In Our Mad and Furious City

by Guy Gunaratne

  * * *

  I promise she. Sad and young and stupid. I was off to old Britain and saying goodbyes by the Plymouth station. She was getting to cry. I was trying to calm she. Asking that she wait for me to return a bigger man. Lord, the memory still alive. Maisie there most vivid. Short hair and bright lips all moody. Folded arms refusing, so I cannot even take she hand to kiss. She was so upset for what? Bon voyage for I.

  I know you will forget me Nelson, she say, you not never coming back for me.

  This young thing, lashing me in front of everybody. How dare I, she say, how I can leave so easy? Maisie was the younger to me, still a girl really and the daughter of the pastor. If I was to wed she I would have to wait. And after everything Britain call me, I explain, the Mother Country call we come. That great and grand old Britain, the poster and film reel call all the young gully fools to hop on the boat-train to London. I buy the story hook and sinker. Maisie did not. The woman was always sharper than I. She knew, she tell me, that the place would be a hard time and I would forget who I was.

  Why you can’t stay in Montserrat, Nelson? My mama here, your mama too. We can make a life on this island.

  Sweetheart, we agree a fortnight ago did we not? Is the best thing going forward. You say that yourself.

  Dare you sweetheart me now? Dare you?

  She face so vex. So much braver than I, this girl. She eyes such a rage in love for she boy, so young. And Lord, I could not blame the girl for worrying for me. Plenty other fellars in Montserrat was claiming the same. We never see none of them come back for no woman. But I was not like most men. I promise, promise that I would come back for she. I mean it. And at that age, a day-fly, it was a big-man promise for a boy to make.

  So I say goodbye to my mama, my uncle Richard, and my old dog Lolo. Everything I knew as familiar. As the porter call all-aboard, she drop she head like she lose me already. I pull she close and whisper. I ask, will you wait for me Maisie? Not for a moment did I think she would not. Maisie come into my arms after that. For no matter any rash word said between we, she love me hard that one, she love me still.

  Back, back. Country miserable poor when I arrive. Step off the boat-train and I see Britain for what it was. Nothing like the postcard image, never. Not like the wonder we think up on the boat over, we boys all smiles but not in possession of a clue. Them pictures of London we have in Montserrat was all the fine-clothed gentleman, lady in a pinafore, narrow white faces, white teeth them smiling at a lovely green lawn. When I come here, I was faced with bad air, gray sky, and a mad, hustling whirl of a place. Everybody poor, everybody ailing. But all right. I see it, but I never feel it, not when I arrive, the hardness. Instead I have a sorta rush. Was like the noise possess me. And the wild energy on the road match the wild splitting in my own stupid heart.

  For those of we who arrive with nothing more than a case and cap, they had set up a welcome committee. I see a small troop of black Englishman waving a pamphlet in them hand saying they will help me find a job and a housing. Well I never need no pamphlet for that. They was from black after all, so who else I cling to fresh from boat but my own likeness? I trust them instantly. I was grateful for a place to sleep sound and safe them first weeks. After which I was fix with a permanent bed and a work and a wage. Settle in a part of the city what have only black and Indian settle there. The Grove was where it all began. All the peeling paint and the sound of island music color the memory of that place now. In all them patches around Latimer Road, Westbourne Park, and Ladbroke Grove, this was where we all gain a foothold in this country.

  My young life fill up with faces after that, Londoner veteran and new. I begin to follow along with a bandy migrant troop whom I get to know and share this new life with. I remember all them. They all had them island names. Keith Jacob, Curtis John, that fellar Clive, Shirley and she husband Dicky Boy, and the old fellars Derrick Lawrie, Jimbroad, and Claude. Closest I come to brothers, them. Sisters and uncles too, all from black and far from home.

  You boy! How you come on boat all by yourself?

  Boy, they call me, boy this, boy that. Was true I was much younger than most of them. And I look it. Stand me next to them Jamaicans and I come off a mite. I remember feeling bad at my slightness, embarrass by it even. To compensate I labor enough the same. Work harder, in fact. I take to road work and the housing reconstruction and a factory job. Shift upon shift I take. To show them that I was bigger man than I was. Earning plenty money early on. But man, that work so pounding hard for all of we, when we do find the time to lay down Lord, these new faces show me how.

  I never drink so hard before. Two shilling and sixpence for a beer in a basement. Blechynden Street under the burrows. This was where we drown into oblivion. It have a Jamaican fellar name King Dick who have a party every Saturday. Come drink and dance to the rhythm and blues. There we coast a lime as them Trini brother call it, we listen to the match score on the wireless, the local and the England team. We sing, we dance, we make a plenty joke. I remember that Curtis John, he always have a pretty lady with him. And Keith always know where to get a good weed. And then Clive and Derrick always come in twos like a comedy, falling about with a orange peel in them mouth. Lord, them Saturday nights we would wind down and drown in a bitter. And boy, the bitter I could not handle. The stuff spin down my throat and I would get soft and talk foolish. Mouth off about how I am in love, love, love. Real love I say, with Maisie, and how I intend to go home and fetch my sweetheart after I have made a good bit of money.

  Holy God, you hear him Curtis? The boy Nelson want a wedlock already.

  What the arse you want do that for? You want go full charge into purgatory?

  You in a hurry for misery, boy? What you want?

  Hey Shirley, why you can’t find a girl here for Nelson? Plenty here for him.

  All they make a joke. The only one who does not is Shirley. She was from Trinidad and she smack Dicky Boy across the chest if he get too mean with me. She arms would come around my shoulder. They would shut up when Shirley tell them. She was like a queen to all of them ones there.

  You all shut your mouth. Nelson baby, if you want wait for this girl, you wait. Pay no mind to this miscreant lot. You will make a fine husband is what I think.

  It meant plenty to hear that from Shirley. Make me feel good, I get a confidence in myself. Shirley was the fiercest in the whole set in them days.

  Now drink up boy, stop nursing it.

  It was all fall-about nights like that. Along the local party road, bounding into the lights on occasion and taking in the pretty Piccadilly Circus and Trafalgar Square. But we always come back to the Grove. This little part of London for the music and heavy fun. But all that inspire another sorta anguish. I would never know when a dance turn into a brawl. It was like a loneliness among we always find a way out in a fist. Fellars like Dicky Boy, who love a rab, would have him shirt off dancing to Oriental Ball and Shirley always trying to pull him down from a table or stop him from bottling a head. But the music never stop. We keep on dancing, feet in the blood. The music was too good man, too bright and remind we of home. It have a calypso as well as the new blues. Bit of Bessie Smith, bit of Fats Waller. The trumpet, the drums. Oh the drums, now. We raise the dead with that sound.

  This gang was no fool sort either. On occasion I hear them talk long about the state of the country. About them unions and white oppressors and whatnot. I never know what the arse they talk about early on, but Shirley and Clive borrow me books to read. Give me names like Equiano, Cugoano, and Aimé Césaire. Books what talk about how it is to be black in a place of plenty. I learn a lot from this new Londoner few, but it was Jimbroad I get closest to. Brother Jimbroad was tall and thin, lived up on Bramley Road. Was educated in books, and angry, it seem to me, at the whole world because of it. He lived with that fellar Claude, they would exchange clothes I remember, and was both ex-RAF veteran and had fight in the war. Now they lived in the Grove and would help them newcomers to settle in. Chaps like Jimbroad a
nd Claude, who had travel all over the Commonwealth and seen all the full nature of Britain, was now wanting to give the likes of me a education in its maladies.

  I remember one time Jimbroad give me a book that was thick as a doorstop. I remember I try brush him off.

  Come away man, I say, I not all that interested in this politics business. I just come here for work and get on.

  Boy, listen, he say, you might not want be interested in politics, but politics find you either way. This is the beginning of a bad, bad tide brother.

  Man, Jimbroad know it before anybody. When I find out about this city tide, I learn it over a smoke with that old fellar. We was walking home one night from a mushroom club, nearly morning by the time. Rest of the boys behind we merry. So Jimbroad, who suck a pack of Benson Hedges a day, that night offer me a try.

  This here is a B&H boy, he say to me, it soothe the head, soothe your nerve. Give a go with it.

  My head had a temper. So I give a go. I want show Jimbroad and the rest that I was all right with a little bit of smoke. So I suck back deep. Deep, deep with two lungs full up with a hot ghost. Next minute I was coughing holy hell, throat afire. Jimbroad laugh. He nearly clap me too because I nearly spit on him shoe.

  Leave off my shoe boy! Go into the bushes if you want throw it up.

  Who’s throwing up? I can handle it.

  We was standing by the side of a pub near Latimer Road. A lamppost light make a yellow shape of the bush. It make the world feel like it come easy to me in that moment. I walk over to the pub wall then and I unzip my fly. Loose a stream of piss onto that wall there and it feel mighty good. I breathe out and with my breath leave the taste of cigarette. Behind me come Jimbroad’s voice.

  Hey Nelson, how you like this London so far?

  I love it man, I say, I have plenty love for this country here.

  He laugh at that and shake him head like I was stupid. Then I step back after finishing my piss. And I see something written on the wall just above the mark I made. Over the streak it have three big white letters written across in paint. It read KBW. I turn then and I call for Jimbroad.

  Hey man, what this sign here for? KBW.

  Jimbroad come over to see. I watch him face drop a peg when he read it, like he had seen a sign of the devil. He whistle to the others to hurry up.

  All right fellars, let’s we go back to Grove now.

  I watch them others shuffle past. Jimbroad was the sorta fellar who was looking out for all of we. And him more than any other would ask me about Maisie and ask if I really think she wait for me. He would ask it with a sadness too, for I knew he had a lady at home himself, and not seen she since he left for the war. In that moment under the yellow light Jimbroad looked at me as if I was a lamb. From where he was standing I look like I have come into the world from the light too easy, and was not yet ready to see how it was in the dark.

  You want know what that sign mean? he said. It stand for Keep Britain White.

  I hear them words come out Jimbroad mouth and all the reverie drop off me in a blink. I stare at the sign. Keep Britain White. Keep Britain away from the likes of we. Suddenly the same yellow light I had mistook for a gentle haze look like a portent, like some damnation what fill my chest with a heavy weight. And quick it come, quick it went. Jimbroad see my face then and he clap me by the arm like he was telling joke but I know he was not.

  Come on boy, here, try the thing again and we go home. He took the cigarette from him lips and stick it into mine.

  Taste of mud come to me. I pinch it out with my fingers. It had nearly burn out and was not worth a second try. Jimbroad leave me in the lamplight staring at the letters. Was an ugliness in this Britain, I feel it then. But I had not learn it yet. I had learn to drink a bitter, smoke a weed, learn to work and play lairy, but not that. To see it there writ across the brick, it have me numb and leave me feeling a sorta deep-down shame. Sorta shame the Lord give you when you love a wretched thing. Was how it feel like when I realize that this Britain here did not love me back, no matter how much I feel for it.

  Is how I learn what they meant when they call it a bad tide. It was the people bad mind here, the flow of the water, smell of the air. During a high tide things come fairly. The people them welcome a newcomer like a novelty. Other times the tide is low and them smiles turn to bitterness and hate. Sour time like that, the British native think that a tide bring a flood and they do everything they can to push away we, the difference. This was the London I come to. Them old ships what bring common cause was long gone. London was at the beginning of a low tide. After I see that KBW sign I remember I sent a letter to Maisie. But I did not tell she anything about it. How was I to know that when the tide come, it would sweep all this new life away with it?

  ENDS

  CAROLINE

  Before I left Belfast for London the furthest they sent me away was Coleraine. It was after Da had passed, and after they had brought me home. I’d have many pale tears fall over my cheeks at that age, mostly for things not worth weeping about, mind you. After I’d returned I remember sitting on the bank of the river with my face pressed against my dress, hugging my knees for hours. God, crying about something so girlish. There’s me sitting and watching the clops of waves hit the north side, hoping the churn in the murky Lagan would wash off the last of that little prick Conor Collins. Jesus, bodies were being buried in Belfast and there’s me crying over a boy. But he’d made me so angry, the shit. He was the one that’d sent me that stupid letter. The letter telling me that I needn’t try to please him any longer. Please him, he says. Words that hurt more at seventeen for the truth wrapped up in them.

  I remember my fingers reaching down to gather clumps of grass between them. I squeezed my fists tight until the lock of wet blades gave up the earth. I looked down at my hands and stared. There was a little slug in my palm. Wriggling and then not. I threw it into the river and decided that was that with Conor. I rushed home. It was when I turned into the corner of May Street that I heard my name being called.

  Caroline dear!

  I looked over and it was Mrs. McGinty. She was standing there at the grocer’s doorstep with a gloved hand waving. I hesitated at first, as I would, pretending I hadn’t seen her. But the sight of that grim face reminded me of how she’d been our mistress at school. The memory had me wave back.

  Hello Mrs. McGinty, I say as she waited for me to walk over. Mrs. McGinty now ran the post office by the waterfront. She always seemed so severe. Always looking as if she despised the world and all about her.

  Caroline Colgan. Good to see you again. Back from Coleraine, is it?

  Aye, I’ve been back a few days now Mrs. McGinty. Smiling as politely as I could.

  And how’s your ma?

  I told her.

  It’ll be good for her having you around with all those boys she’s got.

  Sure right, I agreed with her.

  I’ve been having an awful time of it as you know.

  Aye, this was when the troubles had begun to start up again. Mrs. McGinty was mother to one of the boys locked in the Long Kesh. She spoke of him as if seeing him there.

  They’ll make a martyr out of you now, I suppose, she said.

  It was a part of our lives then, grief after death. As she spoke she’d give a curious look over the main road as if stern ghosts were listening in. I hadn’t known the nature of those ghosts back then, not really. I hadn’t known how close they were to my own family. Thinking back, that Mrs. McGinty wasn’t really speaking to me. She was speaking past me, in her mind, to Ma and my brothers and the memory of Da.

  D’you see what they’re doing to our own flesh and blood? People are standing in their doorsteps saying their Rosary.

  Well, I was only interested in my own thin life, I should have said that. I hadn’t a mind to see the ugliness that was around me. I’d know about the curfews like and how Da had died. I saw the news of the nail bombs along our commercial roads. Restaurants and shops torn out. But more than that, it wa
s in the eyes of people and the way we spoke with embers in our mouths.

  Well, we go on as we must. Give your ma my wishes child, and God bless.

  She fussed with her groceries and turned to leave.

  I will, yeah. Bye now, I said after her.

  I watched her as she made her way down the road, legs bent in a bow. Too much for aul ones like that to cope, I thought. I hadn’t known that this was the last day my own life would seem so simple and bright.

  I rushed on, late as I was. We lived in the Falls, where everybody knew us. In those days Belfast was like a book. You could read it. Words were all over, slogans and prayers painted on walls and murals and the sides of houses. There was only one route home through the territory and I wouldn’t stray, obviously. I turned into our road. I don’t know what I was thinking dandering around all day. It was even past curfew. I tried not to show it as I rang the bell. Don it was who came to the door. His beard mussed with sauce.

  Sorry I’m late, I said right away.

  Where’ve you been? It’s dinner.

  Don closed the door, holding a napkin in his hand and his mouth half full of spuds. He looked like a right oaf with his sauced napkin tucked into his collar.

  I said I was sorry. I stepped past him and turned so he wouldn’t see the mud streaks down the sides of my dress.

  Our house never changed. With all its green strips of wallpaper and porcelain tat. And the landing that was always dark in the daytime. I’d often glance over the dusty photographs that lined the wall. Mother had probably kept it just that way until the day she died.

  It was Liam and Brian I saw first. Their plates had already been cleaned, Liam with his hands under his chin. Brian swinging his legs. They both looked up at me as I entered. Don sat next to Liam, two big brother bears and little Brian in his own fantasy inspecting his pockets. Ma stood with her back to the table attending to the kettle.

  Where’ve you been girl? Ma’s voice was soft and low. Her hair had only the beginnings of gray in those days, faint strands tangling into her cardigan.