Gloria (38 page)
‘So what yu going to do up there?’
‘Loretta got me a job in the women’s theatre collective she work in. It nothing special, some office work, helping with marketing and promotion, and getting things ready for each production. The thing is, moving up there will give me the space and time to concentrate on my poetry and that is what I really want to do.’
Sybil and Beryl throw a party over the house to say farewell to Marcia. But in truth it wasn’t no party. It was just us with food and drink and merriment. Just like how we use to have Sundays on the veranda. With eating and drinking and high spirits. On the outside. On the inside, my heart was breaking.
‘It not like I going the other side a the world. Miami only two hours away.’ Then she say, ‘Yu the only one that not been up there yet.’
‘Yu mean Sybil and Beryl been?’
Beryl say, ‘Yah man. Shopping in Miami. Loretta got a beautiful apartment as well.’
I can’t believe I am the only one. It make me feel left out. Excluded. Like the time when we argue over the necklace and Marcia turn on me. And then I wonder how come she never ask me if I want to go up with her sometime, all the trips she make.
‘Would yu come, Gloria? Come to Miami?’
‘Yu asking me?’
‘Sure I’m asking yu.’
I smile because something inside me soften. Then she say, ‘Would yu come stay in the apartment with me and Loretta?’ And the way she look at me tell me what it was that stop her from inviting me before. Me sleeping in the place with two women doing what they doing. Because after that first time I meet Loretta and I say what I say about not understanding it, me and Marcia never talk about it again. Not like that. It was just a kind of information conversation. Loretta coming for the weekend. Loretta going back to Miami. Marcia catching the plane on this day or that. That was all there was to it. She never tell me any more than that. And I never ask. Even when she come tell me she was leaving it was just a matter of practicalities. I didn’t have it in me to open my mouth and ask anything. Nothing meaningful. So why would she bother inviting me up there not knowing how it is I really feel?
‘I would love to come Marcia.’
And she smile. And take Loretta’s hand.
When we go to the airport Marcia got more luggage than anybody could imagine. So much stuff they have to pay extra for the baggage.
‘A where yu get all a this?’
She sigh. ‘This, Gloria, is the benefit I get from what you and Henry’s business do for me. And all the wonderful stores in Miami that I been bringing things back from little-little. Now it all got to go one way. All at the same time.’ And she laugh.
‘One way Marcia?’
She drop her carry-on bag and throw her arms ’round me. And the two of us bust out crying like a pair of babies testing their lungs for the first time. We just stand there hanging on to each other with the tears rolling down our face ’til we hear them making the final call for her flight and she say, ‘I have to go.’
And I say yes and let my arms fall to my side.
And then she hug and kiss Sybil and Beryl and she and Loretta turn and walk off through the departure gate.
We wait ’til the plane actually take off, watching it rise into the sky through the big glass window like maybe expecting she wasn’t really on it and next thing she would be walking down the gangway back to me. But it wasn’t so. No more than it was with Ernesto. She was gone. And I had to dry my tears and carry on.
When we go back to Franklyn Town the three of us just sit there on the veranda with the ice rattling in the glass as it cooling the rum and the radio tuned to the ska and rocksteady and reggae they busy playing.
Doctor Morrison going back to Scotland because Margaret think that Jamaica changing too much for her to still feel like she belong here. She say that Jamaicans have to claim Jamaica for themselves and anyway, she want baby John to go to school in Edinburgh where she and the doctor come from.
‘Yu want to go George?’
‘It is what Margaret wants. And I do understand her wanting John to be educated in Scotland.’
‘So what going happen to the girls?’
‘We were hoping you would look after them. With Hyacinth’s help, of course.’
‘Me?’
‘Gloria, truthfully, haven’t you been doing so anyway? Ever since Margaret got John? Besides we cannot think of anyone better suited. Can you?’
I don’t say nothing but I know my face show him the relief I feel that she not going close the place down.
‘And the card club?’
He laugh. ‘You know, Gloria, that has gone from strength to strength. It seems that no matter how bad things get men are still eager to chance their hand at a quick fix. And afterwards, win or lose, lament the absence of the services of your good selves next door.’
And that is right because everybody stop doing that now. Sybil too busy with all her politicking, Marcia serious over Loretta even before she go to Miami and Beryl, well, she just do whatever Sybil do.
‘So yu going close down the cards then?’
‘Hell no! Trevor will take care of that.’
‘Trevor?’
He laugh again. ‘Trevor is a lot more competent than any of us give him credit for. In all honesty, he has been running it for years.’
For Pao, Morrison leaving was his chance to find out where Fay and the children at because he reckon the doctor could go down to England and do some snooping in London where he think they living.
I say to him, ‘That is all well and good for you, but what about how Merleen Chin feel ’bout her baby being taken away to Scotland like that?’
‘She give up that boy to Morrison because there was no way a child like her could have keep and care for it. That is what happen. So is them that got to sort out what in his best interest now.’ And I think maybe, but it don’t mean that she not got no feeling ’bout it.
Right then Esther step on to the veranda with Hyacinth and Pao look at them and smile because Hyacinth looking good since I pay the hospital to fix her harelip.
‘You girls off to go do something nice?’
‘We going to the volleyball tournament you told me about.’
He reach into his pocket and peel off some notes and hand them to her and say, ‘Enjoy yuself. Two a yu.’
Esther take the money and kiss him on the cheek before she and Hyacinth go down the steps and disappear into the street.
‘Volleyball tournament?’
He vex. ‘Cho, Gloria. I just tell the girl about it that is all.’ And then he sit down and say, ‘So what, a man cyan talk to his own daughter?’
I get a letter from Ernesto. Hand-delivered by a Guantanamo domestic who say she have a friend in Santiago who ask her to bring it. Her friend named Matilde Alonso, which make sense. It been a long time because nothing been going between Cuba and Jamaica since the US blockade that the Jamaican government decide to join in with. Except the domestics that they fly there on US Navy aeroplanes.
The letter is long because Ernesto distraught that Che Guevara get killed in Bolivia. He say he weep for days and weeks, and in between that all he do is read every speech that Che Guevara make in Cuba and New York and Algiers and Uruguay; and every article he write in the
Verde Olivo
magazine and
Cuba Socialista
; and every interview he give, that is the ones Ernesto can lay his hands on.
But this time, the poem was different.
Each day the sun rises
and I see the blue sky and green hills of Cuba.
Each day the sun sets
and I see the long shadows of the Royal Palms.
And as the time passes,
more and more
I greet each day with a love of homeland
that stills my restless mind.
I put it in the drawer with the others because I didn’t know how to get word to him without asking Matilde ’bout her friend and I didn’t want to do that. Not start something again that already finish. Even though I feel sad for Ernesto ’bout Che Guevara. I reckon the poem sound like he found some peace and I should leave well alone.
When Norman Manley have his seventy-fifth birthday celebration in the National Arena we cram in there with god knows how many PNP comrades because that place have six thousand seats. And that was some evening. Sybil beyond herself with excitement which turn to fever when the great man retire and his son, Michael, take over. Because just how Norman Manley say the mission of his generation was to win self-government and the mission for this generation is reconstructing the social and economic society and life of Jamaica, so Michael Manley had the words ‘democratic socialism’ tripping off his tongue every minute of every day. And she love it. So much so that she throw herself heart and soul into supporting him winning the next general election. Sybil was so busy running here and there organising party groups you could hardly see her for dust. And she turn just like Ernesto, only it was Michael Manley not Che Guevara that she got on her lips morning, noon and night.
It important what she doing for the country. I knew that. But for me, it wasn’t the politics. It was the people. So when Esther tell me that the Baptist church at Half Way Tree open up an adult education centre and was giving a hand to people with legal and welfare problems that is where I went. To offer some comfort and support and anything else I could do. Because whatever I feel about God, they were trying to do some good. I help with the basic schools and backyard daycare centres as well. But the speeching and organising and rallying, I left to Sybil.
Then one day she come and tell me she want us to stop the moneylending. She say enough was enough and even though me and her been fifty-fifty partners since Henry gone she think it time we just collect what we can from what still owing and call it a day. She say she and Beryl agree.
‘Besides, people barely got the wherewithal to pay what with the unemployment situation and such, it seem almost criminal to be sending Trevor to go harass them when they already got so much troubles.’
I tell her I am happy with that because in truth it Sybil that been taking the lion share of the responsibility and since the actual money not no big concern for any of us no more why buck the cart if that is what they want to do?
‘Anyway,’ she say, ‘the time seem right, now that Jamaica changing to dollars.’ She pause and then she say, ‘There is just one fly in the ointment.’ I raise my eyebrows.
‘Fingernail.’
I knew it. Something inside of me expected it to be an altercation with Fingernail.
‘What is her problem?’
Sybil take another sip of her coffee. ‘She say she want us to pay her off for her losses.’
‘What losses? What she talking ’bout?’
‘She say we owe her 12.5 per cent a the interest on all the money that due whether or not we collect it. That was the agreement. That was the percentage for all the business she put our way.’
‘Even on the money we don’t manage to collect?’
‘So she say.’
I think on it and then I say, ‘What you think?’
‘We think we should pay her. Just to get a finish to the thing.’
It vex me. Fingernail been nothing but aggravation from the beginning. But the thing that really stick in my craw is how she try make so much trouble for Henry. And how because he die she get away scot free without having to account one iota for the nasty way she go about her business.
And it was that feeling left inside of me over Henry that make me say, ‘She can get her percentage on whatever we collect. But the loans that we let go, she don’t get nothing on that. It one thing losing that money, but paying her 12.5 per cent of squat? No.’
Sybil worried ’bout the prospect. ‘She not going like that yu know.’
I ease back and I say, ‘Yu think it all right me saying that even though we partners and I overriding what you and Beryl already agree?’
‘It not that, Gloria. It just that she aggrieved and in a way I can understand it. We mek a hell of a lot of money over the years and she only get the crumbs from it.’
‘So yu saying we should give her what she want?’
‘No, I just saying what I saying. Whatever yu decide is good. All for one and one for all. That is how we always been and I don’t see no reason to change that now. I just wonder if it going turn out to be more trouble than it worth.’ And then she wait a minute before she say, ‘Is this business or personal? Because I know the business woman in yu would have just say, “Yes, the money a small price to pay to be done with her.” So yu surprise me.’
I take two deep breath. ‘It personal Sybil. Yu think that is bad?’
‘Who can say what is good or bad. It is what it is. Just so we know what going on, that is all.’
Afterwards I wonder if I was too hasty giving my answer to Sybil. But then I think, if it come to it, all we got to do is give Fingernail what she want and no harm would have been done excepting for it hurting to see her get her way.
When I talk to Clifton about it he unimpressed.
