For the life of Laetitia PDF

W henever Anjanee did not come to school, I stayed in the classroom at lunchtime and ate with Doreen Sandiford’s gang. On some days they would disappear as soon as the afternoon roll had been called, and only reappear at the end of the day. I began moving out with them. It was as though...

W henever Anjanee did not come to school, I stayed in the classroom at lunchtime and ate with Doreen Sandiford’s gang. On some days they would disappear as soon as the afternoon roll had been called, and only reappear at the end of the day. I began moving out with them. It was as though the whole school belonged to us. They knew every nook and cranny of the buildings and grounds, and we settled in a different hiding place each time: between the lockers; in empty classrooms; behind a wall of hibiscus that seemed to grow wild and un¬ tended just a few yards from the home-ec room. It was not only Spanish classes that we were skipping. We cut geography, history... even maths. Doreen had a little spindly cousin in our class who had to report to us at the end of every day and tell us what homework the teachers had given. But I soon began to have difficulties with the assignments be¬ cause of all the classwork I was missing. (Doreen just made the little cousin do hers for her when she couldn’t.) I would scribble down something and hand it up, but sometimes I did not bother. I certainly did not bother myself doing any Spanish homework, for Mr Tewarie only occasionally made 150 a fuss over work not done. Every now and then he would rant and rave because out of the thirty-five of us, only five or six handed in his assignment. But on other days he did not even remember to take up the work that he had given. My marks fell right down. But, I thought, I would just learn up everything in time for midterm test, so that the teachers would have good marks to put in my report book again. Yet it would serve Mr Cephas right if I got a bad report. How cut up he would be if I were to fail at everything! But then, right after midterm test was Carnival, and I was going home for Carnival, so failing the test was out of the question. I had to have good marks to take home. There was still time, though. I decided I would lime with Doreen Sandiford and the others for one or two more weeks, and then I would start to take on the midterm test. One day at lunchtime I noticed that Doreen’s friends were moving more swiftly than usual towards the front of the classroom. Anjanee was absent, so I was going to have lunch with them. Now they stood in a close knot by the desk, talking in low voices, and when I joined them I realized that they were counting money. ‘Where allyu get that!’ I asked in alarm, and backed away. This gang of brazen girls could do anything, even break in somewhere and take money. Janice caught my sleeve and pulled me back. ‘Hush,’ she. said in a dramatic whisper. ‘We going in the Plaza for chicken-and-chips. Put what you have.’ 151  ‘I don’t have no money,’ I said, and started to move off, but Doreen Sandiford took me by the arm. ‘Na. She could come,’ she said to the others. ‘We have enough. Let’s go.’ So I was on my way to the Plaza, breaking the strictest rule of La Puerta Government Secondary School - putting God out of my thoughts, as Ma would say. And immediately I began to struggle to put Ma out of my thoughts, for if we were caught...! I had been to the Plaza several times, with Miss Velma, and with Uncle Leroy. When we came to town to sell the cocoa, Uncle Leroy would take Carlyle and me into the Plaza and buy us a hot dog and soft drink. Then we walked around admiring the bright store windows before we took the bus home. Ma said she would not put her foot in there because it was not a place for poor people. The Plaza was only about ten minutes’ walk from the school if you went out the front gate and took the main road. But Doreen Sandiford’s gang made their way around the playing field behind the school and squeezed through a break in the fence. Then we hustled through a maze of back streets. Once we were inside, we felt safe. The corridors were so crowded and busy that it did not seem likely that anyone would notice a few girls in La Puerta Government Sec uniform. One of the hottest calypsos of the Carnival season was coming out of the piped music system, following us wherever we went: I go break-out I go break-away. I go break-out 153  I go break-away. When you hear the shout What they talking bout ? Me that break-out Me that break-away. Soon we were brazenly singing along with it and dancing our way from one store window to the next. We were inspecting the clothes on display, each of us pretending to the others that we were allowed to go to Carnival fetes and that we were looking for an outfit to wear to the next fete. Nobody saw Mr Tewarie until he shouted at us from the doorway of Ponderosa Wild West Bar and Saloon: ‘Ey! What is this ? What going on here ?...’ Nobody waited to hear any more. The whole group turned and stampeded through the Plaza, run¬ ning wildly until we were outside and safe in a back street. Then Doreen Sandiford stopped and faced us, her arms akimbo. ‘So wait. Allyu ’fraid Tewarie now? What happen to the chicken-and-chips ?’ Not many of us were in favour of going back into the Plaza now for anything on earth, but Doreen Sandiford sucked her teeth and headed back up the road. Two others decided to go with her. The rest of us debated whether we should wait there, go back to school, or go back into the Plaza with the others. Whatever we did, we were in trouble already. We decided to stay where we were but to keep a sharp lookout all the while. They returned eventually with the boxes of chicken and chips. Swiftly we made our way through the 154 back streets again. We squeezed through the fence and hid behind a clump of bushes on the edge of the playing field. There we divided up the food and swallowed it almost whole (‘Just how macajuel snake does eat,’ Ma would say). The bell rang. We did not know what to expect when we turned up for roll call. What was clear was that we should not be late for roll call. Doreen Sandiford assured us that Tewarie was probably drunk and couldn’t identify us, so we needn’t worry. We slid into our seats for roll call before Miss Hafeez arrived. She looked as calm and pleasant as always. She called the roll, made some announce¬ ments, and left. We, the Plaza gang, winked at each other in triumph. I did not cut any classes that afternoon. In fact, I vowed that I would now begin to prepare for the midterm test - no more playing the fool. It was one thing to spite Mr Cephas, but I still had Ma to face, and my uncles, and Pappy, and Mammy Patsy. 155 T he next morning, however, before she called roll, Miss Hafeez read out a list of names - the whole of Doreen Sandiford’s gang, and me - and told us to go down to the conference room. We were caught. Miss Hafeez came to us in the conference room and spoke to us briefly before she went to her first class. Looking very disappointed, and hurt, she told us that we were going to be suspended for a week. She instructed us to go and sit outside the principal’s office and wait for a letter to take home. We would have to return with a parent or guardian to talk with the principal, and then go home again. I was dazed. Ma prided herself on the fact that she had never yet been summoned into a school to answer for misbehaviour from any child of hers. She warned us that the first child to bring such shame on her old head would be the one to send her to her grave. What was I going to do ? We walked down to the principal’s office with our hearts in our mouths. We sat waiting in silence until Doreen Sandiford said, in a matter-of-fact voice: ‘My father going to kill me with licks.’ Some of the girls burst into tears. Doreen Sandiford 156 continued to talk to herself. ‘They send for my parents when I was in primary school, and I carry the letter for my mother. She give me two slaps, but she say if I promise to behave myself she wouldn’t tell my father. Then she say if anything so happen again, she telling him one time. So now my tail in fire.’ I had to work out what I was going to do. The letter would be addressed to Ma. I would have to use the bus fare Ma had given me to come home for Carnival to go and deliver a summons to her instead! That was unthinkable. I would rather die. Now I wished that we had put down Mr Cephas as my guardian when we came to register. How could I take such a letter to Ma ? The solution was to have them address the letter to my father. He could do anything he pleased - go into a rage, shout, hit me with a book — as long as Ma didn’t find out about this. But... he might send the news to my family. He might send a message right away, just for spite — just to upset Ma. No, I would have to take the letter to Miss Velma. She might be too frightened to let him know. It slowly dawned on me, however, that suspension meant staying home! not being allowed to go to school! He was bound to find out! But no, Mr Cephas left early on mornings, before I was ready for school, and I was supposed to be home before him. I would just have to do some writing in my exercise books each day, for when he inspected them. The secretary called us up one by one to give us our letters. When it was my turn, I told her that I was living with my father and stepmother in La 157 Puerta now - Mr and Mrs Cephas - and that my grandmother was too old and sick to come all the way up from Balatier. She looked at me out of the corner of her eye. ‘You sure you not trying something ?’ ‘No, miss. Look on my form and you will see my father name: Orville Cephas.’ She scrutinized the form and then said: ‘Okay, so send it to Mr and Mrs Orville Cephas, then ?’ When Miss Velma finally opened the letter and read it, she sat down heavily and fanned herself. At first she was not going to open the letter because Mr Cephas’s name was on it. I had to tell her what it was about in order to persuade her to open it before Mr Cephas could see it. Now she was looking as though the Great Calamity had arrived at last. She whispered: ‘Why you leave the school and go up there, child ?’ ‘Some children was going for chicken-and-chips, and they...’ ‘Chicken-and-chips? You went for chicken-and- chips? I didn’t give you lunch from home? What happen to your lunch ?’ ‘Nothing, Miss Velma.’ ‘Then why you have to leave the school and go for chicken-and-chips? You want your father to say that I ain’t give you no lunch? Eh, child? You want your father to vex with me ?’ ‘No, Miss Velma.’ She started to fan herself again. ‘Child, why you bring this trouble on people ? What going to happen when your father come home? Jesus Lord, deliver us! ‘You going to tell my father, Miss Velma ?’ She stopped fanning and peered at me. ‘How you mean ? And your father have to go and see the principal ?’ ‘You could go. Miss Velma. The teacher say to bring a parent or guardian. They didn’t say you must bring your father.’ Miss Velma spent a long time studying her hands in her lap, turning them this way and that. I could see from her face that all kinds of things were going on inside her head. Then she rose, sighing, from the chair. ‘I will have to put on my clothes,’ she said. 159 M iss Velma sat wringing her hands while we waited to see the principal. Sometimes she muttered to herself. Then she sent me a long, re¬ proachful glance and rearranged herself on the chair. She sat now with her lips pursed, firmly holding her handbag on her lap. After some time the vice-principal passed through the lobby and stopped to find out what we were there for. Miss Velma handed him the letter. He scribbled rapidly on it, gave it back to her, and continued on his way. We sat still waiting for a few moments until we realized that we had been dismissed. We made our way home, with Miss Velma walking so briskly that I had some trouble keeping up with her. The rest of the day I moved around beside Miss Velma, helping with the housework; but her lips remained tightly pursed, and she seemed not to notice me at all. Michael came home, was fed, and disap¬ peared again. When Mr Cephas came home, Miss Velma was resting in her room. She hurried out and served him his food. Then he, too, disappeared again. 160 W  The next day was even more uncomfortable. Miss Velma was on tenterhooks. At the sound of a passing car she would stop whatever she was doing and wait anxiously for a few moments. Every now and then she went into the drawing room and moved aside the curtains to peep outside. On the third day she (and I) came near to suffering a heart attack. Mr Cephas’s car drew up at lunchtime. He was stamping through the house before we could even brace ourselves. Miss Velma was in the back yard washing. Mr Cephas came upon me as I was in the kitchen, mixing juice. He stood and glared at me. ‘So tell me what it is going on here, miss ? You get suspend from school and I don’t even know! Eh! I had to hear it from outside ? Where your stepmother ? Velma!’ Miss Velma was already fumbling with the half¬ door latch. ‘What it is happening here, Velma — you know this child on suspension ? What it is she tell you - she playing sick ?’ ‘No, Cephas, I know she on suspension...’ ‘What! So how I don’t know, and I is the one feeding and clothing her and sending her to school ? How I don’t know, I is the dog? Everybody in the world know my daughter get in trouble, my wife and all know, and I don’t know! I had to hear it from some young fella in my workplace who have a sister in the school! That is how I find out! Something going on around here, man — the two of you in complot against me ? Eh ? Allyu plan for me ? Allyu take a big man to make a fool ?’ 161  Miss Velma had come inside and closed the half door behind her. She seemed to take a deep breath. Her mouth trembled for a moment, but then she began to speak, in a soft but determined voice. ‘Cephas,’ she said. ‘You bring your daughter here. You don’t know the child, the child don’t know you. But you want your daughter to come and live by you. So you bring her. And what satisfaction you get out of that ? All you get is trouble. This child should go back where she belong before you really get something you didn’t bargain for.’ Miss Velma had stepped out of her half-dead, frightened self. She had finished speaking and Mr Cephas was still standing looking at her with his mouth open. ‘Oho,’ he said, finally. ‘So now you want to tell me what I must do and what I mustn’t do. First allyu ganging up against me to cover up what going on in my own house; and now you giving me orders. But no! None of you will give me orders! I is the man in this house! I is the man! I is the man!’ Miss Velma stood her ground without a word. Mr Cephas turned to me abruptly: ‘So you going to tell me what happen ? What kind of shame is this you bringing on me, eh ?’ I didn’t know what to say to him. The silence was too much for Miss Velma now, and she told him what had happened. ‘And so you take up yourself and go down there to answer for this little... You have no right! That is a disgrace to my name! Let her grandmother go and answer for her. They ain’t teach her no behav¬ iour, let them go and take the shame. You stay out 162 of it! When she misbehave, let her go for her grandmother!’ He ranted some more, then turned and marched back out through the drawing room. We heard his car start up and drive away. A few moments passed before Miss Velma seemed to shake herself out of a dream. She pulled a chair and sat down. ‘You want some juice, Miss Velma ?’ I was already getting out the glass and ice. ‘Yes, child,’ she said to herself. ‘Give me some juice.’ When I turned around with the glass of juice, she was sitting with her head propped on her elbows, massaging her forehead. ‘Child,’ she groaned, ‘you cause enough trouble. I not against you, but I don’t want you here. Better you go back. You turning your father into a worse beast than he was to begin with...’ Miss Velma stopped herself, then got up, shaking her head, to go back to her washing. Many times that week I woke up in the night with a start, because I thought Mammy Patsy was standing over my bed, looking down at me with Miss Velma’s sorrowful face. 163 T he suspended students came back out to school just two days before the midterm test. Anjanee was not at school on that day, and I was relieved. I did not look forward to seeing her. When she came to school on the following day, she could hardly even talk to me without sounding as if she would cry. , ‘Lacey, you don’t care nothing?’ was all she ever said about the suspension. For the whole day it lay like a heavy stone between us. Anjanee seemed to be gazing at me reproachfully, out of an older person’s eyes. I felt as if I was going around spoiling everything. I had made an enemy of Miss Velma, and now I had let Anjanee down so badly that it did not seem she would ever recover. She was struggling so hard to come to school, and I was throwing it all away. Then sooner or later my family would find out about the suspension, and my cutting classes, and the low marks I was getting... I went into the midterm test with the same panic that Anjanee felt at every test. I had missed more classes than she! There was no help I could offer her, for I had missed so much since the beginning of term 164 that I did not even know where the class had reached. The first test was geography. I read through the question paper and my head began to spin. It was all gibberish to me! I did not know anything - I had even forgotten things I knew before. I was not much better off at maths, or Spanish or any of the other subjects. I sat and wrote what I could, but I knew that I had failed miserably. Then right after the midterm test I would be going home for Carnival, and I would have nothing good to show my family. At Christmas I had taken home all my test papers, and everyone was so proud that Uncle Leroy had sent them to my mother, so that she would not be left out. Uncle Leroy was expecting me to bring my midterm test papers when I came home at Carnival. ‘Well, you know is only high marks you could make now, Miss Lady,’ he had said to me. ‘You can’t go and make no Duck, because we can’t send that for your Mammy Patsy. The Post Office don’t handle poultry.’ Now I couldn’t even smile at his joke. He would have nothing funny to say about these marks. Uncle Leroy was full of jokes, but he could get very sour with us for ‘playing the jackass’ with school. Once he caught Carlyle roaming in Junction with a group of friends during school hours. There and then he made Carlyle take off his shoes and hand them over. Carlyle had to walk to school barefoot for days, and in the end it was Ma who begged Uncle Leroy to give him back his shoes. What were they going to say about my school- 165 work ? As for the suspension!... I felt that Ma would just look at me and know the whole story. Nobody would have to tell her anything. I could not go home at Carnival. I decided to write to Ma, saying that I would save the bus fare and not bother to come home until the end of term. The school’s Carnival Frolic was on Friday after¬ noon. Marlon Peters’s gang was bringing out a band called ‘Tails of the Meek Heroes.’ The characters in the band were Ketch-Tail, Cut-Tail, Pissing-Tail, Haul-Your-Tail, Tail-Between-Your-Legs, Planasse- Tail, and others. Charmaine Springer was entering the calypso competition. Her calypso name was Lady Reporter, and she had made up a calypso called ‘The Teacher Don’t Know Me’. I didn’t stay for the Frolic. On Carnival Monday and Tuesday, whenever the wind blew towards us from Main Street it brought snatches of music. But our part of town was very quiet, and I did not go out at all. Mr Cephas had left the house with a group of very merry cronies on the Sunday night, and only re¬ appeared on Monday after the Jouvert was over at about eleven o’clock, to bathe and eat before he plunged back into the town. Miss Velma sent Michael to see the bands pass down Main Street, warning him to be back before dark. She stayed at home, and so did I, she in her room and I in mine. 166 B y the time we came back out to school on Ash Wednesday, Anjanee had softened again. She was more worried about me than reproachful. Her one concern was that I catch up on my schoolwork and begin to make good marks again. On mornings she would ask anxiously: ‘Lacey, you do the homework?’ and she would smile with relief when I took out my exercise books and showed her all my homework done. She did not let me out of her sight all day, following me every¬ where, as tired as she was, to make sure that I did not slip away and hide instead of coming to class. But she was the one to worry about. She did not look at all well. Even her school shirt was wearing thin. It was no longer yellow: the colour now was nearer to cream, and holes were beginning to appear in it. Like the shirt, Anjanee was beginning to seem very pale, even transparent. It was as if she was fading away. Sometimes her voice was almost a whisper, and her movements were slow and weary. In class she propped her head on her elbow and fell asleep. When we had P.E. the teacher didn’t press her to 167 take part in the games and exercises. She let her sit and watch. One day Anjanee didn’t even open her lunch. ‘What happen, Anjanee, you not eating today ?’ I asked with some alarm, because she looked so worn out that I thought she could topple off the log at any minute. ‘No - I not feeling hungry. I will eat it later.’ I searched her face. ‘You taking the pills the doctor give you ?’ ‘Yes, I taking the pills.’ ‘Well, they not helping you? You not getting better ?’ Anjanee bowed her head. She spoke as if musing to herself: ‘The doctor say I have to rest, too. But how I will rest? I have to help my mother. And I want to come to school. I want to come to school and pass my exam!’ She had begun to speak fiercely. ‘And if I can’t come to school and pass my exam...!’ She stopped, staring out across the playing field, where there was nothing to be seen. One Monday morning Anjanee fainted in assembly. She just sank to the floor next to me, without a sound. It took a few seconds before everyone was aware of what had happened. I was kneeling on the floor trying to pick her up when some teachers rushed over to us. They drew me away and a teacher lifted her up in one scoop. As he hurried away with her dangling body, I tried to follow, but Miss Hafeez put her arm around my shoulders and made me stay. 168 I A njanee didn’t come to school the next day. That was not surprising, and yet I drooped for the whole morning, and then in the afternoon I went and sat behind the music room, feeling tense and uneasy. For three days Anjanee did not appear. On Friday morning I woke up with such a heavy feeling that I could not move. A weight like lead seemed to be pressing down on me. My head and all my limbs felt like board, and right in the centre, just above my navel, was a tight knot that was going to stifle me. It was the dream I had had the night before. Mammy Patsy was sitting in class next to me in Anjanee’s thin, faded shirt. But the Circus-horse barked something at her, and then her seat was empty. At another moment Mammy Patsy was standing in the middle of Miss Velma’s dasheen patch, calling to me to bring her my geography book; but I had thrown the geography book in the dustbin at school. Then I was running down the road towards the school to get the geography book, running through all the back.streets of La Puerta, turning corners right and left, but getting no nearer to the school. So I went back to where I had left Mammy Patsy. But 169 when I got there it was Ma Zelline in the dasheen patch, and she threw one reproachful glance at me and fell down dead from a stroke. The heaviness remained. In fact, it grew worse as I got ready for school. I moved so slowly that Miss Velma asked me whether I was sick. I replied that I was okay, but she continued to eye me as though she could see some trouble. As I walked to school that Friday, I thought of all the time I had wasted over the past weeks. I would have to settle down and get serious. I had to make sure that I had a good report at the end of the term to send to my mother. I sat in Mrs Lopez’s class trying to concentrate on mathematics, but I could not. Anjanee had now missed a whole week of school. Was she too sick to come to school ? Or had she really given up ? She had to come back to school, she just had to come back! Then I heard the Gircus-horse angrily calling my name, and I suddenly realized that everybody was busy writing something while I sat and stared straight ahead of me. ‘You! Madam! What is going on ? No Miss Jugmo- hansingh, eh? Well, if you can’t live without your sidekick, then you can go and join her wherever she is, if that is all the ambition you have. Now you just as badly off as she, anyway. When you play with dog, you get fleas.’ I sprang to my feet in such a rage that my chair fell over with a terrible crash. ‘Your mother must be the dog! Your mother...!’ I couldn’t believe that this was my voice, shouting 170 these words at a teacher! This was absolutely the rudest thing I had ever done in the whole of my life. So once more I was sitting outside the principal’s office, waiting for a letter to take home. I had a pain in my belly and couldn’t think straight. This time I would have to take the letter to Mr Cephas, for Miss Velma was not going to stick her neck out for me again. Mr Cephas ? Not Mr Cephas. He had washed his hands of me. He had made it clear that if I got myself into trouble at school again, it would be Ma’s business! Ma would have to be summoned to come into the school because of me! The secretary called me and gave me the letter. Then I had to go back to the classroom for my books. As I walked away, I was thinking about how Ma would have to put on her going-out clothes to come into the school and hear about all my misdeeds: the Plaza, the suspension, cutting classes, not studying... And now I had cursed a teacher’s mother! All of this they would pile on her head. It would be very easy if she would just give me a licking. That would be a relief. But she probably would not lift a finger at me. She would just be sad, and hurt, and ashamed. And Pappy would have to hear about it, too, and Uncle Leroy, and my mother working herself to death for us up in New York. | As I climbed the steps I realized that there was one big commotion going on upstairs. The whole floor was alive with excitement. Children were talking at 171 the tops of their voices and darting in and out of classroom doors. My class was on its feet, except for two girls crying at their desks and Marlon Peters glued to his chair, thunderstruck. Everybody else was moving crazily about and all talking at the same time. I didn’t know that I had caused such a stir. What I had said to Mrs Lopez was so outrageous that it had shaken up almost the whole school! Then what would it do to Ma! She would get a stroke right away! But nobody even noticed me. I was standing in the doorway and nobody was seeing me. So this couldn’t be anything to do with me. Yet I was suddenly cold with fright, and I wanted to rush back out before I could hear what it was that had everybody in such a state of shock. Now everyone fell quiet. They stared at me speech¬ lessly for a few seconds, then a girl came to me and said: ‘Lacey! You ain’t hear what happen? Anjanee drink poison!’ I grabbed my books and rushed out. I didn’t want to hear the rest. I knew. She was dead. I made my way blindly down the stairs. The whole school was buzzing now, and I walked faster and faster — to the gate and out into the road. 172 I was crossing streets, turning corners, weaving my way through traffic. The belly pain was much worse, and now my insides seemed to have turned to liquid. I found myself approaching the bus station. What I planned to do there, I didn’t know. Take a bus home? But Ma would be so ashamed, and hurt, and so heartbroken that she might have to go and lie down and we would have to fan her, and she mightn’t recover. And Mammy Patsy would have to give up night school and come home... The dream of the night before was following me: I had let everybody down, and now what Anjanee had done to herself was my fault! She must have done it because I let her down! I made an about-turn and shot back up the road. I had to stop thinking or my head would burst. When I was a good distance from the bus station, I slowed down. It was still early, not even lunchtime. Miss Velma would ask why I was home so early. I would tell her I had belly pains. I would ask her for a tablet. Miss Velma had all kinds of tablets - for her high blood pressure and her anaemia; for headache, for 173 arthritis; for Mr Cephas’s gallstones and Michael’s worm-fits. She kept them somewhere in her bed-room so that Michael could not interfere with them. I started to walk fast again. I would get tablets from Miss Velma. I had to stop thinking. Miss Velma did not seem very surprised to see me. Somehow she had already heard the news of Anjanee and thought that the whole school had been sent home for the day. ‘But what a thing, eh ? These Indian girls so quick to take poison. You didn’t know the girl — you know her ?’ ‘No,’ I said. ‘I didn’t know her.’ Then I asked if I could have something for belly pains. ‘Eh-eh! Like you drink some of what the girl drink!’ Miss Velma chuckled. She was quite taken up with the news, even a little excited. Then she got serious. ‘Since morning I could see something happen to you, you know. What kind of bellyache is this, now ? Come.’ I followed her into the bedroom. She pulled a chair to the wardrobe and climbed on to the chair. She rummaged on top of the wardrobe for a while and then took down a shoe box. It was crammed full of little bottles, boxes, enve¬ lopes, and tubes, all helter-skelter. She sat on the bed with the box on her lap and eyed me for a moment: ‘Tell me what it is - you turn a Young Lady ?’ I was only half listening, for I was looking into the box and thinking that there must be medicine in there for every pain in the world... ‘All right,’ Miss Velma was saying. ‘I will give you 174 something for the belly pain, and then you will go and bathe.’ Miss Velma took out a bottle of yellowish liquid. She put back her medicine box in its place and led me to the kitchen. There I swallowed two large spoonfuls of the medicine without even tasting it. ‘Go and bathe now,’ Miss Velma ordered. I nodded and went into my bedroom, where I sat down heavily on the bed. I was tired. Thoughts were racing around inside my head, but I didn’t want to think too much. Anjanee - dead? I suddenly felt like screaming and I had to put my hand over my mouth. I didn’t want Miss Velma to come rushing in. Sooner or later she would go outside to take the clothes off the line, or clean fish, or tend her flowers. She spent a lot of time in the yard when Mr Cephas wasn’t at home. As soon as she went outside, I would quickly find the box of medicine and take it into the bathroom with me. I heard her calling. ‘Yes, Miss Velma,’ I called back. ‘I going to bathe just now. I cooling off.’ ‘All right. I just going down by the market to come back.’ Then I heard her approaching and bent down to take off my shoes and socks. She stuck her head in the door and said, in a dramatic whisper, as if the two of us were in a plot together: ‘I put something in the bathroom cupboard, in case. You know how to fix yourself up - in case ?’ I nodded, and she left. As soon as I heard the front door close, I got up to go for the medicine box. I turned around to take my slippers from under the 175 bed, and there, where I had been sitting, was a bright pink stain. Miss Velma was right! For a brief moment I was very excited. I couldn’t wait to tell Anjanee! Now we were both grown-up Young Ladies, I would announce to her as soon as... But Anjanee wasn’t there! Anjanee was not there for me to tell her anything, in my whole life, ever again! I put my hands to my ears and squeezed them tight against my head: ‘No! Not true!’ I shouted. I sat down heavily. Something frightful was happen¬ ing inside my head — a pounding, pounding, and a giddying tightness. For a moment I could not remem¬ ber what to do next. Too many things were beating about in my head. Anjanee saying, ‘Lacey, you don’t care nothing?’ The new suspension letter that I had in my notebook to take home to my family; and how Ma would have to put on her clothes and come up to La Puerta, and they would give her a seat and make her listen as they told of all the things I had done. My head was going to burst. I had to stop thinking. I shot up. The medicine. I had to get some medi¬ cine. I rushed into the bedroom and dragged the chair to the wardrobe. The top of the wardrobe was piled high with all kinds of things, and I brought down a shower of old papers before I could find the shoebox. I jumped off the chair to gather up the papers scattered on the floor. I was scooping up dusty, tattered newspapers, receipts, Christmas cards, photo¬ graphs, and letters, and suddenly there in the pile was a picture of Miss Velma in her high-school uniform. My head was getting bigger and bigger all the 176 time, stretching and stretching like a balloon... Now it was Anjanee’s eyes looking at me reproach¬ fully out of the photograph, and I knew what she wanted to say to me... My head now seemed to burst into pieces, and I started to scream... I screamed until I didn’t have to think anymore, when everything went dark. 177 It was not until the Easter holidays that I started to go out into the yard again. I had spent weeks indoors. After I came home from the hospital, I stayed in the bedroom, day and night. I lay on the bed staring up at the underside of the roof for hours. What I was really doing was making my way across the room by travelling up and down the tracks in the galvanize. This was a very difficult task, and it needed a great deal of time and patience. The galvanize was like the big garden: long beds lying side by side with canals in between. I had to walk the full length of every single bed and every single canal in order to get from one side of the room to the other. I had to cover the whole area - I could not miss a track. This took hours, for if you were not careful, you could easily slip off the track and end up in the wrong one, and forget where you had reached. Every time this happened I had to start all over again — up the first track, down the next, up the next one... Nobody could get me out of the bedroom. I hardly ate anything and I did not talk. At first, Ruth and Kenwyn would come to the door and stare, wide-eyed, at me. When night fell, 178 they tiptoed into the room and curled up beside me on the bed. Then they started coming into the room to chat, sometimes to tell me long stories of the dogs, or the pigs. At night they talked to me until they fell asleep — they did not seem to notice that I was not answer¬ ing. To them it was just as before, when we lay on the big bed together every night and talked until we were too tired to say another word. On some nights Ma came and lay on the bed, too, right next to me. She chatted with Pappy, who was lying in bed on the other side of the partition. She hummed drowsy hymns. She told us stories of when she was a little girl, and then stories of when Mammy Patsy and Uncle Jamesie and Uncle Leroy were little. And when she thought we were all asleep, she raised herself gently off the bed and left. In the day she would come and sit on the chair by the bed, peeling vegetables, grating coconut, or picking rice, and talking, talking - about Ma Zell- ine and how she was still not too well, but how much she was looking forward to my visiting her when I got well; about how the mango-vert tree was bearing and Carlyle was eating all; about the big thanksgiving she was planning to keep because her granddaughter had been brought back to her... Sometimes Pappy sat in the chair by the bed for hours, until he fell asleep on himself. Uncle Leroy would bring me a mango, or a ripe fig, and peel it for me. He would coax me to eat, telling me that he had just managed to save that one mango or that one ripe fig from Carlyle and the pigs. ‘You better hurry 179 up and come outside, you know, Lacey. They eating up everything!’ As the days passed, I began to realize that the house was overquiet. I could not hear Ruth and Kenwyn playing in the yard. Inside the house, the big-people talked in whispers. Sometimes Uncle Jame- sie was there, and sometimes Tantie Monica; but I had not seen my cousins since the hospital. Now I spent a lot of time straining my ears to pick up sounds from outside: the cocoyea broom scratch¬ ing the ground; a hen singing loudly to let it be known that she had just laid her egg; Uncle Leroy calling Carlyle; a neighbour passing down the Trace and calling out greetings to Ma. The quiet and the whispering began to annoy me. I was glad whenever the children came in to tell me their news: a big, bumpy crapaud had hopped into the kitchen and Ma chased it out with the cocoyea broom; Uncle Leroy was going to get watermelon for us; Carlyle had made mango chow for them, with hot, hot pepper; Ma couldn’t find the frizzled fowl, so she must be setting in the bush... By now I was able to run up and down the lines in the galvanize with no trouble at all. I took to sitting up on the bed to listen, instead of lying down with my eyes fixed on the roof. Then one afternoon Ma and Pappy were talking in low voices in the gallery, and I heard Ma saying sadly that she couldn’t bring Charlene for Easter with Lacey still so sick... Slowly I climbed down from the bed. I stood for a few seconds to steady my legs - I had not walked for a long time. 180  When I appeared in the doorway, they were at first too shocked to move. Then Ma flew up and took hold of me. She led me to a chair, calling loudly all the while: ‘Leroy! Leroy! Come quick, Leroy!’ Uncle Leroy came rushing around the side of the house with his cutlass in his hand. The dogs were right behind him, then Carlyle. Ruth and Kenwyn came up a few moments later. Kenwyn could not move very fast on his short bandy-legs, and Ruth had to wait for him. 181  I was glad to be in the world again. Every morning I got up early and went down to the kitchen with Ma and Pappy. They let me drink coffee with them - just a little drop, with plenty of milk - and we made chocolate tea for the little children. We kneaded the flour and fried little bakes, or we put one big bake to roast while we sipped our coffee. At first they made me lie down and rest every * afternoon, but after a few days I protested, because I was no longer sick or weak. I began to help Ma with the sugar-cake again. Then when Charlene came I took over bathing the little children. At the end of each day they wore a coat of dust streaked with mango or some other juice, and their feet were often cased in mud. I would fetch some buckets of water and fill the bath pan in the back yard. When I had scrubbed, rinsed, and dried each one, I put them to sit on the back steps. They put their clothes on, and I sat on the steps and combed their hair while Ma or Uncle Leroy made tea down in the kitchen. A few days before the end of the holidays, I put on Ma’s boots and tied my head with a cloth to go down into the land with Uncle Leroy and Carlyle. We walked past my garden, which was all in bush. ‘Well, that is the end of the dolly-garden,’ Uncle Leroy said. ‘Now you going down and make real garden. You have to make garden to eat now, girl, because you not getting Mr Cephas grocery food again!’ Uncle Leroy had already explained to me that my father was still going to buy my books and uniform each year, but that was all. He refused to give money to help feed me, or to pay the taxi fare to Junction. One day while I was still sick, Pappy, Uncle Jame- sie and Uncle Leroy had gone to see my father in his office. They had told him that I could not live with him, but that he still had to help me, or I wouldn’t be able to finish secondary school. Uncle Leroy would not tell me what exactly had happened in the office, or how they had persuaded my father to help me. ‘Oh, we just make him sweat a little bit’ was all he would say, giving a wicked smile. ‘Man, we coulda sweat out the taxi money out of he, you know — taxi money, lunch money, anything! But your dotish grandfather stop us, and make one big speech: “We have our pride and our dignity. You may keep your filthy lucre, man, and live with your conscience. We are thankful for small mercies. God will provide.” ’ Uncle Leroy’s imitations of Pappy always made me laugh. We were sitting on the back steps, and I laughed so loudly that Ma poked her head through the kitchen window and peered up at us. A smile spread over her face: ‘Well, hear you, eh girl? You alive V * 183 Early one morning the frizzled fowl came strutting into the yard with a noisy band of chickens behind her. Ma said that those chickens would be mine, and when the hens started to lay I could sell the eggs in the market so that I would have a little taxi fare. She was not happy about my having to get up so early every morning to catch the bus. She called curses down on my father for his stinginess, and fretted to herself that she did not know how the child would make out - foreday morning the poor child would be on the road as though she was going to do estate work. ‘Don’t mind that, Ma,’ I said. ‘Anjanee used to have to wake up four o’clock in the morning to go to school.’ I thought about Anjanee a great deal. I wasn’t afraid to think about her now. Sometimes I still dreamed that the two of us were on a bus together going somewhere, and talking, talking to each other. As the reopening of school drew closer, I felt as though I was taking up her life. For just like her I would now have to set out early, early in the morning and travel miles to school. At home I would have plenty of work to do, and I would have to go and help with selling the things that Ma and Carlyle made during the week. We had to make ends meet, for we did not want to trouble Mammy Patsy for anything more than she was already sending us. She had to have her chance, too, and we would have to learn to cut and contrive, Ma said, so that Mammy Patsy would have money to go to school. My thoughts went to La Puerta Government Sec¬ ondary School, and to the Cephases. I felt very sorry for Michael. I decided that I would go and visit him one day, and Miss Velma, and even my father. When I tried to think of Mrs. Lopez, all that came into my mind was Marlon Peters decked in all his sister’s clothes, with his grandmother’s stock-ings sliding down his legs. Then Mrs. Lopez became a Carnival character on Jouvert morning beating on an old rusty pitch-oil tin and making a long, incompre¬ hensible speech. On the weekend before I went back to school, Uncle Leroy and his friends started to build the big bamboo tent in the yard for the thanksgiving. Ma was planning to feed everybody in Sooklal Trace as well as all her godchildren, macommeres, relatives, friends, and enemies, it seemed. All the neighbours had already agreed to lend us chairs, and a whole gang of neighbours and macommeres were going to come and help with the cooking. The Saturday after the reopening of school was my birthday, and that was the day when Ma was going to keep the thanksgiving.