39
I pick up the telephone and ring Daphne Wong the minute Ethyl tell me Miss Cicely take a turn for the worse.
‘How she doing?’
‘Well you know, they’ve been trying to control the situation with drugs, but right now it seem like we fighting a losing battle.’
‘How she doing in herself?’
‘She comes and goes. Some days she is better than others.’
Miss Cicely start take sick a few month before we move from Matthews Lane. So just as we thinking that Ethyl going stop working for the Wongs it turn out that she travelling down the hill to go maid for Miss Cicely every day because she can’t stand, after all these years, to go let Miss Cicely down when she need her most. So whereas the main traffic in domestics is travelling to Beverly Hills, Ethyl is busy doing the journey the other way ’round in this little Toyota that Hampton buy for her even though I don’t think Ethyl got no driving licence and the only lessons she get is driving ’round the garden with Hampton at her side. Still, Ethyl just like half the drivers in Jamaica and the car is a automatic so that can’t cause too much trouble.
When I go see Miss Cicely she in a bad way. She so weak she can’t get up and she can barely open her eyes. Not that it matter because Daphne tell me that her sight failing so bad she can hardly see nothing anyway. She pleased me come to see her though and she hold out her hand and I take it as I sit down in the chair next to the bed.
‘Philip. How is Philip?’
‘I am good, thank you, Miss Cicely. But I come here to see how you doing.’
‘Well, all I can say is the good Lord is taking his own time getting ready for me to come and join him. Least I pray that is the direction I am heading in. Who knows, He may be thinking about the other place for me.’ And she give a little chuckle and I laugh with her.
‘I don’t think you need to be fretting yourself over that.’
‘Oh, Philip, you always had such faith in me. But in all honesty, I was not the best of mothers. I wasn’t good to Fay. I know everyone tired of listening to her complain about how badly I treated her, but it doesn’t mean it wasn’t true. And I had no time for Daphne. Not really. I was too busy arguing with Fay to even notice what Daphne was doing. I just expected her to carry on without me. And as for Kenneth, well you know all about that. I didn’t have one idea in my head about what to do with Kenneth.’
I interrupt her and I say, ‘You sure you want to be telling me all of this, Miss Cicely? You sure this is what you want to be talking about right now?’
She turn her head to the side a little, her eyes still shut.
‘You know, Philip, I think it is. Who else can an old woman tell? And I feel I need to tell someone before I go to meet my Maker, just so I can acknowledge to Him that I know the mistakes I have made. Well, some of them at least. Silent prayer is a wonderful thing, but it is also very healing to have someone to talk to. That is where the Catholics have the advantage with their confessions. But is it alright with you, Philip, that is the question?’
‘Whatever you want to do is fine with me, Miss Cicely.’
‘You know that when Fay went to England she went to stay with her brother, Stanley. Stanley was my firstborn, but Mr Henry was not his father.’
Miss Cicely stop and I look at her wondering if she expecting me to say something. I can’t think what to say. Still, I reckon I should try, but just as I go open my mouth, not even knowing what going come outta it, she start up again.
‘Stanley was born out of sin. The worst sort of sin you can have between a father and daughter.’ And she pause, and then she say it again. ‘The worst sort.’
I so surprised she telling me all this, I feel like my body gone into shock. It cold but it clammy at the same time. It feel like my joints seize up rigid. It feel like I going get stuck in this position leaning forward on the chair with her hand in mine.
‘It has taken a whole lifetime to try to wash off the shame of what Mr Johnson did to me. Because even though I was only a child, it felt somehow like it was my doing. Especially since Mr Johnson didn’t seem to have any shame himself about what happened. And then Henry had the good grace to marry me.’
She stop, and I breathe. And then she say to me, ‘Philip, take a look for me and see if that window is still open. It is so hot in here and I can’t feel the slightest bit of breeze.’
I look over and I see the window wide open. Then my eye catch a fan resting on the side table, a Chinese paper fan, so I walk over and pick it up and when I come back, I sit down and start fan her with it.
‘Oh that is good. Thank you. I just can’t stand the noise of that ceiling fan.’
We silent for a little while and then she say, ‘Did I ever tell you the story about how Henry and I met and how we happen to get married?’
‘No, Miss Cicely, you never did.’
‘Henry came to Jamaica in 1903, the year the great hurricane destroyed most of the north-east of the island. His Chinese name was Hong Zilong, so the British immigration officer turned that into Henry Wong. And of course, the same thing happened to you. Anyway, Mr Johnson had gone to Kingston to get somebody to help out, not to work in the fields, you understand, but somebody who could do washing and cooking and things like that. And when Mr Johnson came back to Ocho Rios to the banana plantation we lived on, and where he was the foreman, he brought Henry with him.
‘Henry was just a boy, and his mother had put him on the boat from China with a fine collection of hampers of preserved food, crystallised fruit and pickled vegetables. Needless to say, by the time he had made the sea journey and arrived at the plantation he had nothing left. Not because he had eaten it all, but because he had been robbed every inch of the way. What Henry did have, though, were his clothes, into the lining of which his mother had sewn pieces of gold.
‘Henry ran a cookhouse for the plantation workers because Mr Johnson thought it was more economical and time-efficient if the workers shared communal food rather than everybody cooking for themself. So Henry made his money from that, and he earned some extra doing laundry that they brought down from the great house. He also ran errands for Mr Johnson taking messages here and there, going to fetch and carry, and sometimes cooking some special dinner for one of Mr Johnson’s women friends, of which he had plenty.
‘When Henry finally left he bought himself a grocery store in Ocho Rios, with the money he saved on the plantation and the gold from his mother.’
By this time I starting to feel the heat myself and my arm getting tired like it going drop off. Ethyl must have read my mind from the kitchen because right then the door open and she come in with a jug of ice-cold lemonade. I rest down the fan and I pour out two glass for me and Miss Cicely. Then Ethyl start point to the tray that the jug and the glasses sitting on, and I see a drinking straw laying there. She carry on pointing but I dunno what she mean, so eventually she just lean over and pick up the straw and stick it in the glass. So when I hold out the glass to Miss Cicely, and she reach out with her hand and steady it, I just hold the straw firm so she can find it with her mouth and suck. Next thing I hear is the click of the door as Ethyl close it behind her.
‘My mother ran off to Panama with another man and left me with him, my father, Mr Johnson. That’s how come I was there with him. Then along came Henry, and he showed me the first bit of kindness I experienced in my life. Henry Wong was the sweetest, gentlest man. A kinder man you could never meet. So when Mr Johnson told Henry that I was pregnant and I needed someone to care for me Henry just said yes. In truth, Mr Johnson talked him into it. He told Henry that now he had his shop doing so well he needed a wife. And pretty soon, because of my condition, he would have a whole family, and that was good for him. And when Henry asked him why he wasn’t going to be looking after me any more Mr Johnson said, “I don’t want a life with no baby running under my feet.” And when Henry asked him who the father of the baby was Mr Johnson just said, “Don’t you be worrying yourself ’bout that. I know the man concerned and he won’t be bothering you none.” Actually, I think Henry just felt sorry for me and thought that since he wasn’t planning on marrying anybody else he might as well marry me. I think that is how it was. Years later he got a woman in Ocho Rios. He thought I didn’t know, but I did. I just chose not to say
