Pao

by Kerry Young

  In truth I did feel bad about it though because I know that the time when she must have got pregnant is when I force myself on her. Not that Fay was ever willing as such but that time it was bad. There was all sort of twisting and turning, and shoving and scratching. She even try to hit me with the bedside lamp but the electric cord stop her short.

  I don’t know what come over me. I just thought I would teach her a lesson for looking down her nose at me and acting like she better than the rest of us; better than everybody that was important to me like Ma and Zhang, and Finley and the boys; like she was above us all. And having that look on her face, like she smell something rotten. It remind me of the way a white man would look at you when you accidentally run into him coming outta Gloria’s house, like you are the scum that is going in to collect the protection money, not him is the scum that is coming outta there after doing god knows what and paying for it – and the only reason I got to be there is to protect these women against him and his nastiness. Somehow they never see it that way. They just have that look. Whatever service you providing for them you get the same look, like they think you a cockroach and you lucky they don’t just lift up their foot and pulp you.

  So I just grab her arms and I pin her down on the bed and do it to her, even though she was crying and throwing her legs about all the time.

  It soon done anyway and afterwards I didn’t feel no better, but it turn out she get pregnant. So I couldn’t say nothing ’bout how she angry and didn’t want nothing to do with the baby. It was inside her and she was glad when it come out.

  I went up to the hospital to fetch them back and I swear she would have left the baby there if I didn’t pick it up and put it in the car. I just rest the little basket thing on the back seat because Fay wouldn’t even hold it for the drive back to Matthews Lane. And even three week later the doctor is ringing me up asking what the baby name is because we supposed to register the birth. But I can’t get no sense outta Fay so I just look at the little thing laying there and I say into the phone, ‘Mui.’

  ‘Mui?’

  ‘Mui. Little sister.’ And I spell it for him. ‘M-U-I.’ And then I just hear the click when Dr Morrison hang up the telephone. Maybe I even hear him sigh before he put down the receiver. I dunno. I could just tell he was none too pleased with having to ring me up like that, a busy man like him, come all the way from Scotland to help us out here in the islands.

  Although what these people still doing here I dunno. But we seem to be grateful for something because even while Mr Manley is busy campaigning for self-government we still busy organising all sorta things to celebrate three hundred years since the landing of Penn and Venables. Why we want to do that I don’t know. It was like we think the English give us something to be proud of, something more than slavery and a government that still running the place from four thousand miles away. It didn’t make me feel proud to be Jamaican. More like it remind me that we was still colonised, and what was there to celebrate about a thing like that? But it no matter, all this eating and drinking was good for business and that at least was alright with me.

  Then one day I come ’cross Dr Morrison stand up in the hot noonday sun in the middle of King Street. Right out there with the cars and carts, and sweat and noise like him willing someone to come run him down. So now I am in two minds ’bout whether to go drag him back or just let fate take its course. Maybe Dr Morrison tired of being a doctor, maybe the hospital wearing him down, maybe he just think this is a quick and sure way back to Edinburgh. That is his business, but then I start think ’bout the poor man that is going to go to jail for running down this white man in broad daylight and I decide that I better go fetch him. So I run out ’cross the street and I grab him.

  After I drag him off the street I take him and sit him down in a bar and order some Appleton. The barman look at me like ‘What the hell you doing with a white man in here?’ like maybe I am about to fleece him and he don’t want no trouble in his bar. But whatever he think he bring the rum anyway and pour out two glasses.

  Morrison gulp down the whole lot in one swallow and put the empty glass on the table and say to me, ‘I am a Presbyterian, I don’t drink alcohol.’ So I just stare at him and reckon that I must be looking at a desperate man. I don’t say nothing, I just motion to the barman to bring the bottle and I pour Morrison another drink. When he pick up the glass him say to me, ‘It would have been better for you to have left me there.’

  ‘Is that bad, eh?’

  ‘Yes.’ And he take a sip from the glass and then catch a little drip with his finger and lick it off like a real professional drinker. I just wait because sooner or later this man is going to tell me the whole sorry story ’bout how he come to be in the middle of King Street dancing with death. That is how people are. They want to tell anybody who have the time and patience to listen.

  So it turn out Morrison got a wife, good Presbyterian woman who volunteer at some church place for young mothers and I think so what so special about that in a place like this and he say, ‘No, I mean young. Children. Some of these girls are nine or ten years old.’ So I shake my head like I think OK. Mrs Morrison come all the way to Jamaica to bring the word of God to these poor unfortunate girls. Back in Scotland she see an advertisement in her church magazine and decide that she have to come help. Morrison just follow after her because he think she such a Christian woman, and he want to be as good a Christian as she. But he not. He weak because he can’t give her the one thing she really want. The one grace that God has bestowed on every woman – that she should hear the patter of tiny feet. That is how he say it. And I have to think to myself what the hell is this man talking about before I realise that he mean she want a baby. That is it? That is what all of this is about? Some damn fool woman want a baby? No, I think it can’t be, but I don’t say nothing, I just pour him another drink and wonder why she don’t just adopt one. She certainly in the right place for it. But then I think maybe this good Christian woman didn’t reckon on raising no dark-skin baby so maybe that is why she still unfulfilled like Morrison say.

  And as I am sitting there looking at Morrison with his ginger hair and flabby white hands I start thinking ’bout how having a baby just don’t mean the same thing to a Jamaican woman. Maybe never been the same, and sure as hell not since slavery. Because to a Jamaican woman having a child is just the continuation of life, maybe even the continuation of misery. She don’t see it as her personal achievement. She just see it as something she got to do. Well that is how it seem to me anyway.

  When my eyes focus I see Morrison is almost crying into the glass what with all the rum he been swallowing. And I realise that all I am waiting for is him getting to the part ’bout King Street and the traffic. But instead he go all quiet and start get himself together like he about to leave. So I stand up with him and I say, ‘Is OK, you know, whatever you want to talk about.’

  But he look at me like he don’t quite believe and he say, ‘Thank you for your kindness today but I really must be going. Margaret will be wondering what has happened to me.’ And so I let him go even though he almost fall down when he open the door and the sunlight hit him in the eye.

  A few days later I find out from Judge Finley that Morrison got tabs all over town that he can’t pay. The man is a gambler. The horses especially. Seem like the totes at Caymanas Park rub their hands together when they see him coming, he is such a big-time loser. Then he also got bookies downtown and the worst thing, he now got Louis DeFreitas on his tail trying to collect.

  ‘You mean that slimy piece of half-white boy from over Tivoli Gardens?’

  ‘Yah, man.’

  ‘How Morrison get mix up with him?’

  ‘Just accident. Morrison just looking for anybody that will take a bet from him. He don’t know nothing ’bout who connected to who and who is running what. He just looking out for the next race. So now DeFreitas send some boys to talk to him the other afternoon and things get sorta rough. That is what I hear anyway. And afterwards h
e go to cross King Street and then halfway he just stop and stand up there just like you find him. Me think maybe he didn’t mean nothing serious by it, he just sorta stop in the street.’

  When I get back to Matthews Lane the place is crowded. This is the same routine Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Zhang is up the top of the yard playing dominoes with Tartan Socks McKenzie and Round Chin and Mr Lee from the Chinatown Committee. Ma and the old women packing up the mah-jongg tiles and the little Formica table they sit at down the bottom of the yard. The baby is laying in her cot wearing a old T-shirt of mine and sucking on a mango stone. There is no Fay and no Xiuquan, because just like always wherever she go she take him with her.

  I pick up the baby and coo her a bit while I say goodbye to Madame Chin and Madame Fong and I watch Tilly running fresh water over the ham choi and rinsing it for dinner. After dinner when the house empty and Ma gone to temple I tell Zhang ’bout Morrison and DeFreitas and he say to me, ‘So what you want with this doctor anyway?’

  ‘I paying out a lot of money to doctors, what with Fay and the children and Gloria and the baby, and then there is the normal things to do with the girls.’

  ‘You mean your whores?’

  ‘Why you always got to call them that?’

  ‘Because that is what they is.’ And I just look at him because even after all these years he just can’t stop drawing attention to it and reminding me how he feel about it even though it is the money from these girls that is helping to put food on the table. Somehow the two things don’t match up in his head. Maybe because he still getting everything he want for free – the herbalist, the barber, the pharmacy, clothes, shoes – hell he still even eating in Chinatown when he want to for free.

  ‘Well it cost me a lot of money and I just reckon that if I can get me a doctor then I can make some saving.’

  ‘You no pay him?’

  ‘No, he work for a favour to me.’

  ‘What favour you do him?’

  ‘I write off his gambling tabs.’

  ‘You buy them up?’

  ‘I reckon it worth it because he pay it back over and over year after year and he still owe me. And I can save him face as well because I don’t mention none of it to his wife so he can carry on being a good Christian as far as she is concerned.’

  ‘DeFreitas not honest businessman. He find out you want doctor he raise price of tabs. Then maybe it not such good bargain.’ Zhang look away from me, off somewhere like he thinking. Then he say, ‘You have to make DeFreitas give you the tab, like you taking it to do him a favour.’ Sun Tzu say, ‘ To subdue the enemy without fighting is the acme of skill .’

  Next morning I call Clifton Brown and tell him to meet me over the Blue Lagoon.

  ‘You want me to go threaten DeFreitas over this doctor?’

  ‘I want you to go take some boys in uniform and a big police van and drive over to West Kingston and tell him that you can’t have him roughing up this white man in broad daylight in a public place like that. Tell him Morrison complain to you and he is a white man and a respected doctor and you just can’t have it. DeFreitas got to leave the doctor alone.’

  ‘What about the money?’

  ‘Tell him you don’t give a shit about his money. The way he acting making you look bad, after all you supposed to be fighting corruption and you can’t have him acting like he don’t respect your authority. Tell him to forget about the doctor otherwise you going shut him down, his whole operation, and you going make it mean and nasty so whatever Morrison owe him be a small price to pay.’

  And that work out just fine because a week later news was all over town ’bout how DeFreitas was looking to shift Morrison’s tabs. So I offer him half of what he was asking and he take it. And the next day I tell Finley to go buy up the rest of Morrison’s tabs.

  15

  Force

  Sun Tzu say, ‘ He who understands how to use both large and small forces will be victorious .’

  But Morrison running up more and more money he owe to bookies all over town and I am having trouble explaining to these men that I have no intention of picking up any more of his tabs, that whatever they doing with Morrison they have to think of as extending a personal courtesy to me. So finally I decide is time I go have a little talk with him.

  I take a drive up to the hospital one rainy afternoon and they show me into a upstairs office that got his name on the door in shiny brass letters, ‘Dr George Morrison’, and where a skinny little nurse with a white uniform and buck teeth tell me to wait. Outta the window I look down into a little garden with bird of paradise and a frangipani growing in the middle of it. It look pretty, what with the little wooden seat round the tree, and it sound peaceful with the raindrops dripping off the banana leaves. When Morrison come into the room he walk over to the window and stand next to me looking into the garden.

  ‘You like?’

  ‘Yeah, it look like a pretty space. Calm and peaceful like.’

  ‘It has given me many hours of pleasure.’

  ‘I surprised a man like you got time for a thing like that.’

  ‘I am a very keen gardener.’ Then he jut out his chin towards the window and say, ‘This is one of the few pleasures I still allow myself.’ He have a little think to himself and then he say, ‘How can I help you? Is the baby fine? And your good wife, is she well?’

  I look at him and I smile to myself because I can’t understand how come he manage to sound so proper and formal for a man with his secrets, and what he think he doing acting like that with me after we been drinking Appleton together and him telling me all ’bout his personal business with his wife and how she can’t get a baby and such. Or maybe he just got a bad memory. I notice that ’bout white people. They got bad memories.

  So I say to him, ‘They both good, doctor. Thank you for asking but they not what bring me here today.’

  He raise one eyebrow and look at me like he can’t imagine what I have come there for. So I reach in my pocket and I pull out a couple of his tabs and I hold them up in front of him. He look at them like he got no idea what they are, and then I see the panic creep ’cross his face, and that is the first time he look at me. Really focus on me.

  So I say, ‘You know what these are?’ But he don’t say nothing, he just stand there shaking his head like he think that maybe he in a dream and he soon going wake up. So I wave the tabs around, like rock them from side to side in my hand and I say to him, ‘These belong to me now. Actually, all your tabs belong to me now. I done buy up all of them. Even the ones from your friend Louis DeFreitas.’

  Morrison look worried but him still can’t say nothing to me. Is like his whole body gone into shock and all he can do is sweat because now his doughy white face is wet and red and clammy.

  So I tell him, ‘I not going hurt you, yu know. I didn’t spend good money on these so I can do you damage.’

  But he still don’t say nothing, so I say, ‘What you think happen after all that business in King Street? Yu no notice how everything gone quiet on that front?’

  He start to open his mouth, then almost like he was squeezing the air outta his lungs he say, ‘I thought perhaps he had gone away.’

  ‘Gone away! DeFreitas? You think DeFreitas go away and just forget that you owe him money?’

  ‘I thought he had perhaps been detained by the authorities. He seemed that sort.’

  Well that is when I really laugh, right out loud. I nearly bust my gut. When I finally calm myself down and him standing there like he still don’t understand what is going on I say to him, ‘No, DeFreitas not gone nowhere. And none of them others neither. They all still right here in town, but now you owe me instead of them. And what I come to tell you is that it time for you to settle up.’

  Morrison sit down in his big old leather chair and listen to me. And he agree to everything. Funny thing was, afterwards he take my hand and shake it. It seem like him so frighten of DeFreitas he actually grateful to me for stepping in.

  So now I had m
e my very own personal physician, and the children had a doctor and the girls could rest easy ’bout all their little trials and tribulations. And in exchange Dr George Morrison had the full protection of the Yang family and a clean slate with everybody, except me. Just before I leave I say to him, ‘You have to curb your gambling.’

  When I turn outta the hospital I drive up Old Hope Road, down Tom Redcam Avenue pass Up Park Camp and head out along Windward Road where the sea breeze whip through the car going ’cross the Palisadoes to Port Royal. Father Kealey got a special liking for the fried fish and bammy they sell out there. When I get there he already park up and sitting at a table admiring the view.

  ‘I love to see the sunlight shimmering on the sea and catching the peaks in the water like that. It just sort of glistens, doesn’t it?’ I smile at him because he always remind me about the simple things in life that I should take more time to appreciate. So I just stand there for a time looking at him and the sea and thinking yes, him right.

  And just then I can’t imagine ever being any place other than Jamaica. I can’t imagine any other view that could be better for the spirit than this. And I think to myself I don’t know what Father Kealey doing to me but every time I meet up with him it seem like I start thinking about this life and the hereafter, and right and wrong, and all that sort of thing even before he open his mouth. Is like he just sorta carry all of that God and goodness ’round with him. Like there is always a little ray of light shining down on exactly the spot he is standing on, or where he is sitting waiting for his fried fish.

  When the waitress gone inside with the order he start telling me ’bout the new school he setting up for the children in Cockpit Country. He excited. I can tell because I know how much it please him every time he take his God to some place new. And how he rejoice when folks start to understand that the Bible got more to it than learning how one word follow another.