10
So I marry Fay, and we do the church and we do the party that Miss Cicely organise up Lady Musgrave Road with pink champagne and a little orchestra in the garden and a whole heap a people I never see before and never had nothing to say to, and who had nothing to say to me. And we drive up to Ocho Rios.
The whole week me and Fay having the honeymoon she say hardly two words to me. She busy with her hair, she fixing her face, she straightening her dress. She instructing the maid and telling the waiter what she want to eat, and she chatting with these complete strangers that she meet here and there every day. Me, she don’t say nothing to. She can barely even bring herself to look at me. We got the double bed right there inside the room and I am sleeping so far over my side I nearly falling out. Is just the sheet tuck in there under the mattress that saving me from hitting the cold tile floor every night.
And then the last night before we go home we do everything just the same way we been doing it all week. Fay take her shower and fix up herself and when she finish in the bathroom then it my turn to go take a shower and get ready for dinner. They serve dinner the same time every evening. Seven thirty for drinks and the little snack things on the terrace, and the band playing some gentle calypso. Eight pm you seated and working yu way through these five courses that they serve you every night. Not that I am complaining. The food is good, and every night is something else that I never see before. Like to me callaloo was callaloo but here they got it pile up in a little sandwich tower with some thin fried bread in between each layer and some strips of saltfish on top lay out like a star. And what they doing with the lobster I don’t know, but it cheesy and good, and the steak and the cream and the pork and the apple, and a whole heap a green and purple vegetable I can’t even recognise. But it good. It all good. It beautiful too under the clear Caribbean sky with the stars, and the music and the white linen tablecloth and the ice cubes clinking in the big water glass and the candles flickering on a little evening breeze. It nice. It civilised. They know how to look after you in this place.
To me it is a miracle. It is not a dream come true because I couldn’t have dreamed this. Fay, she take it like she take everything else, like she was expecting it. She in her element.
So this evening I shower and put on a nice pale blue Sea Island cotton shirt and some grey slacks and I stick a clean handkerchief in my pocket and I step out on to the veranda, and she is sitting there looking out to sea. She got the rocking chair pull up right to the veranda edge with her legs stretch out in front of her and her feet on the little white wall crossed at the ankles. She quiet. So I sit down on the sofa behind her where I can just catch sight of the sun setting. We nuh say nothing. We just stay there like that. Fay looking at the lawn and the sand and the hammock strung up between the coconut trees and me watching a blaze of orange sinking into the sea.
And then after a while I hear a little sniff and a snivel. A little snivel like she crying. I dunno what to do so I just sit there. But then the sound carry on so I get up and I walk over to where she sitting and I look at her. I look at her in the face and is true, she crying. So I take the kerchief outta my pocket and I hand it to her and she take it. She mop her eye gentle like she don’t want spoil her make-up, but she nuh say nothing. So I go back and sit down on the sofa.
By this time now it is getting dark and I see the lamps on the other verandas switching on one by one. But neither me nor Fay make no move to go switch on any lamp. We just sit there in the fading light and the silence.
Then she say to me, ‘My father told me it was better for me to marry you than to spend the rest of my life fighting with my mother.’
‘You didn’t have to marry me. You could have wait until somebody more suitable come along.’
‘What, after Cicely had set her sights on you?’
‘I’m sure Miss Cicely not so stubborn to stick to her own view if maybe you happier with somebody else.’
Fay just laugh. She just throw her head back and laugh with the tears still rolling down her face. And then she turn ’round and look at me. And looking at her like that it seem like for the first time ever since I set eyes on her that morning at the Chinese Athletic Club, her guard was down.
‘You think so?’
I just sit there because I dunno what to say to her. She look at me and she sorta smile and then she get up and start walk back inside. But just as she going pass me I stand up and reach out. And I grab her and hug her to me. I dunno what make me think it would be alright to go do a thing like that. I never take any liberty like that with her before. I suppose it was just instinct, even though the only other time I ever touch her was when I take her hand in the church to put the ring on it. And just now with us standing there I realise that we even miss the bit in the wedding when the priest tell you to kiss the bride, so I reckon either Fay or Miss Cicely must have tell him to leave that part out.
So the two of us entwined in the dark on the veranda and that is when she start to cry. Really sob like her whole body was heaving and it was taking all my strength to hold her up and stop the two of us from falling on the ground. It was like a little kindness turn the key to a floodgate that open up and let everything pour out. So I reckon it was some heavy burden that she was carrying there, but I didn’t say nothing. Truth is I didn’t know what to say to her. So I just carry on holding her tight and hoping that would be enough.
This is how we stay while I am looking over her shoulder and seeing the waiters in their white uniform with the big wooden tray on their shoulder carrying the food to the guests that want room service. And as they coming and going I know it time, so eventually after she calm herself down I say to her, ‘You want go get some dinner?’ When she ease back I see she was looking at me with a tenderness that almost make my heart bust. Then she mop her face and blow her nose on the kerchief I give her.
I look at Fay standing there on the veranda and I think well I dunno who Fay Wong is but maybe Fay dunno who Fay Wong is neither because that face that she put on for everybody just seem like a mask to me now.
That night when we go to sleep she crawl over to me and pull me off the edge into the middle of the bed, and then she rest her head on my shoulder and wrap my arm ’round her, just as I was listening to the tree frogs picking up their song.
When me and Fay finish the honeymoon and come home she take one look at Matthews Lane and she start to cry. The next day she go to her father’s and the day after that she come back. And then she start cry again.
I ask her what the matter, but Fay can’t even look at me. All I seeing is her back as she laying down or sitting on the edge of the bed.
‘I know this house not what you used to but it not so bad. We can do something fix it up.’ She no say nothing to me and I can’t make out if she angry or if she sad so I say, ‘It better than fighting with Miss Cicely.’ And that is when she turn ’round and look at me.
‘What on earth made you think I could come here to Matthews Lane and live in a place like this?’
‘It’s my home, Fay. This is my family with Ma and Zhang. What do you want me to do, leave them? Look at them, the two of them old. I can’t go leave them just like that. And I don’t want to. I am the son, they my responsibility. You forget you Chinese?’
‘You think I am Chinese?’
‘What you talking ’bout?’
And she just get up and walk out the room.
I think maybe I go buy something to cheer Fay up, like some nice silk blouse and silk stocking and some vase to brighten up the bedroom. And every night when we go to bed I talk to her. I tell ’bout everything happening ’round Chinatown and I ask her what kinda day she have. But all I see is her back and all I hear is the constant snivel and the blow of her nose. I never know a person could cry so much. I thought maybe eventually they would run outta water but not Fay. She keep it up day and night till it really start to vex everybody.
I can’t take it. It get so bad I start sleeping down the shop but Zhang say it not fair on everybody else in the house, I have to try do something with her. So eventually three weeks later I sit her down and I say to her, ‘Fay, nobody in the house can take your crying no more. You have to tell me what we going do to put an end to it.’ And I really look at her while she sitting on the edge of the bed and me kneeling on the hard wooden floor in front of
