Small Island

by Andrea Levy

  As spores to the wind everyone was scattered before the MPs. GIs, black and white, pitched missiles with the force of athletes. And still the MPs came. A white man drooling bloody spittle was slumped against a ladies’ outfitter’s window. A woman stooping before him was shooed away as three MPs yanked, tugged and poked at this leaden man to stand. Two small girls, clinging to each other as tight as the two halves of a peanut, stood shivering and crying. As an older boy yelling, ‘Mum, Mum!’ pushed wild at anyone who came too close to them. A white GI whacked a black man’s head against a wall. This black man leaked blood – it spilling as dense as crimson cloth down before his eyes. Him ran blind – bumping the wall to avoid an MP’s baton blow. A white GI pushed to the ground felt four pairs of boots running over his back before two black men kicked him. Like rags on the ground this fallen man bounced with every blow.

  A flying bottle shattered at my feet – me, hopping graceless, felt its splintered shards patter my cheek. My uniform filthy and ripped at both shoulders, my shirt collar sticky, my tie missing – an MP overlooking my RAF blue, concerned only with the colour of my skin, raised his baton ready to charge me. It was a shot that stopped him. One shot from a gun. Did I hear it with my ears or just sense it as every uniformed man ducked low – the trained reflex crouching us all? Another shot. Civilians this time caught still. Like the call of an approaching mother that destroyed the frenzy of my boyhood games, all players in this nasty pastime examined each other in a moment of complete, resounding hush that summoned the question: What is coming next?

  Come, let us face it, it was curiosity that saw me walking fast down that street to where a crowd was gathering. No thought of valour, no thought of gallantry and, let me tell you, no thought of Queenie pulled me to where the shot had sounded. Hear this. Only when I heard Queenie’s voice yelling, ‘Arthur,’ did I once again recall that I had had companions that day.

  An MP was howling, terrified for everyone to ‘Stay back! Stay back!’ This runt of a man, eyes mesmerised to the ground, gun still smoking and careless in his hand, flicked it to hold people away from the sight. A man lay shot at his feet. And I knew it was Arthur Bligh even before Queenie began beating at this MP’s back – slapping round his head, tearing off his cap. Screaming, ‘Arthur! Let me get through . . . it’s Arthur! What d’you do that for? It’s only Arthur!’

  He had been shot in the jaw, his head burst an obscene inside-out by the bullet. I tried to move closer to Queenie – scared this fool MP she was berating could again prove careless with his gun. But the white caps and the galloping boots of the Military Police once more flowed in from every side. This time their batons raised in a line across their chests, they rammed us with this makeshift barrier. ‘Back, stay back – everyone stay back. Move on. Come on, get back there!’

  Our inquisitive group was impelled, slipping and tripping, backwards. I could no longer see her but I called out to Queenie as an MP, his baton thrusting hard into my chest, his face pressing close to mine, hot breath breaching my cheek delivered the words, ‘Get away from her, nigger.’ Only now did I experience the searing pain of this fight – and not from the grazing on my face or the wrench in my shoulder. Arthur Bligh had become another casualty of war – but come, tell me, someone . . . which war?

  Eighteen

  Gilbert

  A group of boys jumped lively from the dock into the sea. Gangly arms and legs black against the fine blue sky they soared for a moment like an explosion of starfish. They dived to catch the coins thrown for them from the side of the ship by the first-class passengers. A uniformed band from the First Jamaican Battalion played we returning West Indian RAF volunteers down the gangplank and on to the dock. Who knows what tune they were performing for a thief of a breeze carried this welcome off into less deserving ears. Some of the men wept to feel home under their feet at last. The Blue Mountains folding on the horizon, Kingston dappling in sun and shade. Heads turned, drinking in the curiosity of this well-known vista now unfamiliar to them. Standing to attention for the last time the governor, dressed in his colourful finery, wished us all well. He promised us two months’ pay and our discharge papers, then thanked us for our valuable military service. We were demobilised.

  I carried home with me the tatty yellowing cuttings from the newspaper. ‘London Man Killed in US Army Incident’, the headline proclaimed. Letters in the paper asked how many of these ructions the British people were meant to suffer before the US military authorities took their boys in hand. It was a big story – thought a terrible accident. Picture of a distressed Queenie – mistakenly considered the victim’s daughter. Another of Arthur: composed, pipe in hand, this old photograph showed a young English gentleman. At fifty-four I had thought him an old man. Arthur Bligh, it was reported, had been unfortunate to receive a bullet fired with the intention of quelling a vicious brawl. According to several newspapers, GIs about to be posted overseas were angry when the film show they were watching broke down. On evacuating the picture house a fight had ensued. The MP, carrying out his duty, fired a warning shot into the air. The second shot aimed likewise at no one was accidentally diverted when the MP stumbled. It hit Arthur in the head – to be precise in the left jaw – killing him instantly. The funeral was attended by immediate family and a representative from the US Army. An obituary stated that a son, Bernard, was in the forces overseas under the SEAC command. There was no more word about what happened to the MP; there was no reporting of a trial. A letter appearing in a newspaper hinted at the segregation and bad treatment black GIs received from their fellow countrymen. It went on to congratulate we British for being more civilised.

  I was posted the day after the incident – moved to Cornwall that verynext morning. Then Scotland. Then Filey. Then Cornwall again. I had written to Queenie – several letters, each one taking me care to compose. How was she recovering? Was she well? Might I not be allowed to visit with her? No replies came. If, in my wildest imaginings, I believed that the military authorities ever puzzled over this West Indian RAF volunteer, then I would conclude that my postings were intended to keep me as far from Queenie Bligh as was possible.

  I had waited two years since the war’s end for a ship that could carry me back to the island of Jamaica for a hero’s return. Standing through victory parades in England, countless men had slapped my back, joyfully telling me that I could go home now. No more shivering with winter cold – my teeth would have no reason to chatter. Let me forget the dreadful sausage and boiling potatoes. The barracks and the Naafi. And, no, thank you, I do not want another cup of tea. Bring me back sun and lazy, hazy heat – curry goat, spice-up chicken, and pepper-pot soup. Let me meet pretty black-skinned women, round and shapely, ready to take my arm with pride. Let me look upon faces who knew me as a small boy. Come, let me suck me teeth again among kin.

  But instead of being joyous at this demob I looked around me quizzical as a jilted lover. So, that was it. Now what? With alarm I became aware that the island of Jamaica was no universe: it ran only a few miles before it fell into the sea. In that moment, standing tall on Kingston harbour, I was shocked by the awful realisation that, man, we Jamaicans are all small islanders too!

  As if Mummy had been shaking out her apron strings I found that all my sisters had been scattered, four of them married and journeying to America before the wedding flowers had even lost their bloom. The three with no rings on their fingers had found Canada beguiling – one nursing, one teaching and one a hopeful who-knows. In Chicago Lester was a big man in construction. Excited as a child before Christmas, Mummy was eager to make plain that Lester had no reason to return to this small island. For despite the young boys who came hurrying from all over the district – eager to set their eye on me, a real soldier, returning from war, to have me bark fierce commands that they, enthusiastic, struggled to obey while parading round with their makeshift guns – Mummy and Auntie May looked pity on me for the misfortune of finding myself once more back in their yard.

  The shortages of
war and money for celebration took a monstrous bite out of their business. Mummy and Auntie May no longer spent their days on cakes but had now turned their talents to the decorating of their hats. These hats were being readied for a journey that would see them visiting all their exiled offspring in America and Canada. Flowers and fruits, bows, feathers and net were expertly attached to plain and old hats so these two blessed women might attend christenings, church services, graduations, house parties or weddings in full hatted dignity. Cheerful, they declared that this lovingly prepared-for trip around North America was a mission that could take them a long, long, long time. While Daddy, frail and old, rocking on the veranda, sipping a sorrel drink laced so potent it could kill a bull, dozed drunkenly, unaware he was about to be abandoned.

  ‘So what, you no study the law yet, man? Me think you come back a judge.’ Despite his words it was obvious Elwood was pleased to have his boyhood friend home. ‘You no tell me the Mother Country no keep their word? Cha, nah, man, you wan’ me believe the English are liars?’ He laughed so hearty at his own joke, I observed that he had lost several teeth since I last looked down his mocking mouth.

  Now, what taunt would my cousin have found if I had told him what had occurred when I had endeavoured to study the law while in England? The Colonial Office had rehabilitation courses designed to see us West Indian RAF volunteers prepared for Civvy Street. Man, I know a chance when it is before me and here was one ripe for picking. Come – the law was on the list. I did not place it there, they did – up there among accountancy and medicine. I made my application. But, let me tell you, so many heads shook I began to think all at the Colonial Office had a nervous tic. Tongues tutted that this common aircraftman should have ideas so high above his station. ‘The law!’ Their eyes laughed as they looked this Jamaican dreamer up and down. My cousin Elwood’s wicked giggling would have done him a mischief if I told him what they offered me instead. Bread-baking. A good profession, plenty jobs. Cha! Bread-baking! How could I tell Elwood this tale without this returning RAF man appearing a complete jackass?

  ‘You come back at the right time, man,’ Elwood told me. ‘You stop run round to those fool-fool English – we gon’ lick them. Nothin’ gon’ stop us now.’

  As a growing boy, I thought Elwood my brother. Cricket in the dirt, climbing in trees, fishing in the river – no childhood memory appears without him. We were ten when his mummy, Auntie Corinne – trailing sweet perfume and dangling the deeds to a little plot of land near Kingston – arrived, telling everyone she now had the money to take back her son. It was a long moment that had me, Elwood and Lester worrying which one of us she had come to snatch. Elwood cried a puddle to find his mummy was not his mummy but his aunt, his brothers were his cousins and instead of the seven sisters he had none. Only Daddy had a word of comfort for the poor wailing boy – he told him that he could now rest easy because he was certainly not Jewish.

  ‘They think they keep us happy with this pickney constitution,’ Elwood told me. ‘We grown men. No more likkle crumbs from the table. We sit and feed ourselves now, man.’

  While I was busy with war Elwood had lost most of his coconut, banana, guava, ackee and pimento to a hurricane. This tempestuous wind carried off his livelihood to land its harvest in who knows where? Cuba? The stumps of banana trees still left secured in the earth caught Panama disease. The coconut trees whose leaves still stretched in the sun developed lethal yellowing disease. During the days his mummy watered these feeble plants with an obeah woman potion, while Elwood sat an evening vigil over them among the rat-bats. But still they died.

  ‘Manley get us the vote,’ Elwood said. ‘But him know you caan eat a likkle cross on some paper. To put food on de table we mus’ govern ourselves. Gilbert hear me nah – no more white man, no more bakkra. Me say get rid a Busta too. Him too licky-licky to the British. Jamaica mus’ have jobs. Man mus’ work.’

  Elwood had had to find work, any sort of work, to keep him and his mummy from the devil’s jaw. Burying cattle, digging gullies, fixing up damaged houses, loading ships. And hear this – even serving the English tea and dainty sandwiches at the cricket club. Bedecked in white uniform my cousin had had to incline his head in submissive civility while raised hands clicked their fingers for his service. Yet nothing could shake Elwood’s obstinate faith in Jamaica. Nothing could infect his dogged delight in his beloved island.

  ‘Man, you come back at the right time,’ he said. ‘You ready to work? Let me tell you, Gilbert, forget the law. Come, I have a likkle business notion for you, make us plenty money.’

  He handed me a ragged, worn-out copy of a book, Lawson’s, Honey Craft for Pleasure and Profit, its title in faded gold almost unreadable. Elwood’s exhilaration dimmed only a little when I eager said, ‘Man, good idea! Jamaica will need this – publishing and printing our own books.’

  ‘No, man – tending bees.’

  ‘Bees?’

  ‘Plenty money in honey,’ he told me.

  Oh, how the words tripped from Elwood’s impassioned mouth. Tumbling and twisting over each other they juggled to cajole me that this was a chance that simply could not be missed. Demonstrating his one hive, which sat lonely behind the house, its wooden walls vibrating with a dark cluster of quivering bees, ‘It more of a business expansion,’ he explained. ‘I know where me hand can lay on plenty more.’ Urging me to dip my finger into a little jar of golden honey, he said, ‘Taste – tell me it not the sweetest nectar ever pass your lip.’ Arm on my shoulder, mouth close to my ear, he tell me, ‘Me have a man not far – everyt’ing him sell. Him gon’ live in Scotch land or some fool place. Him have twenty hive – brood chamber and plenty frame each. Everyt’ing there – bottle feeder, smoker, veil. And every one bursting a bees. Young queen and everyt’ing. And so many jar it look like factory. Him make ’nough money get him backside far from here. Gilbert, I can see the Lawd smiling on us and pointing Him finger on those hives.’ He gripped me tighter with one arm while the other he used to point at the air. ‘Come, money flying around us, all we mus’ do is catch it.’ I looked on nothing as he told me he would need my demob money to make the purchases. ‘Man, it jus’ for all the likkle bits and pieces.’ Elwood was to look after the bees, Auntie Corinne was to take care of the cleaning and filling of jars, and me? ‘You do the business, man. First it pay you back plenty time over, then everyt’ing split between you and me. Me teach you everyt’ing me know. Soon we build up. This only a beginning, you see – soon we sell to all the shop on the rock.’ And he nodded gravely when adding, ‘An independent Jamaica will need men like us.’

  Come, tell me, how long did it take him to win me? ‘Is a businessman you will be, Gilbert. Not a lawyer, no, sir, not a judge – but, mark you, not a farmer. A businessman – done up in fine suit and everyt’ing.’ You would think I gave Elwood the keys to life itself when I handed him the money. Were they tears in his eyes or was it just the smarting of the woodsmoke in the evening air? ‘Me no mess with ya, Gilbert, you me brother. Me gon’ see you a prosperous Jamaican man. Come, nah – soon we click our finger and a white man come running.’

  Sitting high on a cart being pulled by a mule it occurred to me that perhaps I had accidentally woken to find myself back in the dark ages. It was Elwood suggested, ‘We can take the mule to pick up the hives. Save us money, man. More profit for you and me, eh?’ Old women bent on leaning-sticks were waving as they overtook us on the road, while this wretched mule, under a glory of flies, found something tasty to nyam on the ground before it, or dally undirected to take in a view or just stopped to muse perhaps on the meaning of life. A year before my return Elwood had swapped his old truck for this draggle-tailed creature. He was pleased with the deal – a whole mule for a broken-down truck that had to be removed from the farm in several hundred rusting pieces. However, it soon transpired that this one mule was in fact two creatures. At the front end, by its slow blinking eyes and black fat nostrils, you could pet its placid, docile head and feed it from your hand. But
should you find yourself at its rear end you would meet a kicking, bucking wild beast there. Auntie Corinne was convinced a fiendish duppy had made its back legs its home. But perhaps its duplicitous character was because this mule, who I took to be male, had been given the name Enid. So while I sweet-talk Enid’s front end, Elwood attached the cart before the back end realised. But we had been gone two hours and could still see the roof of the farm we had left, before Elwood yielded, saying, ‘Come – me have an idea. We go see Glenville to get a use out of his truck.’

  In the RAF in England I had shovelled coal with hands itching with chilblains until my palms were raw meat; I had pushed, pulled and dragged whole aeroplanes through mud; I had lifted mechanical parts that were bigger than a man yet still I had breath in my body to hum a song as I worked. But here I huffed and puffed like an old crone and grumbled, peevish and petty, like a lordly city boy, because, man, I had never known hard work like it. I was fooled by Elwood – I thought my gangly, skinny cousin would snap in two if the load was too heavy to lift. But any exertion made his stick body swell, rounding and erupting with robust muscle sturdy as a stallion. I had no chance to keep pace with him when every bone in my body just cried, ‘Gilbert, come nah, man, let us lie down now – we hurt.’