by Jacob Ross
ALSO BY JACOB ROSS
Song for Simone and Other Stories
A Way to Catch the Dust and Other Stories
Pynter Bender
The Bone Readers
Non-fiction
Behind the Masquerade, the Story of Notting Hill Carnival
(with Kwesi Owusu).
Edited
Voice, Memory, Ashes: Lest We Forget
(co-edited with Joan Anim-Addo)
Ridin’ n Risin: Short Stories by New Black Writers
Turf (co-edited with Andrea Enisuoh).
Closure
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Tell No-One About This began as an idea for a London-based collection of short stories. The fact that it has turned out to be far more embracing – reaching as far back as my teenage writing life – is due entirely to editor, Jeremy Poynting. Bernardine Evaristo’s always frank assessment and belief in my work from the very beginning have proved to be precious over the years. Olive Senior showed me how much she cared by sitting me down a couple of years ago, and giving me a stern talking-to at a time when I most needed a shake-up. Her words turned me around and will always remain with me. I owe a great debt, and depthless gratitude to Lindsay Waller-Wilkinson for the reading, the feedback and the comprehensive support over these past few challenging years.
Earlier versions of some of these stories appeared in Song for Simone and A Way to Catch the Dust and Other Stories.
JACOB ROSS
TELL NO-ONE ABOUT THIS
COLLECTED SHORT STORIES 1975-2017
First published in Great Britain in 2017
Peepal Tree Press Ltd
17 King’s Avenue
Leeds LS6 1QS
England
© 2017 Jacob Ross
ISBN13 PRINT: 9781845233525
ISBN13 EPUB: 9781845234201
ISBN13 MOBI: 9781845234218
All rights reserved
No part of this publication may be
reproduced or transmitted in any form
without permission
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CONTENTS
Dark
Dark Is the Hour
Cold Hole
Acquainting
The Canebreakers
Walking for My Mother
The Understanding
Girlchile
A Game of Marbles
The Room Inside
Song for Simone
Dust
Look Who Talkin
De Laughin Tree
First Fruit
Roses for Mr. Thorne
Rum an Coke
And there Were no Fireflies
Fives Leaves and a Stranger
Oceans
A Way to Catch the Dust
Deliverance
A Different Ocean
Listen, the Sea
Flight
Is Easy
Flight
Raising Tyrone
Giving Up on Trevor
A Quiet Time
Tell No-one About This
A Better Man
Bird
I: DARK
DARK IS THE HOUR
The boy raised his head when the door scraped open. His heart leapt with a relief that surprised him, then he closed his eyes and sank back on the floor.
‘Gertrude?’ His father’s voice was gruff.
The boy didn’t answer. He peeped under his arm at the man’s dark shape leaning against the door. He held a bundle in his right hand; in his left he balanced his machete. The boy watched his father’s shape double as he dropped the bundle and the cutlass in the corner near the door.
‘Gerty!’
The boy pressed his face into the bedding until the floor was hard against his cheek. He felt the weight of his father’s boots sinking in the floorboards as he stepped over the little girl, then the younger boy and finally himself.
The room darkened further as the man’s shadow fell on him. His father reached for the tiny kerosene lamp on the table and turned it up.
The boy knew that the man was staring at the bed against the wall. He waited, fearing the wrath that would follow when he saw that the bed was rumpled and empty.
His father’s silence was unbearable, his breathing low and deep.
The boy’s body bunched when the man’s hand dropped on his back and he went through the motions of someone just awakened.
‘Stanford! Fordy, wake up, boy. Stan boy! Where you’ modder? Tell me, where your modder is?’
When the boy sat up and raised his eyes, he stared directly into his father’s. He shifted his gaze to the paper-pasted board walls across the room. From outside came the drone of jeeps, and louder, sharper sounds. He knew that beyond the flimsy house the darkness threatened.
‘I talking to you, boy!’ This time his father shook him.
‘Sh… Sh… She gone!’ the boy said, and the pain of the day and the night began to show on his face. His father’s eyes followed the trickle down his cheeks. The man raised his hand and the boy shrank back. His father brushed away the tears with a knuckle.
‘Hush!’ he said. ‘When she gone? She say where she going? She leave any message? Who… What she went wid? She leave any message?’
The little girl woke up crying. The boy turned to her and began patting her back, cooing softly in the child’s ear. He felt his father’s eyes on him.
The man straightened up, the lamp held a little way above his head. He replaced it on the table, stretched himself out on the floor and pushed an arm under the bed. A basin rattled against something hard. He kept on feeling for a while. Then he stood up. In the yellow lamplight, his face glistened with sweat.
‘She gone,’ he said. ‘De grip, she take dat too. You’ modder gone for good.’
Now the little girl was crying in loud, sharp spurts. The boy lifted her onto his lap. He began to rock her.
‘Hush Po’ Po’ hush, Mammy gone to town…’
His father stopped him. ‘When last you feed her?’
‘Dis evenin. I make sweet-water fuh she. Milk done yestiday.’
The boy pointed at the empty beer bottle on the table with a rubber nipple over the mouth.
‘And you, y’all eat?’
‘Steve was crying from hungry. I boil de last green fig dat was there. I save some for you.’
The little girl had fallen asleep again. The boy turned his head toward the door, his face twitching.
‘Mammy, she leave since morning, just after you… you…’ His voice trailed off. He was shaking when he spoke again, ‘She send me by Nen-Nen… to borrow salt, an’ when I come back, she gone.’
His father left him, began to stray around the room. He was passing his hands over the walls, the table. He stopped and stared down at the bed.
‘Didn’t even make it up,’ he said. ‘Not even de bed.’
Words began to flow from him. ‘Is how I mus feel? Not cold I mus feel? Is me who cause crisis? Me who en’t want to give wuk? Is not cold I mus’ feel? Is nothing I could do. She know is nothing I could do. Is the same drown I drowning that everybody on dis islan drowning. Now she leave y’all in me hand – for what? What I mus do? Is not cold I mus feel?’
He trailed around the room and stopped at the doorway. He lifted the bundle that he’d dropped there, removed the cutlass and opened it.
‘Look!’ he told the boy. ‘I bring somet’ing. I get somet’ing; I wasn idling. I get somet’ing.’
He laid a jumble of items on the floor – what looked like yams and sweet potatoes.
‘Look, these ripe,’ his father said. ‘Full yuh belly.’ He handed him two ripe
bananas. The boy took them. They were wet and he wiped them on his nightie. He dropped them when he saw the blood.
‘Is all right,’ his father said. ‘Blood come from the fowl.’ He pointed at two heaps on the floor. ‘Is better when dey dead, easier to carry, no noise.’
He took up the bananas, wiped them on his own shirt and gave them to the boy. The boy took them, turning his eyes to the sleeping children.
‘Let dem sleep. It have more,’ his father said.
The man turned away and settled himself in the doorway. The boy ate quietly behind him.
‘She didn have to go, no reason to go and leave me with de chil’ren. Okay we been fighting, but she didn have to leave me. Me didn believe her when she tell me she going go. Look the food I bring tonight. She could’ve cook something nice. Give y’all a good feed.’
He raised his head and stared out over the sleeping houses down below. It’d been almost two months since all the lights went out. The night was pressing close. He heard the growl of police jeeps in St. George’s Town below, the far-off howl of dogs, gunshots, and the wind snoring through the bamboo clump that hung over the little house.
The boy yawned. The man stirred; turned towards him. The last banana skin, licked clean, was dangling between his fingers. The man watched him, remembering the way he put his sister to sleep, the little maternal ministrations of his son. He was small – too small for his eleven years.
The boy was watching him too and swaying on his feet.
‘Come. Look, more fig. You wan more ripe-fig?’
The boy shook his head.
‘No? You wan’ sleep den?’ The man tapped his thigh. ‘Come, doh-doh, on me.’
The boy shuffled closer, the lamplight exposing his naked front.
‘Res’ yuhself. Lemme put you to sleep.’ He lifted the boy, and settled him in his lap.
The boy turned searching eyes on the man’s face. His little body relaxed into a shy smile before his eyes drooped and closed.
COLD HOLE
Somebody was chopping wood on the other side of the valley. Sunlight dripped through the holes of the old board house and settled on his stomach. From the yard outside, there came the smells of wood-smoke and early morning breakfast.
The boy’s feet propelled him from the floor through the open door and into the yard.
He was thirteen today and nobody remembered, not even his mother. But the sun and the wind and the trees knew it because they had given him a special Sunday. A day for the river.
The house was too quiet. He did not trust the silence. His mother was not singing.
If she caught him running off this early, when there were the rabbits to feed, the goat to tie out, well… water more than flour.
Still, nothing was going to stop him going fishing today, still burning as he was with a week-old memory that hadn’t left him, even in his sleep – that afternoon after school when his two cousins and his little brother, Ken, were admiring him as he told them his latest river story.
‘Cold Hole was deep! I dive in. I dive down, down, deep-deep down, and guess what I see? A guaje! De biggest crayfish in de world… I spend one whole hour underwater, tryin to catch it, so when…’
‘You lie!’ Two voices had boomed behind him: Ashton and Mandy. They smelt like men, walked and talked like men. Even the teachers stepped out of their way.
Ashton, a big grin spread across his slab of a face, was standing over him. Mandy the taller of the two, his hands pushed down his pockets, was throwing him a nasty sideways glare.
He felt his mouth go dry. ‘Who say I lie?’
Ken, flimsy and defiant, stood at his side, ‘Is true. My brodder never lie.’
The young men laughed and the child flinched at their loudness.
‘Who ‘fraid of Cold Hole more than yuh chupid brother here? Me an Mandy tired lift him up to cross deep water or climb river bank.’
‘I not ‘fraid now!’ he’d shot back.
‘Since when?’
He’d rested his hand on his brother’s shoulder, balancing on the balls of his feet. Everything had become still. Vehicles droned in the far-off distance. Leaves fell and made clicking sounds on the road.
‘Since I know I’z me and not nobody shadow,’ he said.
Ashton stuck two fingers in the air. ‘Talk sense, likkle boy!’
Swallowing on the shame, he’d stood on the grass verge and stared at their shifting shoulders until they disappeared.
He ducked beneath the house, gathered his line, the bait, a rusted piece of machete and – still doubled at the waist – tiptoed toward the stool of bananas fringing the house. The trick was to disappear when no one was looking.
‘Hold it, Mister Man!’ His mother carried her heavy body easily over the stony yard, her hands stripping a whip from the bowlie tree that hung over the house.
A couple of months ago, she caught him trying to chop down that bowlie tree with a blunt machete. She’d complimented him on his efforts, assuring him that the smaller branches would all be kept for warming him up. He would, of course, have to dig a coalpit, and make bags of charcoal with the rest of the wood.
‘What day today is?’ Her voice was almost caressing.
He searched his head for a way out, ‘You see, Ma, today is my birthday. You – everybody – forget.’ He sensed her hesitation. ‘And I thought that, well… I goin go an fish for my birthday.’
‘Come!’ She drew him out into the yard.
The windows of the surrounding houses swung open and spilled the upper halves of full-breasted women.
The other children were quiet. Even the fowls in the yard ceased scratching.
‘Is a naaasty habit you have! Every Sunday so, you leaving tea behind, tying the goat any old place to starve, and you gone and dreeve-way whole day in the river. Suppose you drown? Suppose you drop down an’ dead!’
She was piling up his sins – her war dance.
‘Last Sunday, I hear that Gordon cow nearly butt you and break yuh likkle arse. You so farse. You been jookin the man cow wid stick.’
The yard shook with laughter.
‘And yesterday, you been voonging stone at Ayhie mango tree. You nearly bus’ the old lady head in she own garden.’ She shook him violently when he denied this.
‘The other-day, you tell me you goin and help Nen pick peas. You end up quite in the sea with Ashton and Mandy. Which part of the sea you does pick peas eh? And where you learn all them bad-words that you could cuss Missa Joe-Joe, who worth yuh gran’faddah, and tell im how he born ‘n where he come from? You get too damn mannish now!’
The whip curled around his shoulders. Pain snaked down his back. He twisted like a mad worm. Subdued, the children counted. Fifteen.
It was then that Dada’s voice cut in. ‘Stop! You want to spoil the blasted child skin, or what!’ It checked his mother, as though a hand had pulled her back.
Pain-crazy, he ripped himself loose and bolted through the bushes beyond the house.
He sat there for a long time and fought his tears while his mother regained her voice. It rose and fell in the near distance, then broke into song.
Ken came fumbling through the black sage and borbook, trouserless as usual. ‘I bring yuh fishin rod an’ t’ing for you.’
His brother handed him a rumpled paper-bag. It contained home-made bread with a spread of guava jam. It was his greataunt’s way of saying that she felt for him.
He gathered his rod and bait and began marching down the hill.
‘I want come wit you,’ Ken called.
‘Nuh!’
‘I carry the bait and crayfish for you.’
‘Nuh!’
‘I cominnn!’
He looked back at his brother. ‘You not wearin no pants. Ants go bite yuh ki-kiss. Today, I goin all de way down to Cold Hole. It have a mermaid down there that like nice-lookin boys wid pretty face like you. I bring a mango, piece-a-cane and a red-tail crayfish for you, okay?’
‘‘Kay.’
He took the mud track for the river, said ‘G’morning’ to some of the elders he passed, ignoring those who brought complaints to his mother. He met Elaine, tall and big-breasted, balancing a basin of river-washed clothes on her head. She was grinning wickedly. ‘It damn good yuh modder cut yuh arse!’
Elaine’s laughter bounced down the hill behind him and did not stop until he reached the river.
His hook was a needle he’d held over a burning candle, then bent and attached to a fine string which he tied to a slender stick. Baited with earthworm, it became a living thing in his hand. He flipped beating crayfish out of the water and skewered them on the spine of a coconut leaf as he moved steadily downriver.
He would have to go past Concrete Basin where the mullets were. They liked the smoky-blue pools surrounded by tall, black rocks. It took a quick hook and rapid hand to catch them. Then Dragon Place where the water-grass and crestles made a pale green carpet, and the stones surfaced like heads from the water. River crabs and zandomeh lived in Long Water and Young Sea. A couple of miles further down he would come to Cold Hole.
From there the river deepened and darkened, its banks reduced to slippery humps riddled with crab-holes. Branches drooped and brushed the earth, hiding my-bone nests and serpents. Dada said there were other kinds of water creatures in the darkness of Cold Hole. Come nighttime, she added, Dealer-men met on its banks to barter the souls of children with the devil. And it was true that sometimes he thought he heard them joining the chorus of crickets and bullfrogs that sang all night to the moon. Besides, the old woman had told him, Cold Hole was waiting to swallow any boychile who left his work at home and went off fishing.
Halfway there, four coconut flexes bristled with crayfish in his hands. Boys working their way up-river whistled at his catch. He’d passed men kneeling over pools with machetes, slashing at mullets as they ghosted past. A mad man’s game, Ashton always said, because a cutlass swung through water became a crazy thing that flashed back at its owner’s legs. Others, pushing their bare hands under rocks, dragged out river crabs, water snakes and bull frogs. If they chanced to pull out a ling, its claws crunched down on their fingers, and he would watch them dance the shuddering dance of agony.