The Pink House at Appleton

by Jonathan Braham

  Everyone stared in silence. And so Adassa, the sixth maid, was hired.

  And that afternoon Boyd was again summoned, this time to the periwinkle fence. Everything led to her, the nodding hibiscus, the slender oleander leaves, the violet blue of the jacaranda, every blooming thing. When he got to the fence he could not see Susan, but felt her, and inhaled her pretty-scented fragrance. He imagined them lying in the grass, not speaking, feeling the music and the heat. Susan was now every girl he had ever known: Lydia Parsons, Pepsi, Estella and all the others who existed in his imagination.

  In the joyous stillness of the afternoon, Susan’s name panted into his ear, stirred his young wonderings, gave him fervent dreams. The music that rose up in him was distinct and beckoning. He wanted to follow the strains across the lawns, over the fence, wherever they might lead. They led only to one place.

  And that place was where Mama and Papa were dressing up for, the home of the English family, the Mitchisons. He wanted them to go off to their dinner quickly so that he could be alone with the radio and hear the pretty songs. These songs of women’s voices against a background of tinkling piano and golden horns talked a language promising beauty, sweet suffering, of hearts tossed and torn. The air resonated with expectation. He felt it in the breathlessness and the nervousness and the inexplicability of everything.

  CHAPTER 11

  Papa sat on the verandah in that lovely moment when the night had not yet closed in, when that delightful boiling sugar aroma drifted in from the factory, a pleasure known only to estate people, when early stars sprinkled the sky, and the radio, turned down low in the depths of the drawing room, played a song of evening. But Papa noticed none of this. His mind was preoccupied with thoughts of his hostess. He was in that place of indecision. It was not a place that he was familiar with. But then he was not familiar with a woman like Ann Mitchison, who, on the one hand, was the very essence of the great imperial power and yet, on the other hand, spoke to him in tones that he found stimulating.

  For the third time that evening, Papa put his head round the door. There was Mama facing the large oval mirror above the bureau, dabbing at her cheeks with a small round pad, shoulders bare, elbows dimpled, earrings sparkling. Yvonne and Boyd sat at the foot of the bed, braced on their hands, eyes round. Evening In Paris filled the room.

  ‘I’m ready,’ Mama said, seeing Papa’s impatient features at the door.

  ‘So, what are we waiting for?’

  Boyd inhaled, in deep gulps, Mama’s scent, the scent of the dressing up and the going out for the evening, and followed her out to the verandah. There he and Yvonne watched Papa lead her to the garden gate near the periwinkle fence and down the path for the short walk to the Mitchisons. The darkness, lit only by the peeny-waalies, swallowed them up. Boyd quivered. Would Mama return with news of Susan? Would she ask Mama about him? What wonder, what revelations lay ahead! The feelings of exhilaration and perplexity; what did they mean?

  He flopped in the armchair by the radio, passionately close, to hear the haunting “Wayward Wind” in the caramel light of the drawing room. In every word from the radio he heard the name Susan, Susan. It presented itself in beautiful forms, sunsets and moonlight, sublime thoughts. He sank deeper into the chair. The wayward wind is a restless wind, a restless wind that yearns to wander. It was cosy in the chair, and with the radio playing to him only, his thoughts crept away, airy and light, far away from him.

  * * *

  ‘Come on, go to your bed,’ Papa said, speaking from out of the radio, out of WINZEE, out of the gloom. ‘That damn woman; Adassa!’

  Boyd had fallen asleep next to the radio. It was late. Mama and Papa had returned from their dinner. Mama, smelling of the wonders of another home, of new people, led Boyd to his bed. Bed was the door into the Mullard radio. Boyd dreamt many dreams, all extraordinary and torturous, and so did not see Mama and Papa lying at either ends of their bed late that night, not speaking, arms behind their heads, both with diametrically opposed views about the dinner and about one person: Ann Mitchison.

  During the short walk from the Mitchisons’, they argued.

  ‘I don’t know what you’re arguing about,’ Papa kept saying.

  ‘You know damn well,’ Mama repeated with a boldness that surprised her.

  ‘I don’t,’ Papa replied with studied calm.

  ‘Yes, you do.’

  ‘I do not.’

  And that was when they stopped speaking.

  Mama remembered their entrance to Ann Mitchison’s drawing room, the over-exuberance of their hostess. Mama thought she was better than good-looking, the most attractive woman in the room. But that was because Patricia Moodie was absent, and Miss Hutchinson, and Miss Chatterjee.

  ‘How dreadful,’ Ann Mitchison cried. ‘We live only a few yards away and this is the first time we’ve met. Victoria, what must you think?’

  Mama didn’t have time to think. Tim Mitchison whisked her away and introduced her to a cluster of cravat-wearing bald men, the estate manager, Mr Mason, among them. They were standing in one corner of the room while their wives kept to another corner.

  ‘Mrs Brookes,’ Mr Mason exclaimed, thrusting out his hand, flashing a wide smile and kissing Mama’s hand. ‘You’re looking as wonderful as ever.’

  ‘More wonderful than ever,’ the other men chorused, crowding round, making Mama bat her eyelids and look down shyly. The men loved this, the powerful effect they were having on her.

  ‘That man of yours, where is he?’ Mr Mason laughed, and the other men laughed with him. ‘Don’t tell me.’ He laughed some more and the other men again laughed with him. ‘Always in the company of lovely women.’ The men roared.

  Out of the corner of her eye, Mama saw Papa at the other end of the room, not in the company of lovely women, but in the company of one woman. Ann Mitchison threw back her head and laughed, white neck gleaming, tongue and lips vibrant, hair shimmering; and Papa transfixed before her. And Mama saw her white hand touch Papa on the shoulder.

  At that moment, the bald men no longer about her, Mama felt a drink pressed into her hand and Myrtle, the estate manager’s wife, next to her like a comfort blanket. Myrtle was a woman who was happy with herself and her station and saw nothing in speaking for hours, it seemed, about such topics as maids and the trials of planning that year’s Crop-Over Dance at the club. Mama wanted to get away while wanting, almost as much, to be near someone who wanted to be with her. Myrtle was one of those rare Englishwomen who had lived in Jamaica so long that she was more Jamaican than some of her neighbours.

  ‘Harold’s quite a live wire, isn’t he?’ Myrtle said during one of the few lulls in the conversation, observing Mama as she craned her neck to seek out Papa.

  Mama laughed softly and sipped her drink, but she remembered the last time someone used that term of description. It was Papa, describing Ann Mitchison. After that she grew silent and let Myrtle talk. She couldn’t bear to watch as Papa was sought out time and time again by their charming hostess. At one point they seemed to glide out onto the verandah in the dim light, like a courting couple. Mama cast her eyes about the room, expecting everyone to be astonished. But the laughter and the chatter, the social intercourse, carried on. She was the only person who noticed. She was the only one who saw them on the evening primrose-scented verandah, in the clinging warmth, under the watching stars, close to touching.

  * * *

  Eight shillings a week was what Papa paid Adassa. Boyd, standing behind the door wanting news of Susan Mitchison, overheard him say so to Mama in the pantry as he bent over his gun, oiling and polishing the barrel and stock in preparation for his shooting trip with Mr Moodie and Mr Dowding.

  ‘Why is that man still here?’ Papa asked, squinting down the barrel.

  ‘Which man?’ Mama’s expression reflected pure displeasure.

  ‘Adassa’s man,’ Papa said.

  ‘Adassa’s man? You mean Mr Gordon, Adassa’s uncle, who brought her on his bicycle?’

&
nbsp; ‘That’s the man. What’s he doing here?’

  ‘Doing here?’

  ‘He’s outside,’ Papa said calmly, pointing the barrel of the gun out the window and squeezing the trigger.

  Mama clutched at the table and groaned. ‘You mustn’t do that, Harold,’ she said with gritted teeth. ‘You know I don’t like you having that gun around the house. The children – ’

  ‘It’s not a gun. It’s a shotgun. And you know I keep it in a safe place, away from them. It’s impossible to do any harm in the house. Look, he’s talking to her right now, her “uncle”, if you can believe that.’

  ‘Where?’ Mama thought Papa was being silly.

  ‘Look out the window.’

  Mama looked and there was Mr Gordon, he of the Raleigh bicycle without fenders, from Accompong. He was partly hidden by the crotons, talking to Adassa on the steps to her room. He took the large paper bag she offered him and put it hastily into the brown crocus bag at his feet. Then he hoisted that up on the handlebars of his bicycle and rode off. Adassa appeared at the door of her room, glanced towards the sky, seemed to sniff the air, came down the steps and continued along the path to the kitchen.

  ‘Oh,’ Mama said to Papa, as if it was all clear to her now. ‘Adassa told me he was bringing her some personal items. She wasn’t certain she’d get the job, you know, and so didn’t bring all her personal belongings with her.’

  ‘Oh,’ Papa mimicked Mama. ‘So this is the last we’ll see of him.’

  Adassa could now be heard in the kitchen.

  ‘Was that Mr Gordon, Adassa?’ Mama called out.

  ‘Who, ma’am?’ Adassa seemed surprised.

  ‘Mr Gordon. Was that him?’

  Adassa entered the pantry, saw the gun and shrunk back. ‘Is something wrong, ma’am?’

  ‘Adassa, no.’ Mama said the words slowly. ‘Was that Mr Gordon?’

  ‘Which Mista Gordon, ma’am?’ She seemed even more alarmed.

  ‘Your uncle.’

  ‘Mista Gordon?’ She gave a short, awkward laugh. ‘Oh, you mean Mista Gordon, ma’am. Yes, him come to see how ah doing. But him gone, ma’am.’

  ‘Is he coming back?’ Papa asked, still squinting down the barrel of the gun and remembering how she’d left the children unsupervised.

  ‘Coming back, sar?’

  ‘Yes, that is what I said. You understand English, don’t you? Is he coming back on the premises? Yes or no?’

  ‘No, sar,’ Adassa stammered, knowing that that was the required answer.

  ‘Good,’ Papa said, having a mind to fire her on the spot. The impulse, a reflex one, was simply because he was in a quandary about Ann Mitchison. She was in his thoughts and could not be put aside. He wanted to pull the trigger, release the strange pressure that had built up inside him.

  Adassa remained rooted to the spot, eyes on the gun.

  ‘It’s all right,’ Mama said gently, indicating that she could return to the kitchen.

  ‘Yes, ma’am,’ Adassa said, bowing and leaving, eyes wide. She was quite shaken.

  Mama faced Papa, shocked. ‘Are you saying her uncle can’t visit her at her place of work?’

  ‘I know these people.’ Papa was very casual, giving his full attention to the gun. ‘You lived in that gingerbread house all your life till you met me. You don’t know them the way I do. You see people. I see shenanigans. I’m telling you, Victoria, that man’s no uncle of hers. Keep a sharp eye on her.’

  ‘Not her uncle?’ Mama pretended not to hear the reference to the gingerbread house and her inexperience, a not very subtle continuation of the after-dinner argument.

  ‘No,’ Papa said, and changed the subject. ‘Radcliffe, the tutor I told you about, is coming here tomorrow. He’s got a BA from the University College of the West Indies, y’know. We agreed four hours a day, three days a week. Get them in shape before they go back to school.’

  Mama remembered, during the only moments they were together at dinner, Ann Mitchison’s comment about the Balaclava Academy, the prep school Papa had chosen for Boyd. She intended to send her Susan there too, based on Papa’s recommendation.

  ‘See that he gives them the full four hours. That Barrington needs to buckle down, set an example. He spends all his time riding about all over the place like a circus monkey. Get behind him, Victoria. I’m not throwing good money away.’

  Mama thought Papa very devious, talking about the children’s education rather than concentrating on the issue of immediate concern. She despaired at his insensitivity. Hadn’t he been the slightest bit conscious of the attention Ann Mitchison was paying him, and imagined the effect that it might have had on her? And, even if there was nothing in it, why couldn’t he be just a little understanding? She felt abandoned.

  Papa cleared his throat. ‘Anyway, I’m off to the mountains tomorrow.’

  ‘You take care,’ Mama said. ‘You always hear of someone getting shot by mistake.’

  ‘Moodie and Dowding are good shots. Anyway, make me a nice packed lunch. Don’t let Adassa near it. Does that woman ever wash her hands? You do it, Victoria. I don’t want her near my sandwiches.’ And Papa gave Mama a warm smile, so affectionate that Mama smiled back. Her face softened and her troubles subsided.

  Boyd, seeing this display of affection, left his place behind the door and wandered off into the flowery warmth of the garden, where he frolicked with Susan all afternoon, ecstatic with the lovely distress. Her eyes were marbles and her lips rose petals.

  That night in bed his thoughts tumbled about. Ever since the dinner at the Mitchisons, he’d wanted to ask Mama about Susan, but there was never a suitable moment to raise the question. And when Papa or Mama or Yvonne, even Barrington, made some reference to the Mitchisons, he had been too self-conscious to say anything. Now Susan was too important to mention.

  Mama tumbled about in bed too and could not sleep. She thought she saw Ann Mitchison’s face on Papa’s pillow. She sat up in bed like a jack-in-the-box. It was then that she knew that she had gone too far. She berated herself: she was wrong, was dreadfully silly and would have to make it up to Papa. Ann Mitchison had simply been the most marvellous hostess. It was true that she had spent a lot of time with Papa. Mama had never seen another woman respond like that to Papa, standing close to him, looking into his eyes, speaking intently. But as the wife of the assistant general manager, of course it was her duty to get to know the competent deputy assistant chief chemist, soon to be assistant chief chemist. Just when Papa was really getting ahead, she, the one person who should provide every possible support, had not been up to it, had behaved like a silly girl, full of jealous impulses. She accepted that it was all because of her inexperience of life, quite unlike the other young women on the estate, who had excess of it. She would stop it at once, that very night, and support her husband.

  * * *

  When Papa returned from his shooting trip, he was surprised to find that Mr Radcliffe, BA, UCWI, had not turned up. But Barrington was more surprised to find that Papa had returned with only a dozen sad little birds. He couldn’t imagine what Papa and his friends had been up to. If it had been him, the whole family would be feasting on big birds for weeks. Of course, he said all this when Papa was safely at the factory, but he said it all the same. Adassa presented bird for supper two nights in a row.

  ‘Can I have pudding instead?’ Yvonne asked on the second evening.

  ‘You don’t know what you’re missing,’ Papa said, forking her tiny bird onto his plate. ‘All that sweet pudding will rot your teeth.’

  ‘Adassa, pudding please,’ Mama called out to the kitchen.

  ‘You call me, ma’am?’ Adassa came halfway into the room.

  ‘Yes, can you please serve the pudding.’

  ‘Pudding, ma’am?’

  ‘Yes, Adassa, pudding.’

  ‘But – ’ Adassa spread her hands and pretended to look silly.

  ‘What is it now?’ Papa said sharply.

  ‘Nothing, sar. There’s no pud
ding.’

  ‘No pudding?’ Mama said, shocked. ‘But you baked several yesterday.’

  ‘But, ma’am, you know the children like their pudding and ah cut a slice every now and again, and before you know – ’

  ‘Blaming the children now,’ Papa muttered, concentrating on his bird, chewing the small brittle bones into pulp.

  ‘Poor Yvonne wanted just a small slice,’ Mama despaired.

  ‘Ah get her custard, ma’am. Ah use the half dozen eggs from the laying hens.’

  ‘And ginger beer too.’ Yvonne chose her moment effectively.

  But puddings were not the only missing items that evening. Mama could not find bed linen – a pair of embroidered pillowcases and two flat sheets. Everyone suggested that the items might have gone astray during the move.

  ‘But I packed everything away carefully,’ Mama said in her worried way. Only the devil could have spirited away the clothes.

  The children were instructed to look again in the cupboards, under beds and in the laundry basket. Adassa searched every inch of the laundry room and when she was through, had to do it all over again. She searched in the grass beneath the clothes’ line and in a twenty yard radius. Did the wind blow the clothes off the line? Did Poppy, in a moment of insanity, drag the clothes off and secrete them under the house? Vincent was dispatched to find out. Armed with a broomstick (‘Anything could be under the house, like Duppy’) he searched every dark corner in two minutes flat and emerged, looking over his shoulder. No clothing found.

  At dinner the next evening, to everyone’s surprise, Papa complimented Adassa on her cooking. She’d prepared Fricassee Chicken, baked breadfruit and a sauce thick with baby onions. The meal was not particularly outstanding.

  But Papa said, ‘You know, you are a good cook.’

  Adassa was astonished. She hung her head. ‘Yes, sar?’

  ‘And you bake the best puddings, too.’

  ‘Is true, sar?’ Adassa was glowing.

  ‘Yes, it’s true. Why don’t you bake sweet potato puddings this weekend? Cornmeal puddings too. Use lots of coconut milk and raisins.’