‘I wish to God that I never brought either of you devil children here,’ she said one evening, as she stood at the kitchen door scrutinising us as we prepared a meal for ourselves and the younger children. She’d long refused to eat anything either of us cooked, convinced that we had murdered her husband and were trying to do the same to her. ‘I know I am being punished for my sins,’ she continued. ‘Look at what they have done to me, oh Lord!’ she cried, as we pushed past her carrying plates of food for our hungry siblings.
Mother’s grip on reality wasn’t helped by the coroner’s report, when it finally came. Death by misadventure was the verdict. The devil man had needed his daily insulin injections to survive, but on the day in question he had collapsed due to severe hypoglycemia, and it was the injection of insulin that Patsy had delivered that killed him, from diabetic shock. The coroner was in no doubt that this was nothing more than a tragic accident. But for our mother it was the final confirmation of what she had long believed: that Patsy and I were the devil’s children who had killed her husband and wanted to kill her too. The verdict brought no peace to Patsy or me, either. The doubt I’d felt when Patsy had told me what happened that day lingered, and, whether it was justified or not, I couldn’t escape the idea that Patsy had murdered her own father, and that I had encouraged her to do it. Neither did the death of the ugly Satan devil man bring Patsy the relief that I’d hoped for. Rather than blossoming without the shadow of her father looming over her, she seemed to be struggling with her feelings more than ever, and this often came out as aggression towards the younger children, and even towards herself. There were times when she would fly into sudden fits of rage, or tear at her skin as though she had no feelings left. And for me, living in a house with my mother and Patsy in the state they were in began to feel like I too was being tortured. The one positive was that Auntie Madge and Uncle Herbie never relented in their support for us. As soon as it got to the point where I felt unable to cope, I decided to talk things over with them. The outcome of that conversation was as swift as it was dramatic.
‘Herbie and I have talked to your mother about taking on the care of the younger children,’ Auntie Madge informed Patsy and me during her next visit. ‘To be frank, your mother knows she is no longer in a position to look after the children properly. It’s not that she doesn’t love them – she does – but she is just too sick to cope. Most of their care is already falling on you girls, which isn’t fair on either of you. And they’ll end up with the Social Services if no one in the family can take them. Herbie and I would rather take them on than see them go to strangers.’
‘That’s fine by me,’ Patsy said, the moment Auntie Madge suggested the plan.
‘Me too,’ I agreed. ‘You’re absolutely right, Auntie, it’s all getting too much for me, what with work, studies and everything. And I’m sure Clifton and Sonny and the twins will love living with you and Uncle Herbie. It’s certainly far better than them living here.’
‘Okay, then that’s decided,’ said Auntie Madge. ‘But what about you two girls? Do you think you’ll be able to cope living here with your mother?’
Patsy and I looked at each other. Could we cope? I wasn’t sure.
‘What’s the alternative?’ I asked.
‘The alternative is putting your mother in a mental hospital,’ Auntie Madge said.
Despite everything, the idea of that happening seemed so awful that I felt it was worth trying to keep her with us.
I was soon to learn how misguided my ambition was, and once she became aware of how unwell our mother had become Mrs Kelly started bringing us a mid-week meal.
‘Anything else you need, dears, please just knock,’ she’d say, whenever she popped up at the door. She never came in, but would always ask, ‘How is your ma doing today?’
The truth is we’d become so used to our mother’s deteriorating mental state that we already considered it to be normal, so we’d usually just tell Mrs Kelly that Mum was doing okay.
One Saturday morning in late November, as the leaves were starting to fall more copiously from the huge plane tree outside the house, I sat down to write to Grandpa Sippa.
It had been ages since I last wrote to him, and I needed to tell him what was happening with my mother. It wasn’t an easy letter to write, and I signed off by saying that I hoped he was well and that Miss Blossom was looking after him. As soon as I had sealed the envelope, I burst into tears. Memories of my simple island childhood with Sippa and Melba came flooding back and I felt a deep longing to return to that time. I was sitting with my old, worn-out coat wrapped tightly around me as I wrote my letter, but it offered little warmth. Now that I’d finished, I popped it into my coat pocket, and pulled on a pair of leg warmers and my boots. The knitted scarf that Mrs Kelly gave me all that time ago had turned out to be my most favoured, warm and luxurious item of clothing. I swaddled my neck and upper body in the thick wool and stepped out into the windy autumn afternoon.
Every so often, a gust of wind lifted a few dozen leaves from a pile and sent them swirling a few feet further down the path. At the end of our street, I stopped and posted my letter, before heading towards the local high street. I needed a new coat, but couldn’t afford a new one, so I decided to try my luck at the Oxfam charity shop that I’d passed many times, but never considered going inside before. It wasn’t really the done thing in my family to buy secondhand clothing, but I’d noticed in passing that there was often good quality stuff in the shop’s windows.
The musty smell that permeated the shop became less noticeable as I browsed through the racks. I tried to make myself as inconspicuous as possible in order to hopefully avoid being spotted by anyone I knew. However, this also necessitated the odd glance towards the shop front, in case a complete disappearing trick to the back of the store was required. It was during one of these furtive glances out the window that he caught my eye – a good-looking black man, tall with loose dreadlocks hanging way down his back. When he saw that I’d noticed him he winked at me, and then, to my surprise, he walked into the shop. I spun around and picked up the first thing that came came to hand.
The next thing I knew he was standing behind me. ‘I wouldn’t buy that,’ he said, pointing to the small wooden African carving of a woman with a fat round belly that I was clutching, ‘if I were you.’
‘Why not?’ I replied.
‘Well, you know what they say,’ he laughed, ‘and you definitely don’t look ready to be a mother!’
I had no idea what he was talking about. ‘I like it,’ I lied, ‘and I’m going to buy it anyway.’ I moved past him towards the counter.
He followed.
‘I like your spirit, sister,’ he said. Then added, ‘My name is Fitzroy.’
I ignored him. I had only recently opened a bank account and proudly took out my cheque book to pay for the little carving.
‘How much?’ I asked the young woman at the counter.
‘Oh, that’s fifty pence, I think,’ she said.
I felt a bit silly paying by cheque, but I’d taken it out now.
‘We don’t take cheques for such a small amount,’ said the young woman.
‘But I don’t have any cash on me,’ I pleaded.
‘I’ll cover that.’ Fitzroy produced a little leather coin purse and handed a pound coin to the young woman.
‘Thank you, but you didn’t have to do that,’ I said. ‘How will I get to pay you back?’
‘Easy!’ he replied. ‘Your name and address are printed in your cheque book.’ Then he repeated what he’d clearly seen over my shoulder in my cheque book. ‘So, you live in South London? Maybe I’ll come and visit you one day, Erna Mullings.’
I turned around angrily. ‘How dare you look at my address? That’s private! Now I don’t really care if I can pay you back.’
I took my carving and flounced out of the shop to the echo of his lightly mocking laughter. As soon as I was outside, my legs wobbled and my heart pounded hard in my chest. He really was a
handsome man. I particularly liked his luscious full lips and sparkling smile. I walked back home with a spring in my step. It was only when I got to the front door that I realised I’d completely forgotten why I’d gone into the charity shop in the first place.
The house was in total silence when I entered. With no one around, I lit two of the rings on the old gas cooker – one to warm me up and the other to boil water for my favourite drink, a super hot mug of tea, which I loved for its ability to deliver instant warmth to my body.
I moved towards the window and was about to take my first sip, but, as I lifted the mug towards my mouth, I almost dropped it. My mother was standing, stark naked, in the vegetable patch at the bottom of the garden, apparently having a conversation with herself.
I cracked open the window to call to her, but realised that, if they hadn’t already seen her, me shouting at her would likely attract the attention of the neighbours. I dashed to the back door and threw it open.
‘Mum,’ I hissed, ‘come inside now. Please!’
Mother stopped her conversation and turned towards me. ‘Do you mind, I’m talking to Philbert!’ she said angrily.
‘You can do that inside?’ I offered. ‘Come on, you’ll catch your death of cold out there.’
My mother looked down at herself in amazement. ‘What am I doing here?’ she asked.
I ran across the scruffy lawn and took her hand. ‘Come on,’ I said.
She allowed me to lead her back inside the house as passively as a small child. I took her back to her bedroom and sat her down on the bed. Then I grabbed a dress from her wardrobe and handed it to her.
‘Put that on,’ I said.
She obeyed me without question.
‘I’ve got to go and call Auntie Madge,’ I said, ‘so you just wait there till I get back. Okay?’
She nodded her assent. I ran back downstairs. My previously freezing body was now steamingly hot. I dialled Auntie Madge’s number. As soon as she answered, I told her that I couldn’t cope any longer.
‘It’s okay, Erna,’ she said soothingly. ‘Herbie and I will sort things out.’
I felt an incredible sense of relief when Uncle Herbie’s brown Austin Cambridge estate pulled up outside the house half an hour later.
‘I’ll call the ambulance,’ Auntie Madge said, the moment she walked through the door. ‘You need to go and get your mother’s things in order.’
She instructed me to collect various items of clothing and toiletries from Mother’s room, which she then packed neatly into a suitcase. Uncle Herbie helped me get Mother downstairs and led her to the waiting ambulance. It was the last time Mother saw the house she’d lived in since she’d arrived in England eight years earlier. I stood at the top of the steps and watched the ambulance disappear down the road, followed by Auntie Madge and Uncle Herbie in their car. Patsy was nowhere to be seen.
It wasn’t until much later on that evening, as I sat alone in the front room, that I finally allowed myself to think of my meeting with the enigmatic Fitzroy.
Chapter 36
It was an unseasonably warm, muggy March day when I went with Auntie Madge to visit Mum in hospital.
The consultant who met with us didn’t mince his words, ‘I’m afraid to say that Mrs Williamson is not responding to her medication in any kind of beneficial manner. In fact, she appears to be deteriorating and we’re trying electric shock therapy as a last resort.’
‘Goodness me, you tried that years ago,’ Auntie Madge said, in an exasperated tone.
The consultant looked at his notes. ‘Yes, I can see that,’ he replied, ‘but her diagnosis at the time was depression. What we’re looking at now is paranoid schizophrenia.’
I found everything about the Ladywell psychiatric wing of the Maudsley hospital depressing. The walls of the consultant’s office were bare, apart from his various certificates of achievement; the ward where my mother lay catatonic from her latest round of ECT was stark. Despite everything I’d endured since arriving in England, I felt nothing but sadness for my mother, and I’d secretly begun to hope that she wouldn’t recover from her treatment, that she would slip away from this life and finally find some relief. But what the consultant said next terrified me.
‘The reason I said last resort is because your mother has tried to commit suicide,’ he said, staring fixedly at me.
‘What?’ I turned and looked at Auntie Madge, who seemed equally shocked. ‘Did you know about this?’ I asked her.
She shook her head.
‘And it’s not the first time,’ the doctor continued.
Auntie Madge sat bolt upright in her chair.
‘Then why is this the first time you’re telling us?’ she said.
‘We see no point in upsetting relatives unnecessarily,’ he said.
‘Unnecessarily?’ Auntie Madge cried. ‘Well, why are you telling us now then?’
‘Because we may have to move your sister to a secure ward,’ the consultant replied.
My poor mother! I was trying to think how I was going to tell Grandpa Sippa what was happening with his daughter. Auntie Madge had heard from Miss Blossom that Grandpa had been seriously unwell, and so we’d agreed to keep the deterioration of his daughter from him, but, surely, he deserved to know?
This conundrum was still weighing on my mind when I walked into our house two hours later to find Patsy lying on the sofa reading a magazine. Patsy had left school of her own volition, pretty much straight after Mother was hospitalised. She’d barely been attending anyway, and rather than try and get her to go back, the school seemed glad to be rid of her. Her behaviour had become increasingly erratic and she’d been suspended on numerous occasions. While this situation seemed perfectly acceptable to Patsy, it certainly wasn’t to me. I was fed up with returning home from work to find her lounging around, and what made it worse was her attitude towards me. I’d tried to encourage her to do something positive with her time, but she always had a reason not to. My suggestion that she could do a college course had been met with derision – ‘You’re the one with the brains,’ she’d said. ‘As for me, I don’t want to see the inside of a classroom ever again. What’s the point of having my head filled up with a load of useless information that I’ll never use! None of it has helped so far, has it?’
‘Well, jobs don’t come looking for you, Pats,’ I’d replied, ‘and if you’re not going to go to college then you’re going to have to find something else to do. And anyway, I don’t see why I should be the only person bringing in the money. You’re seventeen now Patsy and you can bloody well start pulling your weight!’
But that was months ago. Today I wasn’t in the mood for her excuses. I swept her feet off the sofa and addressed her directly. ‘I’m sick of finding you like this, Patsy!’ I said.
Patsy threw the magazine on the floor and tried to walk past me, but I stopped her.
‘Mother’s in a bad way,’ I said.
‘What’s new?’ she replied.
I was about to tell her what was going on when the doorbell rang. It was late on Friday afternoon and we weren’t expecting visitors. When the bell rang for the third time, Patsy glared at me before going to answer it. I picked up her magazine and glanced at its cover. It was a copy of Vogue, and I was amazed to see that it featured an incredibly striking looking black woman: Grace Jones.
‘It’s for you!’ Patsy shouted from the hallway.
‘Who is it?’ I shouted back.
‘The person says you should come to the door,’ Patsy shouted in an exasperated tone.
I put the magazine down and walked towards the hall, crossing paths with Patsy in the doorway.
‘Aren’t you the lucky one,’ she said with a smirk, as she pushed past.
At first, the low evening sunlight obscured the figure. Once my eyes adjusted, the person I saw standing on the top step was the man who’d flirted with me in the charity shop in November. He was wearing a large black beret that covered his dreadlocks. For a moment I couldn’t recall h
is name.
‘I was in the area and thought I would check on you,’ he said. ‘I hope it’s not a bad time?’
I burst out laughing, it seemed so absurd, although something in the tone of my laughter alerted him.
‘Ah, so maybe it is a bad time,’ he said.
‘Well, it’s certainly a long time,’ I replied, leaning against the door frame.
‘I know that, sistreen,’ he grinned in response, ‘and, now that I see you again, I feel sorry for that.’
‘Well, I certainly never expected to see you again… Fitzroy,’ I said, self-consciously pulling my hair into shape.
‘Ah, so you remember my name, Erna. I must’ve made an impression then.’ He smiled.
I turned at the sound of Patsy coughing as she walked back into the hall. She stopped at the bottom of the stairs, staring past me at Fitzroy. I turned back to face him.
‘Now isn’t a good time. I’ve just come back from hospital. My mother is seriously ill.’
His expression changed immediately to one of sadness. ‘Oh, I am very sorry to hear that, Erna,’ he said gently. ‘Maybe another time?’
‘Yes, that would be nice,’ I said.
He turned his back on me for a second, then turned round and handed me a card on which he’d scrawled something. I stared at the card. It read: Fitzroy Gibbons BA (Hons), Lecturer in Sociology, Thames Polytechnic.
‘Call me,’ he said, turning to leave.
‘Bye, Fitzroy!’ Patsy called out.
Fitzroy stopped for a second, stared at Patsy through the open door, then smiled at me again and walked down the steps into the street. I closed the door softly and turned to face my sister who was staring at me with an amused look on her face.
‘Where did he turn up from?’ she said. ‘I have never heard you mention a man before, ever! He is cute, though,’ she added, ‘and that’s one huge Rasta hat. He must have some real long locks under that!’
The Day I Fell Off My Island Page 24