by Rita Marley
And so there was a big amazed buzz in the community when the Wailers took the place over. Chris himself usually stayed elsewhere, but Bob, Peter, and Bunny and a number of others were regulars. About moving there myself, I felt apprehensive. I wasn’t that enthused, although I was happy that things were working out for us. Still, I didn’t feel as if it would be my house. After all, there were three Wailers, and they were partners, and whatever the deal was, everybody had to be sharing. And even while pushing for the house, Bob wasn’t giving me the motivation: He never said, “Hey, Rita, come on, move the kids.” I just wasn’t getting that zeal. Whenever I was there, I could see that it was more of a group thing, because not only were the Wailers there, but other people as well, and girls, and … things were going on. I could see that Chris was using Island House as a sort of catch for Bob: You can have your freedom here, maybe put Rita and the kids around the back …
So I said, “I don’t think …” and just bided my time, because I just didn’t feel the vibes. Still, it seemed like a great accomplishment, and the Wailers started to buckle down. There were lots of rehearsals and much serious work—along with plenty of football (soccer) games.
Then Chris released the Wailers’ first album, Catch a Fire. It was an instant hit, and that was it, the beginning of great things. The Wailers toured England and then the States, even opening for Sly and the Family Stone in Las Vegas. Back in Jamaica, everybody started wooing, wanting to meet them because they were now celebrities, signed with Island. It was even reported in the Gleaner, Jamaica’s main newspaper, “The Wailers have now signed … etc., etc.,” and so it was, whew—everybody be friends now. Big Time!
And I watched this and thought, o-kay. I was seeing a different sort of life coming in … and the girls. Soon, Chris had set up Esther Anderson at Hope Road; she was a former lover of his (I was later told), an actress born in Jamaica but living in London, who had just made a movie with Sidney Poitier. Her new assignment was to work as the Wailers’ photographer and to do public relations for their upcoming tour. Others living there were Diane Jobson, who eventually became one of Bob’s lawyers and was the sister of Chris’s best friend and business partner Dickie Jobson (also a tenant), and Cindy Breakspeare, who later became involved with Bob. Diane and Cindy, like most of the women who hung out at Hope Road, were pretty, brown-skinned, uptown, middle-class characters, having a fling at doing their own thing. So to them Bob was sooo attractive and they were soooo attracted. They all wanted to go to bed with him, and he made himself available by starting to sleep there at night. But I don’t want to put it entirely in a negative way, since this opportunity made it possible for him to create what he did. It was a real beginning, because so much that he had wanted for his music really started when he was given this house.
There was nonstop activity at 56 Hope Road. At any given time meetings, rehearsals, interviews were going on, and some people would be exercising on the floor. The kitchen ran twenty-four hours a day. Soups would be cooking, or sometimes Bob or his friend Alan “Skill” Cole, a soccer star, would be standing there making peanut juice, this juice, that juice. Hope Road was where Bob’s life seemed to open up, and he started to feel “Yeah!” And I was happy for him, coming as he did from the poverty of St. Ann and Trench Town. I think our early life made us uneasy, that it pained us to say we had had such rough times. I still think we had fun, and that was important. Even in the shortness of Bob’s life he was able to enjoy some of it, to do the things that his spirit told him it wanted to do; he couldn’t fight that. And I think God loved him more for all the sacrifices he made, not just for himself but so others could live so happily. I asked him when he passed on to be at the right hand of the Almighty, so that when I get there I’ll see him. I’m looking forward to that.
Despite my misgivings, I showed up at Hope Road almost every day, just to be a part of what was happening. If one night Bob didn’t come home, I’d be there the next morning asking why. And then there would be the explanations, because there were always explanations. Most of the time he’d say, “It’s rehearsal.” So it was the music keeping him, and I’d say, “Well, I can’t fight that because that’s your dream and that’s what we’re gonna eat bread from, so if it takes rehearsal to get things together … But you just be careful!” As always, I was supportive of what Bob did and never lost my confidence. I even bought him a bedroom set for Hope Road but he didn’t want it, he didn’t want the place to feel like home, or to look too much like he wasn’t home!
By then he was supporting his family very well, and he was generous with money, as he had always been even when he had only small amounts to give. “Here, this is for you and Aunty and the children,” he’d say. And I was easy with him. I’d say, “Oh, nice,” and not mention anything else that might be on my mind, even though the Hope Road facility was getting to be a thorn in our lives. Every time I’d see all the goings-on, I’d think, uh, uh, I would never move into this, I would be depleted. It all seemed like a coop, and I would be the little black girl in the ring.
Most importantly, all this music was now going on without me. I wasn’t singing with Bob or anyone else now. That was a big change in my life, but I had worked hard and needed some time out. Let me see what’s up, I thought. Some of my friends warned me, “He’s ready for big times now, Rita, watch dem gal deh.” But I said, “No, I just have to wait and see, I’m not gonna be fallin’ and dyin’.” Sometimes Bob and I would quarrel about the situation, but in the end I decided that if that’s what it takes to be somebody, go ahead. He kept saying I should come to Hope Road if I wanted to move from Aunty’s, that the house was there, with a big yard, and they must find space for me and the children. At this point, though, I just wanted my independence. I wanted to leave Trench Town, yes, but not at the expense of my self-respect. As I’ve said, I always had myself in mind.
Still, I had trouble thinking I was going to “separate” from Bob, that I would be the one to leave the marriage. So I looked up Gabby, a Rastafarian elder, someone I respected and could ask advice of. He seemed to already have some knowledge of the Hope Road scene and was not too pleased by what he referred to as Bob’s “diversion.” I explained to Gabby that I didn’t want to live there, that I wasn’t going to become someone else—to “get out of myself” was the way I thought of it—just to please Bob. It’d be wrong, I told Gabby. I’d feel strange up in there with the children and everyone coming and going. And what privacy would we get, living in a place with a perpetually open gate, open to friends and all this and all that? I just couldn’t stand for my kids to live so.
By then I had mentioned to Aunty that I was looking to take myself and the kids out of her house. “You better think about it!” she said in her usual way. “Nobody’s gonna rent you a house with them four pickney! Don’t even bother try!”
But Gabby seemed to understand and was very well there when I needed help. His only questions were, “But why you want to move from Trench Town?” and “Does Bob agree?”
And I had to say, “I’ve always wanted to leave Trench Town, and I don’t care if Bob agrees. My children are growing bigger every day and the life they are growing up to see is not what I want it to be.”
Soon after, Gabby called to say that there was a government housing scheme—with concrete block houses for sale—going up in Bull Bay, about twelve miles away, on the south coast. And that kind of threw me out. “Bull Bay!” I said. “It’s so far!”
But Gabby happened to know about the project because he lived there, and he described it as pleasant and easy enough to get to. So I said yes, I’d love to look at it, and a few days later he came for me.
We drove along the coast and then into a small, quiet community, and I looked at the houses that were available. Gabby said I should choose the one I liked and then get the money from Bob. “Mek Bob go to the Minister of Housing and deal with it,” he said. By now, because of his new celebrity, Bob had become friendly with people in high office, ministers of this and ministe
rs of that. But I didn’t feel like asking Bob directly, because I knew he wanted me to move to Hope Road.
His friend Alan Cole, though, was someone I found approachable. “Alan,” I said casually, as soon as the opportunity arose, “I’m not waiting on Bob. You as his friend know I need to get a house to take my children to, now could you speak to the Minister of Housing for me?”
The Minister of Housing at that time was Anthony Spaulding, a good man, a very good man, who said, “Sure!” and managed it immediately—“Wife want a house, mek wife get a house!”
Bob remained skeptical about all this, but by then I had started to hear rumors about him and Esther Anderson, and I realized that things were going from bad to worse, that I just had to make up my mind and take my kids out of this mess. Chris Blackwell had connected Bob with Esther as part of the package—not only would she be his photographer, she would take him to England to promote the recordings. The record company was really forming a relationship to have the two of them as a public image. (Promoters do that.) From what I was seeing, though, it was private as well as public, and it was too close for comfort.
A couple of days later I got money from Bob, despite his initial disapproval, for the house I had chosen. The down payment was something like three thousand dollars for a two-bedroom house. Like Aunty’s it was a basic structure, period—but it was concrete block, in a good area, and it was brand new. Before I signed for it, Minister Spaulding said I should go take another look, just to be sure. So he gave me the keys and the next morning I took three buses out to Bull Bay—not so easy to get to, as Gabby had thought.
My house—number 15 Windsor Lodge—was on a dirt road off the main road and then off a little drive onto a dead end with only one other house. It had no lights, no water, no gate, no nothing. The government builds you this little thing and it’s as is—take it or leave it. But there were avocado and tamarind trees on the property, and you could smell the sea; in fact, I had seen a footpath off the main road that went right to the water. There wasn’t a sound that morning except the birds in the trees. I felt so peaceful, standing there, and if the deal was take it or leave it, I couldn’t leave it. So I went back to Mr. Spaulding’s office in Kingston, handed over the money, and signed my name.
I took the keys home and said, “Aunty, I’ve gotten a house in Bull Bay,” hoping she’d be as excited as I was, though predictably she wasn’t. There she stood, all five feet of her, saying, “You’re crazy! You shouldn’t do that! You can’t go without Robbie and where is Robbie and why Robbie don’t help you?”
“Oh no, Aunty,” I said, “Robbie’s fine. He’s into making his music and what have you.”
She said, “You’ll never manage a house. You need to let Robbie go where he’s going, and you stay here and take care of the children.”
I said, firmly but as gently as I could, “No, Aunty.” Because I was beginning to understand how threatened she was by my leaving. In spite of her complaints, we were her life, and she needed us as we had always needed her.
She said, “But why are you going all that way?”
“So people won’t trouble me and the children when Bob don’t come home,” I said. She had commented enough about that.
“You going all that way to Bull Bay, and how am I going to see the children?”
I said, “You’ll see them.”
She wouldn’t give up, she just wasn’t the type. She said no, she was not impressed, it was too far, and “We don’t know anybody out there.”
I didn’t say anything. I just held the keys in my hand and waited until she left the room.
Next day I went looking for a truck and found an old wooden-body one that I wasn’t sure would make it because it was so raggedy. But the guy was making a little money, and it was cheap. The trip had to be cheap or it couldn’t happen. I stared at the truck for a while and then said, “Okay, that’s great.” The driver must have seen my concern, because he said, “Are you sure, Mrs. Marley?” Somehow, just his saying that convinced me. “Yes!” I said. “Let’s do it!”
I got that truck on faith, because I had only a few dollars left after having made the down payment, and I hadn’t seen Bob since then. But I convinced myself that the money would come somehow. Bob will have money, I told myself, I’ll go past Hope Road and get some. Because I had to move. I had to get the kids out of that environment—mentally as well as physically. And it had to happen right away because if it didn’t, they would be exposed to, and maybe drift into, another, looser lifestyle. It was kind of a shock to them that Daddy was now living that way and that they had to see Mommy not happy sometimes.
The following morning, early, the truck came down to the house. I hadn’t told Aunty. Clearly, even at twenty-six years old and with four children, I was still very much under her thumb. When she saw the truck she said, “Really?” And when I nodded, she said, “You’re crazy, you don’t really mean this.”
I finally had to speak straight out. I said, “You say I’m a big woman now, Aunty, even though I’m still young, but you shouldn’t make me feel like I’m not able to make my own decisions. And I’m not being ungrateful for what you have done.”
“And Robbie’s not going?”
“No, he’s not. And I’m not gonna ask him, either.”
So I packed up and she watched me, and though she helped she was so sad. Finally I said, “Come with me then if you’re going to feel that way!” But she had her house too and she couldn’t just leave. Poor Aunty—but I had to be strong, because I didn’t want to leave her feeling like that, even though she was hinting that I would never make it without her. So I said, “Aunty, don’t worry, you know where we are, come tomorrow. But I’m going today.”
She said, “But there’s no light there.”
I said, “No problem, we have candles, don’t worry. But I want to go before it gets dark; it’ll be easier to unload.”
By this time it seemed as if everybody in the neighborhood had gathered at the truck and at the gate, and they were all saying, “Lord, they’re going to Bull Bay to live,” as if we were going to the moon. But I packed the kids in there and they were so excited and happy because to them this was fun. “We’re moving! We’re going to a different house and we will be driving there in this truck!” And I was just there absorbing the whole scene and thinking, oh my god, please make this work.
When we got to Hope Road, the first person we saw was Esther Anderson, leaning over the upstairs porch. I said, “Good morning, is Bob there? Can I see Bob?” I knew he was up there in the room with her.
“What do you want?” she said. “Why you come here?”
This gal is crazy, I thought. But I didn’t want to get into it with her, especially in front of the children, so I just said again, “Is Bob there? Is Robbie there?”
“He’s sleeping!” she said.
“Then please wake him up for me, it’s important.”
“Why don’t you leave him alone?” she said. “Why you won’t let the man sleep?”
And then I lost my cool. “Who do you think you’re talking to?” I said, louder than I’d meant to.
“Why don’t you stop breeding?” she shouted. “All you do is breed! Bob needs a career, and you need to stop breeding and let him find a life!”
I couldn’t believe it! I just stood there and said, “Whew!” And then I thought, oh no no no, let’s get out of here. But by then all the noise had woken Bob up anyway, and he came down and said to me, “What’s happening? Why you down here trying to create a scene?”
“Me?!!” I yelled. “Don’t you talk to me like that! You have that whore up there …” And I got really angry, because if she didn’t respect me she should at least have respected the fact that I had my children with me, and that’s my husband she’s sleeping with! So I really whopped it to her, and I cursed him too. And after he gave me the money I asked for, I got back in the truck and told the driver to drive!
Bob said he would come by later, which I knew he would do,
and also that he’d try to chat me up. But the last I said to him was, “F- - - you, Bob, I’m very disappointed in you!” I was so upset, because that was the first time I’d ever gotten into that woman thing. And I didn’t intend to argue with her, because if I had any argument it was with him.
When he got there that night, he looked around and said, “How could you do this to me and the children? It’s a mistake, Esther just takes pictures of the group, and Chris Blackwell put her there to live … until she goes back to London …”
When I didn’t answer this, he said, “You’re really serious? No light, no water, no nothing? You gonna stay out here with the kids? ’Cause I have to go to England to do promotion for this new album.”
I said, “Yeah yeah yeah yeah, I’m staying.”
I could see he liked coming out here, to the clean air. He looked at me, eye to eye. “You okay?” he said.
“I’m fine,” I said. I didn’t mention how angry I was, I let that pass because I didn’t want to start anything in front of the kids, who were still up waiting for Daddy to come.
Then he looked at the four of them, who were obviously happy, gorging on the takeout fried chicken we’d stopped for. To them all this was a lark. “You okay?” he asked.
“We’re fine!” they yelled. “We love Bull Bay!” A big, loud chorus.
Maybe he was surprised by their response. He seemed very subdued after that. I watched him leave, his head kind of bent, like it was heavy. I thought I should have a heavy heart to match, but instead I just felt sad but free, and very relieved.