The Small Fortune of Dorothea Q

by Sharon Maas

  ‘Gimme that thing.’

  I gave the phone to her. She shuffled backwards, the door slammed.

  * * *

  When Mum came home I confessed everything. I’d done exactly what she’d told me not to do and Gran still fumed in her room. Mum sighed.

  ‘There’s a reason I asked you to let me tell Mummy,’ she said. ‘She’s difficult. I told you she’s difficult.’

  ‘Difficult?’ I scoffed. ‘She’s a nightmare. I honestly don’t know how you and Marion turned out so nice.’

  Mum laughed. ‘Maybe we got it from Daddy,’ she said. ‘He was sweetness incarnate. Or Daddy’s mum, Granny. Ma Quint.’

  It was the first time she had ever mentioned family connections from back home. We were making progress.

  ‘Yeah, and Neville and Norbert got their crankiness from her. Makes sense. Speaking of which, Norbert called earlier. Gran didn’t want to speak to him. He was most intrigued to hear that Neville bought her a laptop.’

  We both laughed. Neville and Norbert were engaged in a private battle in which each tried to outdo the other in proving they were the better son, Mummy’s favourite. Gran loved their oneupmanship game, as it meant they showered her with ever more generous gifts, and she played it for all she was worth. The rollator, a radio, her own TV set, a more comfortable mattress – all provided by them. Now that Neville had given her a laptop, Norbert would have to think of something better, even more useful, even more state-of-the-art, and Gran would sulk until she got it. The trouble was that Gran wanted luxuries; Mum and I wanted the practical stuff. A stair-lift. A bathtub lift. A potty-chair. Boring stuff, but necessary. Stuff Gran would never think to ask for.

  ‘Anyway,’ Mum said now, ‘I’d better go in and talk to Mummy. About the stamp, I mean.’

  ‘Good luck. And tell her to tell Norbert to get her a stair-lift. Then Neville can donate a potty chair.’

  * * *

  After Mum disappeared into Gran’s room, the phone rang yet again. It was Marion, from Toronto. We’d kept her informed about the stamp, and from the start she’d been strange about it. Agitated. Asking all sorts of questions, probing questions. Obviously, she was jealous that Gran had the stamp and now Gran was with us and might give it to us instead of her. I decided to be careful with Marion in future. Really, when money comes into the picture you can’t trust anyone.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  DOROTHEA: THE THIRTIES

  Freddy had been acting strange all afternoon; distracted, morose, silent, and she knew he had a secret, but the more she probed, the more he clammed up. Something was wrong.

  Finally, he turned to her and his eyes were wild and fretful.

  ‘Dorothea, we need to talk. There’s something … something big. Would you come out with me tonight?’

  ‘Tonight? You mean, after dark?’ The very notion thrilled her. It could only mean one thing: he was going to ask her to marry him. That’s why he was so nervous. The silly! Did he think she was going to refuse? Yes, that’s what it had to be. The moon was full, and it was going to be a romantic proposal. Maybe he’d take her to a candlelight dinner somewhere. Somewhere public. Palm Court, with its open-air terrace, palms waving in the cool sea breeze. With roses and violins. Champagne. And then she’d say yes. That was a given.

  Pa would say no, of course. He railed against the Quints as much as ever; there was no chance he’d let her marry one of them. She was only eighteen; she had three whole years to go before she could officially flout Pa’s wishes and marry Freddy. But with a secret engagement, a ring hidden in her top drawer, a promise to marry, she could easily wait out those years. Or … and here her heart began to flutter. Maybe they could elope. Maybe that’s what he was going to propose tonight.

  But elope – where to? In the novels she read, set mostly in England, couples eloped to Gretna Green to marry, but there was no Gretna Green in British Guiana. Here, everyone knew everyone else and really, there was nowhere to go, for just a few miles inland the jungle began, and just down the road, visible from her bedroom window, was the great Atlantic. Trapped between the forest and the ocean, Georgetown really was a world unto itself. No, there could be no elopement. Faced by this stark reality, her heart calmed down.

  ‘Yes,’ Freddy said. ‘You think you can slip away?’

  ‘Sure I can. But not through the gate, Pa locks it every night.’

  ‘You’ll have to come through the alley, as usual. I’ll pick you up. At ten?’

  She nodded, and they made their plans. Freddy was so solemn. Really, it could only mean one thing.

  * * *

  The drawing room was flooded with moonlight as she tiptoed down the stairs. Glancing through the back window, she saw the signal: Freddy was waiting already, flashing his torch.

  She unbolted the back door, opened it, and crept down the back stairs, into Freddy’s arms. He held her still for a moment and again she knew that this was it. It was strange, in a way, the thought of marrying Freddy. They’d been friends for so many years; so close they almost knew each other’s thoughts. For her it seemed obvious that they’d spend the rest of their lives together, but at times she feared it was not so for him; maybe she was just a sister to him; not pretty enough, not exciting enough to want as a wife. That was what she feared the most. If not for that tiny doubt, she’d even have proposed marriage herself.

  But now, locked in his arms at the bottom of the back stairs, she knew. There was nothing brotherly about that embrace, or about the ache in his eyes as they caught hers in the moonlight. But then he pulled away.

  ‘Come!’ he whispered, and shone his torch down the path between the trees. He led her to the loose paling in the fence, and they both slipped through, not speaking. The night was alive with the usual chorus of night creatures; the frogs had ceased their croaking, but a trillion bugs had taken up the shrill peeping and chirping of a tropical night.

  Freddy led her not to the right, to the Quint house, but to the left, where the alley emerged into Lamaha Street. There, his bicycle was waiting, leaned against the fence.

  He wheeled it onto the road, she edged herself on to the crossbar, he swung his leg over the rear wheel and they rolled away. At Camp Street he turned left, which surprised her; central Georgetown would have been to the right. Now they were heading towards the Sea Wall.

  ‘Where are we going?’ she whispered.

  ‘To the end of the world,’ was his answer, and as he said that she felt a little flutter of fear. Maybe she had misgauged his mood. There was an element of dread in him that she had not picked up before, so blinded she’d been by her own wishful thinking.

  ‘Freddy, what’s the matter?’ she asked for the umpteenth time. His arms held her firmly on the crossbar. His face was just inches from hers, his expression grim. Again, fear clutched her heart. What was going on? Surely he wasn’t going to end their friendship? That couldn’t be. It just couldn’t.

  The street was empty as the glided up towards the ocean, past Queen’s College on the right and the hulking contours of the police barracks on the left. Only a single car passed by them, heading for town, and the only sound of traffic was the clop-clop of a dray-cart horse’s hooves. Georgetown was a city that slept early. They were alone.

  When they reached the Sea Wall Freddy helped her to the ground and put the bicycle on its stand. He removed a blanket form the carrier and tucked it under his arm. He held out a hand to her.

  ‘Come,’ he said.

  Silently they walked up the stone steps to the Sea Wall. The moon sailed overhead in a cloudless sky, full and bright. Before them stretched a seemingly endless expanse of hardened, undulating mud, for the tide was out and the ocean far away, glimmering silver against the horizon. A cool ocean breeze swept over them, billowing Freddy’s shirt and playing with the hem of Dorothea’s dress. They seemed alone in the world.

  Near the bandstand the Sea Wall expanded into the wide Promenade where every afternoon families congregated or nannies brought their little
charges, and everyone relaxed as the day drew to a close; a place to be light and gay.

  Right now, there was no gaiety. There was no escaping it. Something was very wrong. Dorothea almost didn’t want to know. She felt a need to hold on to the innocence of the instant, to keep these last moments of hope alive forever, not to allow entry to the dread that gripped her heart.

  Freddy unfolded the blanket to half its size, and laid it across one of the wooden benches. He gestured for her to sit, and managed a half grin that only wrenched her heart, so contrived it was. A lump rose in her throat. She tried to swallow it but it was stuck.

  Freddy sat down beside her. They sat in silence for a while, holding hands. It was as if he, too, wanted to hold on to the moment, to the expanse of ocean before them and the vastness of the sky above them and the softness of the moonlight.

  ‘It’s so beautiful,’ he murmured finally.

  ‘Yes.’ She whispered back.

  ‘I don’t know how to say this.’

  Her eyes filled with tears.

  ‘Just say it.’

  And then he turned to face her, and looking into her eyes, it all came rushing out.

  ‘England’s at war, Dorothea. And we’ve all signed up. I, and all my brothers. I’m going to have to leave you; I don’t know when I’ll be back. Maybe never.’

  An anguished cry escaped her lips. In all the fears that had crowded her mind these last few minutes, she had not imagined anything as terrible as this. Yes, she had heard the murmurings of war; they were hard to avoid, with the newspaper headlines and radio newsreaders all trumpeting the latest developments. But it had not interested her. That was in Europe, across the ocean, a world away. But now that distant war had reached out its cold hand and wrapped its fingers around her life.

  Spontaneously they fell into each other’s arms and he held her still as she heaved and sobbed and tried to speak, patting her back as if she were a child needing comfort.

  ‘But … but why? Why fight a war? It’s not our war … it’s Britain’s …’

  ‘We are British citizens,’ Freddy replied. ‘It’s our duty.’

  ‘You don’t have to go, do you? You can choose to stay, can’t you? Oh Freddy, don’t go, please don’t go!’

  ‘I’m a volunteer,’ said Freddy. ‘We all are. No, we don’t have to go. But Britain needs every man. I can’t shirk this, Dorothea. I’d be the worst cad.’

  ‘Britain … Britain … it’s so far away! Don’t they have enough men of their own?’

  ‘There are never enough men,’ Freddy said, ‘when it’s a question of war.’

  ‘And your mother … she’s letting you go? Just like that?’

  ‘She’s as upset as you are. She’s sending eight sons off to war. What mother would be happy at that? But she too knows we have to go. I couldn’t look myself in the mirror if I didn’t.’

  For the first time, the reality of the world she lived in came home to Dorothea. But it wasn’t really her world. Britain, Germany, Hitler, Winston Churchill … till now, they had all been just names, from the radio, from the newspapers, like names from a play, not real people. Those places: England, Germany, Austria, France … they might just have well been on the moon.

  Yet they were only across the ocean, this very ocean at her feet. Yes, she’d heard her father discussing the danger of Hitler with the other menfolk who sometimes came to visit. Yes, she’d been aware that war had finally been declared. But it was all so far away. It had nothing to do with her. BG had problems of its own, and she was determined to help solve them. This was across the ocean – it was nothing. Or so she’d thought.

  How wrong she’d been. How foolish. Once, her father had said, ‘Thank the Lord I only have daughters.’ And even then, the reality of war, and the men who must fight it, had not dawned on her. She began to cry now, in earnest. Freddy held her and let her cry, and tried to comfort her.

  ‘I’ll come back, my darling, and then we’ll marry. I promise you. I’ll be fine. I just know it.’

  But they were just words, empty and almost mocking in the face of her anguish.

  Her tears dried up. Freddy produced a handkerchief and wiped her face dry. He smiled, a funny lopsided smile. ‘You’re so pretty in the moonlight,’ he said. ‘So beautiful.’

  Just words.

  They looked at each other in silence. Then Freddy spoke again, this time hesitantly.

  ‘Dorothea … would you do something for me, if I asked?’

  Not even a pause. ‘Anything! Oh, anything!’

  ‘You’re so pretty!’ he said again, and let his fingers glide down her cheek. ‘It’s a bit impertinent, I suppose, but …’

  She guessed what it was, and already she was saying yes in her heart. He had not asked her to marry him, but she would be his wife in every other way. That was what he wanted; and so did she.

  ‘… but, would you let down your hair for me? Unplait it? Now?’

  The shock must have shown on her face, because he quickly said,

  ‘But of course, not if it’s too much trouble. And not if it will get you into trouble with your Mum.’

  But already Dorothea had pulled off the ribbon and her fingers worked feverishly at loosening the tight weave of her left pigtail, and when that was loose, the other. And then she ran her fingers through her hair like the teeth of an oversize comb, pulled the strands away from her head. The kinks and crinkles, released from bondage, sprang into their natural coils as if this was the moment of glory they’d waited for all their lives. And the skin of Dorothea’s forehead, no longer stretched to its limit, relaxed, and her eyebrows sank into their natural arches, and her eyes lost their taut upward tilt and grew soft; and Dorothea sat before Freddy with her face framed by a glorious spreading mane of strong black tresses fanned out beneath her shoulders; a magnificent mane of wild, wayward hair that, she knew now, would never again be tamed. Freddy reached out and touched her hair, helped fan it out and pat it into shape.

  ‘Beautiful,’ he whispered. ‘So beautiful.’

  ‘Freddy,’ Dorothea said now, ‘I want to be your wife, now. Not when you come back. Now, and here. I want you and I want your baby. Right now. Tonight. Right here. Please, Freddy. It’s what I want. Give me a baby, Freddy, please. I beg you, please.’

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  DOROTHEA: THE THIRTIES

  When Dorothea awoke, the first thing she noticed was the matt of hair against her cheek. Immediately she was wide awake, remembering. She sat up in bed, drew up her knees, and allowed herself five minutes of dreaming. The wildest contentment mingled with abject despair; she buried her face between her knees and sobbed.

  But only for a minute. She stood up and walked to the mirror. Her hair was a total mess, tangled and matted beyond salvation. No comb could ever be dragged through it. Not even Mums’ brutal attack would ever restore order and obedience to that thatch of knots. Most important of all: Dorothea could not care less. Filled with a new spirit of freedom and courage, she knew exactly what needed to be done. She stood up, walked to the wardrobe, and rummaged in the bottom drawer for her sewing box. She immediately found what she was looking for, and returned to the mirror.

  The scissors were rather small for the job; what she needed was secateurs, yet she managed a gross first cut. Her hair lay all around the vanity seat, like the debris from a cut hedge. On the floor it seemed much more than on her head; she was amazed at just how high it piled. And her head itself felt so much lighter, liberated. She regarded herself in the mirror, cocking her head. The cut was bad; uneven, jagged, straight across the top, longer on the right side than on the left, because she was right-handed, and, she was sure, totally ragged at the back. It needed further work, and for that there was just one solution.

  It was early dawn yet, her parents still in bed. She got up, left her room, and walked to the bathroom down the corridor. Pa’s razor lay on his shaving table next to the sink. She picked it up. That wasn’t perfect for the job either, but it was good enough fo
r her purpose.

  When she was as bald as could be, under the circumstances, she contemplated herself in the mirror. She liked the look. It made her look just as naked and free as she felt. She found a broom, swept the hair from the floor, and disposed of it in the bin, took off her clothes and stepped into the shower. The cold water on her skin was a further liberation. It signified the new beginning that was this new day. She worked up a fine lather of Palmolive soap, threw back her head so that water gushed into her mouth, and celebrated the morning with a silent scream.

  This new sense of freedom brought no joy. Inside, her heart was cracking apart. And yet, there was a tiny spark of hope.

  * * *

  She was deliberately late for breakfast; this grand event called for an Entrance. So she waited till they were all seated and about to say Grace when, as she knew, Pa would call her. That’s when she walked in to the dining room, head held high. They sat there with their mouths open; Pa, Mums and Kathleen. The latter broke the silence by bursting into giggles.

  ‘Dorothea turn bald-head!’ Kathleen cried, in blatant Creole. A sharp slap on her knuckles from Mums followed; it was her parents’ cross that Kathleen, otherwise so prim and proper, loved to slip into bad language. Perhaps it was her own attempt at rebellion, one that Dorothea had never tried. Until now.

  Pa’s jaw began to work as he struggled for words. Dorothea decided to pre-empt him.

  ‘I done with you all!’ Dorothea announced with a perfect Creole lilt. ‘I’m goin’ to get a baby from Freddy Quint. Today I’m moving out.’

  * * *

  Once more in her room – she had not stopped to revel in Pa’s shock or for Mums to remove the hands covering her face – she threw a few clothes into a pillowcase, took a last long look at her face in the mirror, and saluted herself in farewell. She rather liked the look, though it might still need a barber’s hand. A shaved head meant something. It meant that she now belonged to Freddy, forever; that wherever he went and whatever he did, her heart belonged to him. Whether he stayed in BG or left for the battlefields of Europe, it did not matter. Here was her bared scalp, a trophy prepared for him and shown off to all the world: I am his! Whereas Mums had claimed her with those dreaded pigtails, Freddy now claimed her through this naked skull, so pale against the cocoa brown of her face.