She was woken up from her terrible thoughts by a loud argument going on in the street below. She peeped through their dewy window and saw Francis and two policemen. God have mercy, what had Francis done now? They are taking him to jail, and he had come to say goodbye to them. Vicky was dying and she had to take care of the remaining children all by herself, with her wobbly feet that had refused to get strong and her eyes that kept seeing blue and yellow balloons all mixed up. She could not go downstairs, because she knew she would fall and break her neck and then the remaining children would have no one. She would stay put.
The noise was coming up the stairs. Francis was talking, shouting, explaining, talking and talking. The two policemen saw Vicky’s ear, and agreed with Francis that it was growing much more rapidly than the rest of his body. Yes, he had to see a doctor.
Adah could not talk. Her eyes were going round and round, and would not focus. Would somebody explain to her what it was that was causing all this hullabaloo? It could not have been just because Vicky was ill. Had Francis in his present mood murdered the doctor?
Then one of the policemen spoke in a cool voice. He sounded like somebody with lots and lots of reasoning who was capable of using that reasoning when everybody around him was going mad. The policeman was tall and had a moustache and he was now telling them that a doctor would come; not their Indian doctor, because it was Christmas Day, but another one, the Indian one’s locum. He would come and tell them what it was that was the matter with Vicky’s ear.
But why the police? Adah wondered furiously. She could not ask anybody until the two police officers had gone. Then Francis started swearing and sending a man to his maker and calling the man a bastard. Adah intervened and asked him who it was that had annoyed him so much.
“The bleeding Indian man. Do you know the stupid man thinks he is white? He is as black as the devil!” Then Francis thought again, walking up and down their one room. “Do you know that he is as ugly as hell?”
Well, all that seemed logical to Adah. If the man was as black as the devil, it followed that he would be as ugly as hell. What did Francis want? To put a man as handsome as Apollo in an ugly hell? That would not make sense. But what had the doctor done? Adah wanted to ask if only she was given the chance, but she was not because Francis was holding forth about the ethics of Medicine. Adah came to the conclusion that that husband of hers would have made a good doctor, knowing all the rules.
Then a black car pulled up in front of their house. A man, a very short man, young, not Indian but Chinese, came out. He was carrying a black bag. He must be the doctor. Adah rushed Vicky into their only bed, shoes, suit and all and asked him to stay there. She removed the rice she was boiling from the stove and would have poured it into the bin, if it had not been for Francis, who asked her whether she was going crazy. The man coming was a Chinaman. Did she not see his eyes and the shape of his round head like that of a calabash they used at home in Nigeria? Why then should she panic? The man, doctor or no doctor, was a second-class citizen too and could not come to show them any superior airs. This did not help Adah much, but it was nice to hear it.
The man came in, and was sorry for Adah and Francis for having such a terrible time on Christmas Day. He unpacked his instruments, and started to examine Vicky, pressing the ear all the time. Vicky followed his movements, fascinated. The boy was not in pain. His temperature was normal. The ear was now very big and warm, but that was all. The doctor sat down on the chair Adah gave him. His sharp Chinese eyes roamed round the room. He seemed to be scratching his bottom, but was doing it gently. He was a Chinese, but one of those Chinamen who were either born in England or who had come here as children. He got up from his chair, scratching all the time, and then asked a funny question.
“Have you any bugs here? You know, bed-bugs?”
Adah prayed for the ground to swallow her up.
The doctor wrote a letter which she and Francis were to take to their doctor. The doctor, the Chinese one, noticed their discomfiture, and said, “My grandmother in China used to kill bugs this way.” The doctor spread his well-kept hands wide in gesticulation. “She used to get cigarette tins, and put all the feet of the bed in them, so that the bugs would fall into the tins, which had already been half filled with water.” He took his leave, and the two stupid-looking parents told him how sorry they were, getting him out from his Christmas turkey. And the Chinaman told them not to worry, because children had a way of scaring parents so. How were they supposed to know that Vicky was not dying, but only bitten by a bed-bug?
It was nice of him to say so, but he went leaving a nasty pit in their stomachs. In desperation, Francis tore up the letter which they were supposed to give their Indian doctor down the Crescent. The doctor had written exactly what he thought, that Vicky had been bitten by a bug.
“If only you did not have to add so much drama to it all. Why in the name of all the saints did you have to go to the police?”
“The Indian doctor would not come. He said it was his rest day and I know that doctors are supposed to attend their patients in an emergency. Why should he refuse to attend to Vicky? And how was I supposed to know that he was not seriously ill, and that he was only bitten by the bugs in Pa Noble’s house?”
There was nothing Adah could say. She herself was frightened, too, but she had known their own doctor would not come. Though after all, a doctor had come, and given them a prescription, though it was very unorthodox.
At least some of the provisions of the Welfare State worked for both second-and first-class citizens alike. Had Francis not proved it by going to the police station when the Indian doctor would not come? Adah wondered what Francis would have done if it had all happened in Lagos.
After all that, there was not much left of the Christmas. They ate their boiled rice, and Mrs Noble brought the left-over jellies to Vicky. Vicky refused to eat them; he had never seen food look so colourful.
11
Population Control
The snow melted from the pavements, from the gardens and from the roofs of houses. Spring was in the air and everything sprung up as if injected with new life by the gods. Even in a dark street, as dark as Willes Road in Kentish Town, one could hear the birds sing.
One Monday morning, when her family were still asleep, Adah got together her wash things to have her bath. There was no bathroom in the house in which they lived so she paid visits to the public baths in Prince of Wales Road several times in the week. It was on one of these visits, on a Monday, that she saw this bird; grey, small, solitary but contented in its solitude. Adah stood still on the other side of the road watching this grey bird, singing, singing, hopping from one window ledge to another, happy in its lonely freedom. Adah was intrigued by the creature. Fancy being moved this early in the morning by such a small thing as this grey bird, when less than a year before she had seen wilder birds, all gaudy in their colours, all wild in their songs. She never took notice of birds then, in the back yards of Lagos houses. Then she thought to herself: suppose there was never any winter, when every living thing seems to disappear from the face of the earth, the birds would always be around, they would become an everyday thing, and she wouldn’t have noticed and admired it and listened to its watery song. Was that not what we need in Africa, to have a long, long winter, when there would be no sunshine, no birds, no wild flowers and no warmth? That would make us a nation of introverts, maybe, and when eventually spring came, then we would be able to appreciate the songs of birds. What does that mean? Has Nature been too merciful to us, robbing us of the ability to wake ourselves up from our tropical slumber to know that a simple thing like the song of a grey bird on a wet Monday morning in spring can be inspiring? Was that why the early Europeans who came to Africa thought the black man was lazy because of his over-abundant environment which robbed him of the ability to think for himself? Well, Adah concluded, to cheer herself up, that may be so, but that happened years and years ago, before the birth of her Pa.
She was dif
ferent. Her children were going to be different. They were all going to be black, they were going to enjoy being black, be proud of being black, a black of a different breed. That’s what they were going to be. Had she not now learned to listen to the songs of birds? Was that not one of the natural happenings that inspired her favourite poet, Wordsworth? She might never be a famous poet like Wordsworth, because he was too great, but Adah was going to train herself to admire the songs of birds however riotous, to appreciate the beauty of flowers however extravagant their scent. She jolted herself to, reminding herself that she was the mother of three babies, and that she was supposed to be rushing for her Monday morning bath.
The women who cleaned the baths greeted her like an old friend. They knew she was always the first customer on Monday mornings, because Saturdays were usually too busy, and the baths too crowded. She preferred Mondays, when most people had gone to work and the ladies working at the baths would not have to hurry her up. The only snag was that on Monday mornings she seldom got very hot water, because the boiler, or whatever heated the water, had to be turned off over the weekend. It usually took a long time to heat up, but Adah did not mind the lukewarmness of the water, because that was the price she was paying for a long, quiet bath.
Her bath that Monday morning was particularly important, because she was going to the Family Planning Clinic. She had attended the week before and had been loaded with masses of literature. She had read about the jelly, the Pill, the cap and so many other things. She told Francis she was going, but Francis told her not to go because men knew how to control themselves better, the way it was done in the Bible. You hold the child and you don’t give it to the woman, you pour it away. Adah considered this. It was not because she had stopped trusting her husband, but her husband could hurt her without meaning to, for wasn’t that the way he had been brought up? She knelt and prayed to God to forgive her for making other plans behind her husband’s back.
When it was time to take Bubu to the clinic to be weighed, she saw a motherly-looking nurse and told her, “Please, could I have the Pill? You see, I am not twenty-one yet and if I had another child it would be my fourth, and I originally came here to study and bring up the two babies I brought from home. Can you help me? I need the Pill.”
The woman smiled and tickled Bubu on the cheek. They had a Family Planning Clinic in the evenings on Mondays. She would get the literature for Adah to read and she could decide with her husband which would suit them best. Well, how was Adah to tell the woman that Francis said that the best way to control the population was to pour it on the floor? Adah could not bring herself to tell the nurse that. The last nail in the coffin was when the woman brought a form which Adah’s husband was supposed to sign to tell them that he was all for it, that he wanted his wife equipped with birth-control gear. There was going to be trouble over that, for Francis would never sign a thing like that, and he would raise hell if he realised that Adah got the literature without his permission. What was Adah going to do? Why was it necessary to have a husband brought into an issue like that? Could not the woman be given the opportunity of exercising her own will? Whatever happened, she was not going to have any more children. She did not care which way she achieved this, but she was having no more children. Two boys and a girl were enough for any mother-in-law. If her mother-in-law wanted another one, she could get her son another wife. Adah was not going to have any more. It was not going to be easy for her to forget the experience she had had recently having Bubu. That was a warning. She might not be so lucky next time.
Francis announced that he had read his two chapters scheduled for the day and that he was tired of reading and that he was going down to the Nobles to watch their television. Adah encouraged him to go. She wanted to read the birth-control literature in detail. Adah fished the now rumpled leaflets out from under Bubu’s cot where she had hidden them. She read them again and again. Three facts stuck. One was that the Pill is the one you swallow just like aspirin. Secondly, the jelly is the one you allow to melt inside. The cap, which was the third thing, was the one you fitted in. Adah chuckled and was amused at it all. Fancy making a special cap for your other end instead of for your head. Well, these Europeans would stop at nothing. She was not going to choose the cap though, as it would be too messy, messing around with one’s insides. No, she would go for the Pill, that was less complicated. The jelly? No, Francis would notice and ask questions.
But how was she to make Francis sign the form? The thought came to her that she could sign it for him. But that would be forgery. She imagined herself at a court and the magistrate sending her to jail for seven years for forging her husband’s signature. But at the end of it she would be alive, and once alive, she might be allowed to look after her children. But if she did not forge the signature it might mean another child, another traumatic birth, another mouth to feed; and she was still not getting anywhere with her studies. The price she would have to pay for being an obedient and loyal wife would be too much. She forged the signature. She saved and scraped from the housekeeping money to pay for the first lot of pills. The money had been saved, the form signed, and, to add to her joy, she now had another library job waiting for her at the Chalk Farm Library. She was going to keep this job, no matter what. She was not going to allow herself to get pregnant again. Never.
But first she had to have this Monday bath, in case she had to strip herself to be examined or something. She had told Francis that Bubu was such a big baby, gaining weight every day, that the people at the clinic would like his photograph taken that Monday evening. It pained her, having to resort to the very method she had always used when she was little. That horrible tendency to twist the facts. But what else was there for her to do? She prayed to God again and again to forgive her.
She had to take Bubu with her, because if she had not, Francis would have said, “I thought you told me that the people at the clinic were going to take his photo, because he was such a beautiful baby?” So she took Bubu with her.
At the clinic, she was shown into a waiting-room, where there were other women waiting. Two were undressed with their stockings rolled down round their ankles, just as you are when you are expecting, and the doctor wants to examine you. They reminded Adah of the pre-natal clinics. She was now used to that sort of thing - stripping yourself naked to be examined. It did not bother her anymore. She asked herself, why should it worry me? I’ve only got what you’ve got. Why should I be ashamed of my body? It did not matter any more.
Three screens were set up in the middle of the square room. Women were to undress behind the screen and then sit down and wait to be called one by one into the doctor’s room to be equipped with birth-control gear.
Adah saw a young West Indian mother and purposely went and sat down beside her. She wanted to be on home ground because she was frightened and because the young girl was the only woman there holding a baby. Adah could look after her baby for her when she went in to be equipped, and she could look after Adah’s. That would be fair. With such noble thoughts in her mind, she greeted the West Indian girl with a friendly smile. The girl smiled back showing a golden tooth wedged in between her ordinary teeth.
They soon started to talk. She, the West Indian girl was going to be trained as a nurse, so she needed some form of birth-control during her training. Her husband did not mind. So, months before, she was given the Pill. But, she cried to Adah, see what the Pill had done to her. She pulled up her sleeves and showed Adah a very fine rash. The rash was all over her face and neck. Even her skinny wrists had not been spared. She was covered with the kind of rash that reminded Adah of the rash caused by prickly heat in Africa.
“Do they make you scratch? I mean, do you feel scratchy all the time?”
“Yeah, man. That’s the trouble now. I don’t mind the appearance. But they itch all the time.”
Adah looked at her face again, and as she did so the girl started to scratch the back of her skirt. She was trying to hide it from the other women, trying to hid
e the fact that her bottom was itching. God have mercy! thought Adah. Her bottom as well? Then she asked the girl, “Have you got the itch down there as well?”
The girl nodded. She had it all over her. Adah called to God to have mercy on her again. What was she to do now? She was not going on the Pill if she was going to end up looking like somebody with chicken-pox, or scratching like this girl as if she was covered with yaws. No, she was not going to have the Pill, and she was not going home empty-handed with no birth-control She thought about the jelly and knew that it would only work when husband and wife are in agreement, for he would have to wait until it melted before coming on. So the jelly was out of the question for her. She could only go for the cap. That almighty cap which is specially made for one’s inside. She had to think quickly. Francis might not know. The business was always done in the dark anyway. But suppose he felt it? Supposing he saw her fixing the cap in their one-room apartment with no bathroom and with the toilet as filthy as a rubbish dump? She could not fix the cap in the toilet, for what would happen if the cap fell? It would have collected enough germs to send her to her Maker in no time with cancer of the bottom. Adah was sure you could get cancer easily from under there. What was she going to do now? If only Francis would be reasonable. Whatever happened, she was going to risk it. A cap was better than nothing.
Second Class Citizen Page 17