The Small Fortune of Dorothea Q (40 page)

W
e stayed
the night in the big house and Marion and I returned to Georgetown the next day. Mummy stayed behind; for a few days, she said, to get to know Rajan again.

She returned after three days, and that very evening, at supper, Gran delivered the Grand Finale. She reached into her bra and pulled out a tiny plastic zip-lock bag. I knew that little bag. I knew its contents.

Gran handed it to Mum.

‘Here you are, Rika,’ she said. ‘It’s yours.’

Mum’s jaw dropped. ‘You’re giving it to me?’ Her expression changed, softened. ‘Mum – you don’t have to. I know you’re sorry and so am I. You don’t have to somehow pay me back. We both made mistakes. It’s all behind us now. The stamp is yours; I know how much you value it.’

She pushed Gran’s hand away. Gran waved it at her in annoyance.

‘Take the damned t’ing! Is yours!’

‘Leave it to me in your Will, if you insist,’ said Mum. I personally thought she was being stubborn all over again. If Gran was giving it, why refuse? There was the answer to all her problems, and she was turning it away! I shook my head in disgust.

‘Rika! You din’ hear me? The t’ing belong to you! Is yours already!’

Marion laughed out loud.

‘You better tell her, Mummy, or else she never going to take it. Put it down and tell her.’

Gran obeyed. She laid the plastic zip-lock bag on the middle of the table and finished off the story.

‘I told you Uncle Matt arranged for Rajan’s treatment, right? It was damned expensive. But that Professor Cohen, he led the team and he wouldn’t take any money. And other doctors too, donated their work, and Matt led a fund-raising drive – and anyway, it was done, thanks to Matt. He picked up all the expenses that weren’t covered. We couldn’t thank him enough. So – Daddy gave him the stamp.’

‘Daddy gave Uncle Matt the stamp? His precious stamp?’

‘Yes. Matt had always coveted the stamp. He had been offering to buy it for years, for decades. He kept raising the offer, but Humphrey wouldn’t sell. Now, he just gave it. As a thank you for all that Matt had done.’

Marion chuckled. ‘Uncle Matt didn’t even want to take it! It was so funny! But Daddy just sent it, with FedEx. He insisted.’

Mum gave a little gasp of amazement. ‘He did that, for Rajan? Gave away his most precious possession?’

‘For Rajan, and for you. You were gone; we hadn’t heard from you in weeks by that time, but we kept hoping, hoping. And when you turned up, or when you contacted us, we wanted to tell you that Rajan was alive; we thought that would lure you back. Rajan’s life was precious, but so were you. What was a little stamp in comparison? As you keep saying, Rika: it was only a little scrap of paper. Humphrey saw that now.’

‘Wow!’ was all Mum could say. Her eyes were moist. ‘But then – if it’s Uncle Matt’s, why do you say it’s mine?’

‘He gave it back,’ said Gran. ‘When he finally accepted it, it was under a gentleman’s agreement – no paperwork involved. He wanted it to come back to Daddy, to the Quint family, eventually. He knew how much Humphrey loved that stamp, and he wanted it to return to our family, rather than become an object of auctions and greed and escalating prices. It was in Matt’s Will; that the stamp should come to Humphrey. But then Humphrey died. Before him.’

She looked at Mum. ‘After Humphrey died, the stamp didn’t have anyone to love it any more. But there was you, Rika. You’re Matt’s Godchild. He was always close to you; he doesn’t have any daughters of his own, just the three sons. So he put you in his Will instead of Humphrey. That’s the thing I was supposed to tell you.’

‘So Uncle Matt died too? So many people died and I never said goodbye …’

Mum’s buried her face in her hands. She seemed more bothered by Uncle Matt’s death than delighted by the fact that the stamp was hers.

Gran seemed overcome with emotion, a thing I’d never seen before. On the verge of tears. Gran, my stalwart, heart-of-steel Gran! So Marion took over the story.

‘No. Rika. Uncle Matt was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer a few months ago. No chance of survival. So he sent the stamp back to us to pass on to you. He knew you had moved home in the UK and didn’t have your new address. So he sent it to Gran – via FedEx, insured to the hilt – explaining that it was for you in lieu of an inheritance; it was cheaper and less hassle that way, less complicated. There wasn’t any paperwork about a sale or a gift to him anyway. You could sell it or keep it or do with it what you wanted.’

Gran had by now collected herself and took up the story again. ‘I was supposed to tell you and pass it on. I wanted to give you the stamp and tell you the story and make everything right again.’

‘So Uncle Matt – he’s still alive?’

‘Yes. So it seems,’ said Marion. ‘I’m in touch with his family – they promised to let me know as soon as – well, when he goes.’

‘I need to see him,’ said Mum. ‘I need to go – to thank him. Before it’s too late.’

I had to put in a word here.

‘But why didn’t you tell us right away, Gran? About the stamp, I mean. That it belongs to Mum? Why this whole theatre about finding an heir and all that?’

‘Rika’s fault.’ Gran looked at Mum, almost accusingly. ‘You seemed so indifferent; to me, to the stamp – hostile, even. I tried to get you interested but the more I talked about the stamp the more you rejected it. My lovely surprise: all spoilt! I couldn’t get through to you. So I tried, I tried so hard, to make you realise how valuable it was. What it meant to your Daddy. I even tried to make you jealous, by pretending to look for an heir.’

Gran suddenly switched moods. She gave me a sly look.

‘And Inky. So excited! An ol’ lady got to have she fun!’ she said. ‘You t’ink I didn’t see how much you wanted it? Coveted it? The greed shinin’ in you eyes? I had to tease you a lil bit. Cat an’ mouse.’

But then she turned serious again, dropped the game and the accent.

‘Nothing worked. Rika was indifferent to everything.’

‘Mummy! If you’d told me then what you have just told me now, about Rajan and how it paid for his surgery instead of playing stupid games I might not have been indifferent. How Daddy gave up his most precious possession for the surgery.’ Mum, eyes more moist than ever, was looking at Gran with a strange expression, as if she were seeing her for the first time.

‘But – but, I couldn’t tell you that either! You hadn’t replied to my letter. You hadn’t forgiven me, I thought. You’d said you didn’t want to hear
one word more
about that night. There’s so much history attached to that stamp. It played such a role in Rajan’s recovery … I didn’t want to just hand it over without you knowing the whole story … you had to know! But I couldn’t find the words. I couldn’t break the ice. In the end we all thought, that is, Marion and I and everyone, that you had to
see
Rajan for yourself first. That brain damage doesn’t mean a person is worthless. Then you’d understand. We wanted to bring you here. But you wouldn’t come, you refused.’

‘Still – you should have told me! Right away!’

‘Rika, stop complaining; stop blaming Mummy,’ said Marion firmly. ‘You have
no idea!
I mean, I was just a child at the time but Mummy was beside herself with desperation. Frantic about Rajan’s survival, frantic about your disappearance, longing to hear from you, worried about you, alone in Brazil, a teenager with no experience of life. And then you didn’t write to us – not properly – for over a
decade!
We didn’t even have a return address for you till Inky was born; that seemed to calm you down a little.

‘You just
vanished
out of our lives. We couldn’t tell you about Granny’s death and Daddy’s death. And Gran van Dam’s too, of course. And all the family things like births and marriages. It’s as if you didn’t care a damn about us; you’d withdrawn from all of us, abandoned us. And then when you did write us you insisted on not speaking a word about ‘what happened’. No mention of it, you said. So we thought very well, that’s probably for the best. You were married with a new baby; maybe it was better to put the past behind us. Like Granny always said.’

Mum, by now thoroughly put in her place, bowed her head. She said nothing. It seemed to me that Marion was right. Mum had wallowed in a lake of self-pity all these years, never asking after the lives of those she had left behind – those who had loved and cared for her.

‘In the end, the mountain had to go to Mohammed,’ Marion said. ‘Mummy moved to London, with the sole aim of giving you the stamp. But she couldn’t.’

‘The wall!’ Gran said. ‘The wall was too high! I had to break down the wall but I couldn’t! Because the wall was in you, Rika. You couldn’t forgive. Yes, you tried to do your duty on the surface. But I knew you hadn’t forgiven me.’

‘She’s a lot like you in that, Mummy. You can’t forgive either.’

Gran gave Marion a nod of acknowledgement and continued.

‘In you, Rika, I saw history repeating itself. We both lost the love of our life, violently and suddenly; and we both stewed in our own private broths of misery for decades; and I knew we had to climb out, but how? I couldn’t find the words. I found myself in a stupid charade, trying to provoke you into some kind of – I don’t know. Some kind of direct accusation. But you just wouldn’t let it happen.

‘After my accident I realised how short life was. It can be snuffed out in a moment. We
had
to get this done. I knew there was no way around it, and talking wasn’t the answer. You had to come back and face everything and meet Rajan. By force if necessary.’

She cackled then, the familiar old Gran-cackle. I saw a smile play on Mum’s lips.

She turned to Gran. Her eyes were big and soft, and her whole face seemed to glow from within with warmth and contentment. She rose from her chair, and, just as she’d done with Rajan earlier in the day, she knelt on the floor before Gran and took her hands in hers. Gran leaned forward; Mum rose up to meet her and the two of them simply melted into each other. I couldn’t bear it. Too much lovey-dovey for me. I got up and left the room. It was the only way to keep my eyes dry.

I
t was over
. Her work was done, and she was weary. Weary, but satisfied.

Dorothea was a woman of action. She was not given to introspection. She had no time for dreamers and navel-gazers, which, perhaps, had been the whole problem with Rika, who was her very opposite.

But now, alone in her old room, she lay on her bed and closed her eyes. It was time to recapitulate it all. And her whole life, it seemed, had, in fact, been driven by feelings. Actions had their roots in feelings.

The suppressed anger of her youth.

The bliss of first love.

The anxiety of the war years; the anguish at Freddy’s disappearance, the joy of his return.

Her utter devastation at his death, turning into yet more fear.

The fear of loving too much, for love inevitably means loss.

Dorothea had built an armour around her heart, and with that in place she had battled the world, and repaired it.

She had not repaired herself. She had thought herself strong, but she was only hard, and hardness can hurt.
Had
hurt. Hurt Rika, the child she had feared to love too much. She had pushed Rika away, failed to understand her. Failed her.

And then there was Rajan’s accident. The utter turmoil of that night of horror: worse, even, than the night of Freddy’s death. The agony of fear; the spark of hope; her heart cracking open to release the pent up fear, and love, and anguish. The fervour of prayer, the agonised cry of her soul;
make me whole!

After that everything had changed; her actions no longer driven by anger and fear, but by something else, deep and real and thoroughly fulfilling.

Just one thing missing: Rika’s forgiveness.

Now, she had that too.

She smiled to herself, and opened her eyes. They fell upon a framed photo on the wall opposite. In the picture were two slim young men, bright eyed and smiling, their arms around each other, one dark, one fair; one in uniform, one in civilians. Smiling at the camera, the day before the ship set sail taking Freddy off to war.

Dorothea stood up and, without using her cane, limped over to the wall, took down the photo, returned to the bed. There, she gazed at the photo, kissed it twice. Smiled, and lay down again, her hand clasping the photo to her breast. She took a deep breath. Then let out the longest sigh of her life.

T
here was that bird again
, chirruping outside my bedroom window:
Kiskadee! Kiskadee! Kiss-kiss-kisskadee!
Joyful, fresh and carefree, which was exactly how I felt on this, my second morning in Lamaha Street. I lay enclosed in my mosquito net tent, last night’s drama playing over and over again in my mind. Relaxed, at ease, at home in myself; smiling into the half-light, I hugged my pillow in glee as I looked forward to what the new day might bring, now that we’d all walked out of yesterday’s shadows.

Marion had promised me all sorts of delights; a trip to Kaietuer Falls, in the Interior; a visit to a rainforest resort on a creek in the Essequibo District; wild animals in the Nature Reserve and a dash up to Diane McTurk’s otter refuge in the Rupununi. And then, of course, there was Christmas coming up – a grand Quint family Christmas, my first! All that to be squeezed into the three weeks before my flight back to England.

At that thought my smile faded and a dark fist grabbed hold of my belly. At home, there’d be Sal and Cat, revelling in their reunion and reawakened love, wanting to share it all with me. How was I to deal with that?
Sal, Sal, why didn’t I realise? Why didn’t I speak my mind, my heart?
It was a dull sickness inside me, an inner ache that not even the unalloyed joy of the kiskadee’s song could dispel. I reached under the mosquito net for my mobile on the bedside table, switched it on: again no signal. I reckoned there’d never be a signal out here and switched it off. I clambered out of the net and perhaps a little too violently pulled it from the mattress. Maybe there was an Internet Café somewhere I could use. I’d email him and see what was up. No. I wouldn’t. I couldn’t. It was over and I had to accept that.

There was a soft tap at the door and it opened gently. Marion poked in her head.

‘Ah, you’re up! Morning, Inky. Sleep well?’

‘Like a baby!’ I said, and pushed my heartache away. ‘I’ll be down in a sec. What are we doing today?’

Marion didn’t reply at first, so I looked up. Her face seemed drained, empty, yet her eyes so full it made me stop and take a second look.

‘Marion? Are you OK? Is something the matter?’

‘Yes, actually, there is.’ She came into the room then and took hold of my two hands. ‘Inky – Gran died last night, in her sleep. It’s all a bit – sudden.’

In spite of the morning warmth I went all cold, and my knees gave way. I sprang out of bed.

‘No – I don’t believe it – she can’t be! She wasn’t ill or anything! Last night she …’

And then I knew it was true and a great gulf opened in my being and I fell into it. I sank back down to the bed and began to sob, sob and sob for everything I had lost and now could never recover. I cried for Gran and her lost love, I cried for the burden she had carried so many years and finally laid down last night. I cried for the young girl who still lived in an old woman’s body, the young girl who should have been my friend but who I rejected because I only saw the old woman.

Marion came and sat down next to me. She put an arm around me and said,

‘Don’t be sad, Inky; she was ready to go and she’s in a good place. Come and have a look at her.’

I resisted. I could not bear to look at Gran as a corpse, the life and energy of her gone forever. I shook my head and pressed the heels of my hands into my eyes as if to stop the tears. But Marion wasn’t having it. Her voice became brisk and no-nonsense; she got up and pulled me to my feet.

‘Girl, you coming down with me if I got to carry you there meself.’ And so she led me down the stairs to Gran’s room, a small one just off the stairwell. Mum was there already, sitting on a chair next to the bed. She got up when I entered, and we fell into each other’s arms. I broke out in sobs again, but Mum was quiet and calm and only rubbed my back.

‘She’s all right, Inky. She’s at peace,’ she whispered into my ear.

‘But she’s gone!’ I wailed. ‘I never got to know her properly!’

‘Well, look at her now and you’ll see all you need to know.’

Until now I had refused to even glance at the body laid out on the bed, afraid of that awful spectre, death, hanging there above it. Now, I looked.

‘We haven’t moved her at all. This is how we found her,’ Marion said.

Gran lay on the bed straight out as if already in her coffin. Her hands were folded over a photograph, only the edges visible. No; two photographs. The edges of a second photo peeked out from behind the first. Next to her on a bedside table were the separated parts of an empty picture frame. On the wall above her was another picture frame, also empty.

I knew whose photos she chosen to die with. Knowing Gran, she’d gone on to be with those two husbands. Freddy and Humphrey. Would they form a blissful threesome in heaven? Or would they, as Mum believed, merge into some great blissful Oneness? One day, I too would know.

On Gran’s face lay an expression of unutterable peace. Her lips were slightly raised at their corners, as if she had died smiling. I could not but gaze at that face, and as I did so I too felt that peace, and my tears dried and I knew Mum and Marion were right. She was in a good place, and at peace; this corpse was but the husk that had once enclosed her. She had left it behind, and moved on.

I
n spite
of the preparations for Gran’s funeral, and, a week later, the funeral itself, to which half Georgetown came, Marion kept her promise and we went to all the places she’d planned, and by the time my holiday came to an end I had fallen in love, and more. It was as if my feet had walked a swamp all my life, but now I’d found my footing. Maybe it was the exuberance of nature, the majesty of that waterfall plunging eight hundred feet into a jungle gorge; maybe it was the warmth and openness and simple lovingness of the people I met; maybe it was Christmas, and the good food and the celebration and the wonderful people who came in and out of the house all day; maybe it was Quints who flew in from America and Canada and even the UK – imagine! I had Quint cousins in London! – and who folded me into the family like a long-lost daughter.

Or maybe it was the food. Christmas! Pepperpot! That legendary dish Marian had enticed me with back in Streatham; prepared days in advance by Marion and Evelyn, because it tastes better over time: beef stewed with cinnamon, orange peel, cloves, hot pepper, preserved with an Amerindian preservative called cassareep that colours it black, and served with plait bread! Or the traditional Christmas Black Cake, made weeks, months ahead of time by marinating fruit in rum; moist, juicy, out-of-this-world delicious! That Christmas I died and went to heaven.

Maybe it was the stories. The love-story of Granny Quint, now a legend in the family; Mum, telling for the first time of her travels in South America and India; the stories of other members of Quints spread across the world. My family. Stories of wounds opened and healed that cured me of the sickness I’d carried with me, it seemed, all my life. I could not bear the thought of returning home. Mum, who spent half her time up on the Pomeroon river and the other half with us, was staying for at least another two months; why not me too?

‘No,’ said Mum, quite adamant. ‘Back you go. You need to take care of … matters. And Sal. And your life, waiting for you.’

‘But I don’t want that life anymore!’ I wailed. ‘It was just all so – empty.’

‘If your life was empty then it was because
you
were empty. Now go back to it with the fullness you feel now and put that fullness into your life there. You can do it, Inky!’

‘But Mum – Sal …’ And I told her then. I told her I loved him, but had lost him, to Cat. I thought she’d sympathise, but she only laughed.

‘Just go back and meet him and see. It’s not over until the fat lady sings,’ was all she said to that, which I found most unhelpful. I told her so.

‘See, Inky,’ she said then, ‘One thing I learned through all this, is not to live in fear. Face your fears, and see what happens. I think you want to stay here not because you really want to, but because you’re afraid of a life without Sal. Go back, and face that fear. Take it one day at a time. You’ll be fine.’

‘
You
can talk!’ I said, somewhat bitchily, remembering the huge pile of unpaid bills in unopened envelopes in her room. That one unopened envelope stuck to the back of her wardrobe. ‘It took you thirty long years to face your fears. And that letter! If you’d faced it back then, how much hassle it would have spared us!’

Mum laughed, a relaxed, open laugh. ‘You’re right,’ she said, ‘but that’s why I can talk! Learn from my mistakes. Go home, Inky. Don’t be afraid.’

And then Mum gave me the stamp, the precious Quint.

‘Put it to auction,’ she said, ‘and pay off all my debts.’

A
nd so I returned
, reluctantly, to my private little hell. While waiting for my luggage at Gatwick I reached into my handbag for my mobile, which was lying right at the bottom with some other unused stuff. My fingers closed around a packet of pre-rolled cigarettes. I drew it out and stared at it, bemused. I had not smoked a single one since boarding the plane on my way out, three weeks ago, and what’s more, had not even
thought
of smoking since arriving in Guyana. I chucked it in a bin, took out my mobile and switched it on. Five missed calls, all from Sal.

So I called him back, heart rattling like a jackhammer.

And when I arrived home there he was, sitting on the wall outside, waiting. I dropped the suitcase I’d been lugging up from Streatham Hill Station and just ran to him and flung myself at him and I didn’t even have to say
I love you
because he knew, and I knew it when his arms closed around me and his lips found mine. And the word ‘Cat’ didn’t even get an honourable mention.