That was it.
That is it.
His happiness, or rather his unhappiness.
He had not been happy since he knew Dots. He had not been happy, and he did not know until he had seen the woman the previous time, with her winter coat unbuttoned exposing the mauve colour of her dress, that he was not happy, for the colour of her dress was mauve. That was it! It was like peeling off a skin from a fruit, and the woman was the fruit. It was like his eyes which in sleep, in dream, would be clogged up by pus and cold and other secretions which would prevent them from opening; it was like in that dream he had when his wife was with the young man and the young man was doing something to her, and he was tied to his position, to his posture, helpless and observing, and the more helpless because he was a witness; it was like being unable to move from one spot to help someone like Dots, a wife, a woman, a woman raped just as the woman in the newspaper story must have felt when the man with the nylon sock over his head terrorized her movements and rendered them like the pillars of concrete in the underground garage, and the woman had to witness her own undoing.
Happiness.
He knew now how to be happy. He would be happy if he did not feel that he had to go to the Home Service Association place to breathe in the same spoiled air as those sleeping children in the army cots and with the grey blankets covering parts of their bodies (he should have sent some of his money to them: if he remembered, he would tell Llewellyn later tonight to do that); he would be happy if nothing, not even his being a “man in his position,” for he did not have to be a man in his position: he could be a man, just a man; but it was Mrs. James who had decided for him, just as Dots and Bernice and Estelle and Llewellyn had decided for him, without having to utter a word of their intended dominance over him, “a man in that position,” that he would go up to the same Home Service Association and be a volunteer worker. He did not have to dress as a man who cleaned offices, he could dress like a barrister; Alfredo his barber had seen that, and had said it; he did not have to live in a mould that people expected; he could wear his suits even in the morning when he was waiting for her: the woman, who has not arrived yet for the day, but he is not looking for her anymore. She means nothing now, for her purpose has been understood. And he should take the lesson from her appearance that morning, in spite of what she is, in spite of the fact that he has never seen her from any close and safe distance to judge character from the redness of her eyes, or from the clearness in her eyes, or from the movements of her lips.
He does not have to know her in this everyman’s way of knowing, for she is not an ordinary woman; she is like a morning dream which he had, she is like his imagination, the object of his thinking sessions which bothered him until he was going out of his mind, living through a day of his life in the waiting seconds for her; perhaps she never existed, and he never did see her, for there is no one else alive who has seen her, and he could have imagined her. Only if Henry was here: Henry used to have so much wisdom about these things!
Boysie got up and went into the bathroom, and stood up and looked at the clipping of Henry’s poem which he had framed and which he would watch while he shaved, or even at odd moments when he was not shaving. Dots had quarrelled about its appearance, but he had insisted upon leaving it there. Henry had such a love for roses, Boysie remembered. He wrote about roses as if roses were women. He wondered, should he give the strange woman a name, whether he should call her Rose. Perhaps her name was Rose. Rose and mauve. Have you ever seen a mauve rose? A rose could be mauve or blue, or a rose could even be a pickle, anything you loved could be a rose. Henry should have written a poem about happiness. “But this one about a rose is a nice poem and he has happiness inside it.”
He was losing his concentration: he should get up right now and do the shopping for the party, perhaps call in on Mrs. James and see how she is, see whether she wants anything bought from the Jewish market (she has no money, but she likes pigs’ feet and black-eyed peas and salt fish, a true Maritimer, Mrs. James!); but he shouldn’t stop in, because he knows her needs, and he could easily just as easily buy them for her and drop them off at her door, at Apartment 101.
What happiness had he in his life after forty-nine years? A man forty-nine years old should have had some happiness. It was not the country; the country was good to him. It was all those noisy West Indians whom he had learned to tolerate but who were not good for the country, his country (“I must remember to take my Canadian passport with me, wherever I go, from now on”); it was the people like Llewellyn who thought they could purchase happiness by screwing post-middle-aged women, and borrowing their bodies and their money, Llewellyn in whom he had had so much hope. It was people like Mrs. James’s son Michael who knew what happiness was because he had never experienced it. (“I wonder which page that little bastard is at now, in that book I bought him? How long ago did I buy that little brute that book?”)
He should get up right now and leave to do the shopping. He should feed this goddamn cat before he left.
“Meeeeeoowww!”
He got up, and just as he was about to go into the kitchen, he saw the letter beneath the door. Somebody had pushed it there. Usually his mail, whatever it was, was in the mailbox just off the lobby. Perhaps this letter had been delivered at the wrong place, or a neighbour had taken it out of his box; after all, he was living in a low-rental district.
It was a special delivery letter. He picked it up, and for the first time since he had written the letter to his wife did he remember that Dots had said nothing about that letter in which he had asked for a time to be set aside to talk. She had said nothing. He didn’t even know if she had seen the letter; or had read it. He saw this letter was addressed to him. And he recognized the Barbados stamps. “Strange!” No return address with name was on the envelope. It was addressed to him. He would have to read part of it at least (and his concentration was so bad this afternoon: what time is it now? He had forgotten to keep with the time) to find out.
Dear Boysie, Man!
I bet you don’t know who is writing this letter to you. Don’t look at the last page, but read and see if you can find out the sender of this letter. All right? I trust you. And I bet you didn’t know I was down here, in Barbados, all this time. Boy, this place is something else. The richest people are the politicians. I am thinking seriously about becoming a politician. And after the politicians, is the shop-keepers and then the people who owns hotels for the tourisses. After the politicians and the shop-keepers sell rotting pork chops and salt fish as dear as beef steaks, and the hotel people, comes the banks. Banks like peas. You could go in a bank, any bank, and ask for a loan. You will get that loan if you intend to buy a motor car or a frig or a stereo record player, or a bicycle. But if you intend to open a shop of your own or if you intend to buy land or a house spot on the beach, and compete with the powers that be, well, forget it. Banks down here are not for that purpose as much as for the former. I have never seen so many people in Barbados before with such big friges. And once I was up in the country which as you know is a place where we uses to go and drink rum like water, and which is the poorest place in the island, relative speaking. But the biggest friges are now in the country. I was visiting a friend of mine, a little thing, as man! and she went to take out a Banks beer for me, and the only thing inside that blasted frig apart from two more Banks was a big big bottle of ice water. Now tell me what you think that means? I don’t want to waste your time telling you all these things about the place, because I want to tell you something now that I see with my own very eyes.
One night I was down at Paradise Beach Club, and I was having a good time, cause as you know, I am a man who travels with a lot of money. I was buying drinks for everybody, civil servants who I think was making all this big lot of money, but the minute they hear I’m in the land, they come reminding me that I used to drink rum with them in the Customs. Fucking beggars. Paupers. Well, we was drinking Scotches like peas, and out of the blue, I see this man with
some nice-looking Canadian gashes, and I know one of them, too. And when the man turned his head, guess who that man was? Guess who that man turned out to be? The fucking minister of Home Affairs! Man, I was so vexed to see a Minister of Home Affairs drinking rum with the ordinary rank and file, that I start thinking serious about it. A minister of any government, particular a country like ours, should be a man who is heard and not seen. Well, when I saw that, I soon forgot everything about it because we were having a damn good time. Barbados means a good time. If you want a good time see Barbados. Well, I went up to the minister and shake his fucking hand, because I argued that if a stranger could do it, so can I, because I am a Barbadian. So we shake hands and he say how nice it is to see the fellars coming back even if for a holiday and spending money like water. He didn’t say those exact words, but that is the feeling I got. Well, I didn’t like that too much, because how he knows I come back here only for a holiday, and not for good. Because this is my country more than it belongst to tourisses.
But as you know, I am not too sure if I can really come back down here for good, to live. Not even if I can get some of this easy touriss-money, by building a little place with five or six apartments and come back and live off Trudeau and the Canadian Unemployment Insurance like the rest of the Canadians. But when I saw how things are down here, I decided that since I make the money up in Canada, and I can’t live down here no more, I might as well come back up there and let the winter burst my backside. Later that same night that I meet the Minister of Home Affairs, I end up at a party given by a girl who we used to call by the nickname of Colleen. She was on holiday too. And she had this big party. Man, I have never seen so much rum, whiskey, Scotch, gin and vodka—you didn’t know that, did you? That Barbadians drinking vodka nowadays! — and beer, and everything that we ate and drank that night and right into the next morning was imported from Overseas. And food? Boysie, there was food like peas! And every politician in the House of Assembly, every man in the Cabinet and every diplomat that we have from Away was at this party. And the party hasn’t finished yet. I am sure that somebody must still be at Colleen’s place trying to drink up that liquor, as I am writing you this letter.
When I got home, two or three days later, because I was living as a touriss and I don’t know up to now how the hell I did get home, or how the fellow who carry me home know where I was staying! But when I sobered back up, I had a bad feeling And I had to sit down and write you this letter, which although it is long, I hope you won’t mind listening to till the end. Because you are the only person I know in this whole world who would try to understand the kind of life that is going on down here, in the name of the people and of democracy. Every young person, the moment he has enough money, or pass the Cambridge School Certificate, which even changed its name nowadays to the GCE, well, he “leffing” Barbados. You remember that song that Sparrow used to sing? “Yankees gone and Sparrow take over now?” Well, in Barbados, the shoe is on the other foot. If you ever have any desire to emigrate back down here, even for a vacation, well, forget it. Go up North in Northern Ontario instead. The minute I come back, I intend to apply for Canadian citizenship. And if you haven’t done that already, haul your ass down to the Immigration when you read this letter and take out some papers. The Barbadians who remain here don’t want expatriate Barbadians who went abroad and made gentlemen and ladies out of themselves to return back here. Everything now is politics and black nationalism. They are even talking about going back to Africa, in ways that I can’t understand. That in itself is a kind of revolution happening in this place. Everything is politics or Africa nowadays. If you want to become a millionaire over night, do one of two things. Enter politics. Or do like Harry, sell pussy to the tourisses. But praise God, Harry dead.
I am sorry to take up so much of your time. But there was nobody down here that I could have discussed these with, so I had to call on you. Look for me next Thursday. I coming back. By the way, the morning, or it was the afternoon, that I was leaving, I happened to see you going up in the elevator, but I didn’t have much time to follow you up where you was going. I coming back.
Yours truly, Freeness.
PS: I went to one poker game when I was here. one night with some civil servants. And when I sat down, the house-man asked me to show him four hundred dollars if I was going to continue sitting down at his table. Four hundred dollars. And he meant Canadian dollar bills, too. Is that saying something to you? How do these fellars get that kind of money? Everybody down here selling pussy? Then I saw a fellar raise another fellar four hundred American dollars (he counted the four hundred American dollars outta mere twenties!) on a pair of fucking threes! The pot that night had in about one million dollars. And two ministers in the government was playing, but I don’t want to call no names. Everything that I telling you is what I see with my own two eyes. Another man might see things in a different light. I can only give you the light I see things through. But if you ever are thinking of coming back here to live, forget it. And tell everybody so, too. Unless you want to make money of the tourisses, and sell pussy, like the late Harry! I even heard that there was no Barbados Scholar this year. Do you know what that means? No Barbados Scholar in Barbados! F.
Boysie put the letter back into its envelope, and without making even a mental comment, he put it into his pocket and went through the door. Barbados had been out of his mind for a long time now. And, at least, he didn’t have to call Freeness to invite him to the party tonight. He wondered whether he should bother to call Llewellyn.
“How many provinces there is in this country?” Dots shouted from the kitchen. Bernice had arrived early to help with the preparations. The apartment was tidy, and she was searching for records to play. But there was only one. The kitchen counter was full of food from the Jewish market, and it all had to be cooked. “How much provinces there is in this country, Bernice?”
“Yuh know, I never thought of that,” she called out. And to herself, she added, “I never really thought about that. What a funny thing to ask me.” She went on searching for more records in the place which she knew they were kept normally. “Where the records?” Dots moved from the kitchen and came into the living room. In her hand was a large slab of salt fish.
“You know how many provinces they have in this country?”
“Six?”
“Seven, ain’t they? I think I heard a man on the television say there are seven provinces.”
“Well, we can count them out.”
“I wonder if they is really five, or six, or even seven.”
“Well, to start with the one we living in, Ontario. That is one. Then there is Montreal.”
“That’s in Quebec. Ontario and Montreal, and …”
“Ontario, Montreal, if you say so.” Bernice tried to concentrate. “BC, British Columbia, Nova Scotia … Halifax, that’s where the man in the Conservatives comes from! Lemme begin again. Now, there is Ontario. Montreal, as you say. Nova Scotia and there is Halifax.”
“I thought Halifax was a place, and not a province, gal!” And she laughed, as she would laugh when she was happy, when she had friends in her home, when she was listening to calypsoes and was dancing. “You know something?” But she did not bother to say it.
“I never worried my head about those things. I lives here and that is all I know. I makes a little money. I have saved for a rainy day when I have to go back to Barbados, and that is all I know.”
“How long we been living in this country?”
“Ten years now, going ’pon eleven.”
“Ten years?”
“Ten.”
“Ten, eh?” Dots went back into the kitchen. Bernice continued searching for records. “You said that Lew coming over later? I wonder what happen to Boysie. He really went to town on this shopping today. I can’t find fault with him for the way he shopped for these things. That man could trot when he wants to. He is a horse that could trot when he wants to.”
“Where the records, Dots? We can’t ha
ve no party without records. This place used to be flowing in records. I have had such lovely times here, and I want to make sure that Lew, when he comes over, have a good time too. Did I tell you that he paid me back the money? Every cent.” Bernice waited to hear what Dots would say to this. She had taken Dots’s advice and had lent him the three hundred dollars, against her judgement; but she was glad that she had done it even before Lew brought back the money. She did not know and did not think that she ever would see him again after she had lent him the money. She decided to shout, “Did I tell you that Lew paid me back the money?”
“That’s good.”
Dots was becoming impatient. She had got home early, but she was tired and had had a rest before calling Bernice to come over and help her. The time was eight-thirty. Normally, she would have had everything prepared by then, and she would have been changed. But tonight she was feeling sweaty, and she wanted to have a bath. She also wondered where Boysie was. But she was not nervous enough nor anxious enough yet to start worrying. She knew he could not have gone to work, because she saw his panel truck parked in the underground garage. For some reason, she had thought of looking in the underground garage. She had never done it before. And now, she was wondering why she had gone down there, just to look for the truck.
“Who you think would know?”
“About what?”
“The number.”
“I thought you would know, Dots. This is your house, isn’t it? You ought to know where the calypso records are!”
“I talking about the provinces. Who you think we could ask about the number of provinces?”
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