“No. No dirty! Look! Opi put clean bag … no dirt. Opi take out dinner – clean, clean!”
Nola stared down at the crisp garbage bag in the bin and laughed out loud. The woman had obviously been prepared for Eric’s command. Not so feeble-minded after all.
“Hopey… the girl upstairs? Petra? Petra is upstairs?”
Hopey stopped ladling and cocked her eye at Nola. Then she heaved her heavy frame up from the bin and placed the bowl on the counter.
“Ratta take Peta home?”
Nola nodded, “Yes, Ratta take Petra home. Show me! Show me Petra!”
Hopey took two bowls from the cupboard and ladled first rice, then stew into them. Then she plopped an ear of corn on the side of each bowl and placed them on a tray along with two glasses of water. She picked the doll up from the counter and placed it between the bowls, then picked up the tray and nodded at Nola.
“Come,” she said, and left the kitchen.
Nola hesitated. There were probably more watchmen hidden within the walls of the house.
“Come!” The woman was back at the doorway, arms waffling with the weight of the tray. “Come! Ratta make Peta eat!”
Nola followed her. They walked through a dining room with a huge glass table surrounded by eight white leather and aluminum chairs. A crystal chandelier hung low over the centre of the table, its icy drops reflecting the light and casting silvery spots over the walls. They approached a flight of stairs which led up from a living room just as white and pristine as the kitchen and dining room. Two white sofas faced each other across from another glass table, a large painting of a white horse running through white, frothy sea surf hanging on the wall. Nola sighed as she stared at the collection of crystal ashtrays arranged in a circle on the coffee table. No wonder poor Petra had chosen this place over the plastic chairs and mosquito-riddled ackee trees of Palm View.
Nola stopped and listened—the music had stopped. The house was silent.
The landing upstairs boasted the biggest television set Nola had ever seen. A small sofa and reclining chair sat in front of it. A wooden table between them was littered with cash register receipts. Nola’s gaze locked onto the black scandal bag in the midst of the receipts—wads of money fastened with elastic bands were sticking casually out of it. Poor Barry. The temptation must have been irresistible.
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There were three closed doors on the landing, all between the many windows Nola had seen from the gate. Hopey walked to the farthest one in the corner and placed the tray on the ground. She opened the door slowly, peeking in as if expecting a wild animal to jump out at her, then she picked up the tray and entered the room.
Nola followed. The room was small, painted in soft blue with a blue bedspread on the bed and blue curtains drawn over windows. Nola stared upwards in awe. There were white clouds painted on the ceiling, as wispy and light as if in the midst of a bright June sky.
A lamp burned on the bedside table beside the twin bed, illuminating the little figure covered from head to toe by the blue bedspread.
“Peta?” Hopey shuffled over to the bed and placed the tray on the night table.
The figure moved slightly, a little jump of fright, but then it was still again. When Hopey pulled gently at the bedspread, it made a small grunt of objection, but there was no other movement.
“Food come, Peta. You eat up food for Opi?” The woman’s voice was as gentle as her movements.
But the head in the bed turned away. Nola could see that the hair was uncombed, sticking above the bedspread like river weed. Hopey turned and gave Nola a hopeless look with her weepy eye, beckoning for her to approach the bed.
Nola walked slowly, suddenly unsure about Petra’s reaction when she saw her there in Eric’s house. She bent over the bushy head, and the strong odour of sweat and stale breath wafted thickly over her face.
“Petra?” she whispered.
The figure jumped again, but did not turn to face her. Nola pulled the locks from her head. “Petra … it’s Nola!” She said, a little louder.
She could hear Hopey gasp and mutter something about the locks hanging from Nola’s hand, but she could pay no attention to the woman at that moment, because, very slowly, Petra’s head was turning.
And then it was Nola’s turn to gasp.
Her hands flew to her mouth and she gagged in disbelief at the face below her. This battered, swollen, distorted face could not belong to Petra! This face, with both eyes swollen almost shut, covered with mucous that had hardened, one layer on the other, into yellow scales over the purple flesh, was someone else! Those could not be the eyes that had flashed so angrily over Kendra’s head. The bottom lip now protruded way past the top lip, a yellowish split positioned right in the middle as if meticulously placed there. It had started to fester, the puss seeping through the split like a busted serese pod.
Hopey touched Nola’s shoulder and whispered. “Opi and Val try dress Peta face, but Peta nuh want we touch.”
“Nola?” Petra was whispering. “Where … am … I? Ho … Home?” Her voice cracked on the word ‘home’. “Where … Auntie … and … Ken … Kendra?”
“I come for you, Petra. I goin’ take you home, okay?” It was all Nola could say and not burst into tears.
The battered head nodded.
“But first, we have to put something on your face. We have to dress your face and you have to eat. You have to eat to get strong to make it home.”
Hopey gave another glance at the locks in Nola’s hand, but at the word ‘eat’ she nodded and murmured, “Ah! Peta eat. Nola make Peta eat. Fix Peta back pretty, pretty.”
Petra tried to make a facial movement, but only her bottom lip quivered.
Hopey picked up the tray. “Come Nola! You give Peta food!”
But Petra said. “Hurt … can’t … eat.”
Once again, rage rose within Nola like a new appendage within her chest. How dare he saunter into Petra’s life with his sugar words, take her away from her baby, from her aunty, just to beat her and leave her lyin’ under this pretend sky? She touched Petra’s blackening cheek, causing the girl to wince.
“Drink then, Petra. Drink something for me.” She whispered against Petra’s ear.
Petra did not answer, and Nola took her silence for a ‘yes’. She dropped the locks onto the floor and took one of the glasses from the tray, signaling for Hopey to go ahead and eat her own dinner.
The woman did not move, just stood blinking that one eye at Nola’s bared braids.
“Hopey, I goin’ to get Petra to eat. She just need to wet her throat first, okay?”
With that, the woman hesitantly picked up one of the bowls of stew and lowered herself onto the floor by the foot of the bed, placing the doll beside her. Nola watched as she dipped a spoon into the stew, then offered it to the doll before plopping it into her own mouth.
When Nola was satisfied that she was totally engrossed in her meal, she removed something from the rags around her waist. Aggie’s package. The one she’d placed into Nola’s hand before the taxi had driven off that night. Nola didn’t know why she’d had the inclination to push the thing into her waist, but ever since donning her disguise, she’d always left the house with the package and the policeman’s slip of paper tucked into the folds of her rags. Maybe it was because as she’d wrapped herself, the memory of Aggie had been so strong that she needed something else, some real part of Aggie with her.
As soon as she untied the pink sateen, the familiar pungency of Aggie’s stall filled the room. She took a deep breath and felt a strange twinge deep within her chest. Power. Yes, power. It was as if the power in that sachet of herbs was actually diffusing through her like a physical force.
Nola checked to see if Hopey had noticed the smell, but the woman was busy alternating the spoon between the doll’s stoic face and her own slurping mouth.
Nola pinched up some of the herbs, careful to measure to the first line of her finger as she’d watche
d Aggie do so many times. One finger in the meal and it will heal, two in the head and you will dead! Praying that she had the correct measurement, Nola ground the flakes between her fingers and sprinkled the powder into the water, then stirred vigorously with the spoon from the tray. She put a spoonful against Petra’s lips.
Despite their swollen, infected state, they tightened firmly and turned away.
“Sshh, Petra, drink it. It will make you better. Trust me, make you better.” Nola pleaded.
And Petra drank. She opened her lips slowly and allowed Nola to pour the liquid onto her tongue. She coughed at first as the bitterness grated against her parched throat, but when Nola lifted her head off the pillow and murmured encouragingly, she swallowed. The girl painstakingly swallowed nearly a quarter of the glass, but soon she shook her head and turned away from the spoon.
“Okay, enough,” Nola laughed softly, and placed the glass back on the tray.
Hopey’s spoon clattered into her empty bowl and she released a belch so loud that both Petra and Nola jumped. The woman chuckled and rubbed her great belly.
“Food nice!” she said. “Opi cook nice for Baba. Peta eat?”
Nola shook her head. “Hopey, Petra not goin’ be able to eat your nice cookin’ till her mouth get better. We have to dress it so it will get better, then she can eat.”
“Opi and Val try. We put untmint on Peta, but Peta nuh want we touch! Peta cry, Want go home! Want me auntie!”
Petra groaned, her tongue flicking for an instant over the split on her lip. Nola watched the girl’s face grimace, then relax back into sleep.
“Bring the ointment for me, Hopey. She can’t fight us now.”
Opi nodded and took the tray out of the room, the doll nestled between her empty bowl and Petra’s untouched one.
“Nola …”
Nola jumped. Petra’s breathing was so deep that she’d thought the girl had already succumbed to the effects of Aggie’s potion.
“Nola …” Petra said again, “How … is … my …?” She grimaced slightly. “Lie … beside … me.”
Nola stood still, unsure if Petra was aware of her words beneath the daze of the herbs.
“Nola … beside me, please. Hold … me …”
Nola hesitated for an instant before she knocked off her slippers and, for the first time in over one year, climbed into a bed. She lay beside Petra’s frail body, and as the girl shuffled closer, Nola put her arm around her waist. This was how she’d hugged Grampy, and he’d felt just like this, like broken, discarded sticks lying on the riverbank after a heavy rainfall.
“Nola, I … sorry to … do all … this. Aunty … I too bad … for this … world. Don’t belong … here.” Then Petra sighed, and Nola felt the body relax. Finally, she succumbed to that glorious, healing darkness that Nola knew so well.
“No, Petra,” Nola whispered into the girl’s stale, unaware breaths, “You too good for this world, that’s the problem. Too good for this bad place.”
It was not until Hopey lumbered back into the room that Nola realized the pillow beneath her face was wet.
“Nola sleep?” Hopey bent over the bed and blinked her weepy eye.
Nola extricated her limbs from Petra’s body. The girl did not budge.
“Thanks,” Nola nodded at Hopey as she took the jar from her thick fingers.
She turned her back to the woman and added a pinch of Aggie’s herbs to the dark purple ointment, then she smeared the cream over Petra’s lips and face. When she’d finished, she pointed at Hopey’s bloody lip.
“Come, Hopey,” she said, “Your turn.”
But Hopey shook her head anxiously and her hands flew over her mouth. “Eric no like untment! Eric sey, Opi look like duppy. Opi get outta house!”
So that’s how it was, Nola thought. He injured them, then refused them the things they needed to get better.
“Hopey, is Eric who do that to Petra?”
The woman blinked her eye again, then began plucking at the doll’s hair. Nola reached over and held her hands still.
“I know is him, Hopey, you don’t have to answer.” She swallowed the lump that blocked her throat. “Hopey, I have to take Petra home. She have to get home.” She thought for an instant. “She have a little baby. A baba!” She pointed at the doll in Hopey’s arms. “I have to take her back to her baba.”
Hopey clutched the doll against her chest. “Baba sad without Mama!”
Nola nodded, happy that she’d hit the right nerve. “Yes, Hopey, baba very sad, so I have to take Petra back, but … but I can’t let Eric see me.”
The thundercloud passed over Hopey’s face again, but this time she did not shriek. Instead, she picked at another tuft of hair on the doll’s head. Suddenly Nola realized what had happened to the missing hair from those dark holes.
“Baba want come. Opi and baba come with Peta!”
Nola sighed. It didn’t make sense to argue at this crucial point. “Okay, Hopey, but not now. Petra too weak, now. She need to sleep and get better. I goin’ to come back in a couple days for her, but make sure you don’t say nothin’ to nobody, okay? Don’t say nothin’ to Val, or Eric, or nobody!”
Hopey’s cheeks waffled eagerly.
“You have to take care of Petra, for me, okay? When she wake up, she goin’ want to eat, so you make some soup, some callaloo soup. You can get some callaloo, Hopey?”
Hopey nodded again. “Opi go market, buy plenty callaloo for Peta.”
Nola stared into Hopey’s eye, a pulse of excitement jerking her heart. “You go to market? When you go to market, Hopey?”
Hopey thought for a while. “When Gwenny come to iron clothes, Necka take Opi and baba to market. Opi buy yam, corn, potato, tomato … and callaloo for Peta!”
Necka! Nola gagged at the mention of the man’s name. “Yes, callaloo for Petra. Hopey. Which market you go to?”
“Coralation! Opi go Coralation Market when Gwenny come to iron clothes! Buy yam, corn, potato, tomato, and callaloo! Opi buy plenty callaloo for Peta!”
Coronation Market, downtown Kingston. Nola thought for a while, twisting her fingers anxiously in her lap. If only they could find a way to get Petra to the market with Hopey, then Nola could meet them there and take Petra back to Palm View. It sounded so easy, but would Eric let Petra leave the house with Hopey? And, even if Hopey took her secretly when Eric had left for the day, what of Necka? He would definitely rat to Eric, with his stinking fish breath! And, most importantly, how was Nola going to find out what the hell day Gwenny came to iron the clothes?!
Nola sighed. She would just have to come back. She would once again have to sneak past the ‘guards’ on the street, into the house, and steal Petra. Unless… her hand flew to the slip of paper tucked beneath her bra strap. Unless she could get help from someone not intimidated by the likes of Eric McKenzie! She dug the paper out of her rags and opened it up to reveal the numbers scrawled across it.
Winston, he’d written his name beneath the numbers. Winston, the detective. Nola stared at the paper. Was it a sign? She’d taken the paper and Aggie’s herbs from her drawer and she hadn’t known why, and it had turned out that she’d needed the herbs for Petra’s injuries, so was she also to call the policeman? Was he the one who would get Petra home and Eric out of their lives forever? Was it her spirit again? That loose rattle instructing her to do something that her brain hadn’t yet registered, just as it had niggled her about Barry’s death?
Nola tried to recall the policeman’s face as he’d sat beside her on the curb. There had been something about his eyes—yet he’d offered her a drink, and that had made her feel there was some kindness to him. He’d wanted to help. He’d wanted to help to find Barry’s murderer, and he’d known they were all holding back, that’s why his eyes had seemed so strange. Nola gripped the paper tightly.
“Hopey, where’s the phone?”
She blinked at Nola’s question. “No phone,” she eventually mumbled.
It was Nola’s turn to bl
ink. “No phone?!” Eric McKenzie didn’t have a phone in his house? Impossible! “There must be a phone somewhere, Hopey!”
Hopey rested the doll on her shoulder and began to pat its back, making its limbs rattle.
“Phone in Eric room. Nobody use Eric phone, ‘cept Eric and Val!”
Nola nearly laughed at Hopey’s imitation of Eric’s authoritative tone.
“And Eric’s room door is locked, of course?” Nola threw her arms in the air.
“But why him have him money just put down easy as cheese on the table and then lock up him room,?” Nola spoke half to herself, half to the woman. Then she remembered Eric and Pedro’s shifting eyes as they’d sat on the sidewalk outside of Ab’s shop. Cowards, with their shifty-eyed fears, sending Necka to do their dirty work. No wonder there were watchmen on every corner! Oh well, she’d just have to call Winston when she got back to Palm View.
“Okay, Hopey, I goin’ leave now before Eric come back. Remember, you have to dress Petra face. You have to take care of her till I come back for her, okay?”
Hopey nodded and her eye flicked toward the bedroom door.
“Promise me that you not goin’ make Eric hurt Peta again.”
But, as Nola looked into that sad, blinking eye and the wobbling jowls, she realized how futile her request was. She left the room with her heart heavy, but she kept telling herself that she would be back for Petra in no time. The detective would help her. She knew he would. She prayed he would.
It wasn’t until the smoking woman’s voice rasped, “What the hell you think you doin’ here?” that Nola’s heart collapsed.
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Hopey had called the smoking woman. When she’d gone to get the ‘untment’ for Petra’s face, she’d called from the phone in the kitchen.
How stupid Nola had been, not to have remembered that when Hopey had first beckoned her into the kitchen, the doll had been leaning against a phone book on the counter, right beneath a white telephone. It must have been the shock of finding Petra in that state that had chased all details out of her mind. Never once in Hopey’s speech about the only phone being in Eric’s room, did Nola have the slightest memory of the one in the kitchen.
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