Closure (11 page)

VALDA JACKSON
AN AGE OF REASON (COMING HERE)

The Father

It's not really money you know, weh make me come here. No, I didn't come here just for that. It's the baby body buried in your granny's yard. I couldn' live there with it. And I didn't have anywhere else to take you all.

You don't remember Michael. No, you couldn't remember him. You was just baby yourself when he die. You didn't even have your second birthday yet.

I couldn't stay there. I just couldn't stay. But your mother never want to leave her mother's yard – they were real close – and if it wasn't for the baby grave, I could stay there as well, for her mother was a lovely lovely woman. And she was real real good to us.

You know, I move all over Jamaica before I end up in St Thomas. Although is St Ann where I born, and I live in a whole heap of other places as well, I feel St Thomas is my real home because nowhere else did I feel as welcome and as happy as I did there.

And it's there I meet your mother.

When I first meet her… I tell you, Julie, I couldn' believe my luck.

From the first time we meet, I know I have to marry her.

She was going to market for her mother. Another time after that she was coming back from town.

We talk for just a little while and I tell her that I really like her ways, and I would like to see her again. She tell me that if I want to see her, I have to come to her house and meet her mother and the rest of the family as well.

You know, your mother never really walk up and down.

She never go a dance, nor walk and chat. Mm mm.

She always stay at home and help her mother.

Your mother was a serious Christian. I could see that.

She was just eighteen when we meet.

She take me to her mother. And I tell you, that woman, Mistress Catherine, you couldn' find any better than she. She was so lovely.

It was just few weeks after May and I meet that I talk to her mother. I say, “Mistress Catherine, I'm real serious about your daughter, and if I have your blessing, and if she will have me, I going to ask her to marry me.”

It's not that I really asking permission of her, you know, for I believed that she would give it. But I wanted to have her full blessing.

And also… I never want her to think that I would take advantage of her as a widow-woman, having no man there to protect her and her daughters. Because nuff-nuff man was ready in them times to mash up young girls and then walk away. And she was a good good mother to me as well.

You know I was orphaned when I was a small boy; I never know anyone to call mother. But you see, Julie, when I meet your mother, it's not just wife I find. I find a mother as well.
Her
mother was a real mother for me.

So you see, I was happy at your granny's yard. She was good to us… but I know we couldn't live there forever. We did have a plan that when we save enough money we would buy piece a land down a Yallahs and build a little house and plant it up. But you know something? With that little grave in Mama's yard… I really couldn't stay there any longer.

I just couldn't stay.

They have advertisement all over, telling people to come to England to work.

So… I tell your mother I want to go there and work. And you know, we believed we could save even quicker to get that piece of land. I tell her it would be better if we leave you girls with Mama and go together but she say she can't leave you and your sisters them. I beg her come with me.

Even her mother pleading with her. Even Mama say we must go together and leave you all with her because she can take care of the three of you.

And I would trust her. I would trust that woman with my life. I know that she would do her very best for unnu girls.

But May, she say no… she not leaving you all. She wouldn't come.

She never want to leave her children.

She wouldn' come.

So, I leave St Thomas on my own.

Just as I come.

I used to write your mother. And you know my writing not so good, for when my mother die I have to stop going to school. But I write anyway, for I miss her. I miss all of you.

I feel it, yu see.

I really feel it.

I tell you Julie, it wasn't easy leaving you all behind… and without your mother as well.

It was hard… them times… I really want her with me.

Chu… them times were tough.

Tough tough.

Sarah, First Born

I don't remember having a childhood after Mummy left. When she left, that was the end of being a child for me.

I never played. I was too busy looking out for us.

It was after Michael died.

I bet you don't remember when Michael died, do you?

But I do.

It was awful.

I think I was five.

I just remember. Mummy suddenly calling out to her mother: “Mama. Mama. The baby dead.” Mama came running in from the kitchen.

I can still see Mama trying to hold Mummy up… and the crying, I still hear it sometimes. You've forgotten, haven't you?

Wish
I
could forget.

It wasn't long after that Daddy left.

And then when
she
left to join him that was it for me.

The end of freedom.

The end of play.

I mean – we weren't protected, Julia.

There was no one really looking after us.

At that time, remember, Mama still had three of her own teenage children living at home. Of course Aunty G was supposed to be helping with us, but I don't think she was even fourteen then.

Then there were other cousins living with us as well because two of Mummy's older sisters had already gone to England, and Mama was looking after their children as well. So she had the three of us – you, Elaine and me – and our cousins Maureen and Collette and there was Sherrie and Millicent, and Aunty Enid's boys, and Aunty Evelyn's as well. There must have been more than eight or nine of us grandchildren all below the age of eight. I'm not even counting those older boys. She couldn't manage so many; no matter how much she loved us. It's not possible.

I could see that, and I was five.

Elaine was just four and you were only two. I felt I had to look after the two of you… and you, you weren't easy. They had to tear you off me every morning so I could go to school, and then I'd come home and find you damp and tetchy, just rocking and banging your head against Mama's kitchen wall. It's a miracle you have any sense left… though sometimes, Julia, I do wonder.

I remember when Elaine was ill soon after Mummy left and Mama had to get her to the doctor. She had the three of us with her and I think two or three of our cousins as well.

It was a long walk and Elaine couldn't manage it. Mama had to carry her most of the way. I think that was the time she had a sore on her leg that just wouldn't heal. It was probably due to the sickle cell. But Mama wouldn't have known.

No one knew then.

To get to the clinic we had to cross the river and it was flood time.

The only way Mama could get us across was on her back.

And that's what she did.

One at a time.

She tied up her skirt – carried one over, and came back for another till we were all on the other side.

You must remember the passport, Julia.

When we came, the three of us came on one passport – and it was mine.

Bet you don't even remember what it said, do you?

It said: “Miss Sarah Andrea Jenkins aged 8 accompanied by two small children.” Miss Jenkins, that was me. Accompanied by Elaine and you; the small children. Hah.

It didn't even have your names on it.

You lost your glove on the plane.

All three of us had these little white gloves when we left. Mummy sent them in a parcel from England. D'you remember? Probably the prettiest things we'd ever owned. All lacy. One of yours disappeared down the toilet on the plane and you wouldn't stop crying for it.

I didn't know what to do so I went and told the stewardess thinking she could get it back. But of course she couldn't. We had no idea then, I mean, we'd never seen a flush toilet before. And anyway, that stewardess was supposed to be looking after us. But she didn't really pay any attention to us. Nobody did. They just made sure that we got on the plane and saw to it that we got off again. Then someone else took us to Immigration where we had to wait for Mummy to pick us up.

She was really late.

You were miserable and cried all the time.

I couldn't stop worrying. I thought she wasn't going to come.

And when she did come, even
I
didn't recognise her at first. She'd put on so much weight. Elaine didn't recognise her either, and
you
… I had to drag you over. You wouldn't go near her. Then you refused to talk to her. Kept on saying you didn't know her, and you wanted to go back to Aunty G.

Honestly, Julia, you were so contrary. When she left us in Jamaica you wouldn't let Mama or anyone else touch you. Just hung on to me crying for your mummy. We come to her and you're still grabbing on to me and pleading to go back to Aunty. Then you refused to say, “Mummy”, calling her Sister May… as if we were still back home at Mama's!

But that's what our cousins and everyone else called her.

Even her own mother used to call her Sister May because she was a Christian. But
we
shouldn't have.

Anyone would think you really wanted her to send us back. Weren't you worried?

I was always fearful that she might. She seemed so powerful.

Even when she'd left Jamaica she had power. She still managed to keep us safe. I mean, those big boys messing with our cousins; even they knew that they mustn't mess with you, me or Elaine. They knew who our mother was and that she was going to send for us. Everyone knew that
we
weren't going to be left forever like the others. And if she couldn't get us to England with her, then she would come back. I knew it because she told us. Everyone knew. Except you.
You
forgot before she even left. But
those boys
knew she'd be back; and there wasn't one of them brave enough to touch us and then face our mother.

You don't remember any of this, do you?

I had to keep on telling you, “She
is
our mother, Julia, and she sent for us, and now that we're here you
have
to call her Mummy.”

The Mother

You know, I was never really meant to come here.

I never wanted to leave my children. And it was never part of our plan.

I never wanted to come.

It's your daddy want to come. And we agreed that he would come and work so we could save more. I wasn't meant to come. It was never part of our plan.

And then, after the baby die… You couldn' remember him, for you were just small… your daddy say he couldn't carry on living at my mother's yard. He couldn't live there anymore with the little baby body buried there.

We did plant some Joseph's coats around it.

You wouldn't believe how quick they grow up and spread across the little plot.

And even before they start to show, your daddy was already gone.

But I never want to come here; for although the baby die, we still have you three girls.

And I couldn't leave you. I just couldn' do that.

You must know I never want to leave you.

I really never wanted to leave you to come here.

It's not what we planned.

Those first letters that your daddy write, I know he wasn't happy. He try to make them sound good, but I could feel how he was struggling. He write and say how he's missing us, and I must come join him because with two of us working we would manage better, and we could save more money to buy the piece of land. But I reply and say I couldn't leave my children.

I remember one letter in particular. He was almost saying his “good bye” because he couldn't see how he was going to support himself in England and send enough money back home for us as well with just one wage packet, and he begging me to come and help him.

But I didn't want to leave unnu.

It was Mama persuade me to come.

When I read the “good bye” letter, she see how upset I was and she say, “You know, Sister May, perhaps you really should go.”

Is she make me leave.

I tell her, “No. I can't leave my children.”

I wasn't going to come here. And if it weren't for Mama, I would never have come.

I ask her, “How I must leave my children and go so far?”

Mama get vex and tell me that it's because I don't trust her with my children. For if I have trust in her, then I would do what my sisters did and leave the three of you there with her and join my husband in England.

But it wasn't that.

No. It wasn't that. It's just that I couldn' bear to not have you all with me.

It's really Mama make me come.

And then when I come here, I couldn't rest.

I could not rest until I had you all with me.

I couldn't rest.

And you know, the day I book your tickets, your daddy never know.

Even though he and I share a bed the night, in the morning I leave the house after he already gone to work… and I book the flight.

I tell him when he come home that evening.

When I tell him, he throw his hands up and say, “Lord! Woman yu mad? Where yu goin put them?”

Yu see, is just one room we have. And by that time we already have George, and Rosie was baby… and all four of us living in one little room in Sparkbrook.

I was off shift next morning and I leave the house early and start looking. I tell you that day I walk, I walk, I walk so till…

English people not letting to me. And finding two rooms instead of one… I could find nothing. And I tell you, is when my foot swell up and I ready to drop, I walking back home I bump into Brother Wilkins on the Stratford Road.

You remember Brother Wilkins? He did have a daughter name Jacqueline. You must remember her from Sunday school. Well anyway, he say that he have two rooms in his house and it wasn't far, so I walk with him round there. I ask him how the rooms come to be empty and he say that the family that had the rooms before had children, and their children and his daughter didn't get on. He show me around and it was really a nice house. It had three floors. The two rooms were on the first floor. Nice big rooms. My heart glad that I see him that day.