I knew I wasn’t dumb, but I’d never done well at school. Nothing they were trying to teach me ever seemed interesting enough to stop me thinking about Melena’s body and what I would ask Jared to do to me the next time he came.
I had one teacher, Mrs Thomas, who knew what was going on. She took me aside one day and said. “Ambrosia Dickson, if you could get your mind out of your knickers now and then, you just might make something of yourself.” I knew she was right, but it didn’t help.
I wasn’t dumb, but I’d never got into the habit of studying, or concentrating on something for a long time. Annie understood that and helped me. She sat me down in her office first thing every morning and gave me a few photocopied pages to read. It was never so much as to discourage me. She made me read them twice. Then we went into the gallery and I did anything she told me to. To start with, the things were pretty simple things, like moving seats around or straightening the pictures. She showed me how to do that without tripping the alarms. She was patient with me. She didn’t let me have contact with customers until later, when she knew I could do it without embarrassing myself. The most important thing I wanted to do was to please her and not disappoint her. It was during those early times that I fell in love with her brain. I’d been in love with her body from the start. So, in a funny way, she became my mother as well as my lover.
She always went out for lunch. She was picked up by the man with the fancy sports car. You may know that already. I ended up falling in love with him too. You may know that already too.
The first thing she did, when she got back from lunch, was get me to read the pages again. Last thing in the evening, before the gallery closed, she tested me on what I’d read. I was slow at first. I was having difficulty retaining what I’d read, but I was improving and Annie seemed happy with me. We were usually the last to leave. She always kissed me goodnight, but nothing else. I would walk back to the YWCA, and she would wait for the man with the fancy sports car.
When I got home, I read through the pages again and tried to remember everything that was in them. I wanted to please her brain as much as I wanted to please her body.
On Wednesday nights I went to her apartment on the Esplanade and she would test me on all the pages I’d read that week. Then she would tell me something she wanted me to know, something about art that wasn’t in what I’d read. Her passion for art, and the way she told me the extra things, made me realise that, for her, art was a living thing. As living as what I could feel Jared putting into me when I had to close my eyes.
After she’d finished talking, she’d make me a Pisco-sour and then we would go into the bedroom and make love. There was nothing she wouldn’t let me do to her. I knew she liked my bottom. She liked stroking it and kissing it. I don’t know why black women have such big bottoms. Or why white people like them so much.
I was always back home by ten.
Annie invited me to dinner at the home of the man with the fancy sports car. Two other girls from the gallery came with their husbands, but there were a lot of other people I didn’t know. I was nervous about meeting Annie’s friends and especially her boyfriend. Her boyfriend was called Tom, but she always called him ‘Tommy’. I didn’t know whether he knew about Annie and me and, if he did, what he would think of me. Would he be rude to me? If he didn’t know, what would happen when he found out? Nothing like what we were doing could stay a secret for long. Lies and secrets always get found out.
When I saw the house, I was even more nervous than before. I never saw a house as big as that before. It was bigger than the old planters’ houses on the hill above English Harbour. I was twenty-five years old, but when I saw the big house, I was still the little black girl who helped her Mama run a cheap hotel down near the docks. I didn’t belong in big houses like this. Everyone would know that.
Annie was kind to me. She held my hand and took me round to meet all her friends. She kept hold of my hand and introduced me as ‘Ambrosia Dickson of the Pinkerton Gallery’. It almost made me sound important. I already loved her and I couldn’t love her any more than I did already.
The other girls from the gallery came and talked to us. Annie left us together and went off to find her boyfriend who was talking to the cook in the kitchen. She brought him over and introduced us. I could tell he didn’t know.
Tom was a nice man and was funny. He talked in a funny way, but I knew he was nice. I could see why Annie loved him. She hadn’t told me she loved him, but I could see she did. As it turned out, I knew before she did.
I met all his tennis friends. They seemed nice too. Being black didn’t mean anything to any of them. Hugh, the lawyer, teased me about the way I talked. When you tease someone it means you sort of like them, sort of accept them. Only children tease people they don’t like or don’t accept. He asked me to say ‘bacon’. When I did, they all laughed. I suppose it did sound like ‘beer-can’, but it didn’t seem to matter.
I looked across the room to where Annie and Tom were talking to some orchestra people. I didn’t know, not then, how important those two people would be to the rest of my life. I knew I loved Annie, and I don’t know when it was that I came to love Tom too.
I asked Mama once, what it was like to have a husband and five children and how you divided up the love each time a new baby came along. She laughed at me. She told me that love wasn’t like that, that you didn’t cut it up into portions and serve it out. That it grew with each person you came to love. That you were lucky if you had a lot of people to love and that you were unlucky if the only person you loved was yourself. She was a wise woman and she shouldn’t have died so young. I didn’t have her wisdom to help me, not when I needed it most.
I don’t know when I found out that I loved Tom. I can remember the first time I felt his seed pouring into me. I can remember that moment and can remember that I already loved him. Sometimes love sneaks up on you and sometimes it explodes in your face. Annie was an explosion and Tom just snuck up on me. The result seems to be the same.
I know Tom loves me too, but not in the same way he loves Annie. He loves me in a different way, and that’s enough for me.
I will never forget our first night at the big house. The three of us in the big bed, all wet after the swim. They let me do anything I wanted to them and I let them do anything they wanted to me. It was like having Melena and Jared in bed with me at the same time. But better.
I don’t know what time it was, but it was late. I was lying on my back in the middle and I knew they were both asleep. They were lying facing me with their arms around me. They were holding hands on my tummy. I could see the moonlight on the garden and could hear the slopping sound of the waves running up the beach. I never expected to be so happy.
Nine
We liked watching Tommy play tennis. I knew he was a good player and would have no trouble playing for the college. Caius had a strong team that year and Tommy was made captain. He was older and better than the others. Kings was the favourite to win the Inter-College cup.
We had a double stroller for the girls and Tommy bought a Toyota van that could fit two baby seats and four adults. He called it, ‘the breeder bus’. I knew he missed his 911.
There wasn’t often a big crowd at the games. Maybe a few dozen at most. One Saturday I told Ambrosia that we should do what we could to help the Caius team and I told her my plan.
We sat at opposite ends of the court, each with one of the girls. When the opposition were serving the one at their end would strip down to the waist and start breastfeeding. It was the height of Women’s Lib back then, and it would be a brave umpire to tell us to cover up. There were a lot of agro women around English universities back then.
Those poor boys. Most of them from boarding school, and most of them, I guess, still virgins. The sight of a big-breasted woman feeding a baby right in front of them was not the best way to concentrate on getting in a good first serve. It must have b
een harder at Ambrosia’s end. She always looked incongruous when she was breastfeeding. The little pink face sucking away at the big black boob. Not many men could have ignored that.
Tommy saw what we were up to and laughed. At the end of the set he came over and told us to stop. We went off in a huff and took the girls down to the river. Caius won anyway.
The house was perfect, but perhaps a little on the biggish side. It was called The Old Vicarage and there were six bedrooms. The Church of England didn’t believe in celibacy.
There were the usual rooms for a nineteenth-century vicar, and all bigger than they needed to be. There was an old-fashioned kitchen with an Aga. There were the out-houses and stables that went with the life of those times.
Mr Munroe’s men were in the house next door. He was a careful man being careful. We never questioned what Mr Munroe wanted. He’d saved us once already.
There was a coal cellar. We explained to Ambrosia what that was. There was a wine cellar too. It wasn’t large, just ample. Trollope’s vicars didn’t suffer much. The days of sackcloth and flagellation were past and the time of parsimonious parsons was yet to come. The wine racks were empty, but Tommy found a bottle in a corner. We took it upstairs and dusted it off. It was a Penfolds, Australian. We went out and bought Australian beef and they were the tastes of home, sunshine, seaside and two cocker spaniels. I missed home, and I knew Tommy did too.
Our bedroom was big. No it wasn’t, it was enormous. What did the old vicars get up to in there? There was plenty of room for the cots and we all slept together in the same room.
There was a bidet in the bathroom. We explained to Ambrosia what it was. She put her hand over her mouth and giggled. She thought it was for washing our feet. What is it about naïvety that’s so attractive, in either sex? When I first met him, Tommy was naïve, in all sorts of ways, and I think it was a part of the reason I fell in love with him.
We would be here until June next year, and we’d make the best of it.
Mrs Upton, from the village, came in to clean twice a week. Otherwise the house was ours. We put the central heating up high and got through the winter without clothes.
In the evenings, Tommy lit a fire in the drawing room. He said it gave warmth to the soul and reminded him of times when he was away fishing with his mother. We were happy for him to do that. He was right too. The open fire gave warmth, even when it didn’t give heat.
We decided to have Christmas in Antigua. Ambrosia was excited to spend Christmas at home. I told Tommy I’d arrange it. He had enough to do and I was worried about how hard he was working. I knew a break over Christmas would be good for him. He said I should talk to Mr Munroe. He would want to know where we were going and would arrange our security. Having the Macs and Jimmies around was second nature to us now. It didn’t trouble any of us anymore.
I knew Tommy had given Peter his Melancholy, so we didn’t have anything to worry about from him anymore. All we needed was the security of any other hyper-rich people. J. Maz and The Trust were doing good things to get rid of Tommy’s billions, but he still had a few to go.
Tommy was right about money and had been from the start, but I hadn’t believed him back then. I thought wealth automatically brought happiness, and I didn’t believe him when he said it didn’t, or when he said it more often brought sadness, but he was right and I was wrong. Extreme wealth can be a pain in the arse.
I rang Munroe & Sons. I spoke to Mr Cameron and he sent a man to talk to me about the arrangements. It was Iain Munroe, the yougest of the ‘& Sons’. He was in his early thirties, about my age, shorter than his father, handsome and anything but dour. I didn’t think about the size of his penis. A lot of things had happened to me since the time when I thought about the size of every man’s penis. That was before I met Tommy.
We decided to hire a motor-yacht and spend the time cruising around Antigua. We would see a lot more of the islands than if we stayed in one place and the security would only be a problem when we went ashore. Iain said he could manage that for us. If the yacht was big enough we could ship as many Macs and Jimmies as we needed.
Tommy thought it was a good idea, and Ambrosia thought it was a good idea too. We were a real trio now. Everyone’s opinion counted and no one had a veto. No one wanted one, especially Tommy. It was a good way to live. We had no expectation that our lives would ever change. It was a happy time.
Iain and I found a boat, but calling it a boat wasn’t really right. It was almost two hundred feet long. It was called the M.V. Siena. It read well. Eleven crew and six state rooms. It had everything. There was a gym, a sauna and a Jacuzzi. There was a French chef. There were sailing skiffs and boats to take us waterskiing. We could go diving. There were motorbikes for when we went ashore. We discussed it at dinner, and I did all the arranging the next morning. It was perfect.
Two Macs and two Jimmies would come with us. Iain chose them. They would be the men without families. Men who wouldn’t mind being away for Christmas. They would be the hard-men. Iain smiled as he assured me we’d be safe. I liked him.
We arranged for a nanny to come with us. The girls were almost walking and they were starting to eat solid food. Dr Sue, our paediatrician in Darwin, had said we could ween them any time they seemed ready. Dr Sue was Steve’s wife and Steve was the bone surgeon who fixed my broken leg after the crucifixion. Sue had a big nose like me and a good backhand too. We had a lot in common and I knew Steve adored her as much as Tommy adored me.
My milk was starting to dry up and it didn’t seem fair to leave Ambrosia with the responsibility of feeding them both, especially at night. We’d always shared that and it was another bond between us. So we started giving them the occasional bottle. We rang Dr Sue, and she said it was fine, and that we shouldn’t feel guilty about doing it. She had four children of her own, and a lot of common sense, and that’s why we trusted her.
Julie was the nanny and I’d known her since she was little. She was the daughter of one of my old Wymona friends who came to Darwin for our wedding and one of the many who came to see me in St V’s after the crucifixion.
Julie had been to nanny-school, and was good at languages, just like her mother. She’d been working in Paris, looking after the children of a banker and his wife. She was on her way home to marry a cattle-farmer from out near Condobolin.
Ten
I needed to finish the thesis. Finish it early. Then concentrate on the tripos. I was ahead of schedule. Then I went to see Prouse. I came home feeling sick.
I wasn’t good at lying. She would know. I told Annie it was sorted. I told her in my cockney accent. I thought I was good at it. I wasn’t. “It’s orl sor-id, luv.” If I lied in cockney, it might work. It seemed to.
I was giving Prouse the Melancholy. I told her that. That then there would be peace. I told her nothing more. Not about his second demand. I tried not to think about the second demand. It made me sick to think about it. I put it out of my mind. I used the Chinese-drawers method. The same as I did when Candy was murdered. The same as I did when Mother died. The same as I did when Annie betrayed me. It worked, most of the time. The truth escaped sometimes. It escaped more at night. It was always the same with Chinese drawers. They didn’t work so well at night. I don’t know why. Not everything in life has to have an explanation, even though we’re told it should.
He would never have Annie, not if I was alive. That was a given. I would die before I let him have her. I knew that. He knew that. I knew that too.
Was the second demand to wind-me-up? Perhaps. How could I know? He didn’t love her. He never loved her. Even at the start. She never loved him either. Even at the start. She told me that. He never possessed her. She was never his. He never cared for her. She was a ‘possession’. A thing he owned. A thing he thought he owned. A thing he had a right to own. A thing he thought he bought. Like all the things in his collection. Paid for with the luxury he thought she wan
ted.
Now he wanted her back. But did he really? Did he want her back, to be a trophy on his wall? A trophy to his power? Or was he just winding-me-up? Did he really want her back? And if he did really want her back, would he try to get her back? I didn’t know. Not then.
I went back to thinking. That’s a good thing, sometimes. Sometimes, not a good thing. I thought about killing him. It was what the A’s talked me out of. What they thought they talked me out of. It was what they made me promise not to do.
My housemaster didn’t like his boys to break their promises. It dishonoured you if you did. I meant my promises. I kept my promises. That sounds arrogant and self-applauding, but it was true, up until then. I didn’t want to break the promise I made them. But I knew I might. Breaking the promise wouldn’t dishonour me. The promise was a ‘relative term’, it didn’t ‘bind’ me. If I needed him dead, they would have to understand.
I thought of Prouse dead. I thought of the Major dead. I thought of killing them. Then Mother was beside me. She told me what she told me before. To take pleasure in killing things, anything, anyone, was wrong. It was one of the things she taught me. How could anyone take pleasure in killing? Killing a bird, a deer, a fish, even a bleeding fish? A fish that needed to be killed. Was Prouse a bleeding fish? Would I kill him because I needed to? If I did kill him, could I do it without taking pleasure? I didn’t think so. Mother would understand. Was Prouse a bleeding fish? I didn’t think so. Bleeding fish didn’t try to kill the one you loved, or mutilate the one you loved. There was unfinished business between Prouse and me. We both knew that. If I did kill him, it would be different to killing a bleeding fish. Mother would have to understand.
A Judgement on a Life Page 5