‘And a happy Christmas to you too,’ I muttered.
‘What did you say?’ Mother glowered.
‘Nothing, Mother,’ I said.
‘Good,’ Mother replied, ushering me into the corridor where Patricia, Clifton and Sonny were hovering. ‘And that’s the last time I want to hear you blaspheme. The word Christmas is a pagan term. There is only Christendom. Now, upstairs with you, and give me some peace!’
Chapter 23
I wasn’t sure whether Patricia and Clifton’s stories about fingers and toes falling off and mouths freezing shut were true or not, but I decided that, just to be on the safe side, I would start wearing the pair of mittens and the knitted red-and-black-striped scarf and matching tea cosy hat that Mrs Kelly had given me. I wanted to wear them straight away, but I knew that mother hated the fact that Mrs Kelly was always knocking on our door with various offerings, so I thought if I left it for a bit she might forget. Mrs Kelly’s sons, Frankie and Aaron, were a similar age to Clifton and Sonny, so she would sometimes give my mother clothes parcels for them. On one occasion she even gave us a huge cut of Irish beef.
‘Excess to need,’ she’d said, explaining that she had brought the meat over from County Cork in Ireland where she came from.
Mother never refused these things, but as soon she heard Mrs Kelly’s front door slam, she started cursing her. ‘That woman is just renk,’ she exclaimed, ‘she must think we are some kind of paupers that she keeps giving us her second-hand tat!’
But, no matter what she had been given, she always carefully packed away the things and, in the case of the clothes, the boys were soon dressed in Frankie or Aaron’s unwanted garments. And so, despite her huffing and puffing, Mother quickly made space in the chest freezer and slipped the beef inside. Imagine my surprise when, on the twenty-fifth of December, she served up the very same piece of beef without alluding to its origins, or to the day we weren’t celebrating.
When Christmas was over, I breathed a sigh of relief that I wouldn’t get into any trouble for accidentally blaspheming again, but the holiday had brought one welcome change: Patricia, the boys and I had finally begun to talk about our time growing up on our island. They all had questions for me, even though they were mostly about mangoes, which was the fruit that they, like me, loved and missed the most. Sonny wanted to know why mangoes didn’t grow in London, to which Clifton replied, ‘Because it’s too cold here, stupid! There’s not enough sun to make them ripe.’
I laughed out loud, recalling that these were the kind of details Clifton had always noticed. I tried to ask them questions about the place their father had taken them to when he’d spirited them away from our grandparents’ home, but the boys immediately clammed up and Patricia shifted uneasily before saying, ‘It was alright, but we missed you and…’ then her sentence trailed off. She quickly got up and moved away as if to emphasise that the conversation had ended.
That same night in bed Patricia interrupted my reading. ‘When we came to London, our father told us that we shouldn’t use your name or our grandparents’ names in his house,’ she said.
I put my book down, fascinated to hear what my sister had to tell me.
‘One time, he caught me and Clifton talking about Grand-ma Melba and Grandpa Sippa, and he beat us really bad.’
I was really sad to hear this. I had been so happy to learn that she and the boys had missed our grandparents and our island as much as I did, and that they also missed me just as much as I missed them. At least we were back together now, the four of us. I didn’t count my mother and the ugly Satan devil man as family.
At the start of January, Patricia, Clifton and Sonny went back to school and I carried on as before with my days of washing and walking. But one Saturday morning, towards the end of the month, I woke up to my first sight of snow. It had been the one thing I had longed to see in England. The ugly grey streets were transformed into something magical and dreamlike. I watched for hours with my nose pressed to the cold windowpane as the countless white flakes rushed silently to the ground. Rooftops groaned under their new soft white mantles and the roads, the pavements, even the cars, disappeared under a sea of white.
‘We have to go to the park,’ Patricia cried, ‘so we can see how pretty it is!’
We pulled on our boots and rushed to the front door.
Outside, we padded through the deep snow counting the different footprint patterns as we went, all the way to the park.
‘I wish I had one of those!’ Sonny said, as soon as we entered the park. He was pointing towards two children whizzing down a steep slope on a wooden sledge.
‘It looks like fun,’ I agreed, and we stood and watched for a few minutes. I could have stayed all day, looking at the snowy trees and the happy children, but my toes, exposed by my burned right boot, were already freezing, and I decided it was time to go. ‘Come on,’ I said, ‘before the cole a kill me! Mi have to get back to the house.’
Reluctantly, the others trudged back home with me.
We returned to discover Mother and the ugly Satan devil man in a terrible mood. At first, I thought that they must have had some kind of a fight, but it turned out that it was us they were angry with.
‘Did you give them permission to leave the house?’ Mother asked her husband.
‘No! Did you?’ he replied.
She sucked her teeth loudly and turned her attention to Patricia.
‘Patricia, what did I tell you to do this morning?’
Before Patricia could give any kind of answer, her father jumped in, ‘It must be woman she thinks she is now! She must believe is she make decisions in this house.’
The boys darted off to their room, while I sat half-way up the stairs furiously glaring at the ugly Satan devil man and my mother who hovered behind him like his evil assistant.
‘I’m sorry,’ Patricia mumbled under her breath.
‘You said something?’ the ugly Satan devil man said in a menacing voice.
‘I’m sorry,’ Patricia repeated.
Without warning the ugly Satan devil man grabbed Patricia and began to beat her with his belt.
‘No!’ Patricia screamed. ‘What did I do? I didn’t do anything!’
Her screaming seemed to fire up her father even more. His eyes were bright red and there was a rage inside them that terrified me. In a flash, he brought his belt down on Patricia’s back, her backside, her legs, whatever part of her body presented itself to him as she squirmed in his grasp. With each lash of the belt, I grimaced in sympathy for Patricia. Despite her guttural screams, not a single tear rained on her face. It was as though the anger she was feeling prevented them.
‘Enough, Philbert, stop now,’ Mother said eventually, reaching out and restraining her husband’s arm. ‘We don’t want this devil child’s blood on our hands.’
Just as quickly as it had begun, the beating stopped.
‘Get out of my sight!’ Mother shouted. ‘Next time you won’t get away so easy.’
I was shocked and confused. I couldn’t understand why Patricia was being singled out. It wasn’t the first time that we’d gone to the park. I had no idea what was different about this occasion.
Chapter 24
When my siblings’ February half-term arrived, I took a deep breath one morning and walked up to my mother while she was doing her ironing. ‘Mi did wonder when mi kyan go buy mi uniform, soh mi kyan go school with Patricia,’ I said.
‘You’re plenty old enough to look for a job and take some of the burden off your father and me,’ she replied, without looking up.
‘But mi ave to reach sixteen to stop school an work!’ I protested.
‘I could get you a job as an orderly in my hospital,’ she said, ignoring my statement.
The mention of hospital brought back memories of Grandma Melba, propped up in a hospital bed bleeding heavily from her nose.
‘But mi nuh like de sight of blood! An mi nuh waan fi work in no hospital. Mi waan fi go a school!’
My mother looked at me as if I had lost my mind.
‘Blood?’ she mocked. ‘Did I mention the words nurse or doctor, Erna? I said hospital orderly. It means you have to clean up after people.’
‘Well, mi nuh want fi do dat eider.’
‘You have to make yourself useful,’ she said. ‘You can’t sit round the house like some kind of Queen Bee doing nothing.’
‘But I want to go to school!’ I protested.
Mother eyed me carefully.
‘You can start looking after the twins by taking them to and from Mrs McPherson’s,’ she said.
I gazed at her in dismay. ‘Mi wi look after dem, till mi start school,’ I replied. There was no arguing with her, but in my head I was determined I would be starting school not too far in the future.
Each morning, I pushed the twins in their Silver Cross pram to Mrs McPherson’s house, which was four streets away. Mrs McPherson was a frumpy white woman who only minded black children. As well as the twins, there were four other kids she looked after. Whenever I sneaked a look in the front room, they were always sat on the floor with blank expressions on their faces, a few fluffy toys around them, in which they showed little interest. The house was small and dingy and smelt of the scruffy white Yorkshire terrier that always preceded Mrs McPherson.
‘Out of the way, Trixie, make some room for Erna!’ Mrs McPherson said, as I rolled the pram into the hallway on the first day of my new career. As usual, one twin began to cry, followed by the other.
‘Hand over the little dears,’ she said, ‘they’ll stop that racket the minute you’re gone.’
Mrs McPherson repeated that exact phrase the following morning too, with a tight smile that didn’t match the jovial tone of her voice, and each day I left her house with a mixture of relief and sadness. Once I’d got that chore out of the way, I would head to the library to sit and read in the warmth. I had secretly joined the library before Christmas, and I was able to borrow six books on my card, and twice as many when I used my mother’s card, which sat untouched on the hall table.
‘It’s good that you love reading so much dear,’ the librarian commented on one of my visits, ‘but I’m not sure your parents would approve of your choices.’ She peered at me over her glasses, waiting for my response.
‘Oh, no, these are for my mother, you see,’ I replied. ‘I don’t even look at them.’
Mills and Boon, Georgette Heyer and Ian Fleming’s James Bond novels became my most trusted companions. Once I’d completed my chores, I would climb back into bed with a hot water bottle and a book. The words transported me to worlds far more interesting than my own. For hours at a time, I could escape my dreary existence into romance and adventure. If the day was sunny, I would walk to the local park and sit on the bandstand and watch people going about their business. Elderly couples, people walking dogs, parents of small children not yet in school – everyone seemed to have a purpose apart from me. Then I would take a slow stroll back to Mrs McPherson’s and wait while she changed the twins out of their filthy nappies and food-spattered clothing.
‘Yuh aright with how Miss McPherson tek care a de twins?’ I asked my mother one evening, as I helped her prepare dinner in the kitchen.
‘You think you can look after them better?’
‘Dem always wet and dirty wen mi go pick dem up,’ I said.
‘And I asked you if you think you can look after them better?’ she replied.
‘No, mam.’ I stared at her, trying to gauge her mood.
‘What is it?’ she said eventually.
‘Mi want to go school on Monday,’ I said.
Mother said nothing in response she just carried on stirring the big aluminium pot on the gas stove. I looked at her and realised that she was never going to relent. If I was going to do something about this, I was going to have to do it on my own.
The following morning, after I dropped off the twins, I set out on a mission to find myself a school. A thick fog had enveloped everything, which made it difficult to see more than a few yards ahead of me, but nevertheless, after half an hour of wandering, I found myself standing at the entrance to a formidable red-brick school building. A group of children were playing chase in the playground. One of them noticed me and ran over to the gate. She was a tiny girl with a head of white-blonde hair and glinting eyes the colour of the sky on a clear blue day.
‘Do you want me to get you a teacher?’ she asked.
‘Mi jus want to ask someone how to fine a big school,’ I said.
The little girl screwed up her face. ‘I’ll get a teacher,’ she said emphatically, before walking off.
She returned accompanied by a pretty young woman in an orange mini-dress and green overcoat.
‘How can I help?’ she asked in a kindly voice.
‘Mi looking for a school for me to go to, miss,’ I said.
‘Oh, you mean a secondary school?’ she replied.
I nodded.
‘Well, there’s Catford Girls’ School, just off the Bromley Road,’ she said, pointing in a vague southerly direction. Seeing that I needed more help than that, she gave me precise directions.
I thanked her and set off down the road trying to remember the left and right turns. I lost my bearings almost immediately, but then, through the fog, I saw a burly man coming towards me.
As he drew level, I began to ask him for directions, ‘Excuse mi, please, sarh, I’m looking for—’
‘Why don’t you go back to where you came from?’ he spat, before I could finish my question. I felt a hard jab to my side and stumbled off the pavement. ‘Bloody nig-nog,’ he added, without looking back.
The next person I asked was more helpful, and eventually I reached the gates of a school building almost identical to the first one. A man dressed in blue overalls was sweeping the playground.
‘The reception’s through there,’ he said, pointing towards a pair of large blue-painted doors with the word Entrance above them. ‘Turn left when you get inside.’
He held the gate open for me and I walked across the asphalt playground with my heart racing in my chest. Once through the doors, I entered a long corridor, and was immediately startled by dozens of teenage girls rushing towards me. I drew my body up against the wall and waited for them to pass. I continued onwards until I reached the open door of a small office and peered inside.
‘Step forward, child,’ commanded a tiny, neatly dressed woman, looking up from her typewriter.
I entered the room nervously.
‘You look like you’ve walked for miles,’ she said, eyeing me up and down. ‘Would you like a cup of tea?’
‘Yes, tank you, mam.’
‘Sit down there then, and don’t touch anything,’ she said.
I sat on the hard plastic chair and waited. Several minutes later she returned with a steaming mug of tea, which I grasped with both hands, allowing them to absorb the heat.
‘Do you have an appointment?’ she asked, sitting back behind her desk.
‘No, mam. I want to come to dis school, mam.’
She picked up the black telephone and spoke briefly. Replacing the phone on the receiver, she said, ‘Miss Wells will see you as soon as she is free.’
A book on her desk titled Jane Eyre caught my eye.
‘Can I look at de book, mam?’
‘Help yourself,’ she said, her fingers still tapping away.
I flicked through the pages and stopped when the word ‘Jamaica’ sprang out at me. I was completely absorbed in the book when, a few minutes later, a small, stoutly built white woman entered the room.
‘I am Miss Wells,’ she said, in a strident voice that gave the impression of a much larger person. Her short grey hair framed a face full of wrinkles. Silver spectacles with round lenses sat on the tip of her pointy nose. She seemed rather old to be a teacher. ‘Come with me,’ she instructed.
She led me to another office, although this one was larger and had framed awards on the walls. ‘Please, sit down,’ she said, m
otioning me to a wooden chair. ‘Miss Robinson told me you are enquiring about continuing your education here. When was the last time you attended school?’
‘Last year, mam. Jus before I come to England, mam.’
‘And you say you’re fourteen years old.’
‘Yes, mam.’
‘Please don’t call me that “mam”, or whatever it is you’re saying,’ she said.
‘Mi sorry, mam. Mi mean, mi sorry, Miss Wells.’
She peered at me over the top of her spectacles.
‘Okay, consider yourself registered. We’ll expect you Monday morning, then. Oh, and tell your parents you’ll need these.’ She handed me a piece of paper with a list of the items I needed for school.
‘Tank you, Miss Wells.’ I said. ‘Tank you very much!’
Later that day, after I’d collected the twins from Mrs McPherson’s, I presented the piece of paper to my mother. ‘Dis is de list de teacher give mi fi mi school clothes,’ I said.
She eyed me carefully and I thought I detected a hint of admiration in her voice. ‘So, you’re going to school against my advice?’ she said. ‘Well, I hope the books will feed you,’ she added, sucking her teeth with contempt. She read through the list, then dug into her purse and handed me a five-pound note. ‘I don’t know where this teacher is coming from with her multiply by two,’ she said, ‘what’s wrong with water and soap when clothes get dirty?’
‘Nothing, Mother,’ I said, quickly pocketing the five pounds.
Patricia was standing by, quietly listening.
‘I’ll take you to the shop, Erna,’ she offered. ‘We can go on Saturday.’
I looked at my mother, who was gazing at me with an amused expression on her usually stern face. I had won my first victory. But victory, as they say, is fleeting.
Chapter 25
‘Patricia,’ I said, as we walked to the uniform shop the following Saturday, ‘is why mek yuh father beat yuh soh much?’
The Day I Fell Off My Island Page 18