When I see him it remind me that I not paid no visit to Mrs Morrison and the baby since they come back from Cedar Valley. I know they call the baby John, and Morrison already tell me that Margaret
Captain Meacham tense. He don’t like what going on. He don’t like being in this position with me, not a second time. It already stuck in his craw over the thing with Merleen and the baby. So I just say to him, ‘Where your daughter at?’
And he say, ‘In her bedroom.’
‘Well she better come out here and tell me what happen so we can all go get some sleep tonight.’
When Meacham gone to get the girl I say to Morrison, ‘He know this going cost him?’
And Morrison say, ‘Yes. I told him. He said I am the only person he knows still on the island. That is why he called me.’
‘Yu must mean the only white person, because it seem like he still know me, and he still know Merleen and any number of other girls that he love and leave just the same way he leave her, although I don’t suppose that love come into it that much.’
Meacham daughter white and skinny. She look like she could do with a good meal inside her. And she got dark brown hair, cut short. Her name Helena, and she only eighteen year old.
According to her, she take the big kitchen knife from the house in case she need to protect herself when she go down to Club Havana. This is how she tell it anyway. She say she lucky to have the knife with her because the boys just follow her out to the car park and jump her for no reason at all.
I listen to all of this and then I say to them, ‘She can say self-defence if you want, but you know yourself questions going be ask ’bout what she doing at Club Havana in the first place, a young white girl on her own, drinking liquor and carrying on. And then she go kill two boys with a big knife that she herself take down there.’
I look at Meacham and I say to him, ‘It don’t look good, Charles, I have to tell you that. Not with the Jamaican police. Not with the fact that these boys had no weapon of their own. Not at the moment with the Independence celebrations and everything people have on their minds ’bout the British and colonialism and slavery and all of that. Because they will think to themselves well now we have freedom but we still have some little white English girl who think she can come down here and murder two Jamaican boys for no good reason and get away with it. And that not good. Really, is very bad timing. That is what it is. Bad timing. And in truth I don’t think a Jamaican jail is going suit your daughter. No, Fort Augusta not going suit her at all.’
So I tell him the only thing to do is get the girl off the island as soon as possible.
‘Just you take her back to England.’
Then afterwards I say to him, ‘Where the clothes she wearing at the time?’
‘They are on the back veranda.’
So I tell Morrison to take them home with him and burn them because I don’t trust Meacham to take much care with anything he do.
Then I say to him, ‘What about the car she driving?’
‘Parked out the back.’
When I go look at the car it one of them old English Rover. A nasty-looking grey thing that sit up stiff and straight just like Meacham.
I look at him and I say, ‘Where you get a thing like that?’
‘I borrowed it from an ex-army friend.’
So I turn to Morrison and I say, ‘So he still have at least one ex-army friend here on the island then.’
But Morrison just want to shush me because he don’t want me getting on the subject ’bout how the English only want to know you when it suit them. Or more like, when they got some little job need doing that they don’t want to soil they little white hands over. Is 1963, we independent, but we still servicing them.
When I open the car door I see the seat got blood all over it, and the steering wheel and the gear-stick as well. Blood all over the interior where she open the car door from the inside to get out. I close the door and I walk back inside, and the two of them follow me. I pick up the telephone and I ring Hampton.
‘Yu need to go get Milton and the two of yu come over here with what yu need to clean up a car.’
‘What! Yu mean right now?’
‘What yu think I ringing yu for this hour of night if I don’t want yu come do this thing right now?’
Then just before I leave the house Meacham say to me, ‘She dropped the knife. Do you think there is much chance that the police will find it?’
‘None at all,’ I say to him. ‘Not that the Jamaican police incompetent or lazy, you understand. But I already got the knife. I pick it up in the car park earlier this evening and I keeping it nice and safe for you.’
By the time I cut ’cross town to the waitress house Clifton Brown already there waiting outside for me in a parked car. When we knock the door a man face appear at a side window and then him come and open up.
‘Is you, Uncle. We ’fraid maybe it be the police.’ And he let us in.
The waitress turn out to be him little sister, a girl of just sixteen. She lock herself in the bathroom she so ’fraid, but when her brother tell her to come out she do it. And just as she pass him by, him reach out and box her, like a slap in the back of her head. But the slap seem to get weaker from when it leave him hand to when it reach her head. Then him sit her down and tell her to tell me what happen. So it seem like him vex with her, but him still care for her and worried for her as well.
‘The white girl been coming down the club all week. And every night she talk to me a little. And I talk back. Then tonight she ask me if I want go sit out in her car with her, where it a bit more quiet and we can talk. And I say alright.’ She stop and she look at me like she wondering if she want to go on. And I look at Clifton because he the one that need encourage her now she on his territory. He the one that need set her mind at ease.
So he say to her, ‘I think we know where you going with this and it alright. Believe me, you in fine company with this.’ Both she and me look at him sorta quizzical, but then she carry on.
‘When my break come, I go out there and one thing and another, and then she say to me if I want get in the back seat of the car with her. She say we can get more comfortable. I don’t know what come over me, I just say yes. We was in there for a while and then the next thing I know there was this banging on the car window and a lot of laughing and hooting. And when I look ’round there was two boys. Just children really. But they acting like they gone mad, screaming and running ’round and banging on the car. I just panic in case all their carry-on attract someone attention. Anyway, before I know what was happening she jump outta the car with this carving knife and was slashing at one of these boys. She was in a frenzy. I never seen nothing like it in my life. It was like she just become a completely different person. And while all this was going on the other boy just stand there staring at her. So I was shouting, ‘Run, run,’ but he didn’t move. It was as if he was glued to the spot and then she swing ’round with the knife and catch him throat. And that was when I run, and come home because I didn’t know where else to go.’
So now me and Clifton both know we got a situation. After all, the perversions of white people is one thing, but Jamaicans doing that sort of nastiness, no. And definitely not a young girl like this. Not in Jamaica. Once she set foot inside that car she become guilty. And judge and jury wouldn’t be too fussy ’bout what them punishing her for.
I say to Clifton, ‘We have to get this girl off the island tonight. Yu going have to take her to Cuba.’
‘Cuba! How me going do that?’
‘Yu have to take a launch, man.’
‘I can’t take out a police launch at four o’clock in the morning for no good reason and take it to Cuba. Yu mad?’
‘Well you of all people, Clifton Brown, I would have thought would understand a situation like this. If this girl stay here tonight she going end up in jail for sure, while her little white girlfriend flying free back to England on the morning breeze. Is that what yu want to happen to her? Look at her, she nothing but a child.’
When I look at him I can see that I got him convinced, so I say, ‘Alright then, but yu going have to keep her somewhere safe tonight and then yu can put her on the morning flight to Miami. All yu need for that is some US identification and a ticket.’
