Mr. Loverman
Page 26
I feel myself reeling.
“Shumba? You saying that fella there is Shumba?”
“His name’s Hugo.”
“Yes . . . Hugo used to call himself Shumba. What happened to his rat’s tails?”
“What? He had rats?”
“Dreadlocks, Sonny Jim.”
“You mean Hugo was a dread? Wow, that’s so cool. I’m not surprised, because he’s so alternative. He relinquished a title and sold off a huge estate that he’d inherited to set up a charity that provides water pumps to African villages. How cool is that? Now he lives in an eco-house he built himself on a small organic farm and sells his produce at farmers’ markets.”
The horn hoots again.
“I gotta go. See you!” Daniel bounds away, his long legs flying uncoordinatedly, still gangly.
“Daniel,” I call after him, “stop by again soon, nah?”
He spins round. “Of course.”
“We got a studio flat up top. Any time you want to stay. It’s your pied-à-terre.”
“Wow, well, cool.”
“Will we lose you to America, Daniel?”
“No way, I’m definitely coming back. My roots are here, Grandy. Anyway, I’ve got to come back for Sharmilla. She’s going to wait for me.”
What, four years or more? Yuh think she go wait for you?
Shut up, Barry, let him enjoy his youthful certainties.
“You two have got to get on the Internet,” he calls back. “So that we can keep in touch when I’m in the United States of America! Whooo-ooo. Don’t worry, I’ll set it up for you pair of dinosaurs before I leave. Whoooo-ooo, I’m going to Harvard!” He punches the air and does some more hip-hop shoulder dancing. “Hey, does this mean I’ve now got two granddads? How progressive is that?”
And then he gone. My grandson gone.
The truck moves off, with Hugo smiling and giving me the thumbs-up through the window.
He seems like a nice fella, still a bit mucky but a philanthropist no less. I was wrong about him, as I am quite sure Morris will remind me from now until we really are changing each other’s bedpans.
We stand there awhile after the truck has revved off.
Daniel-a part of me. He my future. I will live on through him. But whereas he’s just starting out, his granddaddy’s on the home run. I practically got a sixty-year head start on the boy. He might be able to spell the word vicissitude, but his experience of it will grow as he does. He might know what hubris means, because he’s a clever boy at the age of seventeen, or is it eighteen now? But he will experience it fully if he don’t watch out. I should get him to read Coriolanus. All aspiring politicians should.
He’ll be molded by America, that’s for sure, just by being there. He won’t even be aware it’s happening. He’ll be filled with the American sense of self-belief, and the sense of can-do, and the Harvard sense of entitlement.
I couldn’t wish for more for my grandson. Donna’s done a good job with that boy. I want to tell her so, because I don’t think I ever have. I don’t think I’ve ever congratulated her on anything. Lord, really? Yes, really. Maybe I should try to make up with her even if she slams the phone down or the door in my face. I’ve been thinking, too, maybe her craziness as a teenager was a cry for attention from me, or anger at my favoritism toward Maxine. I been trying to see things from her perspective. I been trying.
As for Maxine, I feel now that I spoiled her so much she never toughened up, but I don’t regret it. Loving her more than was good for her. Anyways, my new hard-line business approach been working. She growing up. Jesper, our business manager, tells me the patient is showing steady signs of improvement. She’s been meeting the deadlines for her collection, which is due to show in October, it goin’ come in under budget, she’s now producing receipts for everything and not spending what can’t be accounted for, like her hairdressing bills (which is a miracle), her weekly strops have been all but eradicated, and no interns have left the building crying in the past seven weeks.
“About that cup of tea . . .” I say to Hilda “Morris” Ogden, steering him toward the house.
* * *
Three hours later we are on the M1 heading north, doing a tame 70 mph, rather than an exhilarating 90, seeing as the state-controlled MI5 operatives have placed snoop cameras all along the motorway.
We got the roof down, we wearing sunglasses even though it’s overcast, and we playing Shirley’s “The Girl from Tiger Bay” from her new album at full blast. At seventy-four she’s still got a voice to send shudders down my spine and put any pretenders to the throne to shame.
We’re drawing interested glances from fellow motorists, as to be expected. They probably think we are two famous American jazz musicians: Little Morris and Big Daddy B of the Louisiana Jazz Ensemble, and so forthly.
If we feel like it we can drive all the way to Manchester, York, or even Glasgow. Why not? Nothing stopping us now. Don’t need to report back to nobody. Only person I got to answer to is Morris, and I happy to do that. If it’s late we can get a nice room for the night, order room service, watch pay TV . . .
It’s only when you drive out of London that you get the sense that most of this land is made up of countryside: wide-open fields and a sky uninterrupted by buildings. I been a citizen of the concrete jungle too long. I never leave London these days and, to be honest, when did I ever? A trip or two to Leeds to visit relatives, taking Maxine to the seaside.
Years ago we was even less welcome in the countryside than in the towns. It was safer to stay within the walls of the citadel. We wouldn’t get lynched exactly in the bush, but we’d certainly get frozen out, at best.
All-a this space and sky and greenery is like being in another country altogether. As we driving deeper and deeper into it, I starting to feel like a tourist, like we somewhere foreign, somewhere abroad.
I been thinking how maybe it’s time to go home too, just for a visit, test the water. Antigua mon amour, we been away too long, my darlin’.
We should go back before we . . . well, we not dying any day soon but we must-a lost parts of ourselves being in England so long. Yes, a pilgrimage is in order, and seeing as Odette is now some kind of spiritual guru to Carmel (according to Maxine), she might be okay with me and Morris.
Not so sure about Carmel.
I’ll never forget her standing there, delivering that sucker punch. I spent fifty years of my life betrayed by your lie . . . my whole adult life been wasted.
Wifey got to me. I felt the consequences of my actions.
I still feeling it. And I sorry. Carmel, I sorry.
I even wrote her a letter of apology, but what good a letter do when someone’s been cheated out of happiness so long, ehn?
I got to carry that with me for the rest of my life, because no matter what excuses I made, leaving her would-a been the honest thing to do, at least once Maxine turned eighteen. Duty done. In the words of Mr. James Baldwin, Esq., The way to be really despicable is to be contemptuous of other people’s pain.
In any case, if Carmel’s still not okay, and me and him do go Antigua, I’ll hide around corners if I see her walking around St. John’s hand in hand with Hubert, that lickspittle. Yes, yes, I’m sure he’s changed, as Carmel told me . . . but really? Hubert? She couldn’t do better?
Yes, maybe it’s time to go back to where it all began. A flying visit, but not flying, of course. We can go by sea, same way we came, leisurely.
But first things first.
“How yuh doin’, boss?” I ask Morris, who is at the wheel humming along to Shirley.
“I good, man. I good. You?”
“Me too, but you know something? I have some stuff to get off of mi chest.”
Stuff that’s been on my mind ever since I decided to leave Carmel. She not the only one I did wrong to. It’s been keeping me awake most nights, so I go downstairs to read. Morris is so fast asleep he don’t even notice.
It’s about time Morris know that I ain’t just been living t
wo lives, but three . . .
“Seeing as we starting a new beginning and all-a that, I want to come clean, Morris.”
“Eh?”
He shoots a glance over at me like he’s trying to get the measure of what I’ve just said. He can tell I nervous.
I have a faint cold fear thrills through my veins, / That almost freezes up the heat of life.
Even though I know I’m about to lob a hand grenade, I have fe do it.
“Stuff, Morris . . . stuff you need to hear . . .”
Let me start with the German construction worker from Munich who was working on the NatWest Tower in the city and rented out one of my early bedsits in Dalston Lane in 1975—Jürgen. Then there was Demetrius, Kamau, Wendell, Stephen, Garfield, Roddy, Tremaine, and all of the faceless dalliances and encounters.
There’s a slip road ahead leading to services, and before I can say anything more Morris is signaling left and we pulling into Toddington.
We in the car park.
He’s killed the engine.
He turns to me, serious, grabs my wrist tight.
“What am I now? A Catholic priest you got to confess all of your sins to? If you start down that road, I got to reciprocate, and I ain’t so sure you can handle that. You want to know where this conversation will lead, my friend? A dead end, that’s where.
“Listen to me good, Barry. I have known you since 1947 when we was nippers. That’s sixty-four years, yuh hear? You and me has finally got a future to look forward to together, so let we not go digging up our past misdemeanors, right? Just sit back comfy and easy and listen to the one and only Miss Shirley Bassey and let we just enjoy the vibes, man, enjoy the vibes.”
Acknowledgments
"I would like to thank Johnny Temple and his team at Akashic Books for taking Mr. Loverman across the Atlantic and introducing Barrington and company to American readers. I’d also like to extend my deeply felt gratitude, as always, to my longtime London editors, readers, and the team at Hamish Hamilton/Penguin: Simon Prosser, Anna Kelly, Lesley Bryce, Donna Poppy, Caroline Craig, Anna Ridley, Ellie Smith, and Marissa Chen, and everyone else who makes things happen behind the scenes. A big thanks, as ever, to my agent Karolina Sutton at Curtis Brown. Thanks also to the generous and critical readers of this novel at various stages of its incarnation: Denis Bond, Roger Robinson, Blake Morrison, Mel Larsen, Oscar Lumley-Watson; and to the people who helped with research: Brenda Lee Browne, Sharon Knight, and Ajamu X. Thanks most of all to my husband David, my primary reader, rock-solid supporter, and fellow banterer.
BERNARDINE EVARISTO has been hailed as one of Britain’s most exciting and original authors. Her books have been chosen as Books of the Year nine times by British newspapers. In 2004 she was made a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and in 2006 of the Royal Society of Arts. She has written drama for theater and BBC Radios 4 and 3, collaborated on a multimedia performance with the musicians Joanna MacGregor and Andy Sheppard for the City of London Festival. Based in London, England, she frequently tours worldwide.
This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to real events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Published by Akashic Books
©2014 by Bernardine Evaristo
Paperback ISBN-13: 978-1-61775-272-8
Hardcover ISBN-13: 978-1-61775-289-6
e-ISBN: 9781617752803
Library of Congress Control Number: 2013956051
First printing
Akashic Books
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info@akashicbooks.com
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