If I Never Went Home (2 page)

CHAPTER THREE

Miss Anna says we have to wait at the side of the stage and she will come for us when our name get called. I’m feeling queasy. The sorrel drink and ham sandwich like they fighting up in my tummy. Three of us reach the finals. I want to go to the toilet but if they call ‘Tina Ramlogan’ and I miss my turn I’ll get disqualified. That’s what happened to Cathy-Ann in the first round. I know my poem by heart. Every day I’ve been practising in front of Mummy’s long bedroom mirror, saying the poem out loud. Miss Celia next door complain to Mummy that she know the whole poem too. I’ve been reciting it to our puppy Boo-Boo. But Boo-Boo doesn’t always stay to the end where the little boy drop down and dead. I wonder if the poem frighten the dog. I never thought of that before.

They should hurry up with all them speech about the school and how the principal and teachers are an example to the nation and how crime would go down if more children took part in competitions like this. Oh, no. I feel a pee-pee coming.

‘Miss Anna!’

‘Sshhh.’

‘Miss Anna, I have to go to the bathroom, please Miss.’

She want to know if I sure. Well, of course I sure. If I don’t go right now I going to pee in my panty. The children’s toilet is too far, so Miss Anna carry me to the teachers’ toilet. If you see how nice that toilet is, and full of toilet paper. I could have stayed in there, but Miss Anna only saying hurry up Tina they starting. I push the wee out as fast as I could and we run back just as the big judge from the Ministry of Education was calling for Curtis.

‘Curtis Thompson, come up to the stage please.’

Curtis thin as a piece of wire. He’s ten like the rest of us, but if you didn’t know you would say he’s about eight years old.

‘And what will you be reciting for us today, Curtis?’

‘“Silver”, by Walter de la Mare.’

‘Very good.’

Curtis and his silver this and silver that poem. Everybody know gold more expensive. My Nanny said that when she dead she going to leave me a big fat gold bracelet that her Agee bring from India. She say I would never find a bracelet like that in Trinidad. Not even Marajsingh Jewellers have bracelet heavy like hers.

Next up is Joyce Mohammed. She win last year hands down and is the favourite to win again. Plus she’s the brightest girl in the school. And on top of all that she only gone and choose a poem the whole school know. When she’s on the stage reciting it the children them saying it too. All you see is children with their mouth opening and closing in time with her.

When I was sick and lay a-bed,

I had two pillows at my head,

And all my toys beside me lay,

To keep me happy all the day.

La, la, la, la, la. Oh and look how she curtseying. Bet she learn that in Miss Pauline ballet class. I used to do ballet. Miss Pauline ban me. She tell Mummy I am the first child she ever ban. ‘Nalini, don’t take this the wrong way but Tina don’t have a single bone in she body that can dance.’

I don’t remember what Mummy said to that. Miss Pauline said she should not waste she hard-earned cash on ballet lessons.

Sharp pains start in my tummy again.

‘Miss Anna, I want to go to the toilet.’

She pretending not to hear me.

‘Miss Anna, I have to go again.’

‘Sshhh. You went already.’

‘I know, but I have to go again.’

‘Well you can’t go now, so hold it in tight.’

‘I can’t!’

Just then Joyce finish.

‘That was a splendid performance, Joyce. Excellent. If this is the kind of student St. Gabriel’s is producing, then Trinidad’s future is in good hands. Let us give Joyce another round of applause.’

Well, that’s it. Madam win again. I want to please go to the toilet and stay there.

‘Tina Ramlogan.’

I want to go home. Miss Anna come behind me and start pushing me out of the chair. Go on. Get up there quick and do your poem. 

‘Tina?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘And what will you be reciting today?’

I gulp. My mouth tasting like Curtis silver poem.

‘“The Story Of Augustus Who Would Not Have Any Soup”, by Heinrich Hoffman.’

‘I must say I’m not familiar with that one. Well, when you ready.’

My head feel it going to burst. When I look out at the audience I could see the whole school spread out on the assembly hall floor. The children not paying attention. They hear enough speech and poem for one day. I think I’m going to vomit up my ham sandwich. Then I see Mummy. She hiding in the corner. She smiling. So I take a deep breath and pretend I’m home saying it to her and Boo-Boo, but loud enough for Miss Celia to hear it too.

Augustus was a chubby lad;

Fat ruddy cheeks Augustus had –

I hear laughing. I not sure why they laughing. That part of the poem not even funny. But is when I reach the chorus that they really start to laugh. 

Not any soup for me, I say!

Take the nasty soup away!

I won’t have any soup today!

When I finish, people was clapping for so. I put my head down and walk back to my seat. I don’t want to get jinx.

The judges say they taking a short break for their deliberations. I bolt straight for the toilet. This time I did a number two. Lucky thing I had kept paper from the teachers’ toilet because I not seeing any paper here.

When I come out, people only poking me and saying, ‘Not any soup for me I say! Take the nasty soup away!’

I want to go sit by Mummy, but teacher warn us to stay with our classmates until the bell ring.

The judges taking their cool time. Miss Anna bring them orange juice in tall glasses with ice and a napkin underneath. So now we have to wait for them to finish their juice. I wish they would drink fast, announce that Joyce win again, and let us all go home. I don’t even remember why I went up for this contest. Look at Joyce sitting there with her hands folded in her lap. Little Miss Perfect. And skinny Curtis next to her grinning like a stupid fool. Mummy say I mustn’t call anybody a stupid fool, but he does get on my nerves. I don’t mind if Joyce win, but if Curtis come second that go make me feel real shame.

Oh look, they putting down the empty glasses and coming back to their table. The principal calling the main judge to the stage. He talk about all of us. He praise Curtis saying how he is a shining example, that boys don’t always have to talk like they in a gangster video. Then he move on to Joyce. A credit to the school. Such a bright young lady with perfect diction. Then he reach me. My heart beating so fast I not sure I can understand what the man saying. I think he say something about how I entertain the crowd and how he nearly cry when Augustus died from starvation.

‘And the winner of the second annual St. Gabriel’s Primary School recitation competition is ...’

He stop. The children start shouting out names.

Joyce! Joyce!

Tina!

Curtis!

Joyce!

‘And the winner is Miss Tina Ramlogan.’

Oh Lord, I can’t believe it. Is me! I win? I look again to make sure is me. Yes, the judge calling me and hand over the trophy. Everybody clapping. I look at it. But they make a mistake. Mr Judge, I say. Please sir, is Joyce name on the trophy. He start to laugh. Joyce name was from last year. Don’t worry, he say. They will engrave my name on it soon. But he say it loud and it get pick up by the microphone. Now people laughing at me for being so stupid.

Anyhow, I get rescue by the principal. He come up and say more thank you to this one and that one and ask that we close with the Lord’s Prayer. I hold on to the trophy tight and close my eyes halfway so I could still see out while we praying. A girl from my class doing the same thing and we smile at each other. If the teacher catch you laughing or smiling during prayers it don’t matter what you just win. She will make you stay behind and say the prayer over properly with your eyes shut tight.

When it over the principal wish us all a happy and holy Christmas. He say we should remember the true meaning of Christmas. It is not about getting the latest toys and gadgets. Christmas is a time for celebrating the birth of baby Jesus, and with that school over till next year.

I holding on to the trophy tight and only now try to look at it properly. It big, but not too big. There’s a person reaching forward and holding a bird with two hands, and on the base it says Joyce Mohammed. I still feel like I thief she first prize.

CHAPTER FOUR

It was nearly a decade already since her father died. Other family relationships had died with him. It was the end of any real connection between Bea and her mother. Not that this bothered Bea much. At least, that is what she told herself. She had her work, and in the evenings there was the book club, the Boston Symphony, or the small group of friends she stayed loyal to. Her annual vacation was usually a cycling or walking holiday: she had been going with the same group for years. The pain of losing a love like Michael still simmered. She often felt the temptation of Internet sites that promised love was only a few clicks away. But she remembered the hurt, serious hurt. She resisted. She had had a lucky escape.

The morning session with Stephen had deteriorated. He saw no reason to live, and kept saying he wanted to be left alone to end it all. Dr. Payne and another psychiatrist had assessed him. She looked out of her office window at the garden outside, still stocked with bright summer flowers. She had tried hard with Stephen, but he had rejected her help and would have to be hospitalised involuntarily, to prevent a second, perhaps more successful suicide attempt. He would probably be transferred to Mount Russet Hospital or nearby St. Anthony’s. She had asked if there was anyone to contact. Eventually he telephoned the copy shop where he worked, saying he would not be coming in for the rest of the week. She did not bother to correct him. There was no way he would be discharged that soon.

Two more assessments had filled the morning. A man who had exposed himself to some children in the park; a young woman who had been found wandering among the Back Bay alleyways, screaming that aliens from Pluto had invaded and were hiding in the garbage. Usually, more people would have been brought in by now. It was on warm summer days like this, under beautiful blue skies, that desperation, confusion and pain were hardest to keep at bay.

In the hours before her afternoon clinic at Mount Russet, Bea knew she ought to be working on her conference paper. She had promised it would be finished in a fortnight. Instead, she grabbed her handbag and headed out, telling the head nurse she was getting a coffee at the Coffee Bean café a block away. It would have been simpler to grab a latte from the vending machine, but she needed the walk. Her mind was racing. 

The headache she felt coming on could be worry about the conference paper, or about the chores quietly piling up at home. But there was no use denying it. For days she had been carrying around Mira’s unopened letter. The headache would stay until she dealt with that. Bea had no idea why her mother would write. Why not send a Facebook message or an email? They never invaded each other’s lives beyond that. Whatever the reason for the intrusion, Bea knew it would be unwelcome news. She had neglected her mother for so long. Had Mira been diagnosed with some horrible illness? Then Bea would have to do the decent thing and help her through whatever it was. It was the least Mira should expect from her daughter, her only child.

She sipped the lukewarm coffee slowly, and bit into a banana muffin without tasting it. Mira never smoked, and kept herself fit by swimming. That was what Bea remembered. There was no family history of cancer or heart problems. No, it was something else. If Mira was not dying, then it was probably her maternal grandma, who had been ailing for years. Damn Mira for writing now, when life was good. But it was a life tightly wound, with little give to stretch and bend. It certainly didn’t have space for Mira.

She fished the letter out from the jumbled contents of her handbag and stared at it again. Muffin crumbs fell on the envelope and smeared grease on the white surface. It didn’t matter. It was beginning to look grubby anyway, after tossing around at the bottom of her bag. If Mira was writing to apologise properly after all these years, that was fine, as long as she understood it changed nothing. Too much time had passed to say sorry, and anyway sorry was not enough. Bea finished her coffee. Everyone had moved on, and she was not going to be dragged backwards into that whole Trinidad mess again. She shoved the unopened letter back into her bag. Whatever Mira had to say could wait.

Bea’s life had changed drastically since she last saw Mira, and all for the better. She was no longer a history professor, for one thing. That was a lifetime ago. It had not been sustainable, not after that dark winter evening when she first came to the Crisis Centre.

She had sat fidgeting in the doctor’s office that night. She had watched her reflection in the mirror: she looked like a brown-skinned rag doll. She had turned her head to see if her thick black hair was as unruly at the sides as it was at the front. She wasn’t sure where she was, but it had taken the ambulance about thirty minutes to drive from downtown Boston. Or maybe fifteen minutes. Time, wristwatch time, had stopped the moment she was bundled into the ambulance. A paramedic had given her an injection. Apart from a sprained ankle when she fell off her mountain bike, she had never been inside an American hospital before.

‘Count backwards in sevens from one hundred,’ Dr. Singh had ordered.

Bea was still wearing her work clothes, a crisp grey suit and white shirt. She winced. ‘Do I look like I can’t count?’

He hunched his thin, lanky frame forward and stared at her from behind square, gold-framed glasses, their thick lenses protruding at the sides.

‘Okay,’ she said. ‘One hundred. Ninety-three. Eighty-six. Seventy-nine. Seventy-two. Sixty-five.’ She hesitated. ‘Can I stop now?’

‘Continue counting. I’ll tell you when to stop.’

She sighed, a loud frustrated expulsion of air.

‘Fifty-eight. Fifty-one. Forty-four. Thirty-seven. Thirty.’

He held his hand up. ‘Okay, stop.’

Dr. Singh looked up from the notes he’d been scribbling and ran long, skeletal fingers through his crew-cut salt-and-pepper hair. ‘When did the First World War start?’

She groaned. ‘Why are you asking me these stupid questions? Are you a shrink?’

‘I’m the admitting doctor. You’ll see the psychiatrist later.’

‘Okay, because I’m seeing a shrink every day. You might know her, Dr. Martin. She never asks weird questions like these.’

‘When did the First World War start?’

Bea bit her lip.

‘Miss Clark, this is part of the examination. Please answer.’

‘1914, when they killed that insignificant Austrian.’

‘Just the dates please. When did the Second World War start and finish?

‘1939 to 1945.’

He rubbed his chin with his bony thumb and forefinger, then held up his other hand. ‘How many fingers am I holding up?’

‘Four.’

‘How many voices do you hear?’

She rolled her eyes. ‘Too many.’

‘What?’

‘Yours and mine.’

‘Are there any others? Voices telling you to do bad things?’

Folding her arms, she scowled. ‘Well, there is one tiny voice and it keeps telling me you have no sense of humour, Dr. Zing.’

‘Miss Clark, I’d appreciate your full cooperation.’

She pushed on the arms of the chair to sit straighter, but that still left her size-three feet dangling above the floor. ‘No voices. Yet.’

‘Does your family have any history of mental illness, depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia? Anything of the sort?’

‘My family? Nope. I’m the first fruitcake.’

‘Have you had any surgery in the past ten years?’

‘No.’

‘Have you ever been pregnant?’

‘You have to ask that? No.’

‘Any allergies?’

She looked around his office and stared at the wooden bookshelves that lined the far wall. ‘Actually, I’m allergic to dust.’ She cleared her throat loudly a few times. ‘I can’t breathe when there’s a lot of dust. Especially old magazines. Old office furniture. Stuff that should be thrown out.’

He lifted a bushy eyebrow. ‘Any other allergies?’

‘Grapefruit. Honest. I break out in a rash if I eat grapefruit.’

‘Very well. I’ll put in a request not to give you grapefruit. A nurse will come to take your temperature and blood pressure.’ He put his notepad and pen down and rapped his long fingers on the desk. ‘What part of India are you from? Gujarat?’

‘Read my file. I’m not Indian.’

‘Yes, you may be born elsewhere, but you are Indian, no?’

‘I’m Trinidadian. Mother Indian, father mixed.’

‘You look South Indian. Your mother’s family are from India, no?’

‘Long, long time ago. We’re not Indians like you. Never even been to India.’

He mumbled something that sounded like Hindi or Urdu.

‘I don’t understand,’ said Bea. ‘Barely get by in English.’

‘But you must be Hindu, no?’

‘Catholic. Mass once a week like clockwork.’

‘It’s odd you don’t know your Indian roots.’

She shrugged. ‘Diaspora.’

‘Well, as one Indian to another, I have to say something for your own good. This depression business is no good. No good at all. Who would want a daughter with mental illness? If you keep behaving like this you will be a grave disappointment to your parents. Grave disappointment. Try to stop it now. It’s no good for anyone.’ He shook a long finger at her. ‘You are bringing shame on your family.’

She lowered her head and tried to squelch the tears behind her eyelids.

‘And you must take into consideration that you do not have a husband. How will you get one if you are depressed, eh?’

The accusations sucked the air out of the room. He stood up and headed toward the door, smug satisfaction on his face.

‘I hope you understand the wickedness of what you have done. Pray to Lord Vishnu and Mother Lakshmi. I will check on you again.’ With that he opened the door and left.

She held her body rigid against his words, and stared at the tiled floor until she heard the door close behind him.

Check on me again? Did he think she was setting up home here?

She would have liked to dismiss him outright, but he was only saying what she knew already. Even if she was discharged tonight, her parents were entitled to be disappointed when they found out she had been brought here, and the circumstances surrounding her disgrace. Perhaps the truth could be hidden. There was no obligation to notify them. 

She wept quietly. The tears flowed, trickled down her face, dripped onto the collar of her white shirt.

This is going to be a long, cold night.

*

‘Hungry? I can get you a tuna sandwich, or maybe cheese,’ the nurse offered.

‘No thanks,’ Bea said.

‘Blood pressure’s up a little.’ The nurse removed the pressure cuff from Bea’s arm. ‘It’s to be expected with all that’s happened today. Go easy on the caffeine.’

‘No one’s telling me anything.’ Bea pressed her thumbs in the space between her brows. ‘In the ambulance they didn’t even give the name of the hospital.’

‘You’re at the Crisis Centre of Mount Russet Hospital in Cambridge. We’re a few miles north of Harvard Square.’

‘What’s going to happen to me?’

The nurse glanced at the clipboard in her hand. ‘Let’s see. Dr. Singh’s checked you already, so the next person you’ll be seeing is Dr. Payne. Everyone likes him. The young nurses are always going on about him.’

‘What will he do?’

‘He’ll decide where we go from here. Don’t worry. He’s nice. Wait in the lounge and I’ll come get you when he’s ready.’

Bea made her way to the lounge. The straight-backed, moulded plastic chairs of institutional grey did not permit slouching. The dirty walls had a semblance of vanilla, but with the markings and smudges she couldn’t be sure. Outside, it was snowing lightly.

The small room was crowded with eight people waiting. No one made eye contact as she settled into a chair in the far corner. From time to time blaring sirens broke the silence; tyres crunched on the ice as ambulances and police cars pulled up outside. Each new arrival intensified the atmosphere of the waiting lounge.

Sometimes a fellow patient would lean forward in a chair, perhaps straining for a snippet of conversation, some clue about the circumstances of the next person to join their cluster.

*

‘Hi!’ A handsome man with light brown hair and soft eyes of duck-egg blue pulled up two chairs in front of a black desk and offered Bea a seat. ‘I’m Dr. Payne, the specialist on duty tonight.’

At least this one smiled.

Dr. Payne looked younger than Dr. Singh, maybe in his late forties. Average height, dressed in a deep blue suit and a light blue shirt set off by a flamboyant tie with paisley swirls of pink, green and blue. He stood out against the dirty grey environment. Bea understood what the nurse meant when she said the young women liked him: a handsome, exotic bird among a flock of common pigeons.

 ‘Hi,’ she mumbled with her head down, struggling not to stare up at him in spite of her curiosity.

‘Sorry to have kept you waiting. As you can see, we’ve got a full house tonight.’

He opened a brown file with her name scrawled in black marker across the front, and began flipping through the pages.

‘Okay, let me have a look at your notes again for a moment. You were brought here this afternoon. Age twenty-nine. History professor. Unmarried. Seeing Dr. Martin for the past month. Okay. Yes.’ He looked up. ‘Right, tell me what happened.’