

‘Excuse me, I’ve got eggs here for you three. You can’t go just like that. You’ve ordered.’ She hurried over to them. ‘In this country you have to wait for your order.’ She shooed them back into their seats, and those Mummy-fearing boys grudgingly submitted. ‘It’s just coming, now sit down. We haven’t got food to waste like some. There’s a war on, you know.’ With she, standing over the table of these pitifully cowed men I, with a kiss for Lady Luck, slipped out of the door. All three GIs eyed me through the window as if vermin were escaping. So I gave them a little wave. Come, who were the pantywaists now?

But still I worried to leave the road quickly. I hurried to Queenie and her father. ‘Gilbert,’ Queenie began saying, ‘Arthur and I were wondering about going to the pictures.’

Lady Luck was still smiling. Linking my arms through theirs, ‘Good idea,’ I said. ‘Come, let us go.’ And, with them bamboozled by my enthusiasm, I managed to frogmarch them away.

Seventeen

Gilbert

How Clark Gable make every woman swoon so?
Gone With the Wind
. Queenie was so thrilled she jump in joy, ‘Oh, Clark Gable’s in it!’ Forgetting all sense she squealed delirious at the thought of being in the the dark with this puff-up American star. How Clark Gable turn every woman’s head so? Foolish young English girls would see a movie star in every GI with the same Yankee-doodle voice. Glamour in US privates named Jed, Buck or Chip, with their easy-come-by gifts and Uncle Sam sweet-talk. Dreamboats in hooligans from Delaware or Arizona with fingernails that still carried soil from home, and eyes that crossed with any attempt at reading. Heart-throbs from men like those in the tea-shop, who dated their very close relatives and knew cattle as their mental equal. Thanks to Mr Gable’s silver tongue, this bunch of ruffians mistakenly became the men of Englishwomen’s dreams. The picture had already started, we had missed the music and the Movietone news. Yet still this Gable star – even with him face six foot high and luminous – could not light up the room enough to guide us as we walked.

‘Tickets?’ the uniformed usherette asked. ‘Follow me.’ Even in the dark she was scruffy – her ample bosom having been configured for a larger garment. As if trying to escape her, the gleam from her torch wriggled frantic on the floor before resting on some empty seats. Queenie patiently guided Arthur by the elbow into the row. Him mesmerised as a baby sat before he should, while Queenie nudged him along two more seats. As I went to follow them the usherette tugged at my sleeve. I turned to her and she momentarily dazzled me, flicking the torchlight up on to my face.

‘You have to go up the back,’ this woman said, lighting the ground to indicate the path I should take. I had misunderstood. I tapped Queenie to whisper, ‘The usherette say we have to go to the back.’

The girl shook her head as Queenie backed out from the row. ‘Not her. You. You have to go up the back.’

‘But we are all together,’ I said, beckoning Queenie to take her seat again. I followed. But again this usherette caught my arm. Enunciating as if speaking to an imbecile, she said, ‘No, you. You have to go up the back. She and him can stay there.’

‘But there are plenty seats for me to sit here.’ I was whispering so as not to disturb the other people’s enjoyment of the film.

‘But it’s the rules,’ she said.

‘Rules, what rules?’ She had me confused now. The orchestral music from the film was howling as wind does on a runway. Queenie, looking to me, was half in and half out of her seat. The woman behind her told her to sit down. From somewhere I was told to shush. I apologised. Instead of sitting down Queenie once again backed along the row to where I stood with the quarrelsome usherette.

‘What’s the problem, Gilbert?’ she asked. So tumultuous was the music she looked to Arthur, fearful he might have thrown himself to the ground.

‘He has to go up the back,’ the usherette said.

‘But there are seats here,’ Queenie responded.

‘I just tell her that – she say it’s the rules.’

‘Rules, what rules?’ Queenie asked.

I quieted her with a hand placed gently on her arm – I would take care of this myself. ‘You sit, Queenie – I soon come.’ Then, turning to this usherette, I asked the same question, ‘What rules?’

It was then she took her torch to shine its searchlight beam up to the back rows of the picture house. For the briefest moment she ran her light along the faces sitting there. Queenie would not have seen: she would have asked, ‘What? What are you showing me?’ But I saw. As startling as exposing a horde of writhing cockroaches, that light, although searching for only a second, gave me an image that seared indelible into my mind’s eye. It flashed across lines of black faces, illuminating the heedless and impassive features of a large group of black GIs enjoying the film.

‘You have to sit with them.’

‘Madam,’ I told her, ‘I am not an American. I am with the British RAF.’

‘You’re coloured.’

Queenie was back. ‘What are you talking about?’

‘Coloured, he’s coloured.’ She shone the light once more to the back rows, this time holding it there so Queenie, puzzled at first, would gradually come to see. Caught by the beam, some of the men seemed to awaken with the light.

‘This is England,’ I said. ‘This is not America. We do not do this in England. I will sit anywhere I please.’

‘Well, we do it here. It’s the rules. All niggers—’ She stopped and began again. ‘All coloureds up the back rows.’

‘Why?’ Queenie asked.

‘Because that’s their seats.’

‘No! Why do coloured people have to sit where you say?’

‘Our other customers don’t like to sit next to coloureds.’

‘Who are these other customers? Yanks?’ I asked.

‘They won’t sit next to you.’

‘What other customers? Who?’ I was shouting now.

‘They don’t like to be all mixed up.’

‘Americans?’

‘Not just Yanks. Anyone.’

‘We’ll sit next to him – he can sit between us,’ Queenie offered. I wanted so to be pleased that this sweet Englishwoman was speaking up for me. But, come, Queenie’s good intentions were entirely missing the point

‘In this country I sit where I like.’

‘Then you’ll have to go. It’s up the back or nowhere.’

‘Madam, there is no Jim Crow in this country.’

‘Who?’

‘Jim Crow.’

‘Well, if he’s coloured he’ll have to sit at the back.’

‘Segregation, madam, there is no segregation in this country. I will sit wherever I like in this picture house. And those coloured men at the back should have been allowed to sit wherever they so please. This is England, not Alabama.’

Like air escaping from an overheating machine, the sound of shushing came at us from all around. Along with the impatient ‘Be quiet, some of us want to watch the film.’

‘You’ll have my job. I don’t make the rules. Other coloureds don’t make such a fuss. It’s up the back or nothing.’

And I told her, ‘Madam, I will neither go to the back nor will I leave. My friends and I intend to enjoy the film from this spot.’ My heart thumped so I feared the toe-tapping beat would be told to shush. Cha, nah, man – is bareface cheek! We fighting the persecution of the Jew, yet even in my RAF blue my coloured skin can permit anyone to treat me as less than a man. I turned my back on the usherette, indicated for Queenie to sit and went to take my seat next to her.

It was an American voice – solid as thunder – coming from a few rows in front that called out to me, ‘Sit where you’re told, boy.’

I ignored it.

‘Hey, nigger, I said sit where the lady tells ya.’

I sat myself beside Queenie. This GI stood up – his silhouette rising like a mortal tempest before the screen.

‘Look, we don’t want any trouble,’ the now tearful usherette pleaded.

‘Nigger, do as you’re told,’ the GI shouted.

‘And you can put a sock in it,’ Queenie replied, standing up. Her fierce finger wagging.

‘Nigger, move.’

‘And you can shut up with your nigger,’ Queenie said, ‘I prefer them to you any day.’

A woman’s voice called, ‘You tell ’em, love – ruddy loud-mouth Yanks.’ I did not have to look, I could feel the edgy stirring in the back of the picture house as someone shouted, ‘Shut up, whitey. We ain’t taking that no more.’

The air trembled with the muttered grumblings from the rest of the audience while a white GI yelled, ‘Stand up, nigger.’ From the back came a harmony of voices shouting, ‘Who you calling nigger? Who you calling nigger?’

‘Jigaboo suit you better?’ another voice called from the front.

‘No, it ain’t,’ came the volley of reply.

The usherette fled, calling, ‘I’ll have to get the manager – we don’t want trouble,’ while Queenie, still ranting at these white men, said, ‘You can sit down, what’s it got to do with you?’

‘Shut up, nigger-lover,’ the man answered.

‘Please sit down, Queenie,’ I tried, but she had long ceased to hear me.

‘Any time over, you lot,’ she shouted.