‘Look like we might have to move. Them not paying plenty money around this way a tall. People on the top levels get plenty money. It hardly ever trickle down.’
‘That’s the purpose of Unions and strikes,’ Gwennie say to him, then sorry the moment she open her mouth to say it.
Walter kiss him teeth and turn his head, disgusted. Didn’t say another word to her for a good ten minutes. Gwennie bite her lips and continue grading the papers in her hand.
‘Gwennie, how come it seem as if you don’t care about the little girl up at New Green? I don’t hear you talk about her much to the others. I don’t hear you make any suggestion to go and visit her. I don’t hear you talk much about you Aunty. What happen? I thought she was only staying up there till you finish school. She up there now going on six years.’
Gwennie put down the red ink pen in her hand, for she couldn’t hold it steady, sigh long and hard and look at his headtop where it was thinning out.
‘Why you don’t let her come stay with us?’ Walter continue. ‘I know we don’t have much room, but we can manage. I like to see all the children together.’
‘I don’t have the time, Walter,’ Gwennie say to him. ‘I tired all the time.’
‘Maybe one Friday evening instead of going to your meeting, we can go up there. You Aunty must think we don’t want her.’
Gwennie don’t say anything. She still have the letter from Aunty Cora in her bag, the one where she ask about adopting Peppy. Every time she think about it, it make her hot-hot. By the look of things, when she go up to see the baby, it seem as if Aunty Cora already adopt her. It burn her belly bottom to see how the pickney won’t even come to her, cry everytime she lift it up. Even Walter get on better with her than she, Gwennie, Peppy’s own mother. She been wanting to go up there and take the pickney, but she afraid. She afraid to have her in the same house with Walter. She afraid to face Aunty Cora too, for Peppy been up there quite a long time. Whenever she go up there, she always feel uncomfortable around Aunty Cora. And she can tell Aunty Cora just as uncomfortable, for she won’t allow her eyes to meet Gwennie’s. And she can’t really talk to her much with Walter and the children there.
‘What you say?’ Walter ask, breaking into her thinking.
‘Alright. We can go this Friday,’ Gwennie did say to him, but she live to regret it. For after that conversation, most every Friday him want go visit Peppy, and most times Gwennie just couldn’t go, for her meetings just as important.
Sitting down next to Percy in the Austin Cambridge, Gwennie remember the conversation as plain as yesterday. It was the first time since she moved in back with Walter that the two of them ever discuss Peppy like that. That was a while back. Whenever she could skip a meeting, she would go up to New Green, but it wasn’t often. Sometimes it would be two months going on three before she reach up there. But the letter now was truly a surprise. She couldn’t make head or tail of it. Percy was looking at her, waiting for her to say something, but she don’t know what.
Months later, after the arrival of the new baby, Rosa, all of a sudden the words in the letter Walter send Percy would just dance before her eyes. Percy never come back to the house, as Walter warn him in the letter, and Rudi did miss him bad for them used to be good friends. Percy used to bring him different-different stamps for his collection. She couldn’t answer when him stop the car and ask her to explain what Walter mean by ‘him want to be certain that him is the father to all his children’. She just couldn’t get into it again. She just want to forget everything. She tell Percy, Walter just blasted jealous as usual, and leave it at that. Percy never say anything else about it. She never say anything either.
So all these things were running through Gwennie head that Friday afternoon, as she sit down outside on her red and yellow verandah chair, her two hands holding up her jaw, the headache gone completely. Gwennie look at her watch again, sigh, get up and step inside to start the dinner.
As time was upon her, Gwennie didn’t bother to prepare anything too fancy. The rice she put on, boil and swell in no time. She cook it up with some of the left-over chicken, and pour in a little onion, little escallion, little thyme, and whatever seasonings she could lay her hands on. She leave a note telling Delores to cut up some tomatoes and have it with the dinner. She had ten minutes left before she meet Percy up at the bus stop. Gwennie fling off the multi-colour duster, haul on some clothes, run the comb through her hair, haul on a scarf over it, and step through the door with her handbag.
Maybe if Gwennie did have time to press and curl her hair that Friday afternoon she would’ve seen the letter from Aunty Cora telling her that Peppy coming, fluttering under the Holy Bible on her bureau. For since she and Walter not on good speaking terms these days, him already get the letter about one week now and put it down on the bureau so she can read it. But as Delores is the kind of person who can’t bother to replace things where she find them, Saturday mornings when she dust and clean bureaus, Gwennie didn’t get a chance to see the piece of paper fluttering under the big brown Bible.
Now Porous Road is a long road. And the route that Gwennie take to get to her meeting is the very same route the taxi carrying Peppy was travelling on. Since Percy did have to stop and carry out a few errands before continuing on to the meeting, there is no doubt that Gwennie and Peppy pass one another right there on Porous Road.
IX
Later that night when Gwennie reach home from her meeting, she was feeling cheerful. She didn’t go inside the house right away, but sit down outside on the verandah, on the steps. She did spend a little time with Percy before the meeting looking over the Immigration papers. And it seems as if after she fill in and mail what she have now, once them write her back and give her the okay, she well on her way. Percy told her she won’t have any problems a tall getting the visa.
‘How you figure?’ she ask him.
‘Well, the problem not so much in the States,’ him tell her. ‘Is the Immigration people here who will give you problems. For the government don’t want anybody to leave the country. Them want everybody to stay and help build it up. But when them see that you married and have plenty children, that you only going for holidays, and that you have letter from Teacher Brown saying your job waiting, them won’t give you any problems. For them know you coming back.’
‘You think so in truth?’ Gwennie ask nervous-like, well wanting to believe everything Percy saying.
Him nod.
‘I know it don’t sound good, but I can’t wait to get away. Just to go relax. I don’t want to leave the children, but I have to get away.’
Percy never say anything. Gwennie know him don’t like when she sound so excited about leaving. Him going to miss her.
‘I don’t tell Walter yet. I too fraid. I have a feeling him would stop me. Say something to the Immigration people. Tear up the papers. It probably best to just wait until everything ready, then maybe a month before I leave, tell him. I don’t tell the children yet either.’ Gwennie pause long and sigh deep. ‘Only Rudi. I don’t know what I could do without that boy. Him is me right hand.’
‘Him helpful in truth,’ Percy agree.
‘Is a big responsibility to give him alone. But I don’t think Walter going let the children stay with Grandma when I gone. Him and Grandma not on good terms these days. So I know everything will fall in Rudi’s lap, between him and Delores, since them the oldest. The whole thing don’t sit down with me easy a tall, Percy, but I have to get away, else I go crazy. Maybe I can get a little work to . . .’
‘Work!’ Percy look at her hard, eyes shining. ‘What you mean by work? You not tired? You don’t want rest? You don’t want just to sit down up and don’t do anything for days and days?’
‘Yeah, Percy, but . . .’ Gwennie start to stutter, his outburst taking her off balance. ‘Maybe I could get a part-time work, not plenty hours, just so I could raise a little money to buy things for the children. Me friend, Julia, who used to go abroad often, say plenty work over there. P
lenty.’
‘What kind of work you think them going to give you, Gwennie?’
Gwennie never answer right away. She started to feel uncomfortable, for Percy was getting hot-hot by the minute. His voice did even raise-up a few notches, and the people inside the room waiting for the meeting to start was beginning to look round at them.
‘You know is only cleaning work them going to give you, or maybe them let you look after people’s pickney or maybe wash dishes. That’s all them going give you. Nothing else.’ Percy’s voice was angry and loud same way, didn’t give one blast about who looking at him.
‘I only going for three months, Percy,’ Gwennie lower her voice with the hopes that Percy will lower his too. ‘Only going for summer. That kind of work okay. I not going Connecticut to live. Furthermore, me brother, Samuel, doing plenty buying me the plane fare and putting me up, I can’t expect him to buy things for the children as well. Is plenty to ask. And you know me, I can’t sit down idle for three whole months and not do anything.’
‘I can’t believe me ears,’ Percy’s hands start to dance round, chopping through the air. ‘You, a big-big teacher for over ten years, and you going to pick up youself, and clean house and clean baby shit. When out here, you have somebody clean you own pickney’s shit?’
Gwennie decide to leave it at that. His hands were moving about too much. She know him angry. And furthermore, the meeting was starting. But all through the meeting, Gwennie couldn’t help but wonder why him so upset about her working, cleaning people’s houses. As far as she can see, all work the same as long as it legal. If she was going there to stay longer, of course she would look for a teaching job, for that is her field. But not when she going only for summer.
Percy didn’t mention it again when him was dropping her home, but him tell her she sure going to have a nice time.
‘If you get there before July fourth, you will love the fireworks that make the sky light-up bright as day, and just as pretty,’ him tell her. ‘You will love the skyscrapers. Some of them so tall, them mad to touch the sky.’
Gwennie laugh, her stomach relaxing again.
‘You will see the subway system where trains go as fast as lightning. When them stop to let you off, you have to get ready at the door to jump off right away, else the doors shut up and them carry you go way to hell.’ Him laugh out loud and hard, his bottom lip quivering like it cold. ‘Happen to me one evening I was going work.’
Gwennie didn’t ask what kind of work, him was so happy talking now.
‘Train pack, everybody going home. My stop was the last one before the train turn express and don’t stop again till it feel like. That evening, my foot never even touch the ground. Just sort of perch up. And by the time the train stop and the doors open, and I could catch me bearings: find me two feet, put them down on the floor, and push pass everybody, the door shut long time and the train gone. Gone to blast! I wanted to cry, Gwennie, as big as I am. Did want to just sit down and holler.’
Gwennie’s eyes were full of eye water when she step out of his car the Friday night, from all the hard laughing. And it wasn’t so much the story Percy telling, but the way his face make up with funny looking expressions, the way his hands frisk around on the steering wheel, the way his eyes twinkle. She going to miss him, in truth.
Gwennie get up off the verandah steps where she was sitting, yawn long, turn the key once in the lock, and open the door to her house. She hold herself steady, preparing to stumble over a pair of shoes kick-off careless in the doorway, before she find the light switch. But tonight when she push open the door, the light was on already, and Rudi was up waiting on the off-white couch, his blanket covering him up from neck to toe.
It take Gwennie a good few seconds before her eyes could get used to the light. At first she think it was Walter sitting up, waiting, but when she move in closer, she notice is Rudi.
‘But look at me dying trial, Rudi, what you doing up this ungodly hour of the night? Come, go to bed, right now. You not tired?’
‘Mama, Peppy inside sleeping on daddy’s bed.’
‘Peppy? What Peppy doing . . .’ Gwennie say more to herself than to Rudi, as she feel the pulsing coming on behind her eyes.
‘The little girl that live up at Aunty Cora’s,’ Rudi answer anyway. ‘I didn’t reach home from choir practice until late-late, and when me come, Daddy-man was cursing. It sound like him come home and find Dave and Jeff beating up the little girl. Them trim off her dolly’s hair, you know, her dolly, Rose, and pop out one of the arms. Then them pinch-pinch Peppy and pull-pull her hair.’ As Rudi was one for details, Gwennie didn’t have to interrupt and ask for any. ‘Del was over at her friend’s house, Ginger. Only Jeff and Dave was here when the taxi let her off. Daddy-man say him can’t understand how you could read the letter and still pick up youself and go off to the meeting.’
‘Which letter?’ Gwennie ask him, her voice hoarse and tired. She drop down herself on the off-white couch next to Rudi. ‘Which letter?’
Rudi was at a loss for words. But not for long. ‘I don’t know. Daddy say it was on the bureau. About two weeks now. It say Peppy coming, I suppose.’
‘And Jeff and Dave trouble her?’ Gwennie whisper to him.
‘Yeah,’ Rudi nod his head. ‘Them say she not them sister, only two sisters them have, Delores and Rosa. The little girl and them not anything.’
Gwennie never say another word. She press her fingers to her temples, shut up her eyes tight and relax, take deep breath, relax . . . Her head was pounding.
And so she didn’t even feel when Rudi push off the polka-dot spread that cover him up, climb out the couch and seat himself next to Gwennie’s two feet. And even when him loosen the lace on her lace-up brown Oxfords, slowly and gently take off her shoes, one foot after the other, and massage her foot bottom, in and out, between the toes, she still never feel it.
But all of a sudden, her eyes get misty, for him was massaging her feet the same way as Grandma when the arthritis go down into hers. And her heart was so full and heavy, she couldn’t even open-up her mouth to tell him thanks, the eye water just run down her cheeks instead. She wanted to run up the street and use the call box, beg Percy to come pick her up. She couldn’t bear the thought of listening to Walter’s mouth tonight. She just want a little peace and quiet—that’s all she ask. But it was too late and too far to walk, and she tired. Tomorrow she going to tear off Jeff and Dave’s behind so bad, them won’t be able to sit down properly for several days. Bout she not them sister, only two sisters them have . . . well she going to show them a sauce.
By the time Rudi finish the other foot, Gwennie was sleeping long time. Him get up, swing her two legs long-side the couch, push up the cushion under her head and cover her over with his polka-dot sheet. Except for the two cats outside howling in heat, the house was dead-quiet. Now and then, him hear Peppy turn in her sleep and call out her Aunty Cora’s name, but then she stop, and the house quiet-down again. Rudi check the door and the windows to make sure them lock, then him look over on his mother one more time, flick off the light switch and pick out his way carefully in the darkness back to the room him share with Jeff and Dave.
Gwennie have a dream that night. It take place at Hartford, Connecticut, at the house she work two and three jobs for, scraping and saving until finally she buy it from the Trinidadian couple. The old couple claim them have to go home for the cold weather killing them. Them can’t stomach the bad winters any longer. Gwennie got the house at decent price, for it was in need of plenty fix-up fix-up. But anyway, after she and the children finally move, she start to notice that most every evening Peppy don’t reach home until late hours of the night when everybody fast asleep. She come in, mumble evening to Gwennie, if Gwennie still up, and continue on into her room. Next morning she gone.
And it wasn’t so much the coming-in and going-out that hurt Gwennie, as the fact that Peppy would never lift one finger to help with the cleaning or the fixing-up or the straightening-out of t
he new house. She never lift one finger to help with the moving-in, almost as if she don’t give one blast about how or where them live. Gwennie buy paint and brush so everybody can chip in. More hands make work light. But Peppy’s can of paint shut tight sameway, untouched. Everybody else come, help, but Peppy’s fingers don’t lift straw. One night Gwennie decide she couldn’t take it any longer. She have to confront Peppy about it. So she set out for Peppy, and the moment the key turn over in the lock, she start.
‘Why is it everybody can come home early and help out with the cleaning-up. But not you? From the day we move in here, you still don’t lift your finger to help. Every night you come inside the house late. What you have out the street that is so sweet? What keeping you out there so late at night? Every night?’
That night Peppy just brush pass her, not saying a word. It gall Gwennie to no ends. And so when Peppy step into the kitchen in search of her dinner, Gwennie was behind her quarrelling same way. ‘Bad upbringing,’ Gwennie tell her. ‘Bad home training. No sense of goodness. Aunty Cora break you bad. She spoil you . . .’ But Gwennie didn’t even finish the remainder of her sentence before Peppy fly down her throat from where she stand-up over by the stove, her frame almost as tall as her mother’s.
‘You have a nerve,’ she grind out through her teeth to Gwennie. ‘You have a nerve. At least she did take me in and care for me. You only give me away. Couldn’t even wait till me crawl out the womb properly, you hand me over. Now you talking about spoil. At least she did have something to spoil.’
Gwennie look around her quick, eyes in search of a book or belt, anything heavy, something to bless Peppy with, to make her shut up her blasted mouth. Gwennie double-up her fist. ‘Damn ungrateful wretch! Damn ungrateful! I going to show you a sauce! Going to show you a blasted sauce!’
Me Dying Trial Page 8