Pao

by Kerry Young

  In December 1976 Michael Manley win a second term of office, but as time go on him social reforms was gradually grinding to a halt because we owe so much money in foreign debt and we had to concentrate on paying it off. Plus, we still losing skilled people. And it wasn’t just the Chinese and it wasn’t all over money. All sort of people was leaving, and for a lot of them it was because they just couldn’t take the violence no more.

  With all of this going on I never get to see Michael, he so busy trying to do something ’bout poor relief. And then I get a note from him.

  Pao,

  Please see the attached. It would mean such a lot to me if you decided to come.

  Michael.

  The attached was a official invitation to attend at Holy Trinity Cathedral when the Right Reverend Bishop Kealey is to be installed as His Grace the Most Reverend Michael Kealey, Archbishop of Kingston.

  32

  Humility

  I go see Michael become archbishop and I feel proud like he was my own brother. I sit there and I look at him in all his glory and I think we tread different paths me and Michael, but we travelled through this life together. Everything that I ever tell him stay with him. And everything that he tell me ’bout Fay and such stay with me. And even though him archbishop now, I know that Michael going always be there. We bonded to each other.

  I never get a chance to talk to him that day but afterwards him tell me he see me sitting there in the cathedral, in the third pew back, and he think to himself maybe he got a brother after all, which I understand he mean me, because Michael an only child.

  Then him laugh and say to me, ‘Even if we have very different ways of communing with our Father.’

  Three month later Esther get married. It seem to me that Gloria been planning this wedding for the past two years but maybe that not quite true. It just seem like it a long time in the making.

  The morning I go up to the house it is a pandemonium. I dunno why Gloria tell me to get there so early. Maybe she reckon I going be late so she give me this early time. God knows what on her mind why she think I going be late for my own daughter’s wedding, but it is two long hours she got me sitting there watching the dressmaker fuss ’round the place with a tape measure hang ’round her neck and I think well if she still sewing at this stage then the whole wedding in trouble.

  The bridesmaid is two girls Esther know from St Andrew High School where all of them take their GCEs together. Cambridge Examination Board just like in England. These girls so thin I can’t imagine any man managing to get hold of them. It must be like trying to pick up a glass but even after you completely close yu hand ’round it the glass still slipping through yu grasp. But both these girls already engaged so that just go to show what little I know ’bout it. They seem like they nice enough girls though, and them and Esther look like they close so that is good.

  The make-up woman got a lot of tubs and tubes and bottles and jars that she spread out everywhere. She put a little cloth ’round every woman neck in case she go spill something on their chest and then she start rub little of this and that on the back of their hand so she can get the right colour and tone, so she say.

  She say she going make them look perfect. That is her favourite word. Every time she finish do a little powder or rouge or whatever it is she do she stand back and she look at them and she say ‘perfect’. And she do this with Gloria and Esther and the two bridesmaid till I start think that if I hear her say the word ‘perfect’ one more time I going get up and throw the woman outta the house.

  The four of them just sit there and let her carry on perfecting ’round them while they hold out their hand because some other woman is busy at the side of them filing and shaping and painting on the finger varnish.

  The hairdresser do a lot of oohing and ahhing. And he like to rest him hand flat on his cheek and swing him head from left to right. I suppose he trying to take in every angle of these creations that he busy concocting on top of the heads of these four women. He is standing there with one hand on his chin and the other one on his hip, and I am sitting there with one ankle resting on the other knee and my hands in my lap, and as he is studying them I am studying them. He is looking at the side and I am looking at the side. He is looking at the back and I am looking at the back. And then I start say things like ‘Maybe it need straighten out a bit more’ or ‘Maybe you could sweep it up a little more at the side there.’ And he stop and turn ’round and look at me and then turn back and look at the hair, and then maybe the chin and hip thing again, and then maybe he say, ‘Yes, I think you are right.’

  And then after a while I start to think to myself yu know maybe this not such a bad job. It artistic. You get to be with a woman and look at her. Really look. Really take her in. Most of the time a man don’t do that. He look but he don’t see nothing. But this way you get to make a woman feel cared for. Make her feel beautiful and good about herself. How many jobs is there where you get to do that? Yu get a chance to make somebody happy even if it only for a day.

  When the wedding car finally turn up I feel relieved to be stepping out into the midday sun. Just as I get to the car I turn ’round and see Esther standing there on the veranda. She look beautiful, with the white frock just off the shoulder, flowing all the way down to the ground with the train that Gloria busy fetching up in case it drag over the dirty yard and the veil that Esther going pull down over her face. I never imagined I would feel so proud. I never imagined the day would come. It was almost like I never thought I would live long enough to witness a thing like this. Esther walk right up to me as I standing there holding open the car door and she say, ‘Thank you, Daddy.’

  And I think to myself that is the first time she ever call me that. All these years she always manage to say what she got to without calling me anything at all. Or sometime when I hear her talking to Gloria she say ‘my father’, and the way she say it didn’t always sound too nice. So I look at her and I look at Gloria and then I look at Esther again and I think this girl really gorgeous, just like her mother.

  We drive down to the Baptist church in Half Way Tree. The church not no Holy Trinity Cathedral, but it big and it beautiful with all the flowers that standing up there at the altar and hanging down the end of every pew.

  This church not just no church, although it busy doing that as well, because Gloria tell me it got over eight hundred and fifty members. But the thing that Gloria like ’bout this church is that it a JAMAL adult education centre which Gloria tell me stand for Jamaican Movement for the Advancement of Literacy. It got all sorta thing going on there like a Christian education centre and a legal aid consultation service that Gloria think is a very good thing. Gloria tell me she been attending this church since 1968 when they start take an interest in social and welfare issues.

  She surprise me. I just sit there in the car and look at her. I never figure Gloria for no church-going Christian. It don’t really seem to go with everything else that she do.

  She say to me, ‘I used to be a regular church-goer as a child, yu know. Every Sunday morning my mother would make sure we scrub and dress and march us down the dirt road in all sorta frock with crinoline so we could go listen to the pastor pound that Bible.’ And then she stop. And then she say, ‘But it not God that I come here for. What I come here for is the chance to make a contribution and to help people change their lives.’

  When me and Esther walking down the aisle I see Rajinder at the altar. And as I am getting close to him I realise that I never see a man look so happy. He look so happy it seem like him almost going to bust. Like him can’t believe this woman is actually going to marry him. Like he is waiting there in that church surrounded by all his family and such and she is coming towards him and some dream he been having for god knows how long is finally going come true. So I start fret that the man going collapse before we get there, there is that much going on in his heart. But we make it, and the pastor say, ‘Who gives this woman?’ and I done my part.

  I step to the side and
all the time I am standing there I try to remember how I felt on my own wedding day. Well I know for sure that when Fay was coming down the aisle on Henry’s arm I didn’t look nothing like how Rajinder look. I think I was more worried than happy. Worried that any minute now she was going stop and just turn ’round and walk out the church and I would be there looking at her back like I done a hundred times before at Lady Musgrave Road. And even after she say ‘I do’, I still didn’t believe it actually happen. That she actually marry me. The only time it seem real to me was when we was sitting in the car looking out at the cathedral and the crowd that was out there because I reckon all these people must have been bearing witness to something.

  After they done with the praying and the singing and the signing we finally get to go sit down in New Kingston in the splendour of the Pegasus Hotel because Gloria take a liking to the fact that only last year the government acquire the controlling interest in the hotel and she very much in favour of the people taking over the tourist industry. But in truth there is not a lot of sitting. How much family this boy have is nobody’s business because I am shaking hand after hand of this auntie and that uncle and the niece and the nephew and the brother-in-law and sister-in-law, and first cousin and second cousin and third cousin, which I don’t know what kinda relation that is anyway, and the grandfather and grandmother and the mother and father and three brothers and six sisters. And all the time you doing it a whole army of little children running up and down the place like nobody got them under control.

  I think my arm going drop off but Gloria say I must shut up complaining because it only the one chance I going get so I should enjoy it, which tell me that Gloria don’t think Mui ever going come back to Jamaica, or if she do then it after she already married.

  So now instead of standing there enjoying Esther’s wedding I am thinking ’bout Mui and thinking that maybe Gloria right I never going see a day like this for her. And I think that is funny. Well it not really funny as such, because it was Mui that put me in mind of Esther in that first letter she send back to me after all that mix-up with Morrison going to look for Stanley. It was Mui that write ‘I hope Gloria and Esther are well’ and make me think I should go pay the child more mind. It was Mui remind me that I had another daughter.

  All the way through the snapper and the chicken I am thinking what kinda child Esther was. And what I realise is that when she young Esther was like two completely different people. She quiet and careful with me, but when you read her school report it seem like she this carefree, long-jumping, volleyball-playing, drama-society, school-choir sorta girl. Yet never once did she ask me if I wanted to come watch her do her sport thing or see her school play or listen to the choir sing. And Gloria never mention none of this to me. Maybe she thought that after I read the school report I would ask for myself if I could go see something that Esther doing. Maybe she wanted me to make the first move. But it never dawn on me to do nothing. I just used to read the little report because Gloria give it to me and feel puzzled ’bout how come this nuh seem to be the same girl at all. Or after I read it and giving it back to Gloria I would say, ‘She seem to be doing good.’ And that would be it. In truth, a lot of the time it just felt like Gloria give it to me because she reckon I entitled to see it because I pay for it. Like I pay the school fees so I have a right to read the report. It was like that. And it didn’t seem to me like I had any right to expect anything or ask for anything more than that.

  It wasn’t till Fay take the children that all of that change, maybe because Gloria think I only got the one child now so I can concentrate on her. So Esther only really become my daughter after Mui and Xiuquan was gone.

  When it come to the speeches I already done tell Gloria that I didn’t know what to say. What yu going say ’bout being the father of a woman you don’t hardly know? And you busy giving her in marriage to some man you maybe meet two or three times. What yu going say? That for the first fourteen years of this woman’s life you all but ignore her? You can’t even remember how many times you see her and even when you did happen to come ’cross her you can’t remember any conversation you ever had with her about anything at all. That in fourteen years you never read her a book in bed, or play a game with her, or take her to the beach, or help her with her pyjama party, or take her to the pictures, or eat ice cream with her, or watch her blow out any birthday candles. Yu can’t even remember what present you ever buy her or what Gloria get for her and tell her it come from me. And then yu wife kidnap yu other two children and that is when you realise that you have another child. So it is only since the others gone that you start to get to know this woman and what you discover is that she is smart and funny and a caring person. Everything you would want yu child to be. Maybe everything you would wish you could be yourself but you are not. And on top of all of this, the very special thing about Esther is her forgiveness. That she had it in her heart to forgive me and just wait for the day that I would be there for her as her father who love her and feel pleased and proud that she is in this world.

  Gloria look at me and say, ‘That is fine. It honest.’

  So when the moment come I get up and I say it. I tone down the first part a little bit and when I get to the part about being her father I say, ‘Who she can call Daddy. Who love her and feel pleased and proud that she is in the world to be a daughter to me and Gloria, and a wife to Rajinder, but most of all to be a person to herself.’

  I can hardly hear the clapping because right then I look at Esther and I see she got a sorta smile on her face but she crying. And then I feel something wet on my own face and I sit down and Gloria pass me a tissue to wipe away the tear.

  After that when it come to the dancing Esther and Rajinder do what they have to and afterwards she walk straight over to where I am sitting and stand there with her hand held out to me for me to go dance with her.

  I say to her, ‘Esther, I can’t dance.’

  And she say, ‘It doesn’t matter.’

  So I get up and I go on the dance floor with her, dressed in this black tuxedo and bow tie that Gloria say I got to wear. And as I am dancing with her I realise that the look on my face must be exactly that same one that Rajinder have when me and Esther was walking down the aisle towards him. Like a dream I didn’t even know I had had just come true. And when I look over to Gloria still sitting there at the table, I see the dream had come true for her as well.

  33

  Marches

  Mui pass the Bar exam. She send me a copy of The Times newspaper from England that got her name in it – ‘Called to the Bar at Lincoln’s Inn.’

  But even while I was busy showing the paper to everybody I know and telling them what a brilliant daughter I have there was trouble brewing. And after a lot of talk and telephone call and this and that Finley say we have to go meet this man, but we have to go to Negril because he tell Finley he not going to no Blue Lagoon. He say he is a Miami man. A man for blue sea and blue sky not some dark dingy Kingston bar.

  Finley tell me him name Ian Maynard Fitzgerald and I say, ‘What? What kinda name that is?’

  ‘I think it the sorta name that got history and a whole heap of family with big connections. Otherwise, why would you bother yourself with a mouthful like that? Not unless you think you impressing somebody. I wouldn’t be surprised to hear that him great-granddaddy fight with General Custer.’ And me and Finley laugh. ‘Anyway,’ Finley say, ‘seem him got a nickname, Sam.’

  ‘So where that nickname come from?’ And Finley just shrug him shoulders.

  Sam got himself a hotel in Negril right on a nice piece of that seven mile of white sandy beach they always advertising in the tourist brochure. The hotel big, it impressive, it classy. Sam tell us it got all the American and German newspaper for sale right there in the lobby shop. It got the beach, two swimming pool and five restaurant serving every kinda food that the tourist want to eat. It got helicopter trips to the Blue Lagoon, by which he mean the big blue water hole over Port Antonio way, not my favouri
te bar in Kingston. It got waterskiing and every beach sport you can think of. It got entertainment day and night. It got babysitting and kindergarten club. And the best thing? It all inclusive. The guests never have to step foot outside the place, and to keep everybody safe and sound they lock up the big gates every night at seven o’clock, half hour before nightfall, and they don’t bother tell the people that they not no street violence in Negril, that all the trouble in Kingston. No, they just like to keep it simple with all the tourist lock up inside there being all inclusive while the local shops and bars and restaurants going to hell because they not got no customers. And the all-inclusive profit going straight back to America because Sam is a Miami man.

  So me and Finley sitting down on this here veranda with Sam while the little waitress is running backward and forward with the rum punch and shrimp salad and Sam is leaning his big white self back in the chair admiring his own handiwork with his poolside Greek temples, and stone lions with water spouting out their mouth, and artificial waterfall like Jamaica not got enough natural beauty without Sam bringing all this concrete in here.

  Well Sam hotel got everything, except one thing. It not got no paying guests because the American media so busy frightening all of them good US citizens with they stories of robbery and rape and murder and violence and mayhem in Jamaica that none of them want to set foot down here no more. Even though in truth the whole thing local and don’t involve no tourist anyway, and certainly not in Negril or Ocho Rios which is where all the tourist traffic at.