Pao

by Kerry Young

  When I see Fay outside in the cathedral garden I realise it the first time I come face to face with her since the fight we have that night at Matthews Lane. She look good. She look better than how I picture her when I was sitting in the cathedral staring at the back of her head with the black mantilla hanging down. She look like how she used to look before we get married, fresh and alive. She don’t seem like she that bothered Henry dead. Is like she take it in her stride, which surprise me because I thought the two of them was close. When she come over to me I make sure I hang on tight to the children, one on each side. She bend down and she try talk to the two of them but they not got nothing to say to her so she straighten up again. I say to her, ‘The children quiet right now but it don’t mean they don’t miss you. Anytime you want to come home is alright with us.’ And she just look at me and walk off.

  It turn out that Henry die without making a will and so Cicely get everything. The next week after the funeral she call me and ask me to come up Lady Musgrave Road because she got something she want talk to me about. When I get up there she have Ethyl lay out afternoon tea on the veranda just like we used to take it together in the early days. Tin salmon and cucumber sandwiches, cut into little triangles, Earl Grey tea, and Victoria sponge cake.

  She spread a little white napkin ’cross her knees and she pour the tea, steadying the teapot lid with her left hand. She even got little cubes of processed white sugar and a pair of tweezer things to lift them up, which make me smile to myself when I think of how much good raw cane sugar we got on this island.

  After she stir the tea, she put a piece of quarter sandwich on her little plate and she say to me, ‘I have always liked you, Philip, you know that. I sincerely hope so anyway. It is my belief that a man would have to have the patience of Job to make a lasting marriage with Fay, because even though she is my own flesh and blood, I know what a trial she can be. So even though things have not worked out between you, I do not see that as a slight on you in any way. And I hope that you will extend to me the same courtesy in understanding that a mother does what she can even if the children do not turn out as she hopes.’

  I sit there balancing this cup and saucer trying to make sure I don’t rattle it too much when I reaching over to take the plate and sandwich she passing to me. And I want rest something down, but the little table just a bit too far away for me to do it without standing up and I don’t want interrupt Miss Cicely’s flow. So I just sit there holding on to everything, which mean I not got nuh hand free to drink the tea or eat the sandwich.

  ‘Which brings me to the reason I asked you here today. As you know, Henry had it in mind that you should have his businesses.’

  This is when my ears start prick up.

  ‘I understand that. After all, you are his only son-in-law, and mine, and the two of you are partners in supplying groceries and suchlike to the hotels. And I know you have been doing that together for some good time. But this is my problem: Kenneth. What will Kenneth inherit if I grant this wish of Henry’s?’

  And she stop. I don’t know if she expect me to give a answer. So I just look at her hoping she going carry on.

  ‘Kenneth is not an easy boy. I am sure you have noticed. And even though I have prayed for many long hours, it seems that my prayers are in vain. This is the thing.’

  So now I waiting for it.

  ‘If you could see your way to helping Kenneth to learn about the supermarket business then perhaps in a few years’ time, when he has mastered his trade so to speak, we could divide the business so that you could have, for instance, the wine merchants and wholesalers, and Kenneth could have the supermarkets. How does that sound to you?’

  ‘Well, Miss Cicely, I think it is very fine of you to be thinking about Kenneth’s future. It is what a good mother would do. But I am not sure if Kenneth is that interested in the supermarket business.’

  ‘Let’s just give it a try, shall we? And in the meantime let us say that you have control of Henry’s business concerns. You are the general manager if you like. Carte blanche. And Kenneth is your apprentice. And as for income, let us just split that fifty-fifty between the two of us, and you can pay Kenneth a salary out of your share. How is that? More tea, Philip?’

  When I drive outta Lady Musgrave Road I reckon I feel like how Bill musta feel the first time I meet him. Miss Cicely some shrewd businesswoman. And all this time I think all she doing is making embroidery and shouting at the help and answering all them letters Ethyl tell me she get every week. But she fix me alright, because sorting out Kenneth was the only way I was going to get my hands on Henry Wong’s business.

  24

  Employing Troops

  Kenneth not too impressed when I tell him ’bout Miss Cicely’s plan. Seem she already explain it all to him and he already done tell her he not doing it, but she not listening to him.

  ‘I ain’t no shopkeeper! What you people trying to do to me?’

  ‘Is not me, Kenneth, believe me. I only doing it because it what Miss Cicely ask me to do to try put you on some decent path. She worried ’bout you, that’s all.’

  ‘She not worried ’bout me. Since when she worried ’bout anything apart from the good Lord? I dunno what she doing with you, man, but I don’t need nobody come put me on any path. I got my own path already.’

  Well, I think to myself, Kenneth on the path to hell that is for sure. Not that I got any room to talk.

  After a couple of week him show up down the shop and say him going give the supermarket thing a go. Turn out Miss Cicely threaten to throw him outta the house, so Ethyl tell me anyway. And even though Louis DeFreitas him big buddy, Kenneth not so keen to go live in West Kingston without him tennis court and swimming pool and maids. So him make a deal with his mother and he turn up to me.

  But even though I try and try, I can’t do nothing with Kenneth. Him show up at eight o’clock in the morning but then him gone by ten. Sometime him no come till four o’clock in the afternoon, and when I ask him where he been he just tell me it none of my business. Every job I give him to do he leave half done, or later I find out that he get Milton or Desmond to finish it for him. Then it start happen regular that I get a telephone call from this hotel or another say they nuh get no delivery, and it turn out that Kenneth just leave the van somewhere when him take off to go do something for DeFreitas. Even if I give him a job in the office he can’t do it properly. He make mistakes, and he do things untidy, and he talk bad to the customers, but he don’t care. I talk to him and talk to him but it nuh make no difference.

  All this time I am putting my back into this because I can see it a way for us to get outta the other business, which we need to because just like Zhang say, people feel different these days ’bout the protection. They still paying it, but they got some feeling ’bout it. Plus with all the violence and trouble, the pai-ke-p’iao is slowing because people nuh feel like gambling away their money when the future so uncertain. Then the chicken thing just stop because the Chinaman go get himself arrested. And the business with the girls never pay so good anyway because I always feel bad ’bout taking away them hard-earned living.

  We still got the navy surplus even though Bill long gone and we been through I can’t remember how many sergeants since then. And we making money from surplus off the hotel construction sites and damaged goods off the docks. In truth, though, it was the hotel business that was really keeping things together. And now Miss Cicely give us a chance to clean up and do things legal and we had to make it work.

  But then everything sorta overtake me because the shooting was still going on. It get so bad that on Sunday 2 October 1966 the government declare a State of Emergency in Western Kingston. And in the middle of all this Kenneth get shot. Him never even make it to the hospital. Him just lay there in the street and bleed to death because it took five hours before the police get the situation under control enough to go pick up the wounded.

  The first thing I hear about it is when Fay yelling and screaming at me down the te
lephone ’bout how it all my fault her little brother get killed. That she dunno how I involved in it but she sure it must be me. Kenneth a good boy from a good family just starting to make his way, and now, thanks to me, him dead. She just screaming at me and crying and blubbering so half the time I can’t understand a word she saying, except I get something ’bout how she not going let me kill Karl as well. The way she talking to me is like she think I take the gun and shoot Kenneth myself.

  I jump in the car and drive up to Lady Musgrave Road. Miss Cicely sitting on the veranda, so I go up to her and I kneel down on the tile floor in front of her, on both knees, and I say to her, ‘Miss Cicely, I am so sorry. I just hear about what happen to Kenneth.’

  She look down at me and I see how her eyes red from crying, and then she take my two hands and hold them in hers. Her hands fat and warm and comforting.

  ‘It is not your fault, Philip. I know you did your best. Kenneth was not a good boy. We tried. What more can we do? This is just the Lord’s way of punishing me for all the things that I should have done and didn’t do, and all the things I did that I should have thought better of. This is for me to ponder, not for you to blame yourself.’

  After that, everybody start worry ’bout what Fay going to do, because even though Ethyl come tell us a long time since ’bout the letter Fay send to her brother in England nobody really pay it no mind. But now with this Kenneth thing we think maybe we should be taking things a bit more serious.

  Judge Finley say to me, ‘You think she going try take the children with her when she go to England?’

  ‘She can’t do that! How she going do that? Xiuquan fourteen and Mui eleven, and there is not a man alive going help her do a thing like that. Not any man that want to keep on breathing that is. And sure as hell is hell Fay can’t pull off a thing like that on her own.’

  ‘Well maybe we should just take some precaution anyway.’

  So we decide that Milton and Desmond going take it in turn to watch the children all the time them outta the house. The children don’t like it but I tell them it for their own good.

  Mui say, ‘But we still got to go to school and go see Father Michael.’

  And I say OK, but the men going wait for them right outside and when they come outta school or Bishop’s Lodge they got to come straight home with Milton or Desmond. And they agree.

  A couple of month later Clifton go up to Miami to see Margy Lopez. This is what she start call herself within weeks of being in Florida. The first time she write it in a letter to me I have to ask her on the telephone, ‘What this Margy thing? How you pronouncing that? Is it Margy like in Marge?’

  ‘No, Uncle, the “g” not soft like that. It hard like in Marguerite. Margy.’

  Anyway, all this time she been living up there she been staying with some of Clifton family. They make a good home for her and now she nineteen she want go to college. I got all the money Charles Meacham been paying every month and I give it to Clifton to take up there with him. Because even though they got all sort of currency restriction they not going search a policeman boarding the plane.

  I say to him, ‘Is you that keep her outta jail that night and put her on the plane to Miami.’

  And him smile and say to me, ‘We lucky we didn’t all end up in jail that night.’

  As soon as Clifton get up there Margy telephone me to say thank you.

  ‘So what you going study at college then?’

  ‘Cosmetics.’

  ‘Cosmetics?’

  ‘You know, lipstick and powder and face cream and such.’

  ‘They got college course for that?’

  ‘They got college courses for everything, Uncle.’

  Two days after Clifton gone Milton screech the car up outside the shop and come running in like him tail on fire.

  ‘She take them. She done take them right out from under me.’

  ‘What you talking ’bout?’

  ‘She take them. Miss Fay. She take them.’

  I start grab Milton and shake him and slap him a bit to try get some sense outta him till Judge Finley step between us and ease me back. Then I just start spin ’round on the spot because I can’t think and I dunno what to do. Hampton put him hand on my shoulder and rest me into a chair.

  Finley go over to the telephone and dial the Wong house. Ethyl answer the phone and tell him that Fay not there but she get Miss Daphne for him if he want and him say yes. When Daphne come to the phone she don’t want talk to Finley, she want talk to me.

  ‘Fay isn’t here, Pao. She went to England this afternoon and she took the children with her.’ I don’t say nothing because I can’t understand what I think I hear her saying to me.

  Then I hear her say, ‘Are you there? Pao. Are you still there?’ I just sitting there holding the receiver.

  Finley take it from me and say into it, ‘Miss Daphne, it is me, Finley. I wonder if you could kindly tell me what is happening because we not making any sense of it at this end.’

  ‘Fay has gone to England and she has taken the children with her.’

  I get up straight away right then and jump in the car and drive to Bishop’s Lodge. But Michael not there. So I run ’round to the cathedral and when I open the door I see him laying there in the dark church, flat out on the floor, prostrate in front of the altar. So right then I know him guilty. I run up the aisle and grab him up but he just hang there limp on my arm, and when I look into his face I see that the punishment he getting from his God worse than whatever I was going to do to him. So I just let him go and he fall back on the ground.

  It turn out that Fay get the two young police constables that arrest Xiuquan to grab Milton outside Xiuquan’s school. And while Mutt was arresting him, Jeff was busy dragging Mui outta the car and forcing her into a taxi cab that Fay got waiting there with her already inside it. And after Xiuquan get into the taxi as well it go to the airport while Milton get haul down the police station and they keep him there till after the plane leave. And they get away with all of this down the station because Clifton in Miami.

  ‘But how many people it take to pull off a thing like that? Where she get the money? Where she get passports? How she organise a thing like that and nobody know nothing ’bout it?’

  I tell Judge Finley that we going to England to go get the children back. But he say we can’t do that. England not like here. They not going let some Jamaicans just waltz in there and take two children outta they white country. That is kidnapping and the English authorities not going take kindly to that sorta thing.

  When Clifton come back from Miami I tell him I want the two constables to pay for it. I want them throat cut and them bodies throw in the sea. I want them beat till they eyes pop outta the socket. I want him cut off their cocks and shove it down their throat. I want him chop off them hands and feet, and arms and legs.

  And then I want him to go find the taxi driver and do the same thing to him. And the clerk she get the passport from, and the one who sell her the ticket, and the red cap that carry her bag into the terminal, and the woman who pass her through to them BOAC flight to London Heathrow.

  But Clifton and Finley say we can’t do none of that. The only people we know for sure involved, that knew what they was doing, was the two constables, and we can’t go murder them. They policemen and you can’t just go kill two Kingston policemen and it not bring down a heap of trouble on your head.

  ‘So then what you saying is that there is nothing we can do.’

  Clifton and Finley do a deep sigh. The two of them at the same time. And then they look at each other. And then they look at me, but they no say nothing.

  Then Finley say, ‘It would be very bad for business. Plus we could all end up in jail. And it wouldn’t bring Mui and Xiuquan back to us.’

  Zhang say to me, Sun Tzu say, ‘ There are some roads not to follow; some troops not to strike; some cities not to assault; and some ground which should not be contested .’

  I open a bottle of Appleton. And when it finish, I
open another one.

  25

  Human Relations

  I drink so much I couldn’t do nothing. I couldn’t even see straight most of the time. All I could do was walk up to Barry Street to fetch the next bottle. Then one day Hampton come in the yard and him got Ethyl follow behind. This is the first time Ethyl ever come to Matthews Lane. Every time she come see me before that she come to the shop. But since I nuh leave Matthews Lane since the children gone I guess this the only way she going see me.

  I sitting in a little straight-back chair by the duck pond when the two of them come up the yard and Hampton step up and say to me, ‘Ethyl got something to tell yu but she ’fraid in case yu vex with her and she worried what yu going do to her.’

  ‘What I going do to her? You see me do anything to anybody?’

  So Hampton step back and push Ethyl forward. She timid and when she start talk she whispering so much I can hardly hear a word she saying.

  ‘You need to talk up, Ethyl.’

  So she clear her throat and she say, ‘Yes, Mr Philip.’ And then after Hampton nod at her, she start, ‘The Sunday before Miss Fay take the children I overhear her on the telephone. She was in the living room and I just go in there to put down a vase of fresh flowers like Miss Cicely ask me to and Miss Fay just turn ’round and wave her hand at me and tell me to get out. I didn’t even get a chance to put down the vase. It was like she vex with me for going in there. So when I shut the door I just wait outside a little minute and listen. And that is when I hear her say “I will be in the taxi”, which make me think that she just making some arrangement with one of her friends. But the way she say it seem a bit funny. And it funny that she didn’t want me to hear her, because them not usually worried ’bout that sort of thing. Anyway, the next thing I hear is when she say, “Do you understand?” It nuh sound like well I didn’t know what it sound like, but now I realise what funny about it was maybe she was talking to a child. That she not talking to one of her friends after all.’