‘You shouldn’t let that old bitch bother you.’
‘She don’t bother me,’ Site said.
At that moment, Mrs Bholai’s voice spoke sharply but indecipherably and Julian’s face disappeared behind the verandah rail, as if he had been tugged violently. The newspaper followed their progress. It was then Sushila made her decision.
‘How you would feel if I was to say I was going to take you away from here soon?’
Site looked up at her mother, surprised. She did not answer.
Her silence irritated Sushila. Delicious images of revenge were swirling like dustclouds in her imagination. ‘You want to go on living in the Settlement for the rest of your life?’
‘No.’ Sita stared at her mother’s indistinct face. ‘But …’
‘But what?’
‘If you’re only doing it because of Phulo …’
‘Phulo have nothing to do with it,’ she rasped. ‘All I want to know is whether you want to go on living in the Settlement for the rest of your life?’
‘No,’ Sita said.
‘Good,’ Sushila replied. ‘I always say I would take you away from here and I going to keep my promise.’
A few yards beyond where they were, the main road straightened itself and ran unhindered through the high banks of sugarcane, disappearing from view over the crest of a gentle rise. On it rolled to San Fernando and places further afield; places Sita had never visited. Sushila had travelled up and down its length so many times, she had long since ceased to be affected by its promises – real and illusory. For Sita, however, it was still a magic carpet.
‘No,’ she repeated. ‘I don’t want to live here for the rest of my life.’
Sushila laughed.
‘Where you taking me? San Fernando?’
‘No. Not San Fernando.’
‘Port-of-Spain?’ Sita glanced in the opposite direction.
‘Not Port-of-Spain either. I can’t tell you yet. Is not definite. But one way or the other I taking you away from here. You have to be patient though. It will take time to work out.’
‘I can wait,’ Sita said. ‘A few more months won’t make any difference.’
The sun had sunk out of sight and the first lights had come on in the Settlement. Verandahs emptied. The night was cool.
‘Is time we was getting back,’ Sushila said.
A week later Basdai arrived at the house in Victoria with Sushila in tow. Brushing importantly past Wilbert, she hustled Sushila into the sitting-room. Sushila did not need the encouragement. Wilbert followed speechlessly.
‘Don’t overdo it,’ Basdai whispered. ‘Remember you have to make a good impression. Let me do the talking.’
Sushila slowed her pace and laughed, allowing her stride to fall into a lazier, more slatternly rhythm. She winked at Wilbert and, resting her hands on her hips, stared inquisitively round her. In what was a good imitation of her son-in-law, Basdai pushed her into one of the armchairs. ‘Sit there and behave yourself,’ she commanded. ‘You will spoil everything if you not careful.’ Her calm growing with each new assault from Basdai, Sushila arranged herself with careful deliberation in the chair and, crossing her knees, she awaited further instructions. ‘You have to learn to behave yourself if you want to stay here.’
‘Stay here!’ Wilbert exclaimed involuntarily and with deepening astonishment as the spectacle unfolded. ‘She going to stay here?’
Basdai smiled serenely. ‘Go and tell your father we come,’ she said in the same peremptory tone she had been using with her wilful charge. Then, recollecting herself, she added more politely: ‘He expecting we.’
‘He didn’t tell me he was expecting anybody today.’
‘You just go and tell him we come,’ she urged, primly confident.
‘He resting. You know he doesn’t like …’
‘Since when I have to be asking your lordship permission for who I see or don’t see? Eh? Since when? I is still the master around here.’ The door to the front bedroom had opened and Egbert Ramasaran stood there in his dressing-gown, staring coldly at his son. He turned to Basdai. ‘This boy been behaving very peculiar of late. I don’t know what is the matter with him.’
‘I didn’t know you was expecting …’
‘Quiet!’
Wilbert stuttered into obedient silence. He bowed his head.
‘Good.’ Egbert Ramsaran, pulling the cord of his dressing-gown tighter, directed a sardonic gaze towards his mother-in-law. ‘Now,’ he said, ‘tell me what it is bring you here to disturb my peace.’
‘Well, you remember, ever since Rani died …’
‘Yes, yes. I remember well enough. Get to the point.’
Basdai discarded the speech she had rehearsed. ‘Well, to cut a long story short, Sushila here say she willing to come and look after you and Wilbert. She is a strong, healthy …’ Basdai proceeded to enumerate all the desirable qualities her own daughter had so patently lacked.
‘Sushila!’ Egbert Ramsaran transferred his sardonic gaze to her, giving the impression he had only just then become aware of her presence. Sushila returned his scrutiny unabashedly, a smile animated the edges of her lips.
‘Stand up, girl, when your elders and betters speaking to you. And wipe that smile off your face.’ Basdai fidgeted.
Not taking her eyes off Egbert Ramsaran, Sushila uncrossed her legs and raised herself languidly from the chair in one smooth, fluid movement. Egbert Ramsaran was visibly discomfited by this accomplished performance. The sardonic expression which he had borne down on her seeped away and in its place came something like interest and curiosity. His self-assurance flickered unstably. He turned away abruptly, frowning, and addressed himself to his son.
‘You expect me to spend the whole morning standing up like this?’
Wilbert did not understand immediately.
‘A chair, boy! A chair I’ he ground out irritably between his teeth. ‘Go to the kitchen and get me a chair.’
Wilbert hastened to the kitchen.
In his absence, no one spoke. Egbert Ramsaran, his hands buried deep in the voluminous pockets of his dressing-gown, assumed his by now familiar air of being lost in remote speculations. Sushila, who had resumed her seat, watched him expectantly as did Basdai who was trying to decipher and assess his reaction. Wilbert returned with the wooden chair and placed it in its usual position in the centre of the room. Egbert Ramsaran sat down. It seemed to restore some of his composure. He drew his knees together in his schoolgirlish fashion.
‘What kind of relation Sushila is to you?’ He gazed sternly at Basdai.
‘Oh!’ she answered, waving her arms in a vague flourish, ‘Sushila come from somewhere on my husband side.’ She did not elaborate.
‘Where on you husband side? The right? The left?’
‘To tell the truth, I not sure from where she come exactly. My husband never tell me.’
‘She just drop down out of the sky, eh! Plop! Like that.’ Egbert Ramsaran clapped his hands.
Basdai’s resigned smile seemed to suggest that this was precisely what had occurred. She was thankful he did not pursue the point any further.
‘She married?’ He was behaving as if Sushila were not there.
‘Well …’ Basdai executed her vague flourish.
‘Either she married or she not married. You must know that.’ Egbert Ramsaran glowered at the hapless Basdai.
‘To be frank with you, Sushila not married,’ Basdai admitted helplessly.
‘How come? That is a little funny for someone of she age, not so?’ His forehead furrowed questioningly.
Basdai hesitated. ‘It just never work out that way with Sushila. Is like that with some people. But it don’t mean nothing bad. Sushila just never meet the right man. That’s all.’
Egbert Ramsaran looked at her doubtfully. ‘It never stop any of you before,’ he said.
Basdai giggled. She had nothing else to say to him. Her cunning was letting her down.
‘Though I never get marrie
d,’ Sushila broke suddenly into the conversation, attempting to lure his attention to herself, ‘I have a child – a daughter called Sita. She’s about your son age in fact. Maybe a little younger.’ She sat forward on the edge of her chair, craning her neck towards him; willing him to look at her.
‘I tell you to let me do the talking, girl. When we want to hear you, we will ask. Sita have nothing to do with all this.’
‘I have a tongue to do my own talking with.’
‘You don’t have to worry your head about Sita.’ Basdai assured Egbert Ramsaran hastily. ‘That is why I didn’t mention she in the first place. Sita going to be staying with me. We arrange all that already. Anyway, she’s a big enough girl to take care of sheself.’
‘Sita is a very bright child,’ Sushila explained. ‘She very interested in education and that kind of thing. When she grow up she want to be a B.A. Languages.’
Caught in the crossfire, Egbert Ramsaran seemed not to have heard a single word.
‘Why you never get married?’ At last he turned to look at Sushila.
‘Marriage didn’t agree with me,’ Sushila replied readily, pleased she had captured the conversation. ‘Is not for all of us. I don’t like being tied down too much.’
Egbert Ramsaran, rubbing his chin, nodded sympathetically. ‘It didn’t agree with me either.’
‘Women is no different from men in that respect. For some – like me – is as bad as it is for some men. Even worse because is always easier for a man to get away.’
‘What about the child father? Where is he?’ Egbert Ramsaran asked.
Basdai fidgeted.
Sushila, however, was in firm control. She parried neatly. ‘He run like greased lightning when he find out I was making a baby for him. He might be dead for all I know – I never see him since.’
‘So, he give you a baby and he run. You let him fool you.’ Egbert Ramsaran spoke with satisfaction.
Sushila was affronted. ‘He didn’t fool me. I wouldn’t let no man make a fool of me.’
‘Still, he give you a baby …’
‘The baby was an accident – that is the price you have to pay for being a woman.’ She grimaced. ‘Mind you,’ she went on, as if justifying herself, ‘he was very nice. Very handsome. I even used to think I was in love with him … for a while.’
‘In love!’ He stared balefully at her.
Sushila laughed. ‘I was a young girl at the time and I used to fall in love with nearly every man I meet.’ Tilting her head, she stared at him out of the corners of her eyes.
Egbert Ramsaran smiled in spite of himself. But it was a smile tinged with a vaguely formulated apprehension.
‘I could never stand the Settlement,’ Sushila continued, guiding the conversation away from her pregnancy and into what she suspected would be a more fruitful channel. ‘I had run away twice when I was a girl – before I ever get pregnant.’
Basdai fidgeted.
‘Is that so?’ Egbert Ramsaran elevated his eyebrows. He showed interest. ‘Where did you used to go?’
‘Anywhere. The further the better.’
‘I was like that too,’ he said reflectively, retreating momentarily into that air of distant cordiality. ‘I had …’ (he laughed)…‘I had very big ideas. I always wanted to get away. Everywhere you turned in that place was one thing and one thing only. Sugar …’
‘… cane,’ Sushila completed the word triumphantly. ‘I know exactly what you mean. Everywhere you turn …’
‘Even now to see sugarcane …’ He wagged his head.
Her tactic had worked. Sushila glanced at Basdai. ‘She used to beat me up for running away.’
Basdai was apologetic. ‘What else I could have do?’ Nevertheless, she was pleased with the way things were going: very pleased and therefore happy to accept the blame.
A thought occurred to Egbert Ramsaran. ‘Why you want to come and work here?’
Sushila laughed. ‘I hear so much about you in the Settlement and everywhere else. I remember how excited everybody was when you married Rani.’
‘What you hear about me?’
‘That you was worse than the devil himself!’
‘Not true,’ Basdai put in. ‘Not true at all.’
They ignored her.
‘Supposing,’ Egbert Ramsaran said tentatively, ‘you came here, how long you think you will stay?’
‘That depends. If you is really the devil they say you is, a few minutes at the most.’
‘And if I is not the devil they say I is?’
‘Then it will depend on … on how I feel. I never like staying in one place for too long.’
Egbert Ramsaran scowled. ‘I is not an easy man to get on with. When I say I want a thing done just so, I mean I want it done just so.’ He was endeavouring, but in vain, to marshal his ferocity.
‘So they say.’
‘You don’t believe me?’
‘I believe you,’ she said simply, her eyes feeding on his face. ‘It have just one other thing. If I come here, I must be free to come and go as I please.’
‘Of course. You is not a prisoner.’ Egbert Ramsaran got up.
‘Sushila is a very hard worker,’ Basdai put in. ‘She won’t give you no trouble.’
‘We’ll wait and see,’ he said. ‘I’ll give it a try. We need a woman about the place …’ He paused in confusion.
Basdai beamed. ‘That is all we want. A trial. If you not satisfy …’
The rest of her words were wasted on him as the door to his bedroom closed.
After the interview, Wilbert listened to his father pacing about the bedroom. Late that evening, he was summoned with an irritable shout. Egbert Ramsaran had stopped his pacing and was lying in bed, the thin cotton sheet drawn up to his neck. All the windows in the room had been thrown wide open, the lace curtains drooping lifelessly in the still air. The detective novel of the moment lay unopened on his chest and the almanac was awry on its rusted nail. From the cupboard above the bed was wafted the musty odour of patent medicines. But there all similarity with previous encounters of the kind ended. An infantile truculence had taken hold of Egbert Ramsaran. The untidy bed told the tale of his restlessness. His cheeks were flushed and he seemed unable to keep his arms and legs motionless. He hauled himself upright when Wilbert entered the room.
‘What you standing up there looking so stupid for?’ His voice whistled. ‘Look at that almanac. Never straight. Nothing is ever straight in this house. Do something about the almanac. Make yourself useful for a change.’ He shook the rippling sheet.
Wilbert straightened the calendar as best he could and waited.
‘Sit! Sit! I can’t talk with you standing up there like a statue.’ Waving his hands pettishly, he tapped the edge of the bed. Wilbert sat down. Egbert Ramsaran massaged his stomach and groaned. He flung back the sheet. ‘Look at it. Tight as a drum tonight.’ Reaching up, he unhooked the catch of the medicine cupboard and feeling his way among the multitudes of bottles and boxes and tins, extracted from it the blue Milk of Magnesia bottle. ‘Is all the same rubbish. Nothing does do the trick any more. My indigestion get a lot worse since your mother die. Like she haunting me from the grave.’ He studied the bottle, rolling it between his fingers. ‘What’s the use?’ he muttered. He tossed it away from him. ‘Haunting me from the grave. Tight as a drum. Feel it!’ He grasped Wilbert’s hand and pounded it on his stomach. The skin was smooth and leathery. ‘Well,’ he continued after a pause and with heightened irritation, ‘what you have to say for yourself, eh?’ His piping voice whistled piercingly into Wilbert’s ear, ‘Your tongue couldn’t stop wagging when Basdai bring that woman here. What happen to it all of a sudden?’ Egbert Ramsaran pummelled the pillows into shapeless lumps. ‘Don’t pretend with me. You know damn well what I talking about. Ever since your mother die you been … what’s the matter with you? What’s wrong?’
‘Nothing is the matter with me. I didn’t know you was expecting them. You hadn’t tell me.’ Wilbert stared at the
network of cracks on the walls.
‘And since when I have to tell you all my business? Since when?’ Egbert Ramsaran glowered at his son.
Wilbert said nothing.
‘Be more careful next time.’ Egbert Ramsaran picked up the Milk of Magnesia bottle. Averting his face from Wilbert, he chiselled with his fingernail at the label.
Wilbert got up, moving to the door.
‘Where you think you going?’ Egbert Ramsaran asked. ‘I not finished with you yet. Sit back down. I will tell you when to go.’
Wilbert sat down.
For some minutes Egbert Ramsaran did not speak. He chiselled assiduously at the label on the bottle; lost in his remote speculations. Then, still not looking at Wilbert, he said suddenly: ‘That woman your grandmother bring here this morning – I can’t remember she name now.’
‘Sushila.’
‘Ah! Sushila! Yes. That was it. Sushila. I can’t think why I couldn’t remember it. Sushila! I not too sure that I like that name.’ Nevertheless, he seemed to enjoy pronouncing it. ‘Is this Sushila I want to talk about with you.’ He hauled himself further up the bed. He was behaving as though – because Wilbert had been the first to mention her name – he was absolved of some of the responsibility for bringing up the subject. ‘What you think of this Sushila?’ he asked.
Wilbert shifted uncomfortably, staring at the cracks on the walls.
‘Answer me straight. I ask you a straightforward question and I expect a straightforward answer. None of this beating around the bush with me.’
Wilbert could think of nothing to say. There was no specific objection he could put forward to her coming; and, even if there were, he would not have dared. ‘She very good-looking.’ He astonished himself: the words had emerged of their own accord.
‘Eh! But what is all this I hearing! My ears must be fooling me. Repeat what you just say.’
‘I say she was very good-looking.’ The words slipped from his mouth in an unsteady rush.
Egbert Ramsaran looked at his son strangely. For an instant, he seemed on the verge of confiding something to him. He collected himself quickly. ‘She getting on in age though. You notice that?’ He spoke with satisfaction. ‘Getting on. Already you could see the wrinkles starting to form.’ He uttered a shrill squeak of what might have been delight. ‘Yes, my boy, your Sushila who you find so good-looking is getting on. How old you would say she is? Thirty? She can’t be much younger than that if she have a daughter old enough to be …’ He massaged his stomach, absorbed in his calculations. ‘Thirty,’ he announced. ‘Thirty to thirty-two. For a woman like she that is … everybody have to get old. The beautiful as well as the ugly. I wonder if your Sushila know that. We all have to get old and die and whether you ugly or beautiful, the worms still going to eat you up. They can’t tell the difference.’ Again he uttered his shrill squeak of what might have been delight. ‘Still, it have a lot of life left in these old bones yet.’ He tapped his arm. ‘The worms will have to wait a long time for me.’ He glanced slyly at his son. ‘You feel your Sushila too good-looking to come and work here?’
The Chip-Chip Gatherers Page 11