The Small Fortune of Dorothea Q (8 page)

The white man was introduced to her as Matt, and when he drawled out a friendly ‘Nice to meet you,’ Dorothea knew he was American.

Then there was the other young man. Like Granpa, this one wore spectacles, wire-framed rather than horn-rimmed. He stared at her, his gaze fixed on her face and so deep into her eyes he didn’t even see the hand she held out. And when he finally did, he dropped the magnifying glass.

Dorothea bent to pick it up, and so did he, but his glasses fell off. Dorothea retrieved both magnifying glass and spectacles, and handed them back with a smile. Today, people seemed to be constantly dropping things and she picking them up. Perhaps it meant something?

‘Dorothea; Humphrey, my eldest brother,’ was Freddy’s introduction.

‘P-p-pleased to meet you, D-d-dorothea,’ said Humphrey. And continued to stare.

T
wo things went
wrong on Dorothea’s return home that Sunday. Firstly, her parents had returned home before her, much earlier than expected. And then she snagged her dress on a nail when climbing back through the palings. Mums was waiting for her.

‘Where on earth have you been all this time?’

‘I – I went to visit a friend,’ said Dorothea.

‘Which friend? Do I know her?’

‘Her name is Winnie,’ Dorothea said, almost truthfully, and, to stave off more questions, added, ‘I haven’t known her very long, but she’s awfully nice.’

‘Winnie? Winnie who?’

Dorothea brain froze; the name, the name! It had completely fled her mind; the name Freddy had briefed her with when he brought her home. As soon as she’d seen her father’s car parked in the Bottom House, she’d panicked.

‘I’m not allowed to talk to boys!’ she’d whispered to Freddy. ‘And especially not to
you
lot!’

They stood in the alleyway behind the palings, still at some distance from the house, concealed from it by a towering bougainvillea. ‘I can’t let them see you! Go away! I’m going to get into trouble anyway!’

‘Tell them you were with a school friend,’ Freddy had suggested. ‘Studying French. Or playing tennis.’

‘No, not tennis on a Sunday. I can’t lie, Freddy!’

‘Then say you were with Winnie Cox. That’s my Mum’s maiden name. So it won’t be a lie.’

‘Winnie Cox. That’s good. I’ll do that. Now please go. I’ll manage somehow.’ She pushed him away; he grabbed her wrist and pulled her close.

‘When can we meet again?’

‘I don’t know. Next Sunday?’

‘I’ll whistle. Like this:’

He stuck two fingers in his mouth and let out a piercing whistle. Dorothea blanched.

‘Freddy! Don’t!’

He only grinned. ‘That’s the signal. Don’t worry, I’m off now. Good luck!’

His face hovered close to hers and for a moment she thought he’d plant a kiss on her cheek, but he didn’t; he squeezed her hand once more and vanished behind the bushes, leaving Dorothea to her fate.

And now, in the firing line, the name ‘Cox’ had completely fled her mind. She scrambled around to remember, but couldn’t. What was it? She hadn’t really listened to Freddy; she’d been too scared. But there was Mums, waiting for an answer – she had to say something – quickly – something to placate Mums …

‘She’s a-a-a …
white!’
Dorothea grasped for the surname, but panic had wiped it out; instead, she blurted out the one redemptive word she could think of; the one feature Mums valued above all.

But Mums misheard. Or, expecting a surname, misunderstood. She frowned.

‘A White? White? I don’t know any Whites or – oh, you mean W-i-g-h-t – one of them?’

Dorothea nodded so as to avoid further intrusive questioning. Her mother’s face lit up.

‘Edmund Wight – I remember him well. He used to work in the Post Office round the corner – Carmichael and Lamaha Streets. An Englishman; very dignified, he was, and kind to us children when we were sent to buy stamps. A very respectable family.’

That was a lucky call – the mix up with Wight and white, and Ma Quint being white, and Dorothea telling a white lie that had come about quite by accident. She nodded. At the same time, she knew of her deception and flushed hot with guilt, but Mums didn’t notice; she seemed pleased. But any more questions, any more details required, and Dorothea would have to tell more lies, and she wasn’t good at that; and lying was a sin. And she might end up in hell, and she wasn’t too sure if today’s adventures were worth an eternity of fire.
Lying is just a menial sin,
she said to herself.
Surely not!
But still, it was better to be safe.

‘Well, that’s good company for you. I know it’s a large family; Edmund Wight had several children and they all multiplied. This Winnie must be his granddaughter. Where do they live?’

‘In Lamaha Street,’ Dorothea replied, returning to truth. Her hands were moist with sweat; she was skirting too far along the fringe of honesty, and she was sure her nervousness must show in her averted eyes, in her squeaky voice, in the hunch of her shoulders, which she now straightened.

Mums, satisfied that Dorothea was expanding her social circle upwards, might have continued the questioning but just then, luckily, she saw the hole in Dorothea’s dress. She grabbed the skirt of it and raised the hem.

‘Dorothea! Just look at that! And it’s one of your best dresses! How on earth did that happen?’

‘I – I – I don’t know,’ Dorothea stuttered, and again it wasn’t quite the truth. ‘Maybe a thorn, from the rose bushes?’

‘We’ll have to see if Ivy can fix it. Maybe she can take in the skirt. What a nuisance, and an expense. And speaking of roses – where are they?’

‘Oh! Oh, I must have left them in the yard! Just let me go…’ and she dashed off, back to the yard, back to the spot where her life had turned around for ever.

A
nd so began
Dorothea van Dam’s friendship with Freddy Quint; a secret friendship that, over the following years, would evolve into courtship. With Freddy she could talk or be silent. She could say the things she had never said to any human being. She could speak of the things that troubled her: the domination of the British in the country, for instance. Why were they allowed to dictate everything that went on? Why were white people better than everyone else, looking down on everyone else, afforded all the respect, taking all the good jobs?

‘Not all of them, of course,’ she acquiesced. ‘Your mother is an exception. But everywhere you go, as soon as a white person turns up, everyone just starts mincing and bowing. It’s so unfair!’

She and Freddy were sitting up in the tree-house, their special place; his father had built it for the older boys and it was slightly ramshackle by now, but still strong and sturdy enough for the two of them. A rope ladder hung down; brand new, as the old one had rotted over the years.

‘For instance,’ said Dorothea, ‘I was at the library the other day taking out some history books for school. I was standing in line with everyone else. Then a white girl came up and just went to the front of the line and you wouldn’t believe it – nobody protested, and the librarian served her first! It’s as if she just knew she was superior to everyone else and the worst of it was that everybody else seemed to think so too!’

‘Well, why didn’t you protest?’

‘Freddy! Those were all adult women! How could I, a sixteen-year-old girl, open her mouth in front of them? It would be so rude!’

‘I think if something is just wrong, like in that case, you have a duty to speak up, Dorothea. I don’t think politeness should count.’

Dorothea gazed at Freddy, her eyes alight with love. ‘Freddy! You’re right. The thing is, politeness and good manners have been drummed into me since I was a little girl. But you know, I don’t think that’s how I was meant to be. So often, I want to say things aloud, things that would anger other people, but things that are just right. And it’s just a thin veneer of good manners holding me back. It’s so hard to overcome your upbringing – in my case, utter and complete deference to the British, drummed into me by Mums. But once I opened my eyes, began reading the newspapers … I had to educate myself. Mums would kill me if she knew! ‘

‘Break through it, Dorothea. Just break through it. Speak your mind! You’re meant to be a tiger, a snarling tiger fighting for her cubs.’

‘In my case, my cubs are the people. The underdogs. The poor. It hurts – almost physically! – to seem them mistreated and exploited. And there’s nothing I can do about it. Nothing …’

She launched into a diatribe on colonial politics, and Freddy listened, smiling; and when she was finished he took her in his arms and she felt as if all the anger exploding within her was dissolving into him, and she was at home.

‘I love you so much, Freddy!’ she murmured. ‘You help me to be myself, to find myself. Make me feel – good. Even though I’m not.’

‘Oh you are, you are.’ Freddy murmured back, his fingers massaging the back of her head. ‘You’re good in a very special way. Not goody-goody good: but just good, sound, solid good. You’re going to go far, Dorothea van Dam!’

It was a sweet, slow courtship that was less passion than a meeting of young souls reaching out for completion; he for solid earth on which to root his roving spirit, she for the adventure and the breaking of the walls that imprisoned her, the cracking of the shell that bound her. Over time, even the Sunday secrecy of their friendship became a cage to break out of. One afternoon, they threw caution to the wind and rode their bicycles to the Promenade, the widened area of the Sea Wall where in the afternoons and at the weekends mothers and nannies took their little charges, or courting couples walked hand in hand; where a military brass band played in the circular bandstand. As they walked up the ramp, their arms almost touching, Dorothea said:

‘I feel so exposed, Freddy! So – so
daring!
What if someone sees us and reports back to my parents! And yet – you know, I don’t care! I’m so tired of all the hiding, all the secrecy! I almost
want
to be found out.’

They walked down the stairs to the beach and then out along the jetty, the stone wall running out towards the horizon. The tide was out; the dull brown sand baked dry in an undulating expanse stretching out towards the far-off waters of the Atlantic, and even when they reached the end of the jetty the water barely covered the sand. It was hard to believe, out here, that Georgetown itself lay six feet beneath sea level; that the Dutch had built the Wall to protect their capital – Stabroek, as it was then called – from the encroaching sea. All along the coastline, the Wall was interrupted by the sluice gates, the
kokers,
which regulated the flow of water in and out of the country. British Guiana’s coastline had been wrested from the ocean; it was the only widely populated land in the colony, for beyond this coastal strip lay dense jungle, and beyond that savannahs, and then more jungle, vast acres of green stretching down to the Amazon river.

They reached the end of the jetty and Freddy took her hand. They stood in silence, gazing out to the horizon. Dorothea’s heart was full. Here she was, away from her parents, and with the friend she loved most in the world! What freedom, what bliss! Her fingers reached out and found his; they clasped hands. Eventually, Freddy laid his arm around her shoulder. He chuckled.

‘What’s the matter?’ said Dorothea, wriggling so that she came closer to him.

‘Does this count as touching?’ Freddy said.

‘Why do you ask?’

‘Because Mam told me, very sternly, that I wasn’t to touch you.’

‘And do you always do what your Mam says?’

‘Well, when I was a boy I almost never did. Now that I’m grown up – well, nearly – I’ve figured that she actually does seem to know a thing or two about life.’

Dorothea knew what Freddy meant. Her new-found freedom was not just about Freddy. It was also about his mother, Winnie Cox Quint, and the home whose doors she flung wide open to allow Dorothea, for the first time in her life, to feel the embrace of a strong, warm family with a woman at its core. It was a revelation; and Dorothea felt the cold that enclosed her melting and the barrenness that plagued her bursting into life, budding and flowering. Before long she loved Ma Quint more than her own mother; and the feeling was reciprocated.

‘You are the daughter I never had,’ Ma Quint told her on many an occasion. ‘The daughter I always wanted.’

The daughter that died
, Dorothea said to herself.
The one that came before Freddy.

‘I should never have been born,’ Freddy had said. ‘They’d have stopped long before me otherwise. They only kept having babies because they wanted a girl.’

‘How awful!’ Dorothea said. ‘But, Freddy, can people stop having children just by
wanting
to? I thought children just
came?
That God sent them when people got married?’

Freddy chuckled. ‘You don’t know a thing, do you? Hasn’t your mother ever told you about the birds and the bees?’

Dorothea frowned. ‘The birds and the bees? What do you mean?’

‘Where babies come from?’

‘Pa told me,’ said Dorothea. ‘From God. God sends babies to the parents, as a blessing. They are His gift to married couples.’

Freddy laughed, and stroked her cheek. ‘You’re adorable’!’ he said ‘Naiveté and mettle all mixed up. But I think Ma needs to talk to you.’

And Ma Quint did, and Dorothea listened, and blushed and lowered her eyes, so Ma Quint took her in her arms and told her there was nothing to be ashamed of or afraid of and when the time came she would love someone and one day have his babies.

‘I already love someone, Ma!’ Dorothea whispered.

‘I know, my love, I know,’ Ma Quint whispered back. ‘You love my Freddy, don’t you? And he loves you back. It’s such a beautiful thing. You must let it grow, my dear, and God willing, it will become even more beautiful. There is nothing in the world as wonderful as love, especially young love, first love. You must tend and care for it as you would a tender plant, and one day, maybe, it will blossom into an exquisite rose. And then you will be ready.’

Dorothea understood perfectly. She nodded.

Now, standing on the jetty, she said, teasing, smiling into the words: ‘And yet you’re touching me! Disobeying her!’

‘Hmmm – I think she meant something else.’ And he pulled her even closer.

‘You can touch me any time you like, Mr Freddy Quint!’ she murmured, as they separated. ‘And any way.’

Freddy’s eyes twinkled. ‘You honour me, Miss Dorothea van Dam. But you know what? I think Ma’s right. I think the best things in life are worth waiting for.’

‘I hope you’re right.’

They walked back to the Promenade, hand in hand. Dorothea had to get back before dusk, before her parents returned;
although,
she thought to herself
, so what? Let them find out. Who cares? What can they do to me?
Yet still – her time had not yet come. She was still playing by the Rules. And then, suddenly, the Rules came to a rude end.