To me the whole thing was a joke because after three hundred years of British rule the Queen decide she going let us go vote but the House of Representatives we elect didn’t have no power to do nothing. All it could do was talk, and make decisions that the Governor have the last say over anyway. They call it a partnership between the Colonial Office and the ministers. I call it a stupid waste of time.
But these women take it all serious, like they think all this going actually make a difference to something. Then just the same way they want set the country to right, the next thing is they laughing and joking and getting up and dancing with one another when the mood take them.
What I discover ’bout Gloria is that she got a edge but she also kind and gentle. And when she walk with me out to the car I notice how her arms look like black satin in the moonlight, and my nose catch the sweet, spicy smell coming off of her. Afterwards I discover it a perfume called Khus Khus.
After that I find I am going over there almost every other day. I take something with me, like a hat or a newspaper or something like that, and I leave it there on purpose so I have to go back and fetch it. Then it seem that every errand I am running take me by the house and I step inside because I am passing. It get so bad the rest of the girls just start laughing when they see me coming. So then even I know how it must look. And all I am doing there is drinking tea with Gloria Campbell. I am sipping Lipton’s Yellow Label at ten o’clock in the morning and ten o’clock at night. And I am talking about god knows what because half the time I can’t remember.
Then one day Gloria smile at me and say, ‘You know when I ask you to watch over us I didn’t mean for you to be sitting down here every day looking at me. I already broadcast the news that we under your wing so everything is fine.’
I rest the cup in the saucer, and I put the saucer on the table, and I stand up and say, ‘That is good,’ and I walk out.
Some days she have to tell me to go away because the poor woman can’t get no work done. Every day I promise myself that I will stop going there, and that last maybe two or three days.
Next thing you know I become a odd-job man, fixing up the cupboard door, sawing and hammering even though I don’t know a damn thing ’bout what I am doing. I swear every time I fix something and leave they must have to call a carpenter to come sort it out.
Then one day me and Judge Finley sitting alone in the shop and him say to me, ‘What you doing with Gloria Campbell?’
And I say, ‘Nothing.’
‘Well you better make up your mind to do something or stop going over there. You got things to do and I’m damn sure she got plenty to keep herself busy as well.’
So I say to him, ‘What yu think of Gloria?’
‘What you asking me this for?’
‘I just asking yu, that’s all.’
‘Well now you asking me to give an opinion about a woman I hardly know, a woman I seen maybe five or six times when I happen to take a envelope from her. She beautiful, I give you that. And she got style. She carry herself well. And I think she have some brains as well running all them girls and turning a profit. Well, I reckon a man wouldn’t mind to be seen out with a woman looking that good on his arm. But he wouldn’t marry her.’
‘Who is talking ’bout marrying?’
‘Well maybe it time you thinking ’bout it at least.’
‘So what you know ’bout it? You not even married yourself.’
‘Oh yes, I get married last year.’
‘You get married and you don’t tell nobody ’bout it?’
‘Her people from St Thomas, we go over there and we do it.’
‘And you don’t invite nobody to come join in the celebration?’
‘Marriage is not for celebrating. It is something you do to give your children a name.’
After that I stop going to see Gloria, but it don’t stop me from thinking ’bout her. I am thinking about her so much it like I am in a daze. I drive the wrong way from Half Way Tree to Red Hills and have to turn ’round. I count out the pai-ke-p’iao money two, three times but I can’t make it add up. I have to keep asking Hampton and Finley what they say to me because I can’t remember.
Then one evening me and Zhang sitting at the table in Matthews Lane. Ma at temple and Hampton out on the prowl. Zhang ask me, ‘You sick?’
And I tell him no.
‘So it must be a woman.’
What Zhang know about women I don’t know. He and my father was just boys when they busy fighting for Dr Sun Yat-sen and the Republic and when that was done he leave China and come to Jamaica and live like a hermit, until my father get killed and Zhang save up the passage and send for us. And in all that time I don’t think he even talked to a woman.
‘How you feel?’ he ask me.
‘I feel like I am under water and everything is just out of reach. Everything is muffled. I can’t quite hear. And I can’t touch or feel anything, my arms just waving about in the air. Except when I am with her and then it is like my feet are on the ground. Everything is sharp and focused and when I put my hand on the table like this, I can feel the wood under my fingers. And it feel like it matters. That it matters that I am sitting there with her. That it mean something. I feel happy just to watch her pour the tea and stir in the milk.’
‘This is the whore in East Kingston?’
That word hit me so hard because it don’t seem to describe anything about Gloria. It don’t seem to be associated with her in any way. But I know what Zhang mean and I say, ‘Yes.’
And he just get up from the table and walk away up the yard.
The next Friday night when I go to make the weekly pick-up everything seem different. I don’t know what. The music is playing, the liquor is flowing, the women is busy. The place look exactly the same. So I decide that it must be me that is different. Maybe it because I decide to harden my heart against her.
So now it seem like this is the place that is under water. Like I am inside some invisible bubble and I am just looking out. And when I reach out to take the envelope from her I not even sure that my hand is going make it outside of the bubble to pull in the money. But somehow I manage to do it, and she just stand there and look at me like she know something is different as well. But she don’t say nothing ’bout it.
After that I can’t stand to go over there so Hampton is doing the weekly pick-up on his own. And then one Friday morning I bump into her, just like that, standing up in King Street after I finish drop off some cigarettes.
It seem rude not to even say hello so we standing up there passing the time of day when she say to me, ‘You keep thinking all the time about what I am. But maybe you should concentrate on who I am, the sort of person I am, and maybe that way you might get to know how you feel. I see the way you look at me. And how you stand far from me in case you might touch me by accident. And how when you have to come close to me you hold your breath like you think something bad about to happen. Well maybe you just need to let yourself breathe.’
I don’t say nothing to her. I just stand there feeling like it is me and her now trapped inside this bubble and the whole of King Street is going past us ’bout its business like it can’t even see we there.
Then she say, ‘Next Monday and Tuesday the rest of the girls are taking themselves up to the north coast to Ocho Rios. They reckon we not so busy then and they can spare the time to have a break. But I am not going with them. I am just going to close up the house so I can get some time to myself. So Monday night I will be there in the house on my own. And what I am saying to you is you can come over for the night if you want to.’
All of this time she is talking to the side of my head because I can’t bring myself to look at her. I am staring out into the street watching the cars fight with the buggies and pushcarts for road space while I feel her eyes burning a hole into my temple.
‘You don’t seem to think that maybe I have some feelings as well.’ And then she stop.
And then she start again, ‘But I have to tell you that this is a one-time offer. If you decide not to come then it will be strictly business between you and me from that point on because we can’t carry on like this.’ And she step out into the noise of horns and cross the street and walk away into the crowd.
I don’t go do the pick-up that Friday night but all weekend I think about what Gloria say to me. And what Hampton say about whores. And what Judge Finley say about marriage. And how Zhang just get up and walk away. And I know they is all right. No matter how you feel, you can’t marry a woman like that. So I think on it, and I think
