Waiting in Vain

by Colin Channer

  Phil watched all this in amazement while he tried to sketch something out. But he couldn’t concentrate beneath Marshall’s barrage.

  Taking a glance offstage, Phil saw Margaret’s disappointment and blew her a kiss, which she returned feebly. It touched Phil’s heart to know that he had let her down, and right then and there he decided that he had to do something to redeem himself. Before he had time to chart what it was, though, he was up again.

  Having no idea what he was going to play, Phil took Marshall’s advice and played without thinking. And out of his soul oozed Welsh ditties, barroom songs, fugues and arias, bits and pieces of symphonies, themes from BBC programs and Tom Jones hits, and Gregorian chants. He turned them inside out … upside down … crushed them and mixed them … compressed them and extended them … swallowed some notes, suggested others, warped some this way and others that, and formed them in a bolus that he regurgitated and rammed them down Marshall’s throat bar after bar until Marshall called it a night ten minutes later.

  “You had me scared a little at first,” Marshall said as they made their way upstairs, “but you’re all right, Phil. Come sit in with me again sometime.”

  Margaret took Marshall aside, thanked him for giving Phil a break and revved him up about his performance. After that she got Phil, and they went downstairs.

  “You did great,” she said.

  “Thanks. I almost chucked the whole lot in the beginning though,” he replied.

  “But you really turned it on in the end, Phil. And it really moved me when you said you loved me in front of everyone.”

  “But I do.”

  They stopped at the foot of the stairs and kissed.

  “Don’t mess up my new suit,” Phil said, “it was hard enough straightening it out after you raped me before I went on.”

  “Wrong. Rape is a crime of violence. That was love.”

  They went outside to catch a cab. It was freezing and windy. They huddled together in their coats.

  Outside, they ran into Sylvia and Lewis, who saw Margaret too late to turn away. She came up to him and said hello, kissing his cheek as a casual greeting.

  “This is Phil,” Margaret said to Lewis.

  “Nice to meet you, Phil,” Lewis replied. “And this is Sylvia.”

  Phil shook her hand firmly.

  “Oh, I’m sorry, Sylvia,” Margaret said. “I’m forgetting my manners. I forgot to introduce you … but I didn’t recognize you at first. You look different. Have you gained weight?”

  “My hair has grown.”

  She ran her fingers through it, admitting to herself that this was all quite petty, this need to make it clear it wasn’t a weave. The lights of the traffic glinted off the ring.

  “Congratulations to the both of you,” Margaret said, drawing Phil closer. “When’s the big day?”

  “We’re working on it,” Lewis replied. “Next spring. No firm date yet.”

  As Lewis and Margaret talked about weddings and marriage Phil and Sylvia stood silently.

  I’m not jealous, Sylvia thought as she listened to Lewis and Margaret. I’m just doing what any normal person would do. They used to fuck! They know that I know this. So why is she standing so close to him? And why did she have to kiss him? Whatever happened to shaking hands? And this moron she is with, why is he looking at me like that? As if he is afraid of saying something.

  “If you don’t mind my asking,” Phil said, “what’s your last name?”

  Sylvia told him.

  He lowered his voice. “I know the connection.”

  So did she now. The accent. The pitch.

  “Nice to meet you, finally,” she said quietly, masking her distress.

  “Nice to meet you too,” he replied.

  They flashed each other embarrassed grins.

  Panicked, Sylvia excused herself from Phil, turned to Lewis, and told him she was cold.

  Sylvia felt as though a giant fist were gripping her chest. She could hardly breathe. Fucking Phil recognized her. She had done a good job of appearing blasé, she thought. But then she hadn’t seen her face.

  She didn’t speak much on the way home, claiming that she had a headache. Lewis put on some soft music and told her to recline the seat.

  Sylvia’s first concern was damage control. She gathered her forces and considered her options. Just do nothing and if it ever comes up with Lewis, deny it, she thought. Naw, because most likely it won’t come directly from Phil to Lewis, it’s gonna pass through Margaret, and who knows who else she’s gonna tell, and I don’t want people in my business.

  Talk to Phil and ask him to keep a secret? Naw, because then that’s like admitting to things that Fire might have told him that weren’t true. I mean what does Phil know? That Fire was interested in me and sent me a package or something? But what if he knows the rest? That might be worse than any lies Fire might’ve told him. Co-opt Phil? Tell him everything, then … naw, he’s gonna know too much and he might tell Margaret and … naw.

  Confess to Lewis? He might understand, if I edit it correctly. Then if he hears anything else I’ll deny it. And if he dares to interrogate me I’ll deny it down to the ground and threaten to leave him. But then all that might put pressure on the relationship and it might not be worth much after that. Confess to Lewis … but only after I get him to confess. Maybe I could bring it up in a joking kind of way about his fooling around while we were apart … somehow use what I know about him and Margaret to get into it … then after he fesses up just say, Well, baby, I understand because I came close too, kinda, but I know it’s you I want, and then … naw. No matter what, never confess.

  Sylvia gradually receded from tactical considerations, partly due to fatigue and partly due to competition for her mental energy from her memories of Fire. Until this evening, she had been comfortable in her belief that she had gotten over him. But now she began to feel unsure, as thoughts of him replaced the tightness in her chest with a tightness of a different kind—instead of suffocation there was the feeling of a zealous embrace.

  She saw Fire at her doorstep with the flowers, crouching to console her. At the train station. Dancing at the bar at the Club Rio. Sitting on the bench with her on the Promenade. Kneeling in front of her to mend her knee. Leaning against the phone booth the first time they met. Parting her hair, combing it and brushing it, oiling her scalp like Granny used to do. Touching her body like no man had ever done before, and as no man had done since.

  She didn’t realize that she was smiling until Lewis asked her what she was smiling about.

  “It was nice to have met you,” she said softly.

  “It was nice to have met you too, Sylvia.”

  Sylvia began to sing “You Go to My Head,” thinking of her wait on the Brooklyn Bridge.

  Lewis hummed along, out of tune.

  “No,” Margaret said, as she leaned against Phil in the cab.

  “Yes,” Phil insisted. “No way.”

  “Yes. Why would I make up something so stupid?”

  “I believe you but I can’t believe it. Sylvia and Fire?”

  “You’re not going to tell anyone, now are you?”

  “Who’s there to tell?”

  “C’mon, Margaret, promise.”

  “Why should I have to, Phil? You can trust me.”

  “You don’t sound sincere.”

  “I am.”

  “If I ever found out that you told someone I’d be very upset.”

  “Lewis would flip if he should ever hear this.”

  “Look, drop it right now.”

  “Okay it’s dropped.”

  chapter nine

  About two weeks after seeing Margaret and Phil at the Blue Note, Sylvia received a message from a Jane Smith—a familiar name that she couldn’t immediately place.

  “Did she say what it was about, Boogie?”

  “Only that it was important.”

  Something told Sylvia she should call.

  “Q&A magazine.”

  She
knew the publication. An oversize, black-and-white arts and culture monthly with lots of one-on-one interviews. It was hugely successful in Britain. The U.S. edition was three years old. They used good writers. Martin Amis. Henry Louis Gates. Wole Soyinka.

  “Oh, hi, Sylvia,” Jane said when she came on the line. “I’m a little frazzled here, bear with me, darling. Diego Peña referred me to you, by the way.”

  “Oh, yes, I know Diego very well.”

  “Well here’s the story, darling,” Jane continued. “I’d like to talk to you about doing an interview for an upcoming issue. The assigned writer called me last night from rehab, telling me he had to check himself in. God, I didn’t even know he was doing heroin. He’d always seemed more cocaine to me. But anyway, I just happened to be speaking with Diego when I got the call. He’s gonna be our March cover. And he said I should call you. Said you’re absolutely brilliant. What’re you doing for lunch today? Do you wanna meet at around say … two? I know it’s really short notice, but we’re running crazy here—there is just so much drama—and I must go now. But I must talk to you some more.”

  “Aah … lemme check my schedule.”

  She put the phone down and leaned back in her chair. Q&A was the kind of magazine she wanted to write for. But if she took the assignment she’d have to use a pseudonym. “Two sounds good. Where do you want to meet?”

  “How about Café Beulah?”

  “Café Beulah at two then.”

  Jane’s purple Blahniks swept her into the southern bistro a half hour later than they should have. A fiftyish peroxide blond with short, spiky hair, she had a pale, bony face whose angles weren’t softened by horn-rimmed glasses. Wearing a camel-colored smock over black suede leggings, she toted a big leather pouch that contained, among other cargo, bottles of organic vitamins and minerals, and something labeled “Spirit Water,” which she explained to be H2O filtered through the ashes of a long-departed Navajo medicine man.

  “It gives you this dramatic flow of energy,” she said, taking a swig. “I’d let you try it, darling, but each person’s spiritual profile is different and special incantations are said over each bottle before it’s shipped—it’s special-order, you know—to match your spirit profile. Otherwise, it doesn’t work.”

  Sylvia shook her head and smiled. Even if this didn’t work out, she thought, at least she’d have some fun.

  Over she-crab soup and vegetarian gumbo, they had a free-ranging conversation about the arts and politics. Jane was quite bright, Sylvia realized. She was a big blues fan. In between flirting with the ephebic waiters she would pat her chest and swoon. “Listen to that. That’s Freddie King. He sounds like he’s playing your spine.” And she didn’t place much emphasis on time. Whenever Sylvia tried to loop the conversation to business, Jane would ignore her and ramble on. When Sylvia checked her watch for the seventh time, she dug into her bag for her Nokia.

  “Callem and tellem you’re lunching. You’re an editor. You must have long lunches. How else do you show your power?”

  Then finally, when the table was cleared, Jane got around to business.

  “Okay, here’s the drama,” Jane began. “You’ve heard of A. J. Heath, the novelist, haven’t you, darling? The Rudies? Miriam? Dangling on the Brink of the Edge?”

  She hadn’t. But she knew better than to say that.

  “Well, he’s who we want you to interview. He’s really neat and bright. He turned down a Rhodes Scholarship because he said Cecil Rhodes was a racist. He was short-listed for the Booker Prize this year but he didn’t win. He should’ve won though. But I think there’s been a backlash against non-British writers. After Rushdie and Okri people started complaining. From talking to you I think the both of you would make a very good interview. It would be five thousand words, at a dollar per word plus expenses. There are basic guidelines for our interviews but our interviewers basically make up their own. We like their personalities to come out as well. And you’ve got loads. Does it sound like something you’d like?”

  “Well …” She was hoping Jane wouldn’t ask any deeper questions about the work. She knew nothing of British literature.

  “I don’t mean to rush you,” Jane said. “But I do need to know by tomorrow morning.”

  Sylvia had been a journalist long enough to know she could do this piece—any piece, really—with a good press kit and some research. But as she walked down Park Avenue to Union Square, thinking about her luck, five thousand easy dollars, she cautioned herself about getting excited. If she took the assignment and was discovered, she would lose her job. But this was the kind of assignment that her résumé needed. She was still thinking of moving on—after finishing the new novel, which she estimated would take a year.

  I need to call Diego, she thought as she crossed Fourteenth Street and picked up Broadway. And I need to get copies of those books.

  She went to the Strand, a musty used-book store with scuffed wooden floors and shelves and crates packed with books. She found used editions of Miriam and Dangling in rough condition—hardcover without slipcovers.

  She asked a clerk for The Rudies.

  “Can’t keep it in hardcover,” he said. His nose was pierced in five places. “We don’t get many and when we do they don’t last. Try paperback.”

  She squeezed past the crowd milling around the art books table and went to the paperbacks.

  “Rudies? We had one today but I think it might be gone. See that trough of books over there? Dig somewhere in there.”

  She found the book after a difficult search. It was a thick volume, with a porkpie hat and a .38 Special on the cover. She began to read it on the train platform. The gangland epic engrossed her so much that she was almost home before she realized that she was headed in the wrong direction. There was simply no point in returning to her office.

  She called in sick and continued reading and taking notes until three A.M., by which time she was sure she wanted to do it. There was an honesty to the writing and an eye for detail that she found compelling. She began to find the author fascinating. What did he look like? All she knew of him was his blurb. So he was Jamaican and had won a Somerset Maugham and a David Higham, two outstanding awards.

  Fuck, she would have to lie to get the time off.

  She called Diego.

  “Hello?”

  She didn’t answer.

  “Hello?… Hello? Hello?”

  She tried to say something.

  “Who the fuck is it? Okay I’m jacking off too, maricón. I’m wearing lace lingerie and I have an ass that’s big like Brooklyn—”

  “Hi, Diego, how are you? It’s me.” She sighed heavily.

  “Heavy breathing. I knew it had to be some pervert calling me this early in the morning. Lemme go on … I got an ass that’s big like Brooklyn but I wish it was as big as Sylvia Lucas’s ego, because it took her so fucking long, after all the shit we been through, to call me, not to say sorry, but just to say, ‘Motherfucker, how you doing?’ ”

  “I’m sorry, Diego,” she whispered. She didn’t want her voice to crack.

  “I love you, mi hija.”

  “I love you too, Diego. I miss you. I’m sorry about everything.”

  “It’s okay. We’re all allowed three stupid things in life. That was one. Getting engaged to Lou-Lou was the second—don’t ask how I know. And if you’re calling to tell me you’re not gonna take the assignment, that’ll be the third. I worked hard to hook you up. I even licked Jane Smith’s lily and I’m allergic to flowers. Come on, fuck it. What’re you worried about? Umbra? Fuckem. What’ve they done for you lately, Janet Jackson? Tell them a relative died in Jamaica. They’ll give you the time. Whose gonna question a death in the family?”

  She began to laugh as he outlined the scenario, using different voices.

  “You’re right,” she said. “I should go. Even if it’s just to see what it’s like to work at another level again. I owe it to myself.”

  “Good. Give Jane a call and tell her you’re dow
n and give me a call back, okay?”

  They stayed on the phone for over an hour when she called him back.

  “What’re you doing later, by the way?” he asked before hanging up.

  “Stay home and read. It’s Saturday. Jane’s sending over a press kit, so I’ll be in.”

  “Good. I’ll bring you breakfast.”

  He arrived an hour later with juice and croissants. The messenger arrived as soon as he sat down.

  “Oh shit …”

  Diego looked up. Sylvia was shaking.

  “What?”

  She was sifting through the package on her way back from the door. “Oh shit.” Her voice was trembling.

  “What’s the matter?” he asked.

  “I can’t take this assignment, Diego. I can’t.”

  “Why?”

  “I can’t do this.”

  “Come on, you’re a professional.”

  “You don’t understand.”

  “Well tell me.”

  She gave him Fire’s photograph. “I had an affair with this guy over the summer.”

  November 10, 19—

  Dear Fire,

  I need a break from this fucking place. Feel like I losing my mind. I hope you get these lines in time. I’m coming to Jamaica on the twenty-fourth at 3:30. I don’t have the flight number. Fuck, how much flight coming from New York at that time? See you then, soon. Mama have a good birthday?

  —Ian

  chapter ten

  Ian paused at the top of the ramp and loosened the neck of his shirt. The sky was a steaming iron, and the hills that back-dropped the terminal buildings were wrinkles in a piece of cloth. Kingston hot nuh rass.

  As he walked across the tarmac to the gate, and shuffled through the long airless corridor past wilting palms, he reminded himself that this was his country, the place where he was born. But, God, he felt so alien here. How long had it been? Ten years maybe? Fifteen? Did it matter?