you know. It’s not the end of the world.’
But it was, in a way. She’d had enough. She walked back into her room, packed her schoolwork and essential clothes into a big rucksack and put a heavy coat over her nightie. She thought about the Chalfens for half a second, but she knew already there were no answers there, only more places to escape. Besides, there was only one spare room and Millat had it. Irie knew where she had to go, deep into the heart of it, where only the N17 would take her at this time of night, sitting on the top deck, seats decorated with puke, rumbling through 47 bus stops before it reached its destination. But she got there in the end.
‘Lord a Jesus,’ mumbled Hortense, iron-curlers unmoved, bleary-eyed on the doorstep. ‘Irie Ambrosia Jones,
15
It was Irie Jones all right. Six years older than the last time they met. Taller, wider, with breasts and no hair and slippers just visible underneath a long duffle coat. And it was Hortense Bowden. Six years older, shorter, wider, with breasts on her belly and no hair (though she took the peculiar step of putting her wig in curlers) and slippers just visible underneath a long, padded baby-pink housecoat. But the real difference was Hortense was eighty-four. Not a littleoldwoman by any means; she was a round robust one, her fat so taut against her skin the epidermis was having a hard time wrinkling. Still, eighty-four is not seventy-seven or sixty-three; at eighty-four there is nothing but death ahead, tedious in its insistence. It was there in her face as Irie had never seen it before. The waiting and the fear and the blessed relief.
Yet though there were differences, walking down the steps and into Hortense’s basement flat, Irie was struck by the shock of sameness. Way-back-when, she had been a fairly regular visitor at her grandmother’s: sneaky visits with Archie while her mother was at college, and always leaving with something unusual, a pickled fish head, chilli dumplings, the lyrics of a stray but persistent psalm. Then at Darcus’s funeral in 1985, ten-year-old Irie had let slip about these social calls and Clara had put a stop to them altogether. They still called each other on the phone, on occasion. And to this day Irie received short letters on exercise paper with a copy of the
As far as the house was concerned, six seconds seemed to have passed. Still dark, still dank, still underground. Still decorated with hundreds of secular figurines (‘Cinderella on her way to the Ball’, ‘Mrs Tiddlytum shows the little squirrels the way to the picnic’), all balanced on their separate doilies and laughing gaily amongst themselves, amused that anyone would pay a hundred and fifty pounds in fifteen instalments for such inferior pieces of china and glass as they. A huge tripartite tapestry, which Irie remembered the sewing of, now hung on the wall above the fireplace, depicting, in its first strip, the Anointed sitting in judgement with Jesus in heaven. The Anointed were all blond and blue-eyed and appeared as serene as Hortense’s cheap wool would allow, and were looking down at the Great Crowd – who were happy-looking, but not as happy as the Anointed – frolicking in eternal paradise on earth. The Great Crowd were in turn looking piteously at the heathens (by far the largest group), dead in their graves, and packed on top of each other like sardines.
The only thing missing was Darcus (whom Irie only faintly remembered as a mixture of smell and texture; naphthalene and damp wool); there was his huge empty chair, still fetid, and there was his television, still on.
‘Irie, look at you! Pickney nah even got a gansey on – child must be freezin’! Shiverin’ like a Mexico bean. Let me feel you. Fever! You bringin’ fever into my house?’
It was important, in Hortense’s presence, never to admit to illness. The cure, as in most Jamaican households, was always more painful than the symptoms.
‘I’m fine. There’s nothing wrong with-’
‘Oh, really?’ Hortense put Irie’s hand on her own forehead. ‘That’s fever as sure as fever is fever. Feel it?’
Irie felt it. She was hot as hell.
‘Come ’ere.’ Hortense grabbed a rug from Darcus’s chair and wrapped it around Irie’s shoulders, ‘Now come into the kitchen an’ cease an’ sekkle. Runnin’ roun’ on a night like dis, wearin’ flimsy nonsense! You’re having a hot drink of cerace and den gone a bed quicker den you ever did in your life.’
Irie accepted the smelly wrap and followed Hortense into the tiny kitchen, where they both sat down.
‘Let me look at you.’
Hortense leant against the oven with hands on hips. ‘You look like Mr Death, your new lover. How you get here?’
Once again, one had to be careful in answering. Hortense’s contempt for London Transport was a great comfort to her in her old age. She could take one word like
‘Er… Bus. N17. It was cold on the top deck. Maybe I caught a chill.’
‘I don’ tink dere’s any maybes about it, young lady. An’ I’m sure I don’ know why you come ’pon de bus, when it take tree hours to arrive an’ leave you waitin’ in de col’ an’ den’ when you get pon it de windows are open anyway an’ you freeze half to death.’
Hortense poured a colourless liquid from a small plastic container into her hand. ‘Come ’ere.’
‘Why?’ demanded Irie, immediately suspicious. ‘What’s that?’
‘Nuttin’, come ’ere. Take off your spectacles.’
Hortense approached with a cupped hand.
‘Not in my eye! There’s nothing wrong with my eye!’
‘Stop fussin’. I’m not puttin’ nuttin’ in your eye.’
‘Just tell me what it is,’ pleaded Irie, trying to work out for which orifice it was intended and screaming as the cupped hand reached her face, spreading the liquid from forehead to chin.
‘Aaagh! It burns!’
‘Bay rum,’ said Hortense matter-of-factly. ‘Burns de fever away. No, don’ wash it off. Jus’ leave it to do its biznezz.’
Irie gritted her teeth as the torture of a thousand pin-pricks faded to five hundred, then twenty-five, until finally it was just a warm flush of the kind delivered by a slap.
‘So!’ said Hortense, entirely awake now and somewhat triumphant. ‘You finally dash from that godless woman, I see. An’ caught a flu while you doin’ it! Well… there are those who wouldn’t blame you, no, not at all… No one knows better dan me what dat woman be like. Never at home, learnin’ all her isms and skisms in the university, leavin’ husband and pickney at home, hungry and maga. Lord, naturally you flee! Well…’ She sighed and put a copper kettle on the stove. ‘It is written.
‘Gran, I haven’t come to find God. I just want to do some quiet study here and get my head together. I need to stay a few months – at least till the New Year. Oh… ugh… I feel a bit woozy. Can I have an orange?’
‘Yes, dey all return to de Lord Jesus in de end,’ continued Hortense to herself, placing the bitter root of cerace into a kettle. ‘Dat’s not a real orange, dear. All de fruit is plasticated. De flowers are plasticated also. I don’t believe de Lord meant me to spend de little housekeeping money I possess on perishable goods. Have some dates.’
