Red Jacket

by Mordecai, Pamela;

  No abortion though. Plenty things are going through my head now that lead me to give you that advice. We will talk more. Meantime, just put on the best face you can manage for Sylvia’s sake, and the baby’s, for you don’t want to mark it with a sad spirit!

  I will call when I come. Take good care of yourself, and Sylvia and the baby.

  Grace

  MARK

  24

  No Rest for the Wicked

  The chancellor’s suite in the administrative building is named Garvey, after the Jamaican national hero who spent two months in St. Chris before going to Panama to commence his American adventures. A painting of the great man hangs in the vestibule along with portraits of UA’s first two chancellors.

  It’s early Thursday afternoon, and Mark is lying in his recliner, awake. Foiling his efforts at an afternoon nap before council starts are memories of his first and last conversations with Grace at UA. At the time he had been both Head of Department and Dean. Though she was only a part-time member of the faculty, come to do research for her doctoral thesis, she’d made a splash by publishing a paper entitled “A Model for Real Time (RT), Real Circumstance (RC), Tailor-Made Interventions (TMI) in Communities Affected by Vector-Transmitted Diseases.” It had got attention as far afield as the World Bank. Because she’d arrived with funding and wasn’t just any old grad student, he’d duly stopped by to check on how she’d settled in.

  “Hi, Miss Carpenter. Are you very busy?”

  “Always busy, Dr. Blackman, but do come in and have a seat.”

  “Mark, please. We’re informal here. I won’t stay long, as I know you must be busy.” Idiot. She’d just said that!

  “I could do with a break. And you may as well be comfortable, even if it’s only for a minute.”

  “Thanks,” he said, sitting. “I thought I’d see how you were doing, check if there’s anything I can help with. You know, stubborn issues, intractable people. We’ve been known to have those.”

  She smiled, but didn’t say anything, so he rambled on about workload, office hours, and library access. He was running out of topics when she spoke.

  “Mark, you really want to know what I find hard to deal with?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Everybody here is forever talking about plantation: plantation economy, plantation society, plantation attitudes, plantation this, plantation that. I tired to hear it and I just come. And this place is the biggest plantation!”

  He was surprised at the plantation label. That was an old quarrel made by rabble-rousing students. She had a reputation as a fine scholar, with the objectivity that implied, and she hadn’t struck him as the activist type.

  “You see me?” she went on. “I grow on a plantation, and I find it hard to see people who’re supposedly educated, intelligent, travelled, behaving like gorillas, jealous about territory, real backra massa style.”

  Aha! All politics is local! She’d clashed with some departmental high-up!

  “Would it help,” he spoke in a way meant to convince her, “if we talked about what’s bothering you? We won’t be able to fix it entirely, or right away, but it might be useful to have a chat?”

  She seemed to consider it and then said, “I’m sorry. I’m new here, Mark. I shouldn’t have spoken so quickly. I should give UA a chance.”

  After that she’d seemed happy, productive in her work, liked by the students, respected by her colleagues. Then one day she’d resigned; not had an altercation with anyone; not been found wanting in any way. Just upped and gave notice.

  He’d been off on sabbatical for the year, and her letter had arrived during his leave period, effective at the end of the Michaelmas Term, so pretty much the calendar year’s end. The acting dean mentioned it while bringing him up to speed on their way from the airport. He went to see her the next day.

  “Hi, Mark. Welcome back. Did your sabbatical go well?”

  “Very well, thanks. Better than things seem to have gone for you here.”

  She shrugged, said nothing.

  “I understand you’ve resigned. Is there no persuading you to stay?”

  “You know why I’m leaving, don’t you, Mark?”

  Through the window he saw rain, drops plump as ripe St. Chris cherries. September was a rainy month. A lake covered the quadrangle, which was enclosed by cement buildings housing the Social Sciences Faculty. Someone had convinced officialdom to leave them unpainted.

  “Suppose you tell me again.”

  “You remember that incident just after I came? A charge of sexual harassment that a post-grad student brought against Dr. Hazelton?”

  “Very clearly. The student’s name was Vie MacMillan.”

  “Right. You wouldn’t forget her. She was very bright.”

  Hazelton was memorable too: a fine teacher and remarkable scholar.

  “When they set up her committee, I was asked, not to be on it, but to hold a watching brief, because she was working on a model similar in some respects to the one I propose in my paper. I said yes, and I’ve taken an interest and offered her any help I could.”

  The rain increased. It sounded like they were talking inside a waterfall.

  “Please go on.” He had to raise his voice.

  “She told me he showed her his — glowing, by the way — report on her dissertation. However, he threatened to tear it up unless she withdrew the sexual harassment charge retroactively.”

  “But why is he one of her examiners? It’s ultra vires. And he can’t have threatened her. That’s unimaginable.”

  “She says he did, and why would she make it up?”

  “I agree. I don’t see her doing that. So has she lodged a complaint about this latest incident?”

  “No, she hasn’t.”

  “Well, what has she done? Nothing?”

  “Withdrawn the harassment charge. She said she had it sufficiently tough the first time around, and if she tried to make another accusation, it would be her word against his, and who would believe her. Last time she at least had some proof. Besides, she said, his report is enthusiastic.”

  “Did you do anything?”

  “I went to her supervisor, Colin Hall, who happens to have been a friend of Hazelton’s — still is, I think. Dr. Hall dismissed it as outrageous and accused me of having a personal grudge against Dr. Hazelton. Said he was very pleased Vie had eventually come to her senses and set the record straight.”

  “So you went to the Chair of the Committee for Postgraduate Affairs?”

  “I did. He said Vie would have to lodge a formal complaint.”

  “And what did Miss MacMillan say?”

  “She says she’s ‘going along with the fiction.’ She’s hoping they will set a date for her defence early in the New Year. Two reports are already in, including the external’s. Hazelton’s is the third. She has an attachment at UCLA starting in the fall that turns on her completing the degree, and that’s what’s important. If UA is happy with sexual predators on the faculty, so be it.”

  “And that’s why you decided to resign?”

  “It was the straw that broke the camel’s back. Made me think of all the many things that oughtn’t to go on that we allow to go on anyhow.”

  “And you won’t change your mind?”

  “Remember? I grew up on a plantation and that experience was enough.”

  “Bad as that?”

  “Plenty worse. I’m getting out of this place before I turn into a house nigger, especially like how I’m red already.”

  “I’m very sorry that’s what you’ve decided.”

  “White backra massa, brown backra massa, black backra massa! Same breed of dog.”

  He checks his watch. God Almighty! He best get at least twenty of the bespoke forty winks. The damn meeting is in a half hour.

  GRACE

  25

  Gramps Travels

  19 August 1979

  Dear Gracie,

  Sorry I never get to say much when I phone on the first from Mrs S
ampson house to tell you the news that Gramps take in bad, but you know I dont like to take advantage. Gramps never last long once he reach hospital and he pass on the 7 August. We sorry but is only Thursday just gone your Pa find out his office never send you the telegram they promise to send and Mr. Wong say he try your number whole day Friday and yesterday but nobody answer. we going keep on trying but is so long now I make up my mind to put pen to paper for maybe something wrong up your way with the phone. We bury Gramps today Sunday afternoon it was a good turnout. Pa handle all the church arrangements. No mind it was Methodist chapel Rev. Leslie the Anglican parson from Hector Castle that teach your father from early school days insist he will do the honours. he and Gramps was in primary school together and he was one of those that was groomsman when Gramps and Miss Elsie get married he retired now but he refuse for anybody else to do the service. Wentley Park people turn out well out of respect for your father. We bury Gramps right there in the churchyard the boys hold up good to make their grandfather proud but Princess and Sammy never stop cry when I see Pansy and Mortimer and the children it come to me that taking in Gramps is four generation of Carpenter people in the church. The boys look so much like big somebody that I frighten. Not going on more for I crying right here as I write Gramps living here with us and helping us in every way this long long time so is like a piece of my own body that is gone.

  Some more lines to follow soon everybody send love God bless.

  Ma

  30 August 1979

  Dear Ma and Pa,

  Thanks, Ma, for your letter. The phone in the dorm has been giving trouble this last little while sake of construction outside that mess up the connections. We complain but it hasn’t done much good up to now. I’m sorry Gramps is gone, but I’m not devastated. When I think of him and “water come a my yeye” like the song says, I swear I can feel him behind me, hand on my shoulder, saying, “Death is the end of life, Gracie. That’s how it is, and I can’t say that I’m not grateful, for the world is a mighty trying place.”

  Then I hear him chuckle, and I laugh too, and I see him putting infusions into white rum, and I smell them, and I smell him, his jackass rope, the coffee that he brew for us on Sunday morning, and the wet earth when he come to the door with mud on his shoes from his cultivation. I’m not saying it don’t hurt plenty to know that I won’t see him again, but it’s as if I can call to him, as if he hasn’t gone far.

  Steph says I can ask the priest to say a Mass for him, and that seem like a good idea. I don’t go to Beloved so much these days, for it come easier to follow Steph to Thomas Aquinas, which is the university church, and the Catholics have those things organized. Edris’s grandaunt and Ma’s parson at Evangel would be alarmed if they knew that I even light a candle now and then. I know you won’t be upset, Ma, for you always had your own ideas about those things. I like to think of that flame flickering when I’m no longer there, keeping my prayer going.

  I hope you and Pa are keeping well, especially after the stress of Gramps funeral. Please take care of yourselves. Hope Edgar, Stewie, Conrad, Sam, and Princess are doing okay too, and Pansy and Mortimer and their babies. Also please say hi to Mr. Wong for me, and to the Williamses. I’m rushing as usual but promise to write soon again.

  Much love,

  Grace

  She loves Gramps, but she’s still furious with him. Brooding through her library job and an extra stats course during the summer, she sometimes wondered why he never gave her Phyllis’s letters earlier, sometimes why he gave them to her at all. She is not to blame for any of this mess. Why should she have to fix it? But it is clearly up to her, for it seems like this other mother has no clue where she is or what she’s doing. So what ought she to do? Phone her and say, “Hello. This is your abandoned daughter, Grace”? Humph, as the comics say. And why has the word “abandoned” come into her mind? She never felt that way growing up — different, yes, but not neglected. It surprises her at first, but after a while she perceives how accurate it is. Dumped — by Phyllis, Daphne, Evadne, Gramps. And of course, Papa God.

  26

  Grace Meets Phyllis

  Annesley Hall,

  95 Queen’s Park Crescent,

  Toronto, Ontario,

  Canada, M5S 2C7

  8 September 1979

  Dear Phyllis,

  I don’t trust myself to phone yet, though that was the first thing that occurred to me. I hope you understand. It’s taken me long enough to get around to putting pen to paper. I also hope you don’t mind my calling you “Phyllis.” I fretted for a while about what would be the right thing and then gave up. I don’t mean any disrespect when I use your first name. My roommate calls her parents by their first names, and she respects and gets on well with them. I couldn’t write “Mother” or “Ma.” It’s Ma Carpenter who’s been that all my life.

  Gramps, bless his memory, said he would let you know that he’d given me the letters, and that you needn’t write anymore, because we could now be in touch and talk, person to person. He never mentioned his writing in response to any of those letters, nor any other communication with you. He did say he and Miss Evadne kept in touch, but I guess it wouldn’t have suited their purposes to mention me to you. I don’t suppose you have any idea of what I look like either, so I’ve included a photo of the skinny, freckled, red girl who is your daughter. That way you will know what to expect, if ever we meet.

  I think it’s better to talk by letter first, for I am still unsettled by all these things, not to mention Gramps’s passing. It’s been a lot for me to take in at one time.

  Right now I am beginning my final year at the University of Toronto, having spent much of the summer in the same library job I’ve had for a couple of years now. I am working towards a degree in economics with some sociology and a bit of psych on the side. So far, I’m doing pretty well. I don’t have much of a social life, and though I found a church that I like, haven’t been going regularly. I tell you this up front because it is plain that you are religious. I live in the dorm and have a white Canadian roommate named Stephanie Scott with whom I get along very well. She is a Catholic and I sometimes go to church with her, so at least my most immediate influence is a good one.

  I am curious about your day-to-day life. Where exactly do you live? I don’t know much about New York, so your address doesn’t tell me anything. I read about a convent in your letters and assume that you still work there. What is your job now? Why didn’t you leave the convent as soon as your schooling was over? Surely you must have been dying to get away from that atmosphere and those memories? What about my grandmother, Daphne? And my great-grandmother, Miss Evadne?

  I look forward to hearing from you. Please take care.

  Sincerely,

  Grace Carpenter

  She can do no better. She thinks about whether to add the “Carpenter,” for Phyllis is her blood mother, after all, and in a way it is not kind to add her surname, but she decides she’s going to do it. She’s going to stand firm in her displeasure. If anyone is to blame for her abandonment, it is Gramps, he and Miss Evadne. She can bet he was the one giving Miss Evadne advice, concocting her life like one of his infusions. Her birth mother is least to blame, and everybody had the best intentions, she’s quite sure. But, sake of them, there is now, and has always been, all these crosses in her life.

  She can’t dwell on it. She has work to do.

  23 September 1979

  My dear Grace,

  I was so happy to get your letter. I could hardly believe what it was that I held in my hands! I’ve been trying to behave in a composed fashion ever since, but without much success. I long to talk to you and to meet you! However, I respect your position. We can write letters for as long as you wish. Still, I’d be glad if you would let me know when you decide that it would be all right for me to call you.

  Forgive me. I should have started by saying how sorry I was to hear about old Mr. Carpenter’s passing. Please accept our sympathies and prayers. We know you will all m
iss him very much.

  As for what to call me, I am perfectly happy with Phyllis. I am old-fashioned in a lot of ways, but it would be silly of me to expect you to relate to me as your mother — not at this point, anyway. By the way, I think you have a wonderful name. I hope you like it. I have never been especially happy with mine. They say it means leafy or green bough. I don’t know how leafy I am, and if I am a bough, I grow more dry and brittle every day.

  Congratulations on your success at school. Those are not areas about which I know much, though I enjoy reading popular articles on economics and even a little layman’s psychology. These days we all need to understand how the world works, as well as what makes people tick. What kind of career do you plan? Of course, it’s early days yet, so you may not have decided. Thank God you have a roommate whom you like! When that is not the case, it can be horrible.

  As for your questions: I live in an apartment in a charming old building at the corner of Riverside Drive and 114th Street in Manhattan. Riverside Drive runs along the west side of Manhattan Island, close to the Hudson River. It is the apartment that we lived in with your Grandma Daphne, and that your great-grandma and I have continued to live in since Daphne married and went to live with her husband and his family in New Jersey. I haven’t told her that I’ve heard from you yet. I thought it might be wise to wait a little. She’s a young woman, just fifty-two, very smart and determined. She and her husband have set up a beauty business and are doing very well.

  I still work at the convent. The nuns were good to me from the beginning, and they operate a miraculous institution. They are mostly bright, talented women who love life and enjoy giving service, and they have an excellent program. I have no desire to leave. I have a good job: I am responsible for managing the kindergarten and child-care centre. I’ve always loved the babies, and that is where I did practical training when I first came.