by Sam Selvon
Cap put on the soft tone and ask Daniel to lend him eight pounds.
‘Eight pounds!’ Daniel say. ‘What you think, money growing on tree?’
‘I will give it back to you tomorrow,’ Cap say, making the sign of the cross with his forefingers and kissing it, as he see the West Indian boys do.
Daniel hesitate a little, but he want to impress the French girl. Now he is a fellar that does take them woman to Covent Garden and Festival Hall, and them girl does have big times in them places, for all they accustom to is a pint of mild, the old fish and chips, and the one and six local. Many times Daniel go round by Moses saying how he take so and so to see ballet, and Moses tell him that them girls won’t appreciate those things.
‘I want them to feel good that we coloured fellars could take them to these places,’ Daniel say, ‘and we could appreciate even if they can’t.’
‘You spending your money bad,’ Moses say. ‘Them girls ain’t worth it.’
But Daniel does feel good when he do things like that, it give him a big kick to know that one of the boys could take white girls to them places to listen to classics and see artistic ballet.
‘You don’t treat your women right,’ he tell Moses, ‘as long as you could get them in the yard you satisfy. You don’t spend no money on them.’
‘Why I must spend my money on them frowsy women?’ Moses say.
So with Frenchy sitting there – and Cap giving the impression that anytime Daniel want a little thing with she it would be all right – he fork over the money.
Upon that Cap went out and hail a taxi and take the girl away to a seven-guinea room in a hotel.
And so Cap start the married life. He had to shift out of the hotel when the week was up, but the French girl was getting money from France every week, and they live on that for a long time. Every time she ask him when they going to Nigeria, Cap say he waiting on some papers from the Nigerian Embassy.
Meanwhile the Austrian hear that Cap have another girl, but she didn’t know it was so serious. When she find out she went by Moses to moan, but he tell she to go to hell, because he did warn her about Cap.
Cap carrying on the same sort of life like when he was single. He there with the French girl in the night, and when she fall asleep he putting on clothes and going out to hustle just as he used to do before he get married. It don’t make no difference to him at all. Eventually Frenchy had to get a work in a store, and nothing please him better. He sleeping all day while she out working, and going out in the night. He make she buy a radiogram and he get some of the latest bop records to keep him company, and now and again he having a little party in the room.
He had a way, every time Moses have a girl visitor, he dropping in and won’t leave at all, sitting down there on the bed as if he waiting for Moses to give him a share. This thing happen so often that Moses get damn vex.
One evening when a girl was there the bell ring and Moses went and open the door. From the moment he see Cap he start to get on ignorant.
‘Get out, get to hell out, man!’ he say, and he push Cap in the road and shut the door.
Still, the Captain living. Day after day you will see him, doing nothing, having nothing, owing everybody, and yet he there with this innocent face, living on and on, smoking Benson and Hedges when things good, doing without a smoke when things bad. Who in this world think that work necessary? Who say that a man must have two pairs of shoes or two trousers or two jackets? Cap with woman left and right – he have a way, he does pick up something and take it home and when he finish and she ask for money, throw she out on the streets. He have a way, he would broach any girl who he see going around with one of the boys.
Yet day after day Cap still alive, defying all logic and reason and convention, living without working, smoking the best cigarettes, never without women.
Sometimes you does have to start thinking all over again when you feel you have things down the right way.
During them first days at the hostel, Moses really meet some characters. It had another fellar name Bartholomew. Bart was the sort of fellar who have a pound, and come downstairs for a meal, and he see a friend who broken, and the friend beg him for a meal, and Bart do without eating himself so he wouldn’t have to change the pound and ease up the friend.
He used to tell the boys about a fellar who was a good friend to him, who would do anything for him, and he would do anything for the fellar. One evening the friend come when Bart was out and ask Moses to lend him five shillings, saying that Bart would fix up when he come. Because Bart talk so much about the friendship Moses didn’t hesitate. When Bart come back, Moses ask him for the five shillings.
‘Oh God man, you mean to say you give the man five shillings?’
‘How you mean?’ Moses say, ‘ain’t he is your good friend?’
‘Yes, but five shillings is five shillings. Why you lend the man the money? That is five shillings, boy, five shillings!’
Moses never get the five shillings from Bart.
Bart have light skin. That is to say, he neither here nor there, though he more here than there. When he first hit Brit’n, like a lot of other brown-skin fellars who frighten for the lash, he go around telling everybody that he is a Latin-American, that he come from South America. Bart had ambition that always too big for him. He always talking about this party and that meeting that he attend in the West End or in Park Lane. He had some contacts, and he really used to go to some places, but all he could talk about when he come back was the amount of sandwich he eat, and how he drink whisky like water. Once he tell the boys he on a big project, and he used to stay upstairs in his room all the time, only coming down for meals and rushing back. He do that for a week and then stop, and nobody ever hear anything more about the project.
It have to be made clear to Bart, from the time he see you, that you don’t want to borrow money from him. That is his big worry. When he see you right away he would start to get on cagey, on the lookout, but as soon as it clear that you don’t want anything from him the old Bart open up like a water tap and start to tell you all what happening in town. He always saying he ain’t have no money, afraid that somebody might want to borrow.
‘You is a damn fool,’ Moses tell him. ‘If you have two hundred pounds in the bank, that is yours old man, yours, and nobody could make you lend them. That is your money, and if you don’t want to lend, who could make you?’
‘Man Moses I really telling you, I haven’t any.’
About a week after he would come and say quietly, as if nothing happen: ‘Boy, I send two hundred pound to Trinidad yesterday.’
‘I thought you say you ain’t have no money,’ Moses say.
And Bart laugh kiff-kiff, as if the whole thing is a joke.
Only fellar who ever tap Bart was Cap, and that happen in the very early days. Cap broach Bart and ask him to lend two and six.
‘Eh?’ Bart say, playing as if he can’t hear, and putting his hand on his ear and cocking it up.
‘I asked you to lend me two and six,’ Cap say. (Cap would try to borrow from Mr Macmillan if he get the chance.)
‘Eh? What you say?’ Bart turn the other ear to Cap and cock it up. ‘I can’t hear well.’
‘I ask you to lend me five shillings,’ Cap say loudly.
‘Come back by the two and six ear,’ Bart say, turning his head again.
In the end Cap get the two and six, but that was the first and last time Bart ever lend money.
When Bart leave the hostel he get a clerical job and he hold on to it like if is gold, for he frighten if he have to go and work in factory – that is not for him at all. Many nights he think about how so many West Indians coming, and it give him more fear than it give the Englishman, for Bart frighten if they make things hard in Brit’n. If a fellar too black, Bart not companying him much, and he don’t like to be found in the company of the boys, he always have an embarrass air when he with them in public, he does look around as much as to say: ‘I here with these boys, but I not one of them, look
at the colour of my skin.’
But a few door slam in Bart face, a few English people give him the old diplomacy, and Bart boil down and come like one of the boys.
Bart does go to the laundry, take off the jacket he have, put on the clean one and leave the dirty one to clean. He does wear some collar until you can’t see them. Jacket threadbare, shirt have hole and button missing (some big safety pin keeping it together), some hole that have a little socks in them, and he wearing pyjamas for underwear – the only thing he have against the winter is that he have to buy extra clothing. It had a time when Bart train himself to live only on tea for weeks. He hustling a cuppa where he could: just a cuppa, that is all he asking for. He lose weight, he come thin as a rake. Whenever he meet the Captain by Moses at mealtime, Captain saying: ‘What’s the matter with you Bart? You look thin.’ And Bart, who know that Cap living worse than him, would marvel that no ill effects showing on that test. ‘How you does do it, tell me Cap?’ Bart ask, and the old Cap would smile that enigmatic smile as if he have the secret of the world to hand.
When Bart go round by Moses Moses would say: ‘Take a plate from the cupboard and hit a pigfoot and rice,’ and though the way he say it is no invitation, Bart lost to all intonation of voice: sometimes when Moses say ‘No’ Bart does hear ‘Yes.’ At last even the old Moses patience wear thin. ‘Listen man, you only coming here and eating my food all the time. I wouldn’t mind if now and then you bring a chicken or a piece of beef or even a little sugar or a bottle of milk. But you coming here and eating my rations too much. This thing must stop.’
‘But man Moses how you mean? I only coming round to see you and talk.’
Fellars like Bart and Cap, you can’t insult them, no matter how you try. If you tell Bart to get out he would look at you and laugh. If you tell Cap he is a nasty, low-minded son of a bitch, he would ask you why you don’t put the kettle on the fire to make tea?
Like Cap, Bart moving from place to place week after week, though he paying rent, he too fraid to get in trouble in this country, and he not as brazen as Cap. One time in Camden Town Bart get a small room, and he fall sick and he nearly dead in that room. He get pale and had fever and he coughing like a bass drum. Moses went to see him. Bart lay down there on this bed like he dead: when he start to cough he scattering blanket and shaking up like a old engine.
‘What happen to you Bart?’ Moses say, sitting down on the end of the bed when it finish shaking.
‘Oh God old man, is a week I sick now, and I send a message to you long time, is only today you come?’
‘I couldn’t come earlier, boy. What happen to you?’
‘Moses, I am dying. I feel as if I will dead right now.’ And Bart rattling some cough from deep down.
A English fellar wearing glasses come in the room with a cup of Oxo and give it to Bart and went back out.
‘You see that fellar?’ Bart say, ‘if wasn’t for him I dead already. He giving me Oxo regularly, and that keeping me alive.’
But fellars like Bart, ordinary death through illness not make for them. In a few days the old Bart was back in circulation.
Though Bart thirst for woman, he can’t make a note with them, no matter how hard he try. So the time when he hold on to a English thing he hold on tight.
‘Man, the girl always want to go theatre, and cinemas, and shows,’ he complain to Moses. ‘She does leave me broken.’
‘Well, Moses say, you want to play gentleman, and you have to pay for it.’
If you see Bart girl sitting in the tube with she legs crossed, reading the Evening Standard through rimless glasses, you wouldn’t think she uses to hang out at the Paramount by Tottenham Court Road in the old days before the law clean up that joint. But if you tell Bart that he vex too bad, because he serious about this girl. In fact he going steady, and at last he tell Moses that he make up his mind to married this girl.
‘You damn fool,’ Moses say, ‘is that you would married?’
‘Mind what you say about my girl,’ Bart say.
The girl tell Bart to come home and meet the folks and Bart went. The mother was friendly and she went in the kitchen to make tea, leaving Bart sitting down in the drawing room. He make himself comfortable and was just looking at a Life magazine when the girl father come in the room.
‘You!’ the father shouted, pointing a finger at Bart, ‘you! What are you doing in my house? Get out! Get out this minute!’
The old Bart start to stutter about how he is a Latin-American but the girl father wouldn’t give him chance.
‘Get out! Get out, I say!’ The father want to throw Bart out the house, because he don’t want no curly-hair children in the family.
Bart had was to hustle from the white people house, and go mourning to the boys.
Still, for him girl so hard to get that he still meeting the number, frighten that he won’t be able to get another. But one thing lead to another and she start to slack off the old Bart bit by bit. One day he was to meet she by a bus stop in Edgware Road. He take a bus and was going there, when he notice that a fellar was talking to she in the queue. Bart stay in the bus and get off at the next stop and begin to walk down the road slowly. When he get to the queue the fellar wasn’t there.
He ask the girl if she was talking to anybody while she was waiting, and she say no. All that evening Bart cold, cold to the girl, frighten that she was making a date with this fellar, and he can’t understand why it is that she say she wasn’t talking to anybody.
‘I did see you talking to a fellar in the queue,’ Bart say at last.
‘I can’t remember,’ the girl say vaguely. ‘Somebody did ask me how to get to St Stephen Gardens, but he left after I told him.’
But Bart have a feeling, that she giving him the horn regularly when they not together.
Eventually the girl move from the place where she was living and Bart can’t find her at all. He start to get frantic. He look all about, any time he see any of the boys: ‘You see Beatrice anywhere?’
He must be comb the whole of London, looking in the millions of white faces walking down Oxford Street, peering into buses, taking tube ride on the Inner Circle just in the hope that he might see she. For weeks the old Bart hunt, until he become haggard and haunted.
Knowing that she like the night lights, at last Bart get a work at a club as a doorman, and now night after night he would be standing up there, hoping that one night Beatrice might come to lime by the club and he would see her again.
It have men like that in the world, too.
Things does have a way of fixing themselves, whether you worry or not. If you hustle, it will happen, if you don’t hustle, it will still happen. Everybody living to dead, no matter what they doing while they living, in the end everybody dead.
Tolroy eventually get the family settle. He manage to get two double room at the house he staying in in Harrow Road, but Agnes and Lewis went in another room in a house not far away. Then Tolroy take Lewis to the factory and get a work for him. It wasn’t so hard to do that, for the work is a hard work and mostly is spades they have working in the factory, paying lower wages than they would have to pay white fellars.
Lewis is another character that does put your thinking out of gear. Though he have sense, you would think he stupid, because he always asking questions, and anything you tell him he would believe. Before he married Agnes, Lewis had a girl name Mable who went to Venezuela and say she would send for him when she get fix up down there, as she had family living there. Lewis start packing suitcase the day after she leave, and every day he looking out for the letter that would tell him to come. One day a fellar who was in Venezuela tell Lewis that he see Mable living with a fellar while he was there.
‘You lie,’ Lewis say.
‘If I lie I die,’ the test say.
‘Who it is?’ Lewis say, and he want to take a plane and fly to Venezuela right away and kill the fellar.
In the factory, Lewis working on the same job with Moses – getting pot scourers
ready for packing. The night Tolroy bring Lewis, he introduce him to Moses.
‘This is my sister husband.’
‘So what?’ Moses say.
‘Keep an eye on him,’ Tolroy say.
‘How the family?’ Moses say, remembering Waterloo.
‘Boy, I not worrying my head,’ Tolroy say. ‘The old lady get a work at Lyons washing dish, and Tanty staying home to mind the children and cook the food.’
Moses say: ‘Your business good.’
Every night, Lewis telling Moses all kind of episodes that happen to him, and knowing that Moses is a man about London he asking him all sorts of stupid questions.
‘Moses,’ he say, ‘you think is true that it have fellars does go round by you when you out working and – your wife?’
If you tell Lewis that the statue on top of Nelson column in Trafalgar Square is not Nelson at all but a fellar what name Napoleon, he would believe you, and if you tell him that it have lions and tigers in Oxford Circus, he would go to see them. So Moses giving him basket for so.
‘How you mean,’ Moses say. ‘That is a regular thing in London. The wife leave the key under the milk bottle, and while you working out your tail in the factory, bags of fellars round by your house with the wife.’
Half hour later Lewis came back worried. ‘You really think so, Moses? I have suspicions, you know.’
‘I telling you,’ Moses say ruthlessly. ‘You think if I was married I would ever do night work? You don’t know London, boy.’
And after another half hour, Lewis gone to the foreman and say he have headache, that he can’t do any work, that he have to go home right away. And as soon as he get home he starting to beat up Agnes, though the poor girl don’t know what for.
Every night Lewis have something on the mind, and he does plague out Moses with talk and questions.
‘I know who it is, you know,’ he say confidentially. ‘Is a fellar who does pass round by the house with a motorcycle.’
Another night: ‘I sure I see the fellar. He does drive a car.’
Well, two-three times when he beat up Agnes, she went and stay by Tolroy house with Tanty and she mother, but in the end she always come back.