Collected Short Fiction

by V. S. Naipaul

  That was one of the first things about Titus Hoyt that I found interesting. The girl calling him ‘Mr Titus Hoyt’. Not Titus, or Mr Hoyt, but Mr Titus Hoyt. I later realized that everyone who knew him called him that.

  When we got home the girl explained to my mother what had happened, and my mother was ashamed of me.

  Then the girl left.

  Mr Titus Hoyt looked at me and said, ‘He look like a intelligent little boy.’

  My mother said in a sarcastic way, ‘Like his father.’

  Titus Hoyt said, ‘Now, young man, if a herring and a half cost a penny and a half, what’s the cost of three herrings?’

  Even in the country, in Chaguanas, we had heard about that.

  Without waiting, I said, ‘Three pennies.’

  Titus Hoyt regarded me with wonder.

  He told my mother, ‘This boy bright like anything, ma’am. You must take care of him and send him to a good school and feed him good food so he could study well.’

  My mother didn’t say anything.

  When Titus Hoyt left, he said, ‘Cheerio!’

  That was the second interesting thing about him.

  My mother beat me for getting my shoes wet in the gutter but she said she wouldn’t beat me for getting lost.

  For the rest of that day I ran about the yard saying, ‘Cheerio! Cheerio!’ to a tune of my own.

  That evening Titus Hoyt came again.

  My mother didn’t seem to mind.

  To me Titus Hoyt said, ‘You can read?’

  I said yes.

  ‘And write?’

  I said yes.

  ‘Well, look,’ he said, ‘get some paper and a pencil and write what I tell you.’

  I said, ‘Paper and pencil?’

  He nodded.

  I ran to the kitchen and said, ‘Ma, you got any paper and pencil?’

  My mother said, ‘What you think I is? A shopkeeper?’

  Titus Hoyt shouted, ‘Is for me, ma’am.’

  My mother said, ‘Oh,’ in a disappointed way.

  She said, ‘In the bottom drawer of the bureau you go find my purse. It have a pencil in it.’

  And she gave me a copy-book from the kitchen shelf.

  Mr Titus Hoyt said, ‘Now, young man, write. Write the address of this house in the top right-hand corner, and below that, the date.’ Then he asked, ‘You know who we writing this letter to, boy?’

  I shook my head.

  He said, ‘Ha, boy! Ha! We writing to the Guardian, boy.’

  I said, ‘The Trinidad Guardian? The paper? What, me writing to the Guardian! But only big big man does write to the Guardian.’

  Titus Hoyt smiled. ‘That’s why you writing. It go surprise them.’

  I said, ‘What I go write to them about?’

  He said, ‘You go write it now. Write. To the Editor, Trinidad Guardian. Dear Sir, I am but a child of eight (How old you is? Well, it don’t matter anyway) and yesterday my mother sent me to make a purchase in the city. This, dear Mr Editor, was my first peregrination (p-e-r-e-g-r-i-n-a-t-i-o-n) in this metropolis, and I had the misfortune to wander from the path my mother had indicated—’

  I said, ‘Oh God, Mr Titus Hoyt, where you learn all these big words and them? You sure you spelling them right?’

  Titus Hoyt smiled. ‘I spend all afternoon making up this letter,’ he said.

  I wrote: ‘… and in this state of despair I was rescued by a Mr Titus Hoyt, of Miguel Street. This only goes to show, dear Mr Editor, that human kindness is a quality not yet extinct in this world.’

  The Guardian never printed the letter.

  When I next saw Titus Hoyt he said, ‘Well, never mind. One day, boy, one day, I go make them sit up and take notice of every word I say. Just wait and see.’

  And before he left he said, ‘Drinking your milk?’

  He had persuaded my mother to give me half a pint of milk every day. Milk was good for the brains.

  It is one of the sadnesses of my life that I never fulfilled Titus Hoyt’s hopes for my academic success.

  I still remember with tenderness the interest he took in me. Sometimes his views clashed with my mother’s. There was the business of the cobwebs, for instance.

  Boyee, with whom I had become friendly very quickly, was teaching me to ride. I had fallen and cut myself nastily on the shin.

  My mother was attempting to cure this with sooty cobwebs soaked in rum.

  Titus Hoyt was horrified. ‘You ain’t know what you doing,’ he shouted.

  My mother said, ‘Mr Titus Hoyt, I will kindly ask you to mind your own business. The day you make a baby yourself I go listen to what you have to say.’

  Titus Hoyt refused to be ridiculed. He said, ‘Take the boy to the doctor, man.’

  I was watching them argue, not caring greatly either way.

  In the end I went to the doctor.

  Titus Hoyt reappeared in a new role.

  He told my mother, ‘For the last two three months I been taking the first-aid course with the Red Cross. I go dress the boy foot for you.’

  That really terrified me.

  For about a month or so afterwards, people in Miguel Street could tell when it was nine o’clock in the morning. By my shrieks. Titus Hoyt loved his work.

  All this gives some clue to the real nature of the man.

  The next step followed naturally.

  Titus Hoyt began to teach.

  It began in a small way, after the fashion of all great enterprises.

  He had decided to sit for the external arts degree of London University. He began to learn Latin, teaching himself, and as fast as he learned, he taught us.

  He rounded up three or four of us and taught us in the verandah of his house. He kept chickens in his yard and the place stank.

  That Latin stage didn’t last very long. We got as far as the fourth declension, and then Boyee and Errol and myself began asking questions. They were not the sort of questions Titus Hoyt liked.

  Boyee said, ‘Mr Titus Hoyt, I think you making up all this, you know, making it up as you go on.’

  Titus Hoyt said, ‘But I telling you, I not making it up. Look, here it is in black and white.’

  Errol said, ‘I feel, Mr Titus Hoyt, that one man sit down one day and make all this up and have everybody else learning it.’

  Titus Hoyt asked me, ‘What is the accusative singular of bellum?’

  Feeling wicked, because I was betraying him, I said to Titus Hoyt, ‘Mr Titus Hoyt, when you was my age, how you woulda feel if somebody did ask you that question?’

  And then Boyee asked, ‘Mr Titus Hoyt, what is the meaning of the ablative case?’

  So the Latin lessons ended.

  But however much we laughed at him, we couldn’t deny that Titus Hoyt was a deep man.

  Hat used to say, ‘He is a thinker, that man.’

  Titus Hoyt thought about all sorts of things, and he thought dangerous things sometimes.

  Hat said, ‘I don’t think Titus Hoyt like God, you know.’

  Titus Hoyt would say, ‘The thing that really matter is faith. Look, I believe that if I pull out this bicycle-lamp from my pocket here, and set it up somewhere, and really really believe in it and pray to it, what I pray for go come. That is what I believe.’

  And so saying he would rise and leave, not forgetting to say, ‘Cheerio!’

  He had the habit of rushing up to us and saying, ‘Silence, everybody. I just been thinking. Listen to what I just been thinking.’

  One day he rushed up and said, ‘I been thinking how this war could end. If Europe could just sink for five minutes all the Germans go drown—’

  Eddoes said, ‘But England go drown too.’

  Titus Hoyt agreed and looked sad. ‘I lose my head, man,’ he said. ‘I lose my head.’

  And he wandered away, muttering to himself and shaking his head.

  One day he cycled right up to us when we were talking about the Barbados–Trinidad cricket match. Things were not going well for T
rinidad and we were worried.

  Titus Hoyt rushed up and said, ‘Silence. I just been thinking. Look, boys, it ever strike you that the world not real at all? It ever strike you that we have the only mind in the world and you just thinking up everything else? Like me here, having the only mind in the world, and thinking up you people here, thinking up the war and all the houses and the ships and them in the harbour. That ever cross your mind?’

  His interest in teaching didn’t die.

  We often saw him going about with big books. These books were about teaching.

  Titus Hoyt used to say, ‘Is a science, man. The trouble with Trinidad is that the teachers don’t have this science of teaching.’

  And, ‘Is the biggest thing in the world, man. Having the minds of the young to train. Think of that. Think.’

  It soon became clear that whatever we thought about it, Titus Hoyt was bent on training our minds.

  He formed the Miguel Street Literary and Social Youth Club, and had it affiliated to the Trinidad and Tobago Youth Association.

  We used to meet in his house, which was well supplied with things to eat and drink. The walls of his house were now hung with improving quotations, some typed, some cut out of magazines and pasted on bits of cardboard.

  I also noticed a big thing called ‘Time-table’.

  From this I gathered that Titus Hoyt was to rise at five-thirty, read Something from Greek philosophers until six, spend fifteen minutes bathing and exercising, another five reading the morning paper, and ten on breakfast. It was a formidable thing altogether.

  Titus Hoyt said, ‘If I follow the time-table I will be a educated man in about three four years.’

  The Miguel Street Club didn’t last very long.

  It was Titus Hoyt’s fault.

  No man in his proper senses would have made Boyee secretary. Most of Boyee’s minutes consisted of the names of people present.

  And then we all had to write and read something.

  The Miguel Street Literary and Social Club became nothing more than a gathering of film critics.

  Titus Hoyt said, ‘No, man. We just can’t have all you boys talking about pictures all the time. I will have to get some propaganda for you boys.’

  Boyee said, ‘Mr Titus Hoyt, what we want with propaganda? Is a German thing.’

  Titus Hoyt smiled. ‘That is not the proper meaning of the word, boy. I am using the word in it proper meaning. Is education, boy, that make me know things like that.’

  Boyee was sent as our delegate to the Youth Association annual conference.

  When he came back Boyee said, ‘Is a helluva thing at that youth conference. Is only a pack of old, old people it have there.’

  The attraction of the Coca-Cola and the cakes and the ice-cream began to fade. Some of us began staying away from meetings.

  Titus Hoyt made one last effort to keep the club together.

  One day he said, ‘Next Sunday the club will go on a visit to Fort George.’

  There were cries of disapproval.

  Titus Hoyt said, ‘You see, you people don’t care about your country. How many of you know about Fort George? Not one of you here know about the place. But is history, man, your history, and you must learn about things like that. You must remember that the boys and girls of today are the men and women of tomorrow. The old Romans had a saying, you know. Mens sana in corpore sano. I think we will make the walk to Fort George.’

  Still no one wanted to go.

  Titus Hoyt said, ‘At the top of Fort George it have a stream, and it cool cool and the water crystal clear. You could bathe there when we get to the top.’

  We couldn’t resist that.

  The next Sunday a whole group of us took the trolley-bus to Mucurapo.

  When the conductor came round to collect the fares, Titus Hoyt said, ‘Come back a little later.’ And he paid the conductor only when we got off the bus. The fare for everybody came up to about two shillings. But Titus Hoyt gave the conductor a shilling, saying, ‘We don’t want any ticket, man!’ The conductor and Titus Hoyt laughed.

  It was a long walk up the hill, red and dusty, and hot.

  Titus Hoyt told us, ‘This fort was built at a time when the French and them was planning to invade Trinidad.’

  We gasped.

  We had never realized that anyone considered us so important.

  Titus Hoyt said, ‘That was in 1803, when we was fighting Napoleon.’

  We saw a few old rusty guns at the side of the path and heaps of rusty cannon-balls.

  I asked, ‘The French invade Trinidad, Mr Titus Hoyt?’

  Titus Hoyt shook his head in a disappointed way. ‘No, they didn’t attack. But we was ready, man. Ready for them.’

  Boyee said, ‘You sure it have this stream up there you tell us about, Mr Titus Hoyt?’

  Titus Hoyt said, ‘What you think I is? A liar?’

  Boyee said, ‘I ain’t saying nothing.’

  We walked and sweated. Boyee took off his shoes.

  Errol said, ‘If it ain’t have that stream up there, somebody going to catch hell.’

  We got to the top, had a quick look at the graveyard where there were a few tombstones of British soldiers dead long ago; and we looked through the telescope at the city of Port of Spain, large and sprawling beneath us. We could see the people walking in the streets as large as life.

  Then we went looking for the stream.

  We couldn’t find it.

  Titus Hoyt said, ‘It must be here somewhere. When I was a boy I use to bathe in it.’

  Boyee said, ‘And what happen now? It dry up?’

  Titus Hoyt said, ‘It look so.’

  Boyee got really mad, and you couldn’t blame him. It was hard work coming up that hill, and we were all hot and thirsty.

  He insulted Titus Hoyt in a very crude way.

  Titus Hoyt said, ‘Remember, Boyee, you are the secretary of the Miguel Street Literary and Social Club. Remember that you have just attended a meeting of the Youth Association as our delegate. Remember these things.’

  Boyee said, ‘Go to hell, Hoyt.’

  We were aghast.

  So the Literary Club broke up.

  * * *

  It wasn’t long after that Titus Hoyt got his Inter Arts degree and set up a school of his own. He had a big sign placed in his garden:

  TITUS HOYT, I.A. (London, External)

  Passes in the Cambridge

  School Certificate Guaranteed

  One year the Guardian had a brilliant idea. They started the Needy Cases Fund to help needy cases at Christmas. It was popular and after a few years was called the Neediest Cases Fund. At the beginning of November the Guardian announced the target for the fund and it was a daily excitement until Christmas Eve to see how the fund rose. It was always front In the middle of December one year, when the excitement was high, Miguel Street was in the news.

  Hat showed us the paper and we read:

  ‘FOLLOW THE EXAMPLE OF THIS TINYMITE!

  ‘The smallest and most touching response to our appeal to bring Yuletide cheer to the unfortunate has come in a letter from Mr Titus Hoyt, I.A., a headmaster of Miguel Street, Port of Spain. The letter was sent to Mr Hoyt by one of his pupils who wishes to remain anonymous. We have Mr Hoyt’s permission to print the letter in full.

  ‘ “Dear Mr Hoyt, I am only eight and, as you doubtless know, I am a member of the GUARDIAN Tinymites League. I read Aunt Juanita every Sunday. You, dear Mr Hoyt, have always extolled the virtue of charity and you have spoken repeatedly of the fine work the GUARDIAN Neediest Cases Fund is doing to bring Yuletide cheer to the unfortunate. I have decided to yield to your earnest entreaty. I have very little money to offer – a mere six cents, in fact, but take it, Mr Hoyt, and send it to the GUARDIAN Neediest Cases Fund. May it bring Yuletide cheer to some poor unfortunate! I know it is not much. But, like the widow, I give my mite. I remain, dear Mr Hoyt, One of Your Pupils.” ’

  And there was a large photograph of Titus Hoyt, s
miling and pop-eyed in the flash of the camera.

  10 THE MATERNAL INSTINCT

  I SUPPOSE LAURA holds a world record.

  Laura had eight children.

  There is nothing surprising in that.

  These eight children had seven fathers.

  Beat that!

  It was Laura who gave me my first lesson in biology. She lived just next door to us, and I found myself observing her closely.

  I would notice her belly rising for months.

  Then I would miss her for a short time.

  And the next time I saw her she would be quite flat.

  And the leavening process would begin again in a few months.

  To me this was one of the wonders of the world in which I lived, and I always observed Laura. She herself was quite gay about what was happening to her. She used to point to it and say, ‘This thing happening again, but you get use to it after the first three four times. Is a damn nuisance, though.’

  She used to blame God, and speak about the wickedness of men.

  For her first six children she tried six different men.

  Hat used to say, ‘Some people hard to please.’

  But I don’t want to give you the impression that Laura spent all her time having babies and decrying men, and generally feeling sorry for herself. If Bogart was the most bored person in the street, Laura was the most vivacious. She was always gay, and she liked me.

  She would give me plums and mangoes when she had them; and whenever she made sugar-cakes she would give me some.

  Even my mother, who had a great dislike of laughter, especially in me, even my mother used to laugh at Laura.

  She often said to me, ‘I don’t know why Laura muching you up so for. Like she ain’t have enough children to mind.’

  I think my mother was right. I don’t think a woman like Laura could have ever had too many children. She loved all her children, though you wouldn’t have believed it from the language she used when she spoke to them. Some of Laura’s shouts and curses were the richest things I have ever heard, and I shall never forget them.

  Hat said once, ‘Man, she like Shakespeare when it come to using words.’

  Laura used to shout, ‘Alwyn, you broad-mouth brute, come here.’

  And, ‘Gavin, if you don’t come here this minute, I make you fart fire, you hear.’