If I Never Went Home (4 page)

CHAPTER SIX

Yesterday was payday for Mummy so she said after work today we going Christmas shopping. And – and – and she said she’s buying me an extra present for winning the recitation competition. Thank you Augustus who would not drink his soup. I love shopping. We have to buy gifts for Aunty Indra, Uncle Ricky, and my three cousins Priya, Sammy and Hari. Priya is like my best friend although she is a year older. Sammy and Hari are too young to bother with. We bought a perfume set for Miss Celia next door that I helped choose. Nanny got a blue dress with a white collar. If I know Nanny she will wear it straightaway for church on Christmas Day. It’s a secret but Nanny bought silver hoop earrings for me to give Mummy on Christmas Day. I wrapped them up and put the box in the bottom of my drawer with the card I made for her at school. No way she will find it under my pile of white socks.

We put up the tree since last week. Is only a small, plastic tree, same height as me. When I grow up and have my own house I’ll have a real tree that goes right up to the ceiling with snow all over it. You can buy snow in a can in Clark’s Hardware. I like Clark’s Hardware. The man in there always wants to give me sweets or a dollar but Mummy tells him not to spoil the child. Anyway, me, my husband and two children – a girl and a boy – will sit by the tree and sing carols. Nanny and Mummy will sit in rocking chairs and lead the singing. If Priya’s coming then I guess I’ll have to invite Sammy and Hari as well. I hope by then they can talk about something except cars and trucks.

Apart from the tree, Christmas food is what I look forward to most. It’s the best food you going to get whole year. You should see the enormous ham Mummy buy. When she ready to bake it Christmas Eve she will decorate it with cloves and pineapple. Aunty Indra drop off a parcel with a zillion pastels. If you never had a pastel you really missing out. It’s a cornmeal pocket with chicken, pork or beef with currants and spices. Yummy in my tummy. We’ll be eating pastels from this Christmas to the next. Miss Celia sent five bottles of sorrel that line up in the fridge. Somebody give us punch de crème but that is a big people drink. It got rum or something strong in it. Mummy made her famous fruit cake and shared it out already. Aunty Indra always telling people that her sister Nalini fruit cake is pure rum with a little bit of cake mixed in. You could get drunk eating it so don’t eat and drive. I tried a tiny slice but it tasted yuk. Give me a chocolate cake with vanilla frosting any day.

Oh gosh, I just remember we didn’t get Boo-Boo a present. I wonder what Trincity Mall has for dogs? If I were Boo-Boo I might want food, a slice of bacon or some cheese. And for Christmas Day itself I could make him a new collar from the ribbons we have to wrap gifts. I will plait three ribbons and then tie the plait around his neck. Boo-Boo will look so cute. He just came and curled up under my feet like he knows I am planning treats for him.

I wish Mummy would hurry up and come home so we can go to the mall. It’s gone two o’clock and she doesn’t finish till five. She’s a dental nurse. I don’t have a choice about brushing my teeth for at least two minutes, three times a day. It’s embarrassing at school because I am always the only one brushing after lunch. Mummy says that I am leading by example. I would rather get a cavity. I am sure people laugh at me behind my back and I don’t blame them.

Today’s going by super slow. There’s nothing good on TV, only shows for little kids or nature programmes with people walking up mountains or cutting through jungle. My favourite show is about these teams that compete to make the best cupcakes. The winner gets to make cupcakes for celebrities plus a cheque for thousands of dollars, and we talking real US not Trini money.

It would be amazing if I came home from school and Mummy was waiting for me with fresh chocolate cupcakes with vanilla frosting. But joke is joke – that never happening. For a start my Mummy would never give me that amount of sugar after school to rot my teeth. She always trying to scare me saying that when you look at plaque under a microscope it’s like tiny white worms crawling over your teeth and gums. Yuk, yuk, yuk. Maybe I should brush my teeth again in case I missed any worms.

I always reach home before Mummy. We keep the key under the palm plant on the patio. I normally make a cheese sandwich, do my homework and wait for her to come home. I know not to let anybody in. If anything happen I only have to bawl hard and Miss Celia will hear me. The rule is that if it get real dark and Mummy not home yet I’m supposed to go and wait by Miss Celia. That doesn’t happen often, but sometimes the bus don’t run on time and taxi don’t like to come in the back where we living.

Miss Celia’s not a bad lady and I shouldn’t really say anything about her because she’s kind to Mummy and me and look at all the sorrel drink she done give us. But sometimes it not easy to bite my tongue. I’m by her waiting, listening for Mummy’s footsteps, and for no good reason she would start asking me about my father.

‘You don’t find it strange that your mother never tell you your father name?’

‘I don’t mind.’

‘Poor child. I can’t imagine growing up not knowing who your father is.’

I pretend to be reading.

‘Maybe she give you a hint and you forget?’

‘No, Miss Celia. She never tell me nothing.’

‘Well, he can’t be full Indian because you come out mix-up. You have something else besides Indian.’

‘I guess so. My hair not straight as Mummy’s.’

‘I’m not saying anything bad about your mother. Nalini is a hard-working woman, but your father, whoever he is, should be helping out.’

Miss Celia hesitated. ‘I mean, on an evening like this when Nalini working late, it should be your father you go stay with. I not running you from the house, but suppose I was a woman who like to go out in the evening to church or take in a little karaoke? Where you would stay then, eh?’

I never knew what to say when Miss Celia started up like this. Mummy should let me wait in my own house till she come home. I can take care of myself. It’s not like I had a Dad and then he left us. I never ever had a Dad, so I don’t know different. Sometimes I think it would be nice to have one for parents’ day at school or to take me to the beach. But it’s not a big deal. Whenever I ask Mummy she either gets vex or looks sad. No matter how I beg, she said she made a vow on her father’s grave never to say his name.

I thought Aunty Indra, as her only sister, might know something, so I asked her recently when Miss Celia’s old-talk was starting to get on my nerves. She said is not her place to say anything, and if I find out it not going to be her doing. I ask if she could at least say if he alive or dead. Her eyes open big and she look like she was going to say something then she stop herself just in time. She said is up to my Mummy to decide if and when to tell me certain things. Then she said not to worry. Mummy will tell me when the time is right.

I am scared to bring up any talk of my Dad with Nanny, but if anybody know it go be she. Is her daughter we talking about. When I was spending the day with her I made up my mind to ask. She is a nice Nanny but she’s strict and don’t take nonsense from nobody. So when we were sitting together on the couch looking at TV I waited till the commercial about taking a luxury Caribbean cruise.

‘Nanny, who is my father?’

‘What?’

‘Who is my father?’

‘Why you asking me for?’

‘Mummy says she made a vow on Nana’s grave that she never going to tell a soul his name.’

‘Well, if your mother make that kind of vow she must have her reasons.’

‘But is my father. I have a right to know. I’m the only person in my school who doesn’t know who their father is.’

Then the strangest thing happened. Nanny who don’t like to hug up anybody, or give kiss unless it’s your birthday, pull me towards her so my face in her chest and she drop a kiss on top of my head. That was weird. I don’t think I should bother the old lady again.

CHAPTER SEVEN

The weight of Mira’s letter increased every day until Bea could no longer lug it around. It had to be opened. Bea settled on doing the deed in a public place. Work seemed perfect. She laughed to herself: if she did lose control, what better place than a Crisis Centre? Mira’s words could be explosive.

On the drive to Mount Russet she decided to wait until there was a lull in the morning, settle in with a double espresso, and consume the letter slowly. Once that decision was made, her heart rate soared and her foot pressed down on the accelerator. What did the damn woman have to say that could only be done by a letter? Was this going to disrupt her contained, ordered life? Her brakes screeched as she swung into her regular parking spot. She turned off the engine and grabbed her bag. She couldn’t wait any longer. Her hands quivered as she tore the envelope open and pulled out a handwritten letter wrapped around a pretty pink-and-white card.

The trembling spread from her hands to her whole body. She could barely hold the card steady enough to read it. It was a party invitation. Her paternal grandmother, Granny Gwen, would be celebrating her ninetieth birthday at the Royal Savannah Hotel, Port of Spain, at the beginning of October. She made a quick calculation: forty days and counting. Mira’s letter was plain and brief. She was sorry for the pain that had been caused between them. No one was getting younger and it was high time they buried the past. Granny Gwen’s deepest wish was to have all the family together for this milestone birthday. For her grandmother’s sake she should come home. It was signed ‘Love, Mom’.

Only five lines, but she read them until she knew them by heart. She felt pure anger. It pulsed through her body and took shape as trembling, sweaty palms and a throbbing head. Ten long years and this was it? This was the hand of reconciliation? Five lines? Was time itself enough reason to forgive?

The letter did not even raise the problem of Bea’s former boyfriend, Michael. Why write after all this time and not mention him? Did Mira hope that she had forgotten? Was he to be rolled into a bundle along with a pile of other spiky hurts and hidden in a box in the basement? She could almost stomach seeing Mira, but not Michael, especially if he was now embedded in her family. Mira should have said something. How sorry was she really if Michael remained taboo?
Bury the past?
That was precisely the problem. They were a family of gravediggers continually burying the inconvenient and unpalatable. Bea had spent long, lonely years doing her own exhausting private excavations and reburials. It had been mandatory for her second career. Burying the past because time had rotted it to near invisibility was not an option.

Bea sank back into the car seat and looked up. People hurried past towards the Mount Russet Hospital compound. Anonymous faces, their hurts tucked away in pockets, bags and bodies. She gripped the steering wheel to steady herself.

A sharp rap on her window jolted her upright. It was Nick Payne. She wound the glass down and forced a smile.

‘You planning on actually making it inside?’ he asked, smiling.

‘Yes. Yes. Hi, Nick!’ She spoke fast. ‘Collecting my thoughts before I face the zoo.’

‘Come on. Sitting there isn’t going to make it easier.’

He had the kindest blue eyes. She stuffed the card back into her overflowing bag and climbed out of the car.

‘You okay?’ he asked.

‘Yeah, it’s nothing,’ said Bea. Her convincing tone took even her by surprise.

‘I’ve been meaning to ask you when you’re going to organise a hike for the staff,’ he said. ‘Summer’s gone.’

‘Gosh, haven’t thought about it.’

‘But you’re the one who always plans these great outings. Please let’s do something before the cold sets in.’

They parted inside the Crisis Centre. Bea headed for the nurses’ station. Where would she find the cheeriness to bring the staff together? That was Nick Payne’s job as director. In his easy, charming way he had shifted the burden to her. Well, she owed him big time. Putting together a staff hike and picnic was a tiny repayment of the debt. The clock over the coffee machine said it was three minutes to nine and already she was exhausted. She collected her files. Through the thick glass door at the end of the corridor she spotted a police officer staring at the TV and another hovering by the window. A heavy-set man, extensively tattooed, maybe early fifties, was joined to the officer at the wrist by steel cuffs.

Bea was glad for the protection. Being attacked by aggressive patients was a real risk: she knew at first hand several horror stories about psychologists being attacked. In one particularly awful case a colleague at the Crisis Centre had lost her partner in 9/11 and then, a decade later, with a new partner and a new baby, was stabbed by a patient and left permanently wheelchair-bound.

She thought of what Stephen had said about his neighbours seeing him being taken away. She had wanted to tell him that she too remembered the police taking her forcibly to this very Crisis Centre, years ago. Being hauled from your workplace was even worse than being carted away from your home. She was not a criminal – not so much as an outstanding parking ticket to her name. But the police had been involved. No point in denying that shame. She liked to think that her experiences made her a better, more empathetic psychologist. Or perhaps it was a sign that she was inherently too weak to mine the horrors her clients stashed inside themselves.

*

That first day, when she was transferred to St. Anthony’s, only an ambulance was needed. No police. No sirens. The day had passed in a flurry of form-filling and examinations. She was bounced from one strange room to another to be prodded, poked and questioned. When she was finally sent back to her single room she crawled into the narrow bed, fully clothed, and stared at the dull cream ceiling and walls. That unidentifiable dingy paint seemed standard issue in hospitals everywhere. At least the room had an en-suite – compact, but with a clever mirrored wall of safety glass that made it seem more spacious. Apart from bars on the window, there were no architectural reminders of the ward’s purpose. But her peace was short-lived. The chatter and movement outside her room got louder and closer. She lay silent, her eyes shut. Whatever was happening would stop soon. She did not need to be involved.

‘Beatrice?’ asked a sharp voice. Bea shot up. A nurse stood in the doorway.

‘It’s Bea,’ she answered.

‘All right, Bea,’ said the nurse. ‘Time for dinner and meds. You go to the nurses’ station for your meds and then down to the ground floor. You must have been shown where the canteen is. Eat there or bring up your tray to the lounge.’

Bea got up reluctantly and followed the nurse. There were a few people ahead of her, waiting for their medication. No one turned round as she joined the queue. She waited, arms folded, staring at the ground. When her turn came she was asked to confirm her name and silently accepted a small cup with two red capsules and two white.

‘What are these?’ she asked.

One of the nurses looked up at her, then checked her clipboard. ‘Dr. Payne prescribed an increase in Venlafaxine and added Quetiapine.’

It was an unfamiliar combination, but she swallowed them quickly and stepped aside without meeting anyone’s eyes.

The patients ahead of her were walking towards the exit, so Bea followed the trail down two flights of stairs to the dining room. She kept her head down but could not help noticing as they passed the floor below that its only access was through a closed, reinforced door with a tiny glass window. Whatever she had done wrong, it had not landed her behind that door. She was one floor up and determined she would stay that way while she was at St. Anthony’s.

At the entrance to the dining room a handwritten notice on the chalkboard proclaimed that the mains of the day were beef and potato stew, couscous with tangy chicken, or vegetarian chilli with garlic bread. Bea had not eaten since the bagel and tea Dr. Payne had brought her that morning. The kitchen aromas were warm and tempting. She glanced around the dining room, taking in the choices. Time ticked by. A man joined the queue behind her. It was time to choose. What to eat? Chicken was nice. But was the vegetarian chilli better? And what about beef? She was hungry. Or maybe she did not need a meal now. She felt impatient eyes on her back so she grabbed what was closest – a cold plate of fruit, vegetable sticks and cheese – and hurried off to sit in the farthest corner. If she could summon a magical power right now it would be a cloak of invisibility, to get through whatever time she had to serve at St. Anthony’s quietly, quickly, and overlooked.

Once Bea had settled into her meal and was sure no one would intrude, she dared to look around. Everyone looked so ordinary. Hospitals usually displayed their wounded but at St. Anthony’s no one walked around in pyjamas, bandaged, or attached to tubes. There were no wheelchairs or crutches, no oppressive stench of illness masked by lemon-scented disinfectant. Just a group of about fifty ordinary people, dressed in unremarkable clothes, concentrating on their humdrum dinner.

Bea finished her vegetable sticks and started slowly on the thin slices of apple. She looked up again and instantly regretted it as she caught the eye of a pale young man from her ward. They had been introduced earlier. His name might be Dave – she was not sure. He quickly looked away. Maybe he recognised her distress, or maybe he too wanted nothing more than to be left alone. Whichever – it was a sign that she had been in the dining room long enough. She took her half-empty plate to the corner where other dirty dishes were stacked on trays. As she walked back to the exit she noticed for the first time a small room off the main dining area. The shapes of several diners were silhouetted against the cheap white screen that protected their identities. No one was talking. Another place to avoid being sent to. She had better behave.  

About seven o’clock she came back to the ward and was told by a passing nurse that Dr. Payne was there and would be checking on her soon. Bea went to her room and sat in the small stiff armchair next to the barred window. Hooting and cheering from a television game show mixed with the general mêlée of movement and talk from down the hallway. Bea chewed her already short nails and waited for Dr. Payne.

When he finally put his head around the door she had trouble containing her relief at seeing a familiar face. She gave him her chair and sat on the bed opposite. Dr. Payne smiled as he asked if everything was fine and had she been shown around places like the dining room and gym. He urged her to get in touch with friends who were welcome during visiting hours. Bea managed a weak smile but knew that was impossible. She asked if she could leave on her own to go shopping or have a coffee. Not yet. He felt it was too early. And then he was done, promising to check on her the following day.

With Dr. Payne gone, Bea sat on the bed, unsure what was expected of her. It was too early to sleep. Television held no interest for her. There was a shelf of books in the lounge, but there was no way she was going to risk having to make small talk while retrieving one. Indecision gave way to anxiety, and anxiety morphed into numbing fear. Forty-eight hours earlier she had been free and knew what she had to do. Now she was in a room she could not leave, in a place she did not understand. Sitting on the bed much longer might attract the attention of the patrolling nurses, but what else was she to do? Outside her room the passing foot traffic seemed to be lessening, the noises more muted. It was at least thirty minutes before she forced herself to move and change into her nightdress. She turned off the light and was surprised at how heavy with sleep she suddenly felt.

*

In her office, Bea put the teacup on her desk and turned on the lights. Few had made her journey from one side of the desk to the other. She should be proud. There was no reason to think it would all unravel because of a short visit to Trinidad. She was stronger than that. If this was a test of her worth and everything she had achieved in the intervening years, then she would not be found wanting. Thriving in voluntary exile, far away from the site of memories and dreams, might have been enough in the early years. But surely those she had left behind could get a look in now. After all, the visit could be kept to a long weekend.

She sipped her tea and thumbed through the files she had collected. It all seemed routine apart from the client outside, handcuffed to the police. He had tried to stab his girlfriend when she announced she was leaving him and taking their baby son. It was Bea’s job to do the first interview, brief Dr. Payne, and then sit in on any further client assessment. She needed to be alert, focused to pick up signs of psychosis, drug abuse, anything that might explain today’s behaviour or indicate future risks.

But even as she gathered her iPad and headed off to the assessment room her mind was wandering. Mira and Granny Gwen aside, there were people and places she missed. It was strange what popped into her head. On the drive from Piarco airport to Mira’s house in Port of Spain, they always passed that bleak monastery built into the side of the northern range of mountains. The sprawling, castle-like Mount St. Benedict stood so high up that low cumulus clouds often sliced off the tops of the buildings. Her kindergarten school was somewhere up that mountainside. She remembered unsmiling nuns. Was it her imagination, or did they really smack tiny hands with a wooden ruler for the slightest perceived wrong?

Then they would swish past the chaotically sprawled-out shopping mall at Valsayn. And the Nestlé factory. Her child’s mind had imagined huge metal vats inside with unlimited supplies of Milo milk chocolate drink or smooth chocolate to be pressed into bars, a Caribbean version of
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
that she might get to enter one day. And as they neared home they always had to go around the Savannah in the heart of Port of Spain, ringed by once splendid mansions from a bygone age. She loved it when they stopped at one of the coconut vendors. Before their eyes he would slice the top off a nut with his machete and they would drink the ice-cold water inside. Port of Spain may boast five-star hotels and an imitation Sydney Opera House, but she hoped there was still space in town for a simple coconut vendor.