No Woman No Cry (14 page)

When we got to Hope Road, the first person we saw was Esther Anderson, leaning over the upstairs porch. I said, “Good morning, is Bob there? Can I see Bob?” I knew he was up there in the room with her.

“What do you want?” she said. “Why you come here?”

This gal is crazy, I thought. But I didn't want to get into it with her, especially in front of the children, so I just said again, “Is Bob there? Is Robbie there?”

“He's sleeping!” she said.

“Then please wake him up for me, it's important.”

“Why don't you leave him alone?” she said. “Why you won't let the man sleep?”

And then I lost my cool. “Who do you think you're talking to?” I said, louder than I'd meant to.

“Why don't you stop breeding?” she shouted. “All you do is breed! Bob needs a career, and you need to stop breeding and let him find a life!”

I couldn't believe it! I just stood there and said, “Whew!” And then I thought, oh no no no, let's get out of here. But by then all the noise had woken Bob up anyway, and he came down and said to me, “What's happening? Why you down here trying to create a scene?”

“Me?!!”
I yelled. “Don't you talk to me like that! You have that whore up there …” And I got really angry, because if she didn't respect me she should at least have respected the fact that I had my children with me, and that's my husband she's sleeping with! So I really whopped it to her, and I cursed him too. And after he gave me the money I asked for, I got back in the truck and told the driver to
drive!

Bob said he would come by later, which I knew he would do, and also that he'd try to chat me up. But the last I said to him was, “F- - - you, Bob, I'm very disappointed in you!” I was so upset, because that was the first time I'd ever gotten into that woman thing. And I didn't intend to argue with her, because if I had any argument it was with him.

When he got there that night, he looked around and said, “How could you do this to me and the children? It's a mistake, Esther just takes pictures of the group, and Chris Blackwell put her there to live … until she goes back to London …”

When I didn't answer this, he said, “You're really serious? No light, no water, no nothing? You gonna stay out here with the kids? 'Cause I have to go to England to do promotion for this new album.”

I said, “Yeah yeah yeah yeah, I'm staying.”

I could see he liked coming out here, to the clean air. He looked at me, eye to eye. “You okay?” he said.

“I'm fine,” I said. I didn't mention how angry I was, I let that pass because I didn't want to start anything in front of the kids, who were still up waiting for Daddy to come.

Then he looked at the four of them, who were obviously happy, gorging on the takeout fried chicken we'd stopped for. To them all this was a lark. “You okay?” he asked.

“We're fine!” they yelled. “We love Bull Bay!” A big, loud chorus.

Maybe he was surprised by their response. He seemed very subdued after that. I watched him leave, his head kind of bent, like it was heavy. I thought I should have a heavy heart to match, but instead I just felt sad but free, and very relieved.

And there was something about that night that I found so exciting! The children soon fell asleep, but I couldn't go to bed. I realized I was too happy! I kept walking around, out to the yard and then back inside, saying to myself, I have a house! A house!

I don't remember how late it was when I blew out the last candle still burning and stood in the doorway one more time. Everything I'd gone through that day—with Aunty, Bob, Esther Anderson—it all seemed to have happened not to me but to another person. In the silence I could hear the children breathing behind me and, faintly in the distance, the waves on the shore. All I could think of was that we were finally out of Trench Town, and that I was standing, almost unbelievably, in the doorway of a house of my
own
. I couldn't decide which of those two things pleased me the most.

Next morning Aunty was there by eight. She had taken the three buses! Poor Aunty. She said, “I couldn't sleep. I couldn't sleep. How could I sleep without the children? Without you? Look at them! Did you bathe them last night?”

I said, “Yes Aunty, they bathed, don't worry.” Of course we hadn't bathed; by the time we'd arrived and unpacked it was full dark. But after Aunty came that day we went to the beach and bathed there, and the kids were ecstatic. And soon a friend brought barrels of water for us regularly, while my application to the minister for utilities went through. We were the first in the community to have electricity, and it pleased me that we weren't the last, that our presence there meant that neighbors had it too, because soon the area was full of people moving into the new government houses.

Eventually everyone got used to the idea of our being there, especially after I began to decorate the house, painting it red, green, and gold, and planting a garden. I was more content than I had been in so long, because I was helping myself, doing what I wanted to do. And, most important of all, I was independent, if not financially, then at least in terms of being on my own.

For a while I took life easy, going to the beach, jogging every morning, getting fresh fish to eat. I assumed, finally, some of the responsibilities Aunty had always held on to. I focused on the kids, on their schooling and all the other needs of growing children. I felt strong and proud of myself. And I started making demands on Bob. Instead of feeling sorry for him now, I was saying, “I need your help. I'm not doing housework in Jamaica. For anybody! I'm only going to do
certain
things here in Jamaica. You're taking the steps you have always wanted to, so remember we are here.”

But as I've said, Bob was very giving, there was never a
mean
time. I never said “We need” or “I want” and didn't get. That's Bob, that's the way he always was. And then, if we'd had a quarrel, he would come and bring me flowers, fruit, or the chocolate I love. And I would be … “No no, man.” Until things would start to get nice, and you nice, and … then I'd give in, and we'd make love, and then would come the promises.

Though Bob and I remained married for the rest of his life, Esther Anderson wasn't the first and wouldn't be the last woman he was involved with. I guess the way I saw it was that he was not the man for their lives, but their man for a time. I never made friends with any of them; I didn't have to. Their relationships with Bob were “off the record,” and he kept them away from me for the most part, or I was careful, usually, not to go anywhere I'd meet them. I didn't see myself chasing after him. I tried to train myself to think of Bob as a good loving brother more so than a real husband, and made my peace with the situation. I asked God for help with the things I couldn't change. Maybe because there were so many women they grew less and less threatening, even though some had children—the boys born while I was in Delaware were not the last born outside our marriage, and I ended up taking care of many of them.

The early seventies was a very different time, too. It all had to be for a reason, I thought. Bob remained a loving father and friend. I still respect that, still give him respect on that. Sometimes it hurt—
ah,
I can't deny it. But then I'd tell myself,
uh-uh
, that's not the eye for you to look through. Look through another eye. Rastafari.

B
EFORE THE GOVERNMENT
stepped in to build the housing scheme at Bull Bay, it had been a very bad gang area. People were afraid to pass there, afraid they'd be blown away. At the end of 1972, when we arrived, the neighborhood was peaceful but the look of the place was just beginning to change. Like Trench Town, most of its houses had been built from anything available on any land that seemed available, and you didn't see too many concrete government houses like mine. All around was bush—just bush, a few farms, the beautiful blue water, and the beach (which I love).

As soon as we got settled, I enrolled Sharon, Cedella, and Ziggy at Bull Bay All Age Elementary. Stephen was still a toddler. After school they had the Windsor Lodge Community Center, with a park where they could play football with the other children in the neighborhood. Every once in a while, walking them to school in the morning, I felt as if I were dreaming. And although I had sad moments as well as happy ones, I still feel that this is where my life, my own independent life, started.

But I realized I couldn't be
fully
independent until I learned to drive. I had been trying—maybe I should say I'd been dreaming of driving, but it wasn't until I got to Bull Bay that driving became a real necessity. I wasn't going to pay three bus fares to get to and from Kingston! Time you have to wait on the bus to get home, which took two hours, and then to cook dinner for the kids, oh … no way. So I got busy on that immediately.

Back when we were still in Trench Town, we'd had one of those big sixties station wagons that Bob got for very cheap. I was eager to learn to drive but, like many husbands I hear about, he wasn't patient enough to teach me, so I took driving lessons when we could afford them, which wasn't often. One day Bob parked the station wagon at the gate and I decided that I was going to show him that I could drive. I got in, put the emergency down, got the car into gear, and drove down to the bottom of the road. When it was time to turn around, though, I wasn't able to find reverse. People gathered around, watching me fight with the gear stick and making suggestions. I sent someone to call Bob, and
he
sent someone to say he wasn't coming, I should find a way to come back. Eventually a guy we knew named Reggie, a guitarist with the Upsetters, arrived and said he'd find reverse for me, which he did, and then drove me back up to the house. I decided after that episode that I wasn't going to be embarrassed again.

When we moved to Bull Bay, Reggie began coming out to give me lessons. Afterward, he'd take me into Kingston to do my errands or up to Hope Road. One day he was driving me, in the little Morris Minor we had then, and he wasn't paying attention to the road and almost hit someone. I got angry, and said, “Why don't you drive properly? Look where you're going, man!!!”

I suppose he didn't like my attitude, because he said, “Why don't you drive yourself?!!!”

I said, “One day I will! You'll see!”

We could have left it at that, but I guess he wanted a fight, because he said, “If you don't like my driving, why don't you let Bob drive you?”

“Don't call my husband's name into this!!” I shouted.

But Reggie wouldn't quit. “Why don't you let Bob teach you to drive?” he said.

That was it for me! I said, “Get out of my car!” And I boxed him,
bow!

He jumped out of the car, and I imagine he was thinking, oh yes, let's see how far she thinks she can drive.

But I got behind that steering wheel and left him standing in the road and drove myself slowly into Kingston. And it was funny to see the look on Bob's face as he watched me navigate the circular driveway at Hope Road. He seemed happy but was so surprised all he could say was, “Hey, you're driving!” Then he realized who was missing and said, “But what did you do with Reggie?”

After that I got a license, everything that was necessary. And oh, I felt as if I'd taken another step forward. Still, I hardly ever felt like going anywhere far. I rarely went out, except to shop or to show up at Hope Road or take the kids for a drive. Then one day I discovered lice in Ziggy's hair—he'd caught them from someone in the local school. So I took all the kids out of there and enrolled them elsewhere, which meant I had to drive them to school every morning.

For me this was a learning time. Bob was still coming and going when he felt like, which was cool with me. I was learning to live not only by myself with the kids, but without a full-time man—and not so much physically as emotionally. I even realized that, ah, well, I might even have to take up a divorce one day soon, considering how we were now living. It felt so strange to me, sometimes I found myself wondering, “What kind of arrangement is this?” I had to keep reminding myself that I'd been told that part of the situation came with success, and that this success had provided our house and other advantages—the food we ate, for one very important thing (I never forgot to give thanks that we'd stopped being hungry). And then there were the rooms I was planning to add to the main structure, and the garden … I had to be more patient, I decided, and better able to cope in order to maintain my mentality, so that whatever else was happening wouldn't drive me crazy. I couldn't do that, I had to keep a cool head so that I could raise my family. They were my focus now. And on good days, thinking about Bob, I'd say to myself, oh, let all those women turn him on, I'm just gonna love my children, love myself, and see what comes out of it.

And—I guess this is most important—I still felt like Rita. I never gave up on me fully, never forgot me and absorbed everything. I was always able to reserve Rita, because this is how I'd started out, being called “blackie tootus” and being forced to say I'm gonna
be
somebody. So I was not giving anyone the privilege to totally destroy Rita. Rita meant something, Rita came for a purpose. Rita had a life to live.

There was a period soon after I moved to Bull Bay when Bob stayed away for almost two full months and we didn't know where he was. I heard he was in England, I heard he was in Negril. During that time Esther Anderson was touring with the Wailers, but that may have been the end of their relationship. (A couple of years ago she came to Jamaica to say she and Bob had built a house in Negril. With her money, she said. I don't know if she thought I was going to claim it now, but I want nothing to do with it!) But back then she was with Bob for a while, and we couldn't find him, until one day he turned up at the house in Bull Bay.