Small Island (53 page)

I’d hump things round the house – a chest-of-drawers from one side of a room to the other, a wardrobe that simply had to be taken up two flights of stairs. The heavier the better. And in between I’d jump the stairs – three at a time to the top and two at a time to the bottom. Every bath I ran was so hot I feared I’d blister. But none of it worked. I cursed those bloody old wives – could they get nothing right? Then one night as I was lowering myself into the bath for another scalding, I felt a tiny kick. A little bounce inside me. A tiny foot protesting that our bath was too hot. A little elbow nudging to ask me what I was doing. I turned the cold tap on in panic. Lowering myself down in cool water I swear I heard it sigh. I felt queasy thinking that the little mite was probably scared of me. Who else alive was there who could protect it? I was so sorry and I told it so over and over.

I was lucky – I never got too big. Never lumbered around like some I saw, gasping for breath leaning on a lamp-post or rubbing at an aching back. At night in bed I’d unwind the binding – let the little mite breathe – my belly puffing up like a fat man’s. And I’d talk to it, tell it my plans. Perhaps we’d go to Canada on the money I’d saved from the rents. I could make up a tale of its hero father slaughtered in the war. What was to stop us? The war had been an enormous bomb blast. Everything thrown up, tumbling, turning and scattering high into the air. Now it was over; the whole lot was coming back down to land. But it was all settling in different places. A mother with a lone child – a little unusual we might be, but not wicked.

However, Bernard crashing back to earth soon put an end to that fancy.

There are some words once spoken split the world in two. Before you say them and after.

He listened to me right through. Never saying a word. Never interrupting or wanting a clarification. Never tutted, shook his head. Never once exclaimed ‘Oh, Queenie, how could you?’ He sat across from me at the table smoking a cigarette, gently tapping off the ash. But his eyes never lifted to look at mine, not even a glance. When I’d finished – when there was no more worth saying – he scraped his chair back across the lino, stood up and left the room. And for the first time I was thankful that Bernard Bligh could be relied upon to have absolutely nothing to say.

Fifty-six

Gilbert

I come to dread a knock on the door. Is this the way a man supposed to live in England? If it is not the jackass from downstairs come to shake me from this room or try bloody my nose again, then who?

Kenneth. Standing before me rubbing his hands, telling me keen, oh, he has a little business proposition for me. I folded my arms then blocked the door so his eager eye would not pull the rest of him inside. ‘You listening, man?’ he say.

‘Oh, yes, I listening, Kenneth.’

‘No, man, me not Kenneth, me Winston.’

I placed me tongue in me cheek while I carried on listening to the stupidness this man have for me this time. His story start with him telling me he had come into a little bit of money. How he come by this? Some of the boys from his district back home start a pardner. He have a little saving so he join them. His turn soon come round for the hand. Now with this and some money his grandma give him from selling her land to a big-time movie star, he find he have enough to buy a house. Here, in London. Finsbury Park was the precise location, which he inform me, with a finger pointing helpful like a compass, was in north London. He carry on to tell me the place need fixing up a bit, which was the reason he could purchase it at a preferential rate.

‘You have a point for me there, man?’ I ask. I was weary waiting for the moment when I might shut the door with a no-thank-you. But something was puzzling me. Slowly it come to me what. The man standing before me was actually speaking sense. I stopped him. ‘Wait,’ I say, ‘you Kenneth?’

‘No, man, me Winston. Come, you no tell the difference yet?’ And he showed me the back of his hand for proof. I look upon nothing there.

‘Why you show me this? What am I to look for here?’ I ask him.

‘Kenneth hand no have these two freckles on the back. See? One here, one there.’ He placed his hand up under my nose pointing to the blemish that none but his mummy could ever see.

Carry on, I tell him. Only one sure way to find out – if he ask me for money he was Kenneth, if he did not he was indeed Winston.

‘I wan’ you come fix up the place, Gilbert. You can come live there with your new wife. Other room we board to people from home. Not Englishwoman rent. Honest rent you can collect up. And then you see the place is kept nice.’

‘Why you need me? Why you no do this yourself?’

‘Me a businessman, Gilbert. Me have me eye on another little place. Me do the same there. But me can’t be everywhere.’

Could I at last see the beam in his twinkling eye? ‘So you wan’ me pay you money?’

‘Gilbert, you help me fix up the place – weekend, evening. But me no pay you nothin’. You look after the place. Still me no pay you nothin’. But you give me small rent. We can agree on this?’ His gaze was firm on me. Not once did him look shamefaced to the shine on his shoe or the dirt in his nails. ‘Cha, why you no trust me, man?’ he ask.

‘So where is your brother?’

‘Come, you no hear? Kenneth gone live in the Midlands.’

‘Why?’

‘A boy in London chase him for money he owe.’

‘You no worried this boy will find you instead?’

‘No. I am the boy chasing him. But, Gilbert, tell me what you think, man. What you say to me proposition?’

‘Why me?’

He sucked on his teeth. ‘I trust you. All the boys I meet since we come, it is only you I trust. You look out for me. You find me this room.’

‘You don’t wan’ me give you money?’

‘Cha, nah, man, me no wan’ your money! Is a little work and a little business. But if you no wan’ . . .’ He began to walk away.

But I caught his sleeve and cried, ‘Oh, Winston! Where you been, man?’ And I hug him up right there at the door, as he primp himself.

‘Cha, mind me suit, man. Just been pressed,’ he say.

No longer welcome in Queenie’s house, Winston was my cavalry. He rode in at my hour of need. (Hour! I was not the only boy to find his time of need was spanning more than just an hour in this Mother Country.) Keen to see the place Winston had for me, I took a little detour in my post office van. (Come, everyone know we silly darkie postmen were always getting lost.) It was a fine house, I could tell as soon as I turned the key and pushed open the door. What a size! Four floors of solid substantial rooms. Ceilings so high my voice echoed in them. The garden stretched far enough for the end to be caught in mist. The flat at the bottom of the house had two bedrooms, a kitchen already with a sink and stove and a bathroom of its own. The sitting room had windows so tall they reached from floor to ceiling. Man, after that one room in Earls Court, I saw before me a palace. But still my heart started pumping from in my boots. Why? How would I persuade Hortense that this house was somewhere she could live? She would certainly look upon it with disappointment. Quizzing me over and over with the words, ‘Just this?’ Frowning on me, convinced that God had placed me on this earth with no other purpose than to drag her down into an English gutter. Come, she had only just been persuaded that I was not the offending father of Queenie’s baby. Winston was not a liar – in need of a bit of fixing up, he said. And, oh, boy! In need of a bit of fixing up it was. Surely she will only see that those windows that spanned from ceiling to floor had old-fashioned shutters dangling crooked and broken on rusty hinges. That each of the solid rooms was gloomy as a bad dream. Peeling dark brown paint, bare floorboards strewn with the rubbish of old newspaper and holes in the plaster so deep the wooden slats of the house construction were revealed. She would definitely notice the nasty smell in the kitchen. Damp from the ground or from a stray cat’s backside – would she be able to tell? Of course she would see the dead pigeon fallen in one of the bedrooms. But only after she had observed that every piece of glass in the windows was cracked. ‘Is this the way the English live?’ she would say to me. The mournful lament sighed on each and everything she would see. And dirt? Just waving her white gloves in the air would see them turn black.

But Hortense was impatient to inspect the place in Finsbury Park. She was eager at the thought of leaving behind our one room in Earls Court. Keen to see the back of Mrs Queenie Bligh and all the confusion that resided there. And that gas-ring – she longed to wave goodbye to that blasted gas-ring. So keen was she, her mind on a higher life, that I was forced to nag ceaseless that she must remember that the place needed fixing up. Dressed in her coat, her green hat upon her head and white gloves, I led her into the first room. Nervous as a man presenting his sweetheart to his fearsome mummy – hear this – I had bought a bunch of flowers. The afternoon before I had placed the winter blooms in a jar on the mantelpiece. I had swept up the scattered newspapers into a pile. Man, I had even buried the pigeon. My feeble mind thought this silly bit of dressing might avert Hortense’s scorn. But now, instead of cheering the place homely, those flowers looked as woebegone as the room. Heedfully, she perused the mantelpiece, the floor, the ceiling and the derelict wooden shutters. At the window she looked out quizzical upon the scene. She rubbed her gloved finger on the pane of glass. Examined it but said nothing as she brushed away the dirt. But, man, I was ready for her. Let her tell me the place is too run-down. Let her ask me why I bring her to this cheerless house. For all the answers were on my lips. Rehearsed and ready to go. There had just been a war. And, yes, this was the way the English live – and many live worse. What! She think she a princess to turn up her nose at such a fine house? She was lucky, I would shout, lucky to have any place to live at all.

My eyes followed her as she paced about the room in a silent shock. When she had finished her harsh inspection, she turned her gaze on me. Her chin was high, her nose was in the air as her lips slowly parted and her breath sighed. ‘Just this?’

There, she had said it as I knew she would. The same discouraged tone as when she first stepped into the room I worked so hard to find in Earls Court. Just this? Soon she would lament, her eyes downcast, ‘Is this the way the English live?’ as she saw before her the gutter I was determined to drag her into. It was one deep breath I took to calm myself.

‘How you mean?’ I said. Cha, this irritating woman began tapping her knuckle on the wall listening to the sound with a sharp ear.

‘I mean,’ she said, ‘is it just this?’

‘Just what exactly?’ I asked. She looked on me puzzled, or was it the sound from the wall causing her concern?

‘Just this?’ She threw out her arms wide. Come, this was an enormous room she needed to throw them wide. It was cold but my forehead trickled with sweat. ‘Just this?’ she said again. I was ready. I was vex. Then she slowly asked me, ‘Just this one room we are to have or are there any other rooms?’

‘How you mean?’ I said.

‘Gilbert, what is wrong with you? This is a simple question. This is a good room but is it the only room we are to have?’

‘Wait, you like the room?’

‘Yes, it is a good room.’

‘It is very run-down,’ I said.

‘We can fix it up.’

‘But look,’ I told her, ‘you no see the paint peeling from the walls? And those windows? Every one is cracked.’

‘These things can be fix up.’

‘It will be a lot of work.’

‘Gilbert, come, you no scared of a little hard work. I can help you.’ She spun round in the room. ‘With a little paint and some carpet.’ She moved to the corner leaning over to spread out her arms and say ‘And a table and chair here,’ before rushing to the fireplace with the suggestion, ‘and two armchairs here in front of an open English fire. You will see – we will make it nice.’

All words froze on my tongue. For before me I suddenly saw quite the most wonderful woman. Proud, haughty – come, let us face it, even insufferable. But still, all I wanted to do was kiss her. Press her to me, right there in the middle of this ramshackle room. Feel her breath, then her lips soft against mine.

‘But what I need to know, Gilbert,’ she was asking, ‘is, is it just this one room or are there any more?’

This beautiful woman commanded nothing but the best. Never again would I think to oblige her to settle for just this. Pretty in her hat and white gloves I would make this life around her good enough to fit that fine apparel. Lift her up so high until that one room in Earls Court became as distant a memory as if glimpsed in a dream. It was with love that I smiled at her. ‘Oh, no, Miss Mucky Foot,’ I said. ‘There are many, many more rooms than just this one. Come, if you take my hand I will show you them all.’

I had got used to folding myself up on to the armchair to go to bed. My limbs had become collapsible. There was no winged creature that could tuck and bend itself away as neatly as I. I might have been crumpled as a moth from its cocoon every morning, but with the light, blood soon pumped through me to make me a man again. And under my big blanket I was snug as a bug. Like every night before, I turned out the light and wished Hortense pleasant dreams. But on this night, when all was dark and quiet, I heard her softly spoken voice say, ‘Gilbert.’

Cha! What was it now? I thought. The mice, the tap dripping, the smell of gas? ‘I tired, Hortense – let it wait till morning, nah?’

‘Gilbert.’

I made the noises of sleep with the hint of a feigned snore.

‘Gilbert, you wan’ come into this bed?’

I did not answer. Why? Come, I believed that I had gone to sleep and was now dreaming those words. I was convinced if I were to speak she would awake and chastise me for disturbing her with my talk.

‘Gilbert,’ she say again, louder this time.

It was with great trepidation that I timid say, ‘Yes, Hortense?’