The Austin Clarke Library

by Austin Clarke

  And Gertrude comes. Like a ghost, without ceremony; like the Inspector of Elementary Schools, sneaking up on the Headmaster and trying to catch him off-guard; talking to herself . . . “I-myself was just-this-minute going to come in and see if you want me to serve now, Mistress? Wait until Mr.Wilberforce come? Since you having-in guesses, you want me to leave things until you ready to go to the table? Or-if-not, if you want me for something else, like more drinks. Or. . . ? But I really was wondering, Mistress, if I could take-off as soon as I clean up?” . . . There are many things on Gertrude’s mind: what is Sargeant doing, talking so damn long; and why the Mistress haven’t told her to take-off early tonight, as usual; and as promised; “. . . and I promise myself to pass-round by the Pilgrim Holiness tonight, and see if the Sisters getting in the spirit, and hear the word o’ God at the same time . . . Lord, what wrong with this woman, tonight . . ?”

  “Lock-up before you leave, please, Gertrude.”

  “Thanks. And good night, Mistress.”

  “You got somebody to company-you-home? It dark.”

  “Yes, Mistress. My cousin . . .”

  “Be careful . . .”

  “Good night, Mr. Stuart.”

  “Throw-on one o’ Wilberforce old black jackets over your two shoulders, Gertrude. To prevent yourself from catching a draught . . . The night cold. And the dew falling, hear?”

  “Good night, Miss Gertrude,” Sargeant says, very formally.

  “Night!” Gertrude says. “Well, I leaving, now, then . . .”

  “Night! And Wilberforce isn’t even here . . . I had no idea I keep the child so late! . . . to give her a drop to the corner . . .”

  “Night!” Sargeant says.

  “I going now, then,” Gertrude says; and closes the parlour door a little noisily behind her.

  “Why you never took-up with a steady woman?” Mary-Mathilda says, now that they are alone.

  “After the mother of your two daughters left Bimshire and died, you became a sad, lonely man. We used to wonder, and some people even bet that before-long, you was going to put a end to your life by your own two hands. And when you were telling me about your trip to Trinidad, and knowing you were likely to meet some Trinidadian woman down-in-there, I was waiting to hear if you left some thrildren behind; or if you married to one, hoping some day to bring-she-back to Bimshire; or you return back down in Trinidad. But, nothing, Percy? Nothing?

  “So, I ask you why, as a consequence? Why?”

  “Celia DiFranco was a light-skin woman of Porchogeeze-Negro extractions that I meet, when a Trinidadian detective-fellar take we out on the town one night, from up in Toonapoona where we were billeted, all the way down in Port-o’-Spain, by car, near the Savannah. In a place,my-God, Mary-Mathilda, that sold the sweetest ice cream in the whole Wessindies! The Green Corner. Or the Corner of Green.

  “This girl—she was a schoolgirl at the time I was in Trinidad, tracking down the whereabouts of Patel. This girl, not more than sixteen when I meet her, ’cause she was still ’tending high school, Bishops High School for Girls.

  “This girl, of a light complexion, and with good-hair; long black hair that was straight and silky . . . and when I tell you shining?..Well, in that heat and sun, and with the humidities they got down there in Trinidad, when this girl walk in the street, and the light hit her hair, oh shite!..Well, you know what I talking ’bout . . .

  “Her name was DiFranco. My Trinidadian detective-friend tell me that she have Porchogeeze-and-Negro in her blood. I tell you that already.

  “She lived in Town. In Port-o’-Spain, right in the middle, near the Royal Gaol.

  “Her mother stayed at home, as a housewife. Light-skin like the daughter. The father was a schoolteacher. Headmaster, I think. And black-black-black as a Blackamoor. More blacker than me. I look at that man the first time, that man, tall-tall, black-black as pitch, as a Blackamoor, and just as dignified; his skin smooth as molasses; and the complexion and the texture of his skin, and a nose! My God, Miss Mary! When I tell you a nose? Big and long, and hooked; shaped like the nose you see in that movie about Roman senators, at the Olympic Theatre, I think it was Quo Vadis. That was all I could think of when I first rested my two eyes on Celia father nose. Quo Vadis.

  “And I never-before, in my born-days, receive the kind o’ hor-spitality and courtesies from anybody that I receive at the hands of Celia mother and Celia father. I had-intend to make my intentions known to Celia father and Celia mother as fast as possible, in regards to marriage and to holy matrimony, due to the way they treated me, a complete stranger. Because I was a man struck by love and sincerity. But before I could do it . . .”

  “Perhaps that is why.”

  “How could they treat me, a complete stranger, more better than I ever get treated here in Bimshire?”

  “Some people like strangers and foreigners more better than their own. A prophet is not without honour safe in his own-own country. It is to do with not having to be honest. A father-in-law-to-be, or a mother-in-law-to-be, don’t have to be honest with the man who have eyes for their daughter, exactly-because he is a foreigner, a man from a other island, and have no history. Or another Parish. They don’t want to know him. The more unknown, the better. The strangeness, or what Wilberforce calls the ‘exotic,’ will get in the stranger’s blood, and turn his head; and he will start to have ideas . . . Oh,.Well . . . if you know what I mean.”

  “I know what you mean . . .”

  “One person really don’t have to get to know the other person. The distance that separate them, one in Bimshire, the other in Trinidad, and the seawater in-between, which by itself would mash-up things. Doubt and suspiciousness. The one feeling that the other one carrying-on on-the-side. The other one listening for back- ground noises when she is on the telephone to him, long distance. They never really get to know one another. Doubt building on doubt, and suspiciousness, and the suspicion of infidelities-on-the-side, if you see what I mean, will—”

  “You are reading my mind, Miss Mary! I was about to tell you that when I came back here from Trinidad, by the same schooner with two masts, and suffer the same seasickness on the return-journey back, as had-afflict us on the passage out, I didn’t sleep for the first six days of my return to Bimshire. Tossing and turning, as if I was still crossing the Carbean Sea, going down into the Gulf o’ Paria. Sleep won’t come, no-kind-o’-how! I counted sheep . . .”

  “What you mean, you counted sheep?”

  “Like, one, two, three . . . Up in the three hundreds, the four hundreds. In the thousands! Yes. Counting sheep, as they say in the storybook.”

  “My God-in-heaven, Percy! You had it bad, in-true.”

  “Bad-bad-bad! And whilst counting sheep, a funny thing happened to me. The counting of sheep led me to reading fairy tales, every night.

  “The first six days, back on terra-firmer, as I lay sleepless, turned into the seventh day, and then into the first fortnight, and over above my bed, as I was layingdown flat on my back, over me was a picture of Celia DiFranco, plain-plain-plain as anything, like a painting of angels; suspended over me, above the bed, as if she was a coverlet, or a mosquito net over a four-poster bed, was the woman I left in Trinidad. Celia DiFranco. One fortnight turn into two. Two, into three. When I see the month-end come, Jesus Christ, Miss Mary-Mathilda, I start feeling that I needed serious medical attention. Time to call-in Mr. Wilberforce, for consultations.”

  “I remember the time. Wilberforce told me. Just the outlines, mind you.”

  “Can’t sleep. The sleeplessness of insomnia turn into palpitations. That is when Mr.Wilberforce first-tell me how serious these things had-become mental anxieties; and were now giving me the nerves. That was the origin of my pressure. Blood pressure and palpitations of the heart.

  “During the day, I would be all right. I would do my work and go about my duties. But the moment you see dusk fall, and twilight turn into darkness, bram! the sadness of sleeplessness and other psychological insomnias that go wi
th it . . . and then, these heavy palpitations of the heart.”

  “That was love, Percy-boy. That was love. What foolishness you talking? Is love, Percy. You too old to recognize the passion of love?”

  “Love?”

  “Love.”

  “If that was love. . . ! Anyway, I start writing love letters to Celia. In one week, I write fourteen letters. I remember stanning-up in the Post Office, in the Public Buildings; and the civil servant-fellow selling the stamps, all of a sudden, without word of apology or nothing, just get-up-straight-from-behind the wire-cage and-left. Gone to lunch. Or, went drinking rum. But I had more patience than he have bad manners! I walked out by the Olympic Theatre, behind the very Public Buildings, and went in a rum shop, and buy a rum; and eat a ham-cutter. When I went back, there wasn’t a soul in line. And I remember the feeling I had, as I lick-on the stamps on the airmail envelopes, with saliva. I was posting all fourteen letters the same time. I don’t know, why I didn’t post one letter at a time. Or two. I posted the fourteen letters the same time. They take me seven days to write.

  “I address those fourteen letters to Celia, nice, with my Watermans fountain pen. And written with the best Royal Blue Quink Ink that I could get from Weatherheads the Druggists.

  “Man-yes! And I loved to smell that fine English airmail writing paper; stationery, that according to a watermark-seal on the paper itself kings write on. The watermark-seal said, ‘By Appointment to His Majesty King George the Fiff!’ You know the smell of that quality o’ stationery, Miss Mary!”

  “English stationery, boy!”

  “Man-yes! And soft. The feel of it. Soft-soft-soft, that if I wasn’t careful when I was writing those words to Miss DiFranco the nib of my Watermans fountain pen wouldda punch-through the paper, and spoil the flow of the Quink Ink that was, as I said, Royal Blue.

  “The paper itself was blue. For airmail. If you hold it up to the light, you could see a drawing of a bird, or something that look like a bird. It could be another animal. Like a lion. The only thing is that it had-on wings, this thing printed almost in a invisible manner, like a mark, was there . . .”

  “A griffin.”

  “What a griffin is?”

  “A animal with wings.”

  “That is right? A griffin?”

  “A watermark.”

  “Watermark? Is that what you call it?”

  “It’s a watermark. With a griffin on it. One way of telling quality.”

  “Well, my stationery that I used to write those fourteen epistles to Celia, in Port-o’-Spain-Trinidad on, was royal, and a griffin. And Miss DiFranco was royal, too. She was my princess. My queen, and . . .”

  “You didn’t married!”

  “We didn’t get so far.”

  “She would be a princess, then!”

  “I see what you mean! Man-yes! I addressed all fourteen envelopes in the manner I was taught in by Mr. Edwards’ Penmanship in elementary school: the beginning of each line, a half inch to the right of the line above it, and so on . . . like:

  “‘Miss Celia DiFranco,

  ‘114 Cambridge Street,

  ‘Port-of-Spain,

  ‘Trinidad,

  ‘Trinidad & Tobago,

  ‘British West Indies.’

  “Man-yes!”

  “Yes! I would say, yes.”

  “Man-yes! And, Miss Mary-Mathilda, I am ashame to tell you, that a woman with a foreign accent, turned my blasted head behind my blasted back, making me look like a blasted poppit. Approaching Mr. Brannford. I am man-enough to admit that.

  “This went on for eleven months. What keeping me going was the writing of fourteen love letters at one time, letter after letter, with words more sweeter than a calypso, more sweeter than ‘Frenesi’ that we just listen to. I don’t know where I got those sweet-words from!

  “I not telling you the whole truth, though. I got the words in books from the Public Library. And from a few verses in Psalms in the Bible. And from the Book of Proverbs. You would be surprise to see how many words, suitable to love letters, could be found in the Bible. And I mean the Old Testament. Sweet words, Miss Mary-Mathilda. Words like beauty. And fragrance. Like, vouchsafing, love and affection. Softness. Beatitudes and felicitations. The beating of a man’s heart getting louder and louder, as the distance of green seas and mountains of waves get wider, and cut him off, and he vouchsafe that should there be a parting of the waters, he shall drown himself in a sea of loneliness. Love-words . . .”

  “Yes, Percy. Yes!”

  “Fourteen letters at one time, I send that woman. And in the first eleven months of licking-on stamps with my saliva, and sticking them on ’pon letters and stanning-up in a crowded Post Office, with a blasted unmannerly civil servant behind a wire cage, and my corns burning me from stanning-up half-hour to a hour before I get served . . . she answer-me-back, three times!”

  “Three times? One, two, three?”

  “Three times. Miss Mary-Mathilda, I never knew that a woman could break my heart so hard. She break my heart as if my heart was a piece o’ lead pencil, brittle and weak, that when you go so, snap! . . . it break.

  “When I think back to those days, and always my grief comes at night, the moment the sun sink-down below Flagstaff Hill, and drop in the sea, my heart sinks sudden and deep and low-low, and final like the sun. When dusk fall . . .”

  “You was a wreck over love, Percy-boy.”

  “These woman-problems happened the same year I pass-out as a police Constable, in the Royal Constabulary of the Island of Bimshire Police Force, from Police Training School. With the Baton of Honour.”

  “That is twenty-something years!”

  “Twenty-five. To the day! Miss Mary-Mathilda, twenty-five to the very day! Isn’t this telling you something?

  “What I mean by that is this. Here I am. Here I have been. In all this time. This Sunday evening, and whatever it is that is in my heart, concerning you . . . not concerning you, with respect to the matter at hand which I shall not mention, but in the present circumstances for me to unburden myself before you and confess that I fall in love with a Trinidadian woman in Trinidad . . .”

  “What happened, after writing the love letters?”

  “. . . love letters? Unrequited love letters, you mean. I pick-up that word unrequited from a poem. I can’t remember who write the poem. But it couldda been Keats, a English fellar by the name of John Keats. Maybe Wordsworth, or Tennyson. All those poems I come-across years ago, through private lessons Mr. Edwards give me; and in books from the Public Library.

  “It lasted, really, into the second year. I think I came to the conclusion, after my experience, that these kinds of love affairs have a natural lifespan of not more than eighteen months. If that.

  “She would write things like ‘Dear Percy, This can’t work. You there. And I here in Trinidad. I still love you. Celia.’

  “That one came one Friday. The next one came on the Monday.

  “‘My dear Percy, This still cannot work, for as I tell you, I here in Trinidad, you there in Bimshire, residing. I still love you. Celia.’

  “And her third letter?”

  “It finish, ‘Percy. I still love you. Celia.’”

  “And where is the lady now? This Celia DiFranco?”

  “I save-up, and save-up, and eventually I got the passage. On the same schooner, with two sails that had take we on the Patel ’Vestigation. I went back to Trinidad. And vomited in the same manner, from seasickness . . .

  “Land come up. In the mist. Early morning. Pretty-pretty. The trees, the colour of the skies, the clouds white, and the land. The land. The Land. Mists over mountains. Trinidad! Excitement. Just like how Christopher Columbus must have react when he first see land in these same Carbean waters. ‘Land!’ he mustta shout. ‘Shipmates, officers, land! We see land!’ I imagined myself saying the same words of destination and destiny.

  “My heart in turmoil. Beating like the music I love to hear and always hear when I in Trinidad. Steel-ba
nd music. Even though I only see Trinidad two times.

  “I must have run all the way from the Port-o’-Spain Deep Water Harbour right up Charlotte Street, trying to reach Cambridge Street. Number 114.

  “And then I stopped running. And start walking. And eventually stann-up in the middle o’ Charlotte Street.

  “Suddenly it hit me. In two-years-and-something-months, after writing fourteen letters at one time, I hadn’t seen this woman after our first and only meeting the Friday night, in Green Corner Café, eating vanilla ice cream . . . in all that time, I never rested my two eyes on Celia DiFranco a second time. And now, here I am, in Charlotte Street, less than one thousand, seven hundred and fifty yards away from the object of my affections, and I am behaving like a blasted poppit. And running. Running to what? And to where? Celia bound to be home. Where she could go?

  “She know I coming.

  “I write she to tell she I coming.

  “She waiting for me . . .

  “So, I buy a roti from a Indian street vendor. And I eat it. I had no appetite on the schooner, on account of seasickness, and my bowels. And then I tried a channah. And I see a fellow selling parch-nuts. And I had a pack o’ them, too.

  “I take my time. I reach Cambridge Street. I fling a Buckley’s inside my mouth. I grind-up the Buckley’s and swallow it.

  “I press the bell.

  “One time. No answer. Two times. No answer. Three times. This time, more longer. Four, five, six times . . .

  “I think I hearing movement inside the house. But in things like this, your lack o’ happiness and your nervousness, and your fear and your angriness, and in your unhappiness, you don’t always hear the truth of what is happening . . .

  “And the door open. Celia mother facing me.

  “‘Celia gone to play bingo, yes-wee!’ Celia mother say. ‘Eh-eh! Celia gone bingo. She did-know you was coming, yes-wee?’

  “My bottom lip drop. My mouth open-wide. I feel I am back on the high seas, tossing-’bout in that inter-island schooner; pewking and bringing up my guts in seasickness. I can’t talk . . .