by Jackie Kay
There must be a mistake we made. A big mistake; hiding somewhere that I somehow missed.
I sit down on Joss’s armchair. I am not sure what to do with myself. I find myself getting agitated, now wondering what to do with my hands. I pick up a book and try to read a paragraph but it doesn’t go in. The words spill and lurch in front of me making no sense. I close the book and turn on the television. But the sound of the chat-show host’s voice, the speed of his talk, distresses me. I turn it off. I put on some music. I can listen to music. I try and breathe with it because my breathing still isn’t right. It is still too fast. Joss’s breathing became very fast in the end. Fast and shallow. When I think of the breath he used to take in and out to blow that trumpet! When he was dying, I thought if only he could have one big trumpet breath, he’d get some relief.
The summer before I met Joss, I was here at Torr with my brother and his family. I felt restless, discontented with my life. I wanted a passion, somebody to speed up time with a fast ferocious love. We didn’t have hot water then. At night, I’d sing in the freezing cold bathroom whilst I washed myself with the pot full of hot water in the old cracked sink, Some day he’ll come along, the man I love; And he’ll be big and strong, The man I love … Maybe I shall meet him Sunday, Maybe Monday – maybe not; Still I’m sure to meet him one day – Maybe Tuesday will be my good news day. Then I’d lie on my thin hard bed trying to paint him in watercolours. I gave him a strong jaw.
I can still picture him the day we met in that blood donor’s hall in Glasgow. How could I have known then? He was well dressed, astonishingly handsome, high cheekbones that gave him a sculpted proud look; his eyes darker than any I’d ever seen. Thick black curly hair, the tightest possible curls, sitting on top of his head, like a bed of springy bracken. Neat nails, beautiful hands. I took him all in as if I had a premonition, as if I knew what would happen. His skin was the colour of Highland toffee. His mouth was a beautiful shape. I had this feeling of being pulled along by a pack of horses. In my mind’s eye I could see them, galloping along until they came to the narrow path that led to the big house. The huge dark gates. It was as if I had no say in what was going to happen to me, just this giddy sick excitement, this terrible sense of fate. We both give blood, I thought to myself. I wondered what made him give blood, what family accident, what trauma. We didn’t speak that first time, though I could feel him looking at me.
The fire is shrinking too. Collapsing in on itself, turning to ash. I get up and put the guard over the fire and go into the kitchen. I stand next to the kettle for an age, rubbing my hands till the shrill whistle pierces through me as if I wasn’t expecting it. I make myself a cup of tea to take to bed. Sleeping in our bed here is so terrible, I considered sleeping in Colman’s old room, or sleeping on the couch downstairs, or sleeping on the floor. I felt as if I’d be deserting Joss though. I climb into our old bed and place my cup of tea at my side. The space next to me bristles with silence. The emptiness is palpable. Loss isn’t an absence after all. It is a presence. A strong presence here next to me. I sip my tea and look at it. It doesn’t look like anything, that’s what is so strange. It just fits in. Last night I was certain it was a definite shape. I bashed the sheets about to see if it would declare itself. It won’t let me alone and it won’t let me sleep. I try to find sleep. Sleep is out there where Joss is, isn’t it? That’s what the headstones tell you. Who Fell Asleep On. Sleeping. Fell Asleep on Jesus. Joss is out there sleeping behind the sea wall. I can’t sleep any more. Not properly. Sleep scratches at me then wakes me up. I dip down for a moment then surface again, my eyes peeling the darkness away. I don’t know how many hours I have had of it since he died. It can’t be many. It was a form of torture, wasn’t it, sleep deprivation?
If I don’t try to sleep, it might sneak up on me, capture me. I won’t try to sleep. I will try to remember. The next time is six months later. We are back giving blood on the same day, Tuesday. I am brazen, full of knowledge. I approach him and ask him out. It is 1955. Women don’t do this sort of thing. I don’t care. I am certain this man is going to be my lover. When you are certain of something, you must take your chance; you mustn’t miss your opportunity or life is lost. I remember my grandfather telling me that; how he knew with my grandmother, how he courted her until he had her. I tell him I’ve noticed him here before. We talk about giving blood, how we both hate it, but like clenching our fist and the biscuit afterwards. I ask him if he watches the blood being drained out of himself. He says he looks away at anything else. He says he is quite squeamish. What about you, he asks me, what do you do? I tell him I like to watch the blood filling up, the wonderful rich colour of it. He laughs as if he suddenly likes me. Then we both fall silent and he stares at me awkwardly, puzzled by me just coming up to him like this. But he isn’t trying to get rid of me. He is looking me up and down as if appraising me. I am glad that I am wearing my good dress, with the polka dots and the straps. I know I look good.
We go for a drink in Lauder’s bar. He tells me his name is Joss Moody and I ask him if that is his real name. He is offended. I see a look cross his face that I haven’t seen before. Of course it is his real name, what am I talking about. I tell him it sounds like a stage name, like a name that someone would make up in anticipation of being famous. He laughs at that and tells me he is going to be famous. I laugh too, nervously. I know he’s going to be famous also. I could have noticed then, I suppose. The way he was so irritated with me asking him about his name. I say, ‘My name is Millie MacFarlane,’ as if I’d just heard it for the first time, as if my own name was miles away from who I am. I say, ‘Millicent MacFarlane, but my friends call me Millie,’ suddenly shy. We talk about anything. He tells me he plays the trumpet. He is so pleased with himself for playing the trumpet, I can see that. He says the word, ‘trumpet,’ and his eyes shine. ‘Would you like one for the road, Millie?’ he asks. Him saying my name makes me weak. I hold onto the table and watch him go to the bar for his whisky and my gin.
He walks me to my flat in Rose Street, Number 14. And leaves me. ‘I know where you are now,’ he says. A little kiss on my cheek. I get in and throw myself on my bed, punch my pillow. Then I stroke the side of my cheek Joss Moody kissed and say, courting to myself, courting, courting, courting until it sounds like a beautiful piece of music.
We court for three months. A kiss on the cheek at the end of the date. Meeting at Boots’ Corner, at The Shell in Central Station, or below the Hielan’ Man’s umbrella under where the trains come out of Central Station on Argyle Street, between Hope Street and Union Street. The times I’ve waited for Joss sheltered from the rain, under the Hielan’ Man’s umbrella, imagining the Highland men years ago, fresh down from the Highlands talking excited Gaelic to each other. Either we go drinking or we go dancing. Great dance halls in Glasgow. Dancing at the Playhouse, at Denniston Palais, at the Locarno, the Astoria or the Plaza, it seemed nobody would ever get old. Nobody would ever die. Even the ugly looked beautiful. Joss was a wonderful dancer; he loved to strut his stuff on those dance floors. A hive of jive. He was showbiz itself already. They all were. I remember laughing till I cried, watching one man after another get up at the Locarno and imitate Frank Sinatra singing ‘Dancing in the Dark’. The Carswell Clothes Shop competition. I remember loving the names of those bands at the dance halls – Ray McVey Trio, Doctor Crock and the Crackpots, Joe Loss, Oscar Rabin, Carl Barritean, Harry Parry, Felix Mendelson, and, my favourite, the Hawaiian Serenaders. Dancing makes us both happy. Big steps. Quickstep. Dip. We dance at the Barrowland way into the early hours. The atmosphere, jumping. The dance style, gallus. There is no tomorrow. There is just the minute, the second, the dip. The heat and the sweat. That feeling of being your body. Body and soul.
We come out of the Playhouse full of the night. Joss takes me home and walks off again, hands in pocket. I watch him turn the corner of Rose Street into Sauchiehall Street before going in. He never looks back. Never waves. I begin to think that there is something wrong
. Either Joss is terribly proper and old-fashioned or there is something wrong. He never tries to touch me. He holds my hand or we walk with our arms round each other. We kiss, short soft kisses. Three months of kisses on my left cheek, soft timeless kisses that grow into buds and wait. Each night I go home madly in love with Joss and terribly frustrated. I am twenty and he is thirty; perhaps the age difference is making him shy. Still, I am not a schoolgirl any more.
At night, I watch Joss walk up the street, hands in his pockets. He has a slow deliberate walk, like he’s practised it. I go into my small bedroom. I have a single bed in the room, a dresser and a small wardrobe. I stare at myself in the mirror. Rub night cream into my cheeks for a long time. Imagine Joss standing behind me. Undress. Drape my bathrobe over my shoulders. Rub more cream into my cheeks. Use a powder puff under my breasts. Joss, behind me. I sigh, put my white nightdress on and climb heavily into my bed. I can hear Helen, my flatmate, up and about. I listen to her noises and fall off asleep where I’ll dream of Joss again and again and wake myself up in the middle of the night.
I know I am waiting for something to happen.
It is Friday. I am going to see Joss tonight. We are going to listen to some saxophone player, I forget his name. Joss knows it. I like the world of these jazz places he has been taking me to. I like the smoke, the drink, the belief. It is an ‘in’ world. I always feel like I’ve been taken somewhere out of myself. I have to finish filing for the doctor and then it will be time to go home. I’m thinking, what should I wear? All the time I’m thinking, Tonight is the night. I sing to myself. I look at the clock in the reception. It is a tease. It barely moves.
Joss is late to get me. Joss is always late. When he finally arrives, he is wearing a blue serge suit and white shirt and striped tie. I am stabbed by his good looks; his thick dark hair, his intense eyes. Tonight he is all worked up. He admires this saxophonist. We have to rush. Out in the streets people stare at us, particularly at Joss. He knows quite a few of the guys in this club. Some strangers know him. He is already building up a reputation for himself, playing a few jazz bars and pubs and clubs. It is early days, he says, full of excitement. Early days for jazz and early days for him, for his new life. During the day he works in the fishing-tackle shop in Renfield Street. He says that’s his other interest. I say you’re an unusual man: fish and jazz. ‘Better than fish and chips any day,’ he says. Already there is a buzz around him, a magnetic force that draws other people towards him. He looks the part. He is tall, coloured. His father was African, his mother Scottish. He doesn’t know the exact country, just the continent, he laughs gamely. ‘It’s a big fucking continent, so it is.’ His mother never remembered and she’s dead now he says. When I ask him what his mother died of, he hesitates, then seems to pluck ‘heart attack’ out of the thin air. I can’t read his expression. ‘Did you not get on with her?’ I ask him. ‘Not exactly,’ he says.
When the sax starts Joss closes his eyes and keeps them closed for the longest time. I find this a bit embarrassing. I feel as if I’ve lost him, that he belongs to the music and not to me. Other people shout out, little words of intense pleasure – ‘Yeah!’ Clap their hands. Stomp their feet. Listen to the music as if they themselves were creating it, with a strange filmic pride on their faces. They shake their heads from side to side in perfect rhythm to the music. Some of their faces point downwards, chin resting on their chest; others have their heads tilted back. All heads shake and shudder from side to side. Some people simply move their chin out and in, jerky movements, eyes shut. But every single face in this place is prepared to go the distance. All attention rapt, euphoric, dedicated. They will follow the sax down to the deep dark place, wherever it leads them, disciples to the cool blue. It is almost holy. I feel like I am in a church and I am the only one who has got her eyes open whilst she prays. The man next to me moves his right hand to the music, small snappy movements, his private conducting. I wonder whether I will ever let myself go enough to put on that serious jazz face, pouting my lips and shaking my head in tight syncopated movements.
The music changes. The sax is all slow and sad, like it is trying to remember something lost. I try tapping my foot in time to the soft shoe shuffle of the drum. At first I feel self-conscious. I’m not sure that my foot tapping looks like the other tapping feet. I’m not sure I’ve got it right. I know I can’t risk shaking my head, twitching my face or conducting with my hand. But this quiet tapping feels fine. After a while I don’t even notice myself doing it. I have gone inside the music. It’s a strange feeling, but there it is waiting for me. I am sitting in the middle of the long slow moan of the sax, right inside it. I feel something in me go soft, give in. I look over at Joss and find him staring at me. He’s seen it all happening. He looks right through me.
It is dark now outside. The streetlamps cast their yellow light on the streets. A lot of us leave The Wee Jazz Bar at the same time. We look like people that have just been created out of the night, people who have just landed on the planet all at once together with the same pioneering, fierce look on our faces. We move along in our long coats with the collars turned up. It is windy. The wind blows a can along the street. Tonight is the night. Joss holds my hand tight as if he’s protecting me from something.
He walks me right to my door. He goes to kiss me on the cheek, but changes his mind and kisses me full on the mouth. He grabs me up in his arms, sweeping my face towards his. He pulls me closer against him till my feet almost rise from the ground. His breathing is fast, excited. I open my eyes and stare at him whilst he is kissing me. His eyes are tight shut. He says my name as he kisses me, over and over again. I feel like I am dying. I take his hand and lead him up the stairs to my small flat. I hope Helen is sound asleep, tucked up in her little bed.
But when we get up the stairs, everything changes. Joss doesn’t throw me on my bed like I am expecting. He paces the room. ‘Sit down,’ I say. ‘Make yourself at home.’ I’ve gone all shy. The intimacy of my own bedroom has made strangers of both of us. He sits down on the edge of my bed looking terrible, troubled. ‘What is it, Joss, what’s the matter?’ There is something he has to tell me. Something he should have told me ages ago, months ago, but couldn’t. He was afraid that if I knew I would stop seeing him. I feel sick. ‘Knew what?’ My mind is racing. Maybe he’s married; maybe he’s got one of those men’s diseases; maybe he’s committed a crime. I don’t know what it can be. I catch myself in the mirror. My hair is all out of place; my eyes look as wild as his. I can tell it is something serious, but I try to laugh it off. I ruffle my hands through his hair and kiss his cheek. ‘It can’t be that bad,’ I say. ‘Nothing is when you are in love.’ It is the first time I have ever told him this. It makes him more unhappy. He actually looks like he is going to cry. He tells me he can’t see me any more, just like that. I don’t believe this is happening. The moon is full outside the window, gaping in. The night is a lie. I want to go to sleep. I want to stop him talking and climb into my bed with him and fall asleep in his arms. I don’t care what he has done. I don’t want to know what he has done. He is saying he is sorry. The big moon gawps at me. It is strangely excited. I feel as if my world is turning mad.
I knock my night cream off my dresser. Something in me just blows. ‘You can’t do that,’ I tell him and I find myself hitting him on the chest, crying. He gets angry with himself. I can hear him swearing under his breath. Then I hear him saying, ‘Forgive me.’ And he gets up to go. But I can’t have that. I grab him and pull him back. He is taller than me. I can’t shake him with my full force. So I shout instead. I don’t care about waking anybody up. I scream at him, ‘An explanation, you owe me an explanation. What’s the matter with you? Are you sick? Have you killed somebody?’ The strange thing is he already feels like he belongs to me. My anger makes him mine. ‘You really want to know, don’t you,’ he says in a voice I can’t quite recognize. ‘You really want to know. I’ll show you then,’ he says. ‘I’ll show you what is the matter.’ He has a st
range expression on his face, as if for a moment he is suspended, not quite himself.
He takes off his blue jacket and throws it on my floor. He takes off his tie and throws that down too. His hands are trembling. I am trembling. I think maybe he’s changed his mind and he wants to make love. I think, shouldn’t he undress me first? I’m not sure. I try to remember what the couple of other boyfriends I’ve had have done. My mind goes blank. He is undoing the buttons of his shirt. He slows down now. Each button is undone so terribly slowly. Underneath the shirt is a T-shirt. He takes that off slowly too, lifting his arms up and pulling it from his waist over his head. He discards it. His eyes are determined. He looks at me the whole time. An odd look, challenging, almost aggressive – as if he is saying, ‘I told you so. I told you so.’ He pulls the next T-shirt over his head and throws that away too. He has another layer on underneath, a vest. His clothes are spreadeagled on my floor like the outline of a corpse in a movie. The vest is stripped off as well. He looks a lot thinner now with all that off him. I’m excited watching this man undress for me. Underneath his vest are lots of bandages wrapped round and round his chest. He starts to undo them. I feel a wave of relief: to think all he is worried about is some scar he has. He should know my love goes deeper than a wound. ‘You don’t have to show me,’ I say. I feel suddenly full of compassion. ‘Did you have an accident? I don’t care about superficial things like that.’ I go towards him to embrace him. ‘I’m not finished,’ he says. He keeps unwrapping endless rolls of bandage. I am still holding out my hands when the first of his breasts reveals itself to me. Small, firm.