by Kerry Young
The whole week me and Fay having the honeymoon she say hardly two words to me. She busy with her hair, she fixing her face, she straightening her dress. She instructing the maid and telling the waiter what she want to eat, and she chatting with these complete strangers that she meet here and there every day. Me, she don’t say nothing to. She can barely even bring herself to look at me. We got the double bed right there inside the room and I am sleeping so far over my side I nearly falling out. Is just the sheet tuck in there under the mattress that saving me from hitting the cold tile floor every night.
And then the last night before we go home we do everything just the same way we been doing it all week. Fay take her shower and fix up herself and when she finish in the bathroom then it my turn to go take a shower and get ready for dinner. They serve dinner the same time every evening. Seven thirty for drinks and the little snack things on the terrace, and the band playing some gentle calypso. Eight pm you seated and working yu way through these five courses that they serve you every night. Not that I am complaining. The food is good, and every night is something else that I never see before. Like to me callaloo was callaloo but here they got it pile up in a little sandwich tower with some thin fried bread in between each layer and some strips of saltfish on top lay out like a star. And what they doing with the lobster I don’t know, but it cheesy and good, and the steak and the cream and the pork and the apple, and a whole heap a green and purple vegetable I can’t even recognise. But it good. It all good. It beautiful too under the clear Caribbean sky with the stars, and the music and the white linen tablecloth and the ice cubes clinking in the big water glass and the candles flickering on a little evening breeze. It nice. It civilised. They know how to look after you in this place.
To me it is a miracle. It is not a dream come true because I couldn’t have dreamed this. Fay, she take it like she take everything else, like she was expecting it. She in her element.
So this evening I shower and put on a nice pale blue Sea Island cotton shirt and some grey slacks and I stick a clean handkerchief in my pocket and I step out on to the veranda, and she is sitting there looking out to sea. She got the rocking chair pull up right to the veranda edge with her legs stretch out in front of her and her feet on the little white wall crossed at the ankles. She quiet. So I sit down on the sofa behind her where I can just catch sight of the sun setting. We nuh say nothing. We just stay there like that. Fay looking at the lawn and the sand and the hammock strung up between the coconut trees and me watching a blaze of orange sinking into the sea.
And then after a while I hear a little sniff and a snivel. A little snivel like she crying. I dunno what to do so I just sit there. But then the sound carry on so I get up and I walk over to where she sitting and I look at her. I look at her in the face and is true, she crying. So I take the kerchief outta my pocket and I hand it to her and she take it. She mop her eye gentle like she don’t want spoil her make-up, but she nuh say nothing. So I go back and sit down on the sofa.
By this time now it is getting dark and I see the lamps on the other verandas switching on one by one. But neither me nor Fay make no move to go switch on any lamp. We just sit there in the fading light and the silence.
Then she say to me, ‘My father told me it was better for me to marry you than to spend the rest of my life fighting with my mother.’
‘You didn’t have to marry me. You could have wait until somebody more suitable come along.’
‘What, after Cicely had set her sights on you?’
‘I’m sure Miss Cicely not so stubborn to stick to her own view if maybe you happier with somebody else.’
Fay just laugh. She just throw her head back and laugh with the tears still rolling down her face. And then she turn ’round and look at me. And looking at her like that it seem like for the first time ever since I set eyes on her that morning at the Chinese Athletic Club, her guard was down.
‘You think so?’
I just sit there because I dunno what to say to her. She look at me and she sorta smile and then she get up and start walk back inside. But just as she going pass me I stand up and reach out. And I grab her and hug her to me. I dunno what make me think it would be alright to go do a thing like that. I never take any liberty like that with her before. I suppose it was just instinct, even though the only other time I ever touch her was when I take her hand in the church to put the ring on it. And just now with us standing there I realise that we even miss the bit in the wedding when the priest tell you to kiss the bride, so I reckon either Fay or Miss Cicely must have tell him to leave that part out.
So the two of us entwined in the dark on the veranda and that is when she start to cry. Really sob like her whole body was heaving and it was taking all my strength to hold her up and stop the two of us from falling on the ground. It was like a little kindness turn the key to a floodgate that open up and let everything pour out. So I reckon it was some heavy burden that she was carrying there, but I didn’t say nothing. Truth is I didn’t know what to say to her. So I just carry on holding her tight and hoping that would be enough.
This is how we stay while I am looking over her shoulder and seeing the waiters in their white uniform with the big wooden tray on their shoulder carrying the food to the guests that want room service. And as they coming and going I know it time, so eventually after she calm herself down I say to her, ‘You want go get some dinner?’ When she ease back I see she was looking at me with a tenderness that almost make my heart bust. Then she mop her face and blow her nose on the kerchief I give her.
I look at Fay standing there on the veranda and I think well I dunno who Fay Wong is but maybe Fay dunno who Fay Wong is neither because that face that she put on for everybody just seem like a mask to me now.
That night when we go to sleep she crawl over to me and pull me off the edge into the middle of the bed, and then she rest her head on my shoulder and wrap my arm ’round her, just as I was listening to the tree frogs picking up their song.
When me and Fay finish the honeymoon and come home she take one look at Matthews Lane and she start to cry. The next day she go to her father’s and the day after that she come back. And then she start cry again.
I ask her what the matter, but Fay can’t even look at me. All I seeing is her back as she laying down or sitting on the edge of the bed.
‘I know this house not what you used to but it not so bad. We can do something fix it up.’ She no say nothing to me and I can’t make out if she angry or if she sad so I say, ‘It better than fighting with Miss Cicely.’ And that is when she turn ’round and look at me.
‘What on earth made you think I could come here to Matthews Lane and live in a place like this?’
‘It’s my home, Fay. This is my family with Ma and Zhang. What do you want me to do, leave them? Look at them, the two of them old. I can’t go leave them just like that. And I don’t want to. I am the son, they my responsibility. You forget you Chinese?’
‘You think I am Chinese?’
‘What you talking ’bout?’
And she just get up and walk out the room.
I think maybe I go buy something to cheer Fay up, like some nice silk blouse and silk stocking and some vase to brighten up the bedroom. And every night when we go to bed I talk to her. I tell ’bout everything happening ’round Chinatown and I ask her what kinda day she have. But all I see is her back and all I hear is the constant snivel and the blow of her nose. I never know a person could cry so much. I thought maybe eventually they would run outta water but not Fay. She keep it up day and night till it really start to vex everybody.
I can’t take it. It get so bad I start sleeping down the shop but Zhang say it not fair on everybody else in the house, I have to try do something with her. So eventually three weeks later I sit her down and I say to her, ‘Fay, nobody in the house can take your crying no more. You have to tell me what we going do to put an end to it.’ And I really look at her while she sitting on the edge of the bed and me kneeling on the h
ard wooden floor in front of her.
I take a finger and I wipe a few strands of hair away from her eyes because they wet and stuck to her face. And she let me do it which I know is a good sign. So I say, ‘What we going to do, eh?’
‘Why did you marry me, Pao?’ And that is when the wave of shame wash over me because I didn’t have no proper answer for her.
‘You married me because my father is Henry Wong. Isn’t that the truth? Honestly?’
I reckon the least I can do is face how ugly my own intention was so I say, ‘Yes. Yes it the truth. That is how it start, Fay, but that not how it is now, not since the honeymoon. When we was at the hotel I see a different side of you. You must admit yourself we cross a bridge that week you and me. Don’t tell me it didn’t mean nothing to you.’ And I take her hands in mine.
She let me stay there kneeling down holding her hand and then she say to me, ‘I can’t live like this, Pao. Can’t you see that you and this house are the punishment my mother picked out for me? This is the suffering she wants me to have for the rest of my life.’
‘What suffering?’
‘The same suffering that I had as a child when she used to beat and starve me and lock me in the music room and take the key with her when she went to church.’
I can’t believe what Fay is saying to me. Not that I think she lying but I can’t believe that Miss Cicely carry on like this.
‘What she beat you for?’
‘For always being too much of one thing and never enough of another.’
I can’t understand what she saying to me so I just kneel there and look at her, how serious she is ’bout this like she under some kinda obeah spell that she can’t do nothing ’bout.
‘It don’t have to be like that, you know. We don’t have to just sit back and let Miss Cicely decide what kinda life we going have together.’
Fay don’t say nothing to me, but the next day she stop crying and when I come home from work I see she been out the yard to go get some flowers from the market that she arrange in the vase in the bedroom where it look real pretty.
11
Weather
Then Finley tell me that the police get themselves a new sergeant from Montego Bay. They put him in the North Street police station to help fight corruption, which I think is rich because half my money going to the police to make sure them look the other way. So anyway I say to him, ‘Maybe we should go meet this sergeant,’ but Finley not sure if that is such a good idea.
‘What you going say to him anyway?’
‘Maybe we just say hello, and wish him well with him duties, which most likely him going have to start right there in the police station,’ and we laugh. ‘Well, after all them sending him after us so the least we can do is shake the man’s hand.’ So Finley say he will think on it. Sun Tzu say, ‘ By weather I mean the interaction of natural forces; the effects of winter’s cold and summer’s heat, and the conduct of military operations in accordance with the seasons .’
A week later Finley’s big idea is to get Round One Chin to invite Sergeant Brown to address the Wholesale Provision Merchants’ Association. Chin not sure if he too happy ’bout it because even though he think maybe it a good idea to hear what Sergeant Brown got to say, he nervous ’bout getting involved with the police. He say everybody happy paying the protection and keeping Chinatown business in Chinatown. He say we don’t need to be inviting no outsiders to start interfering with us. We can handle everything ourselves just like we been doing since Zhang get here all them years back. So I have to say to him it alright, we not going do nothing but listen to the man for a few minutes.
So a couple month later Sergeant Brown come to the meeting, and at the appointed moment Chin stand up on the platform and announce how pleased he is to have with us this evening ‘Sergeant Clifton Brown of the North Street police station who is going to talk to us about how his work controlling corruption in the downtown area is going to help the Chinese merchants’ community’. And we all clap our hands. I take Finley and Hampton with me as well because I reckon we all interested in seeing what this man look like and finding out what he got to say.
When Sergeant Brown stand up, me and Hampton just look at each other. Later on when I get introduced to him I put out my hand to shake and then I clasp both my hands ’round his. And I hold his hand a long time while I look him in the eye. And the longer I am holding his hand, and the longer I am looking him in the eye, the more he is realising that we have a bond now and I will be relying on him to fix any little problems we have. Because just the way we recognise him, is just the same way him recognise me.
When we walking home afterwards I say to Hampton, ‘How did Sergeant Brown seem to you that night we catch him in the alley with that bwoy?’
‘That not nuh bwoy, man.’
‘Sure it a bwoy.’
‘No, man. You make it sound like it a child. It a man alright and him young, but it nuh bwoy. You going give Judge Finley the wrong idea.’
‘Alright, how did Sergeant Brown seem to you the night we catch him in the alley with that young man ?’ I say it like that for Hampton sake.
‘Calm.’
‘Calm, like him do it before.’
‘Yah man, like him do it plenty time before.’
‘I reckon a man in his position got to be desperate to go take a chance like that, eh? And if him so desperate, and him so calm, then I reckon it not the first time. And it not going be the last.’
I look at Finley. ‘What we need is someone to keep an eye on him. Someone he not going suspect. Someone maybe like a young man .’
And Finley say, ‘My wife got a nephew, Milton, his papa just get run down by a drunk Englishman driving reckless down Constant Spring Road, now Milton the head of the family with a mama and four children to keep.’
‘He know how to look after himself?’
‘Yah, man.’
‘Tell him to come see me.’
When Milton turn up the next day I see that he is nothing but a boy. And I think well I was only a boy myself when I start up in this business so maybe the situation not too bad. I reckon that he too young to be going picking up the money from Gloria. Them girls would make mincemeat outta him and relish every minute they spend making him blush all over his body. So that was definitely out. But you can’t pay a man to be doing nothing but follow Sergeant Brown day and night so I settle to let Milton do some driving – chicken and eggs and maybe drop off a few cigarettes, even though any half-conscious policeman would notice that this boy ain’t nearly old enough to be driving no van.
Still, and this is exactly the sort of thing Sergeant Brown need to be looking out for, those boys of his always happy to see that US dollar bill. They can make anything happen or not happen, disappear, come back, turn upside down when you flash them a few bills of old George Washington, or even better Mr Abraham Lincoln. And if things get really serious then you just pull out Mr Andrew Jackson for them. Because with the police, these is the faces you know you can always rely on.
So that was it even though I had a little worry in the back of my mind ’bout what Milton was letting himself in for with Clifton Brown. Especially because them little pouty lips and smooth skin make him look so young.
12
The Employment of Secret Agents
A couple months after we set Milton on Sergeant Brown’s tail Judge Finley come to Matthews Lane with Milton bringing a message that Sergeant Brown want to talk to me, so I say for him to come meet me over the Blue Lagoon but Finley say it more complicated than that because Milton got something to tell me.
So then this is when Milton step up and I look at him standing there almost like he hiding behind Finley and I say, ‘Come on then.’
Finley step aside and sorta push Milton forward with a little helping hand at his back.
‘I didn’t mean for it to happen. It just happen. Just like that.’
I just look at Finley because I can’t imagine how much time this nephew of his is going to tak
e to tell me nothing.
‘Him jump me. Him just catch me by surprise.’
‘Who jump you, Milton?’
‘I was following him like you say. Sergeant Brown. And then I come ’round the corner and him jump me. And the next thing I know him grab my pants and rip it open and all the buttons just pop off and him drag them down and bend me over a barrel.’
By now Milton sweating and shaking and I getting ready to hear the worst.
‘Him bend me over the barrel and when I feel the full weight of him leaning down on top of me I thought Jesus Christ. It all happen so fast I just lay there waiting for it. And then him put his mouth right next to my ear and say, tell yu boss I want to see him.’
‘That is it? That is what you have to tell me? So when all this happen?’
‘Just two week after you tell me to go follow him.’
‘And all this long time go by and you no tell me?’ Then I say to Finley, ‘How long you know ’bout this?’
‘Just this morning him tell me. Milton too ’fraid to tell you. Him take fright ’bout what you going do to him for being so careless.’
‘He should take fright. What kind of stupid thing is that and then him no tell nobody ’bout it? Maybe Clifton Brown should have finish the job the bwoy such a jackass.’
But then I think about it and I think maybe it my fault anyway for sending a little bwoy to go trail a man like Clifton Brown. Maybe I should just count my blessings that nothing bad actually happen to him.
‘Go on,’ I say to him like to tell him to get outta the yard, and then just as he get to the gate I shout, ‘Go get yourself a belt to hold up your pants.’
When I finally go meet Clifton Brown he catch up in a dark corner in the Blue Lagoon playing with a Red Stripe like he don’t really mean to be drinking it. When him look up at me him seem sorta sour so I just sit down and tell the barman to bring me a beer.