Gloria (31 page)
off of my inhalation
and then deh swallow di intoxication.
Dem nuh fret ’bout what deh do
because di money on di table is fah yu
and since it yu dat choose
who going talk about abuse?
But who in her right mind would favour this
if she could have di kinda bliss
deh say every woman can get if she find di right man?
That is di illusion dem sell to yu
to secure di fusion of your labour in di kitchen and wash-house and bed.
Because when all is said
and done, that is just another set a chains
not fah your hands and feet but fah your heart and head.
So it nuh matter if there not no opportunities or education or work
Why yu fuss so much ’bout being a wage clerk.
Yu already got all yu need to serve and satisfy and feed.
So just keep cooking and scrubbing and open yu knees
and he will do what he want nice or nasty as he please.
And di money on di table?
That is to appease for di lack a di ring on yu finger
and di risk yu tek every time yu open di door.’
They clapping and hooting and pounding their feet on the floor. That is how much they love Marcia’s poem. Next thing Loretta come up on the stage and hug her and take Marcia’s hand and hold it up in the air, which make the crowd go wild with their appreciation and admiration, with some of them whistling and shouting out ‘Go sista’ and ‘Yah man’.
I stunned. I look at Marcia standing there and I think well, listening to you talk ’bout Loretta made me worry that it was she that have you hypnotised, but hearing that poem change my mind completely. Hearing that poem make me realise that you, Marcia, have been on this journey for a very long time. Because that poem, that poem, was pure Sybil.
When all the gaiety done and we go back to Franklyn Town I say to Marcia, ‘So when yu start write poem?’
She sit there sheepish like I catch her out with some long-time secret. She nuh say nothing at first and then she say, ‘I know it not nearly good enough but I think I got a message to send, yu know? Because what they say is, the personal is the political.’
Then Loretta say, ‘She works very hard, Gloria. Reading, going to speeches and rallies when she is in Miami. And the poem she shared tonight is better than she thinks. It’s a great poem.’ And she smile and take Marcia’s hand in hers. ‘The work of a truly promising poet.’ She pause and then she say, ‘Your sister is gorgeous, and kind, and really talented.’
And then she lift up Marcia’s hand and kiss it.
Sybil come out with the drinks so I motion my head towards the two of them sitting there side by side and I say to her, ‘So what yu mek a all this?’
She rest the tray on the table and smile. ‘Jamaica got a bad attitude over this homosexual thing. That is for sure. But you ever ask yuself where it come from? And know that it start way back in the nineteenth century with some law that the British mek. So I say to myself, yes, that was slavery. That was how they enforce their complete domination over us. Including telling us who we can love and who we can tek to our bed. Because that is the most private part of a person’s life yu can control. That law was to keep us in our place. Because if men doing it with men, and women doing it with women, it not meking no babies to increase the stock. Yu ever think of it like that?’
‘Yu nuh think it because a God and the Bible?’
‘Whose God and whose Bible? The white man. And it was the white man mek the law and threaten the punishment and frighten the living daylights outta everyone. And that trepidation come down generation after generation ’til it get fully integrated into the society. Into the culture. Maybe the negativity even a camouflage now for our shame of that history.’ She stop and pour out the rum into the glasses. ‘Or maybe it just fashion or most likely fear. Because how many ordinary Jamaicans yu think really feel so strong ’bout this thing? Really and truly. Compared to how many, if they wasn’t fraid ’bout God’s damnation or the trouble they might bring their way, would say, ‘‘We free from the chains of slavery. Let every woman and man choose to love whoever they want’’.’
She light a cigarette and sit down. Then she say, ‘We independent now. The national anthem say teach us true respect for all; and justice, truth be ours for ever. That is what everybody so happy busting their lungs singing about. Out of Many, One People nuh? It time we put our money where our mouth is.’
Sybil always talk ’bout everything like it cut and dry. For me it not so straightforward. Because what I see is Marcia making a rod for her own back. And I can’t understand why. I can’t understand how being with a woman could be so lovely and so important that you willing to take all the nastiness and bigotry and misery that you suffer as a result. Why choose that? And yet when I look at her and the two a them sitting there together, I see a glow in her that I never see before. A contentment like she settled in herself and not struggling no more to put on a face that going keep her demons at bay. She at peace. And I think about how I felt sitting on that terrace with Ernesto drinking the coffee and watching him smoke the cigar and I wonder why I or anybody else would want to rob her of that? But what I know for sure is they can’t live like that in Jamaica. So sooner or later Marcia will be packing her bag and getting on that plane to Miami for good. And that part, losing her, that was the part that was really grieving me.
The next day I go have lunch with them over Franklyn Town. Beryl serving macaroni cheese with salad, which I think not that special given Loretta only here for a couple more days. But Marcia say Loretta love macaroni cheese so I guess that is all right.
‘It been hard, Gloria. Matching up how I feel about Loretta with my confusion, yu know, that feeling inside a me telling me that I wasn’t no homosexual. Because I had an idea about myself and that wasn’t it.’
Just then Sybil step into the dining room with Beryl behind her carrying the plates and things to fix the table. And after that Loretta follow with the glasses and rum punch and fresh sorrel. Marcia give Loretta a smile. And then the two a them sorta nod to each other. A special recognition that was quiet and private even though the room full a people.
The breeze coming through the open window is nice because outside it really hot. Inside it cool, not just from the fresh air, but from the stillness of what passing between everyone. Then Loretta say, ‘I don’t know if it’s appropriate to ask you, Gloria, what you think?’
I can see all of them got the same question on their tongue. Even if they leave it to Loretta to ask.
‘Yu two grown women. Yu big enough to choose what yu want to do.’ They all just sit there waiting for whatever else is on my mind.
Then Sybil say, ‘Well, it been an education for me. Simone de Beauvoir, Betty Friedan and a voice inside a me saying what we need now is to understand how the struggles of women different if you also poor, or black, or homosexual. And that it just as important as anything the white woman got to face.’
Marcia lean into Loretta and the two a them touch hands.
‘If yu want the honest truth, I don’t understand it. Or maybe I only understand part a it. The part about wanting to be with someone likeminded. About things between you being equal and honest. The sharing. I live long enough in this life to understand that. But the other part, about wanting to be with a woman . . . like that, I got no idea about that. So I wonder if Marcia sure what she doing. And worry in case she go fix herself into something only to find out later on that it not what she want.’
‘Yu could say that ’bout anybody yu wid.’
‘This not just anybody though is it Marcia?’
Then Loretta say, ‘You are right, Gloria. And I do keep asking Marcia if she’s sure and reminding us that we should take things slowly.’
Marcia smile and squeeze Loretta’s hand and say, ‘I never been more sure of anything in my life.’
Later on when Marcia walk me out to the taxi she say, ‘It is lovely being with Loretta.’ She pause. ‘I feel joy when I am with her. Not just happiness, Gloria. Joy. Just to listen to her talk, or look at her ’cross the table or watch her sleep. I love her, Gloria. And she really love me, even though she see me at my worst as well as my best. She love me. With a passion and patience and devotion I never imagined anyone ever could or would want to.’
Two months later I discover I was right ’bout Fingernail when Trevor come tell me that she asking him so much question ’bout what gwaan over the house in Franklyn Town and who was coming there.
‘She ask me who the man.’
‘What man?’
‘The man Marcia talking ’bout when she say to Fingernail long time back that the man don’t want no trouble.’
It shock me because I thought we were long past that by now. ‘So what yu say to her?’
‘I didn’t say nothing to her. I just tell her I got no idea what she talking ’bout. And then she start ask me what other man coming to the house and I just laugh and say to her the place is a whore house how many men yu think going there? I never say nothing to her, Gloria. Nothing, not even after she tell me she could get me a appointment wid a record producer she acquainted with.’
I didn’t mention any of this to Henry. Things good between us even though I was worried we would change after what happen in Ocho Rios. But Henry not like that. To him, business was business and since that time we back to normal. Excepting maybe something did change because he stop talking ’bout me being like a daughter to him. Now we was more like friends. Somewhere beyond friends just short of lovers. Like after the affair finish but yu still care deeply about each other. That is how it was. And the Ochie thing never get mentioned.
Next thing I know Abraham was on the telephone telling me that some man been up the house in Ocho Rios asking questions ’bout Henry, but just like Trevor he didn’t say nothing. He just pick up the phone to me because, he say, he didn’t want to be alarming Mr Henry with any of this news.
How Fingernail and her mystery man make the connection between me and Henry and the house I couldn’t figure out. All I knew was I didn’t want anything bad to happen to Henry, especially if it had something to do with me. After I think on it for a few days I realise that Clifton Brown was the only person I could turn to, so I ring the police station and ask him to come meet me.
I take a taxi to the airport and he pick me up in his car and drive over to Port Royal where we go get a drink in Morgan’s Harbour. We sit there in the shade gazing out at the blue Caribbean with the tourists going up and down on their waterskis churning a white foam and cutting through the peace and quiet with their motorboat engine.
‘What I have to tell yu mean me putting all of my trust in you.’
‘All your trust, Gloria? All of it?’
‘This not about no murder, Sergeant Brown. It about something completely different.’
He stare into the glass a while and then he turn to me. And just in that split second with him looking at me I remember him going over to the house while I was in Cuba and I decide not to do it. Not to tell him ’bout Henry and Fingernail and all the situation that unfolding.
‘So what it about then?’
I sit there quiet and then I say, ‘Nothing. It not about anything.’
He raise his eyebrows at me. ‘Yu bring me all the way over here to tell me it nothing?’ He pause. ‘So it not going surprise yu when I tell yu I don’t believe yu.’
‘Well maybe I just change my mind about bothering yu with it. Yu busy policeman. I don’t want to be taking yu time.’
‘Yu taking my time right now. So why yu nuh just tell me?’
My mind in a muddle. ‘Clifton, I change my mind.’
He narrow his eyes. ‘So be it. So be it, Gloria.’
We finish our drinks and drive back to the airport where I catch a Checker Cab to Franklyn Town.
Sybil think that Fingernail just fishing with Trevor.
‘And anyway, who say the man up Ochie got anything to do with her? The two things could be completely disconnected for all you know.’
She right. I just running ahead of myself. So I decide to forget it and hope that I don’t hear nothing more. After all, moneylending not actually illegal, even if we not official as such. Even the prime minister, Mr Bustamante, was in the moneylending business at one time with his little office there in Duke Street. But people still frown on it. So if it get out poor Henry’s name going get drag through the mud, not just for the money but for who he in business with, a no-good East Kingston brothel keeper.
And that thought made me realise I couldn’t leave the situation alone. So I decide to tell Henry what going on and he say, ‘Some man go North Street when I not in shop. Ask Alvin all about me.’
‘What Alvin say to him?’
‘He say, I businessman. Own supermarket and wine merchant and live Lady Musgrave Road with wife and children.’
‘Yu got any idea what that all about?’
Henry don’t know, but he say nothing else happen since then and it was a good three weeks back.
