The Small Fortune of Dorothea Q

by Sharon Maas

  ‘Well, I’d have preferred not to have anything to do with the British Army again, but I needed a passport. I went to Rangoon and went through the official channels. I asked them not to notify my family. See, I wanted to come back and surprise you; I wanted to find out how things stood. I didn’t know if …’ he stopped, looked at Dorothea, and started again. ‘So all I wanted was to get to Britain, and a passport. They brought me back, and I went through all the official stages, became a civilian again.

  ‘I needed to go to Scotland first, to Dundee. I wanted to meet Red’s people, tell them what had happened, how he’d died. Give them closure. You understand?’

  He looked at her, pleading, and she did.

  ‘They were wonderful, practically adopted me as a son. I felt so at home there. I stayed for two weeks. But then I left them. I got on a ship at Liverpool. We docked in Georgetown yesterday. Then I came home. And here I am.’

  Freddy did not leave the house that first day, and neither did anyone else. They could not get enough of him. Ma Quint and Dorothea pampered him as if he were a baby, buzzing around him like bees around a fragrant flower. Pa wanted, and got, a detailed report on the War in Asia though the eyes of a soldier, and all through that tale Dorothea sat at Freddy’s side, holding his hand. And even Humphrey took his demotion from fiancé to brother-in-law with good grace and even empathy, which made it all the worse for Dorothea.

  After lunch, Freddy prised himself away from Dorothea for a man-to-man talk with Humphrey. He never spoke of what was said there in the Annex; but to Dorothea he said,

  ‘Of the two of us, Humph is the better man. Are you sure?’

  She squeezed his hand and that was her only answer.

  * * *

  And so Dorothea and Freddy were given a second chance at married life. The days passed by in perfect bliss; she took time off from work to be with Freddy every minute of every day. All Freddy’s old friends came to visit; those of his brothers who had moved out, moved back in to be near him and hear his story. Humphrey, empathetic as always, withdrew to allow the couple the space they needed; he turned to his stamps with all the more dedication. Dorothea, in her ecstasy, hardly noticed.

  Only one incident marred the honeymoon: Kanga, somehow, found his way out into the road, was hit by a car, and killed. Kanga had been Dorothea’s dog in particular; she was the main dog-lover in the house, and she wept at the death. But the next day, Humphrey brought home a puppy, an adorable little ball of golden fluff, and placed it in her arms.

  ‘For you, Dorothea!’ he said, and his eyes shone at her pleasure. She leapt from the Morris chair in the gallery and flung her arms around Humphrey.

  ‘Oh, Humph! You’re a darling! I love you!’ she said, and Humphrey blushed in pleasure; being the lightest skinned of the brothers, he could visibly blush.

  ‘Is it a boy or a girl?’ Dorothea turned the puppy upside down to check, and said, ‘A girl! A girl dog – how wonderful!’

  ‘What will you call her?’ asked Humphrey, still flushed in the glow of Dorothea’s gratitude. But Dorothea turned to Freddy.

  ‘You name her, Freddy! You’re so good at dog names! Go on, Freddy, find a girl name for her! Something soft and cuddly!’

  Freddy stroked the puppy and thought for a moment. Then he said,

  ‘What about Rabbit?’

  ‘Rabbit! Perfect! You’re Rabbit, little puppy!’ said Dorothea, burying her nose in puppy-fluff, and then she placed the puppy in Freddy’s arms. She grinned wickedly, and said to Freddy:

  ‘You know that tigers eat rabbits for breakfast?’

  ‘I don’t think you’ll eat this one. This little rabbit is going to melt your heart – it’s getting a little tough.’

  ‘Not since you’re back!’ said Dorothea, kissing the puppy. She placed Rabbit on her lap and turned her over to scratch her tummy. Plainly enjoying it, the puppy licked her hands. ‘Oh, she’s so cute! I love her!’ cried Dorothea. ‘Thank you, thank you, Humph! You always know exactly what will make me happy!’

  ‘Thanks a lot, brother. This is a fine present!’ said Freddy, bending over to fondle the puppy’s head.

  ‘My pleasure,’ said Humphrey. Something in his voice – a crack, a hesitation that was not his characteristic stutter, made her look up at her brother-in-law, so that she was able, for just an instant, to catch the expression in his face as he turned away.

  ‘OK, I-I’ll be off then!’ said Humphrey, and walked off.

  ‘What’s the matter with him?’ said Freddy, but Dorothea knew. She reclaimed the puppy from Freddy and cuddled her for a few minutes, and then she said,

  ‘Wait here, Freddy. I have to go to Humphrey.’

  She walked to his room with Rabbit in her arms. She knocked on his door and entered without waiting for a come-in. Humphrey lay on his bed, face buried in his pillow, and his body heaved as he wept.

  ‘Oh!’ said Dorothea, and rushed to the bed. She sat down and placed a hand on his back as if to steady him, but all that did was instigate a volley of the most desperate, heart-broken sobs.

  ‘Humphrey, I —’

  Humphrey lifted his face from the pillow and turned it away from her, so that she could not see it but only hear.

  ‘Go away! Just go away, please! Your pity only makes it worse!’ the voice was shattered. The words, however, were vehement, filled with a passion as she had never known in him. And she knew then of the vastness and strength of his love, and of the pain she had gouged into his being. She returned to Freddy, and for the first time since his reappearance, doubt clouded her mind.

  ‘How can we ever be happy, causing him such grief? How can we live under the same roof?’

  ‘We can’t,’ said Freddy. ‘We won’t. We’ll find our own place, build our own family. Humph will surely find someone else.’

  ‘He won’t,’ said Dorothea. ‘I know him.’

  ‘Then he’ll marry his stamps. He’ll find happiness there.’

  Dorothea frowned at Freddy’s flippancy, and said nothing. Freddy met her eyes, saw the critique in them.

  ‘Aw, come on; I’m only joking. Let’s go into the yard and show Rabbit around.’

  And so, with a click of their fingers, they put Humphrey behind them.

  * * *

  One other person in the household did not share in the general celebration of Freddy’s resurrection, and that was Basmati. Normally she was a cheerful woman who chattered away with her employer family as if she too was a member, but she had changed. She shuffled around the house, clearing and setting tables, sweeping the rooms, wiping dust-bunnies from the stairs, peeling plantains, grating coconut, taking down the baskets of dirty laundry for Doris, the washerwoman, in a bubble of glumness which made it hard to even look at her. Preoccupied as they were with Freddy, no one noticed. Today, the third day after Freddy’s return, her misery seemed worse than ever. Only Dorothea noticed that today Basmati was wearing a pair of cheap sunglasses. To Dorothea’s experienced eye that could only mean one thing. She said nothing, that first day. She’d noticed a gradual deterioration in the maid’s disposition over the last few weeks and had been quietly watching. She knew the signs. She also knew the husband.

  The next day, Basmati was again wearing the sunglasses, and she walked with a limp and moved with such stiffness that Dorothea followed her into the kitchen after breakfast. Basmati stood with her back to the room, washing the wares, her back heaving as she worked.

  ‘Basmati!’ said Dorothea.

  ‘Yes, Mistress?’ Basmati’s voice was small, a squeak, really, and she did not turn around.

  Dorothea walked up to her and placed a hand on her back. Basmati flinched. She was a short woman who once must have been pretty, one of those sweet-faced East Indian girls with long plaits down their backs and perfect middle-partings, who walked to school in groups of twos or threes, book-bags over their shoulders; invariably, they were good students who worked hard and got top marks. Almost as invariably, they left school early to get married.
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  Now, Basmati must be in her late twenties, Dorothea calculated, like her. Her mother, Sita, had also worked for the Quints and Dorothea could remember the daughter was near her own age (for she was in the Form beneath her) and would come to the house after school in her Bishops’ High School uniform, sitting quietly on the back steps doing her homework, waiting for her mother. Then suddenly she’d disappeared, only to reappear a few years later when Sita took ill and offered her daughter as replacement maid. The mother never returned to work; a few months later, Basmati had reported Sita’s death and asked for a permanent job.

  The first few years she had brought babies and toddlers with her, worked with them around her feet or strapped to her back; quiet, well-behaved children. Though no older than Dorothea, Basmati’s body was now that of a forty-year-old woman, thick-set and lumbering, her face puffy and lined, her dark skin splotched with shadows. She wore a sari, the palu tightly wrapped around her upper body, covering both arms and riding up her neck to her hairline.

  Dorothea gently turned her around but she kept her face lowered, pushing back the sunglasses as they slid down her nose. Dorothea removed the sunshades and tilted up her chin. Basmati’s left eye nestled in a patch of violent purple.

  Dorothea, not saying a word, drew back the palu. The skin on Basmati’s arms was a geography map of purple bruises.

  ‘Who did this to you?’ Dorothea said quietly, but in answer Basmati burst into tears.

  ‘Mistress, Mistress, please don’t say nothin’, he only gon’ beat me worse!’

  Dorothea said nothing, but unbuttoned the woman’s sari blouse and removed it. Basmati’s heavy breasts hung in a limp red hammock of a brassiere; she crossed her arms bashfully over her chest, but Dorothea’s attention was elsewhere; on the back, on the veritable continent of purple and black whose tip reached up into Basmati’s hair and whose nether regions disappeared into the waistband of her skirt.

  ‘Excuse me!’ Dorothea said, and lifted the hem, torn and tattered around Basmati’s swollen ankles. Under the sari she wore a red underskirt, ragged and frayed, which Dorothea lifted as far as she could, bunching up the extra yards of the sari. Basmati’s thighs were a puffed, swollen mass of bruises.

  Basmati moved her hands from her breast to her face and started to sob.

  ‘Mistress, please don’t say nothin’, please don’t write nothin’. Is all right. It don’t happen too often, only when he drunk.’

  ‘So, so, ‘only when he drunk’. And how often is that?’

  ‘Mistress, it use to be only weekends, Saturday night. But last month he lost he job at the dock and he done use up all the money on rum, and every night he cuffing an kicking me. But mistress, I don’t mind, so long he leave the chirren alone.’

  ‘And you think I’m going to send you home like this?’

  Basmati fell to her knees.

  ‘Mistress, I begging you, leave me be! Oh Lord, have mercy! If he hear I done tell you, he tell me not to say a word, I don’t want no trouble!’

  ‘No, Basmati. That’s not the way to do it. The more you say nothing, the more you make yourself complicit in the violence. It has to stop, do you hear me? It has to stop! First of all, you’re going with me to a doctor. And then you’re coming home with me. You’ll stay here for a while. We’ll sort this out together.’

  Usually, Dorothea spoke in comfortable Creolese with Basmati. Not today. Today the seriousness of Basmati’s plight dispelled the bantering lilting casualness of dialect with its implicit sense of parity; it called for the sternness of disciplined syntax, as if only authoritative language could translate into authoritative action.

  ‘We’re going to Doctor Singh;’ said Dorothea, ‘and then you’re coming back here for a rest. No work today.’

  ‘No, mistress, no! Me chirren, what about me chirren? If I not there he going to beat them!’

  Dorothea, dressing Basmati again, said, ‘Don’t worry about your children. I’m going to pick them up after school, bring them all here. They can all stay ‘til we find a suitable permanent home. You’ll be safe here. Just don’t worry. Everything’s going to be all right.’

  ‘But, mistress, I got one child at home, the baby. My Aunty does look after he; he name Rajan. I can’t leave Rajan home.’

  Dorothea draped the sari over Basmati’s shoulders. ‘I’m going to get him for you. How many children do you have altogether?’

  ‘Five, mistress, the eldest, a girl, ten years old, going to Bishops’. Two in primary school. A boy in Central.’

  Basmati had stopped crying. She was quiet now, and acquiescent, trusting in Dorothea; Dorothea had that effect on troubled people. She now took Basmati’s hand.

  ‘Then after we get the older children here we’ll go to your place and get Rajan.’

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  DOROTHEA: THE FIFTIES

  Dorothea reversed the Ford Prefect out of the yard, over the bridge and on to the street. Freddy closed the gates and got in. It was the first time he had left the house since his arrival. He sat in the back seat, next to Basmati; he had insisted in coming, just in case there was any ‘trouble’, ‘trouble’ being resistance from Basmati’s husband. The presence of a man, he thought, might be helpful.

  Dorothea only laughed at that. ‘I’ve done this before,’ she said, ‘and one thing I’ve learned: these husbands are basically cowards. Especially the Indian ones. They bully their wives because they can’t bully anyone else. They’re social failures. When they come face to face with someone who isn’t afraid of them they sag like vines. But come along. You can see me in action. I’ve changed a bit from the shy eighteen-year-old girl you left behind!’

  The first outing today had been to collect Basmati’s older children from their various schools: the two youngest girls from primary school in Kitty, one boy from Central High School and the eldest girl from Bishops’, both in Georgetown. Now, the four of them, still in their uniforms, were safely at the dining table being fed afternoon tea by Ma Quint.

  Getting the baby – actually, a three-year-old, but they called him ‘Baby’ – was going to be trickier. Basmati and her family lived in the same compound as the Aunty who took care of him during the day. With any luck, her husband would be in a drunken stupor in the back cottage and not notice a thing, but, Basmati said, maybe he wasn’t. She trembled in fear.

  Dorothea drove along the length of Lamaha Street and turned left when she got to Vlissingen Road towards the Sea Wall. Basmati lived in Kitty, the first village outside Georgetown up the East Coast. As they entered Kitty, Dorothea lifted her eyes to the rear view mirror.

  ‘You have to direct me to the house,’ she said, but, not meeting Basmati’s eyes, she half turned to locate her on the back seat. Basmati had hunkered down, her head below window level.

  ‘Don’t be afraid,’ Dorothea said, ‘We’re with you.’

  ‘Mistress, we just pass de rum-shop where he does drink. I didn’t want he see me in the car.’

  ‘Well, better he should be there than at home. Come on, sit up and tell me where to go.’

  Basmati cautiously raised her head to peek through the window, pulling it down again immediately, like a turtle.

  ‘Turn left at Lacy Street, two blocks down. Next to the corner shop.’

  It was a narrow street, the grass verges untended and overgrown with weeds and bushes, the bridges over the gutters precariously ramshackle, the gutters themselves brim-full with stinking black water, torpid with weeds and refuse. On Basmati’s instructions, Dorothea pulled up outside a one-story wooden house on thin high stilts. The wood of its walls had once been painted white, but now the paint was grey, cracked and peeling. Several of the window panes were missing completely, the window shutters awry on rusty hinges. Behind the house, beyond a tangle of shoulder-high bushes and brambles, a second, smaller wooden house peeped through, on low stilts, one of those two-bedroom back-house cottages that housed entire families.

  The front garden was tiny, completely overgrown w
ith a flowerless bougainvillea hedge strangled by a creeper and several other nameless plants. A few rusty garden tools lay neglected among the weeds: a pitchfork, a spade, a rake, a battered metal bucket as if someone, years ago, had attempted work on the garden and then abandoned it in despair. A mangy brown mongrel tied with a piece of frayed rope to one of the stilts broke into a frenzy of barking as they entered the gate and headed for the stairs, which were perilously tilted to one side. The banister lacked several lathes, and wobbled as she walked up, following Basmati, followed by Freddy.

  Basmati rapped and entered the front door without waiting for an answer. A bulky woman emerged from the depths of the house, carrying a little boy who stretched out plump arms to Basmati, crying out ‘Mama!’ Basmati gathered him into her arms. The woman looked from her to Dorothea to Freddy, frowning. ‘What happening?’ she asked.

  ‘Is all right, Aunty,’ Basmati said. Her voice was a nervous squeak, as if she expected her husband to come rushing from a back room. ‘We come to get Baby. Mistress here, she helping.’

  Dorothea smiled at Aunty. ‘Dorothea Quint,’ she said, holding out her hand. The woman barely touched her hand with her own limp fingers. She turned back to Basmati and whispered:

  ‘You better go quick time, I think he at home in the back cottage!’

  ‘Yes, let’s go,’ said Dorothea. ‘We’ll send for clothes and things later.’ She headed for the door. ‘Bye-bye, Aunty!’

  Dorothea led the way out the door into the sunlight, down the rickety stairs. Their coming had already attracted attention. A few neighbours stood on the road next to the car, staring unabashedly. Word must have got out that Dorothea Q had arrived. A young boy wearing nothing but a pair of ragged knee-length shorts shot out from the huddle and raced to the back cottage, zig-zagging between them.

  ‘Me husband nephew! Quick, quick, get to the car!’ Basmati’s voice squeaked with panic, and her fright was contagious. They reached the gate; the boy had closed it behind him, pushed in the rusty bolt, and Dorothea, the first to reach it, had to struggle to open it again. A man’s shout rang out from the back cottage.