from an honourable family; a believer in the Republic; a supporter of Dr Sun Yat-sen. He could not have made a better match.’
Just then I turn ’round and see one of the ducks making to come into the room so I get up and go shoo it away. When I come back Zhang got the second letter in his hand. By now the light was fading, so he walk over to the door and stand there in the open space.
‘I wrote to Yang Tzu, your father, a little while after I settled in Jamaica but I did not get a reply. It was three years before your mother wrote back to me.’ And then he start to read.
‘Yang Tzu is well. We have been working very hard in the fields so that we have enough. But times are hard. The warlords are relentless. They keep increasing the land rent and other taxes are high and numerous as ever. Yuan Shikai has even tried to have himself crowned as Emperor. Tzu continues to support the struggle of the revolutionary forces, but it is difficult. Many of the bourgeoisie seem happy to follow the warlords, and although Sun Yat-sen is still committed to the salvation of China the revolution seems to have lost its way. At the moment Tzu is deeply concerned about the Japanese who have taken control of Shandong and Manchuria and whose enterprises are expanding greatly in China. He is convinced that they are set on turning China into a colony for their exclusive exploitation while the Western imperialists are busy with their war in Europe. We have a son. Tzu insisted that he should be named Yang Xiuquan. So he too is thinking of you.’
‘Then in 1925 she sent me another letter.
‘Yang Tzu is dead. Shot by British and French soldiers at Shaji supporting Guangzhou-Hongkong strikers. We have a second son, Yang Pao. Your sister by affection. Meiling.
‘So that was when I went to Chin and the Chinatown Committee and asked them to pay me because in all the years I had never received a penny, I was just given whatever food or supplies I needed from the stores, and Chin paid my rent in Luke Lane so I had no need. But now I needed cash money for your passage. I also asked Chin to let me start up a little pai-ke-p’iao business. We Chinese like to gamble, so I thought I could make something there and he agreed.
‘Chin said to me, “You get woman and boys from China? Good. Time you married and have family.” So he was keen but he had the wrong idea, and I did not feel like I wanted to explain anything to him. I just wrote to Meiling and told her I would send the passage for the three of you to come to Jamaica.’
Next day I ask Ma why my father never reply to Zhang’s letter. She say, ‘He tried many times, but his tears soaked into the paper.’
After that I just do what Zhang tell me to do, and hope that maybe one day I become like him, a man that believe in something. A man that is loyal to a cause. A man that people can count on. Sun Tzu say, ‘
8
The year after Xiuquan gone to America Zhang tell me he want to stop.
‘I have lost two Yangs. Yang Tzu to glory and the revolution and Yang Xiuquan to the Americans and their war. I am tired, Pao. This business is not for old men like me.’
I reckon he think it was a new era because in 1944 Jamaica get a new constitution giving us representative government and they decide to call a general election so everybody was running round excited to go vote for the first time. So maybe Zhang think it was my time as well. My time to come of age. I take over little bit by bit, so that by the time the war end in 1945, and they say I turn twenty-one, I had complete control of Chinatown. And that was when it hit me. That after all these years I wasn’t playing at this thing no more. I was responsible.
Next thing Miss Tilly get herself a man and she want Hampton to move outta the house. Zhang say it OK Hampton can come live at Matthews Lane, so he move into the room next to Zhang. And this is when I discover how come Hampton so big and strong because when him move in him bring a tiny little bag with his things and a whole heap a iron that he set up in the yard so that every day he is busy doing bench and curl, and clean and jerk.
But then Tilly say she want all the surplus move outta her outhouse as well, and even though we have the storeroom at Matthews Lane Zhang say he don’t want the surplus in the yard. So me and Hampton have to go find somewhere to put it.
We rent a shop in West Street. It is a dark, rundown wreck of a place but it cheap and it have a big, dry storeroom out the back. We got no intention of turning our hand to shopkeeping but we reckon with a little fix-up and a lick of paint we can make a nice office away from Matthews Lane.
The only problem is we have to put something on the shelves to make it at least look like we in business. So we have to go buy some things because the surplus we have in the storeroom we can’t put out on the shelf like that in broad daylight. Well that is OK but we don’t want to put out so much stuff so we actually start attract business, not that there is much likelihood of that in a place like West Street. So we balance it out. Every now and again we get a vagrant come by and we have to give him something to scram. The whole thing work out right in the end.
Now me and Hampton and the Judge down there most days eating oysters and drinking beer. We still have Zhang’s weekly pick-up ’round Chinatown, and his pai-ke-p’iao business, which is good because Chin and the Chinatown Committee not looking after us like the way they do with Zhang in the beginning. Chin say that was a long time ago and a different sort of arrangement. Now we have to make our own way. So we got Bill, and now we have a Chinaman at a chicken farm in Red Hills telling his boss the chickens weigh four pounds when they weigh six and doing all sort of calculations over how many eggs he got; and we driving chickens and eggs all over town and taking our cut.
So business is good and we just beginning to think that maybe we should be hiring up some help, and that was when she turn up. Gloria. And everything that start with her start.
9
The thing that play on my mind right after that night I go to tell Gloria about the wedding was how come she already know ’bout me marrying Fay. There wasn’t but three days between me asking Miss Cicely and me going to tell Gloria, but when I get there she already know all about it, I think it curious as is only me and Miss Cicely in the picture, apart from maybe Fay if Miss Cicely bother to mention it to her and I couldn’t see Fay going to Gloria with the news. So anyway I decide I going go ask Gloria but I dunno how to do it. I reckon I wait till Tuesday come round. That way she have the whole of the weekend to think on it and Tuesday is my regular day anyway. So I just bide my time and think that when Tuesday afternoon come I will just turn up on the doorstep like I do every week because my time with Gloria is Tuesday, Thursday and Friday afternoon, and then Friday evening when I go make my collection but that is just business.
I dunno why it like that. It seem to me that Monday, Wednesday and Friday would make better sense. But it no matter what I think. My days is fixed just the way Gloria want it so that is how it is.
So Tuesday coming and I can’t decide whether to go over there or not. I don’t want to go in case she don’t want to see me. But I don’t want to not go in case she think I not interested. I don’t want her to start think that
