Small Island Read online

  ‘Come to me, Hortense,’ this man said, holding out his arms for me.

  I was going nowhere near that thing. ‘What is that?’

  ‘What this?’ he said, modelling it for me like it was something to be proud of. ‘This is my manhood.’

  ‘Keep that thing away from me!’ I said.

  ‘But, Hortense, I am your husband.’ He laughed, before realising I was making no joke. The fleshy sacks that dangled down between his legs, like rotting ackees, wobbled. If a body in its beauty is the work of God, then this hideous predicament between his legs was without doubt the work of the devil.

  ‘Do not come near me with that thing,’ I screamed.

  Gilbert crossed the room in two steps to place his hand over my mouth. ‘Ssh, you want everyone to hear?’

  I bit his hand and while he leaped back yelping I, trembling, ran for the door.

  ‘Hortense, Hortense. Wait, wait, nah.’ He sprang at the door, closing it with a slam. And as he stood panting before me I, terrified, could feel that thing tapping on me as a finger would.

  But Gilbert’s hands surrendered into the air and that wretched ugly extremity began deflating, sagging, drooping, until it dangled, flip-flopping like a dead bird in a tree. He held his palms up, ‘Okay, okay, I will not touch you, see,’ then, glancing down, cupped his hands over his disgustingness. ‘It’s gone, it’s gone,’ he said.

  He struggled into his trousers hopping round the room like a jackass while saying, ‘Listen, listen to me.’ Buttoning his trousers, he tried to look into my face. ‘Look at me, Hortense, look at me, nah.’ When I finally looked on him he let out a long breath. Calming himself he began, ‘Good, now listen. You listening to me?’ As I turned my face away, he tenderly took my chin and moved it back to him. ‘You sleep in the bed and I will sleep here on the floor. I will not touch you. I promise. Look – I will give you my RAF salute.’ He stepped back saluting his hand to his forehead, smiling, showing me his gold tooth. ‘There, that is a promise from a gentleman. I will sleep on the floor. And tomorrow I will rise early, go to the ship and sail to the Mother Country for us both. Because, oh, boy, Miss Mucky Foot,’ he shook his head slowly back and forth, ‘England will need to be prepared for your arrival.’

  Eight

  Hortense

  ‘Tell me, Mrs Joseph, how long you say your husband been in England without you?’

  Normally I would not have answered a question so direct and presumptuous as that. Especially from a woman such as she. A woman whose living was obtained from the letting of rooms. But I was leaving Jamaica. Getting on a ship the very next day. And I thought I could afford to be charitable. This woman was, after all, very old and probably lonely for company.

  I had had to stay in her lodgings the evening before I left in order that I might catch my early-morning sailing in good time. She had been kind. She had prepared me a meal of rice and peas, fried chicken and green banana. ‘The last supper,’ she joked, as she laid it in front of me. She talked all through my meal, telling me elaborate tales of every member of her family – a saintly dead husband, a thoughtless sister, a feckless son – until chewing felt like an improper response to her tales of woe.

  After the meal she had helped me pack. Then, warning me of rationing and the cold in England, she disappeared and returned carrying a blanket she had knitted during the war. She explained, ‘You see, Mrs Joseph, I had no time to get it to a cold soldier. I start knitting this blanket from when the King first announce to the Empire that we were at war. And I finish the thing as they all dancing in the street in joy of the conflict over. I am not a fast knitter but this was not taken into account.’ She pressed her war blanket into my hand. Squares of brightly coloured uneven knitting sewn together to make a blanket big enough to shelter a platoon. I had room in my trunk so I took it graciously.

  So when she asked her question of me instead of evading her prying I answered, ‘My husband has been without me in England for six months.’ Gilbert was true to his word. He had written to me regularly, sometimes our letters crossing – him asking something I had only just informed him of. But he kept me abreast of his plans. And they came along with a pace that sent excitement and trepidation racing around my veins. Soon everything was set. Everything was go.

  But now the old woman’s jaw dropped to her chest. Her breath ceased for so long I feared for her health. Then she recovered enough to tell me, ‘You must go to England straight away. Those Englishwomen will be up to funny business with him. A young man alone in England. You know these white women like to make sure they brown all over. And these young men have urges. I know, I have a son who would never let an urge pass by him.’

  I only smiled at her rudeness and told her, ‘Please do not fret on my account. I will take my chances.’

  But she carried on with curious anxiety, ‘You must go straight away, Mrs Joseph, before him forget him marriage vows and all the Lord’s Commandments too.’

  1948

  Nine

  Queenie

  For the teeth and glasses.

  That was the reason so many coloured people were coming to this country, according to my next-door neighbour Mr Todd. ‘That National Health Service – it’s pulling them in, Mrs Bligh. Giving things away at our expense will keep them coming,’ he said. He might have had a point except, according to him, they were all cross-eyed and goofy before they got here.

  ‘I don’t think so,’ I said.

  ‘Oh, yes,’ he assured me. ‘But now, of course, they’ve got spectacles and perfect grins.’

  I knew he’d be round, as soon as that woman, Gilbert’s wife, left her trunk in the road for all to see. A woman. You don’t see many coloured women. I’d seen old ones with backsides as big as buses but never a young one with a trim waist. His head popped out of his door then darted back in again. Probably went to get his shoes.

  I was right. Not five minutes after Gilbert had taken the trunk inside he was on the doorstep. ‘Mr Todd,’ I said, ‘what can I do for you?’

  Another darkie, that’s what the look on his face said. The motley mixture of outrage, shock, fear, even – nostrils flaring, mouth trying to smile but only managing a sneer. ‘Yes. I just wanted a quick word with you, Mrs Bligh, about your paying guests.’

  I bet he did. He’d have told that horrible sister of his that more coloureds had just turned up. How many is it now? they’d have said to each other. Fifty? Sixty? ‘You’ll have to speak to her, Cyril,’ she’d have told him, before bemoaning how respectable this street was before they came. They’d have got all those words out – decent, proper – polished them up and made them shine, before blaming Mrs Queenie Bligh for singlehandedly ruining the country. They were the same during the war, although even they couldn’t blame me for that. Too many Poles. Overrun by Czechs. Couldn’t move for Belgians. And as for Jews. They moaned about Jews even after we knew what the poor beggars had been through. They were all right in their own country, Mr Todd reasoned, but he wanted none of them down our street. He’d never forgiven me for taking in Jean. Bombed out. Her family dead. Sweetheart blown to no-one-there in North Africa. Why not? She was company even when she started going out all night and coming in with the milk. He asked, bold as anything, what she did for a living. I told him she was a nurse – you know, on night duty. Choked on his cup of tea before enquiring if I was very sure of that.

  Three times in one day he once asked me if there was any news of my husband Bernard. Tried to make out it was because they were such good chums. But I knew why he asked. He wanted my errant husband home to put an end to me taking in all the flotsam and jetsam off the streets. Concern for me, he’d say – a woman on her own in this great big house. A nearly-not-quite-widow. No man to protect me, guide me, show me the error of my ways. He looked out for me as neighbours should, Mr Todd said. Our own kind sticking together, just like during the war. Only that’s not quite how I remember it, even then.

  But I was grateful to him (and, I suppose, his nasty sister). He
boarded up the hole in the roof. Got rid of the pigeons. Plastered the ceiling. Replaced the windowpanes. Helped me clear the rubble out of the garden. I knew where to go when a fuse blew – he had the little bits of wire on a card all ready, torch handy. I suppose I was indebted. He even offered to decorate the place, if I could get hold of the paint. ‘Stop it deteriorating any further, Mrs Bligh.’

  Gilbert moving in had put an end to all that. Darkies! I’d taken in darkies next door to him. But not just me. There were others living around the square. A few more up the road a bit. His concern, he said, was that they would turn the area into a jungle. But I was pleased to see Gilbert. I’d often wondered what happened to Airman Gilbert Joseph. You do with a war – I know that now. Everyone scattered like dandelion seeds. Some people you never think you’ll see again – especially on your doorstep. And I hadn’t seen Gilbert since the incident. After it I didn’t want to see anyone. He wrote to me, more than once, but I didn’t reply. It’s not that I blamed him. How could I blame him? I bet he thought I did but I didn’t. It was the war I wanted rid of, but it was people I was losing. Mother and Father suggested I move back to the farm until the war was over. How many times was I meant to escape from that blinking place? I’d already done it twice. No, I told them, I have to get back to Earls Court – make the place warm for when Bernard eventually gets home.

  I did write to Bernard in India – told him all about it. But the next letter I got from him made no mention of his father. Or the one after that. He was not one for talking about things, I knew that, but blinking heck! It was like it never happened. If that’s how he wants it, I’ll wait until he’s returned. Better to look him in the eye and explain it to him, anyhow. But I missed my father-in-law Arthur. And not only for his potatoes and onions. Certainly not for those runner beans. An hour I’d boil them and would still be chewing them from dinner when I was brushing my teeth for bed. ‘Send them to Churchill,’ I’d told him – secret weapon. ‘Give them to Hitler’s troops – they’d be too busy chomping to fight a war.’ Arthur had laughed at that in his quiet way.

  I didn’t celebrate VE Day – my husband and thousands more were still fighting out east. I told them that when they wanted me to string up bunting for the celebrations. I stuck out my flags for VJ Day when most of the street didn’t bother. With the war over I did my patriotic duty – got myself looking as good as I could. Begged some stockings from Bloom’s. Scrubbed the house on my hands and knees, poking into corners that hadn’t seen a human face since it all began. Another neighbour Mrs Smith, or Blanche as she liked me to call her then, was waiting too. Her husband was on his way back from somewhere called Rangoon. We were friends at that time. She’d hug me excitedly, ‘It won’t be long now, Queenie. His ship’s arrived.’ Gave me the last of an old pot of rouge she had. Not quite my colour but I took it. ‘All the girls can talk about is their daddy coming home,’ she’d tell me, popping round on some errand or other. And she’d ask me, ‘Have you heard anything of Bernard yet?’ After the umpteenth time I took to saying no before she’d even opened her mouth. I watched her husband Morris turn up. She ran into his arms like they were in some soppy film. And they kissed in that same way right there on the street, him bending her back like Gable and Leigh. Crikey, I thought, I hope Bernard won’t want kissing like that.

  Blanche’s two little daughters stood watching their mum and dad. Little mites looked scared to death when this strange man held out his arms to them and said, ‘Come and give Daddy a kiss.’ Both ran into the house screaming.

  ‘It won’t be long now, Queenie, you’ll see. Then you can get on with the rest of your life. Put this beastly war behind you,’ Blanche assured me.

  But two years went by and no Bernard or any word from him. All the men had come home. They were back walking round the streets, chatting in pubs, courting on park benches, riding on buses, taking all the blinking seats on the tube. The War Office swore blind they’d returned Bernard. I made an appointment to see them and a self-important little man stared at me with pity in his eyes. He’s left you, missus, he’s left you, his look said. But they didn’t know Bernard Bligh. He wouldn’t do anything half so interesting.

  Blanche wondered if maybe he’d got a bang on the head – forgotten who and what he was. Perhaps he was wandering forlornly around the country looking for a home. A man up the road said he was sure he’d spotted Bernard driving a bus in Glasgow. I’d prepared to go up to Scotland – travel as many omnibuses as I could. But then my brother Harry said not to bother because a friend of his had spotted Bernard sipping beer in a bar in Berlin. And Mr Todd turned up a grainy photograph of a group of harriers walking the Derbyshire peaks. He pointed to a man in the background saying, ‘That’s Bernard, Mrs Bligh or my name’s not Cyril.’ Frankly, the photograph was so bad it could have been anyone – even Cyril Todd himself. Then a fellow arrived – rode up to the house on a filthy motorbike that backfired twice nearly killing several fainthearts. Said he knew Bernard from Blackpool where they’d trained together, but he hadn’t seen him since his posting. Became all flustered when I said I knew nothing about Bernard Bligh’s whereabouts. But he still managed to drink three cups of tea and eat the same amount of currant buns before he rose from his seat saying, ‘I’d better be off now, Dotty,’ and left, puffing foul black smoke from his disgusting machine.

  It was Harry who suggested I start proceedings to have Bernard officially declared dead. ‘What if he’s not?’ I asked him.

  ‘Then it’ll flush him out of his hiding-place,’ he’d said.

  I was still young and I had a life to get on with. But I wasn’t ready for that. So when Gilbert turned up at my door I thought, I’ve got the room and I need the money. I took him in because I knew Bernard would never have let me. And if Bernard had something to say about it he’d have to come back to say it to my face.

  ‘How can you think of being a woman alone in a house with coloureds?’ Blanche said. She warned me that they had different ways from us and knew nothing of manners. They washed in oil and smelt foul of it. Sent her husband round to reason with me because he knew all about blacks. Morris blushed scarlet telling me of their animal desires. ‘And that’s both the men and the women, Mrs Bligh.’ I was to watch out, keep my door locked. ‘You’ll never understand, let alone believe, a word that any of those worthless people say to you,’ he cautioned.

  Memories around here might be very short but mine wasn’t. I’d known Gilbert during the war. He was in the RAF. A boy in blue fighting for this country just like Bernard and the blushing Morris. No one else would take him in. I was a little put out when some of Gilbert’s friends, fresh off a boat, came begging. I didn’t want invading. But he vouched for them. Winston was all right but that brother of his . . . Coming down to my flat with excuses so flimsy I could see daydreams in them. Nosing around. Eyeing up my legs even when I was looking straight at him. Animal, like Morris warned. I told Gilbert I didn’t like him and Gilbert told him to go. He left like a scolded dog without any fuss. At least I think he went – he and his brother being so alike.

  But Blanche, or Mrs Smith as she now wanted me to call her, put her house up for sale. Furious with me. Told me it wasn’t so much her as her husband. ‘This is not what he wanted, Mrs Bligh. He’s just back from fighting a war and now this country no longer feels his own.’ What was it all for? That’s what it left Morris wondering. And she told me she had her two little girls’ welfare to think of. Gilbert raised his hat to her one morning. She rushed into her house like he’d just exposed himself. Out came Morris who stood on the doorstep to protect her honour. And Gilbert had only said hello. After that she never spoke to me again – crossed the street to avoid walking in my path. She sobbed as the removers shifted her out.

  ‘That house had been in her family for generations. Her mother, her grandfather, his father,’ Mr Todd told me. Forced out, she felt. All those coons eyeing her and her daughters up every time they walked down their own street. Hitler invading couldn’t hav
e been any worse, she declared. Moved to a semi-detached house in Bromley. Never even said goodbye to me. People were talking about me, that’s what Mr Todd told me. Friendly and smiling like he was only telling it for my own good. People were wondering if I was quite as respectable as they once thought.

  ‘They’re only lodgers,’ I told him.

  ‘But these darkies bring down a neighbourhood, Mrs Bligh. The government should never have let them in. We’ll have a devil of a time getting rid of them now,’ he said.

  So here is Mr Todd once more standing on my doorstep, wanting to talk to me about my paying guests. I thought he’d come to complain about the racket they’d made taking in that blinking trunk.

  ‘Right,’ I said. ‘What is it now?’

  ‘My sister had a very unfortunate incident today . . .’ he starts.

  I would have invited him in but I knew he wouldn’t dare step inside.

  ‘Oh, yes?’ I said.

  Turns out she’d been walking along the pavement. It was raining and she’d got her umbrella up. It was crowded up near the butcher’s at closing time. She’s walking along when two darkie women start coming towards her. Walking side by side. Anyway, they reach her and there’s not enough pavement for all of them.

  I smiled. I’d like to have seen that. I knew the type – black as filth with backsides the size of buses. Surprising they could fit on two together.

  ‘And the unfortunate thing is, Mrs Bligh,’ he went on, ‘that my sister was made to step off the pavement and walk into the road to get by them. These two had no intention of letting her pass undisturbed.’

  ‘Oh dear,’ I said. His point, though he was a long time making it, was that I should see to it that my coloured lodgers are quite clear that, as they are guests in this country, it should be them that step off the pavement when an English person approaches.