Storm of Fortune

at least. (She recognized an echo of Mrs. Macmillan’s words in her own self-conversation; and she changed it to:) I am going to pack up and head straight back to Barbados where I come from, for home, as soon as I get out of this place. Imagine coming to Toronto on a holiday, and ending up in a blasted hospital cot! A woman gets herself in something, like going out with a man, and then she finds out he is a married man and she tells herself that she is too good, too decent, too well-brought-up, she is too much to continue seeing that man, when deep down in her heart she knows she loves him still, and anyhow there is a certain thing, a certain something, a daring, a security that Sam was a married man; and he knows about women, that he would treat me nice, and understand, because he didn’t put a ring on my finger, and I know that, and I could have always hurt him and reminded him when he got on damn fresh with me about anything that I was not his goddamn wife. I was not Mistress Burrmann, the bitch he left at home. I could have done all this to him. But it is too late now, too damn late now to start to think about these things. Crying over spilt milk, as Mrs. Macmillan would say, don’t solve nothing. But when I get out, I am going straight back to Barbados where I come from. Or I could remain a little longer here, and work as a nurse’s aide since Sam already fixed up my papers for me. That was good of him. I can’t understand that man at all, at all. One minute he treats me like a whore, the next minute he treats me like the Queen. That bastard even sent me three silk nightgowns, slippers and a housecoat. And some money. Well, it must be his blasted conscience! And the roses … (She looked at the roses, and she rearranged them although the nurse who had brought them in from the outside where they always spent the night had done that already. She ran her fingers lightly, affectionately, over the roses, all twelve, as she used to run her fingers over Sam’s face, with deep affection and deep love. Her next thoughts were on her unborn child. Thinking about its life, and its death: did she already deform it? Did she tamper with its natural growth? Wonder if he will look like his damn father? Christ, I hope I don’t born no damn red-nigger-child! I couldn’t stand my child to have no blasted picky-picky red hair. Rather he come out light-skinned, and with hard hair like Bernice-own, heh-heh … my son, my son! imagine me having a son in Canada, my son, my child … and she broke off, and broke down crying, sobbing and crying with spasms of sadness and happiness mingled with the tears streaming down her face.

“Oh my poor girl!” It was Mrs. Macmillan. “Why’re you doing that to yourself?”

“My son, my son … I want to have my son … my little child, my first child … I hope my child forgive me …”

“You want a damn good spanking. Why not take your chance and go in the washroom now that that Catholick bitch ain’t in there smelling up the place? Come, get up, get up! It still in there,” she said, kindly, patting Estelle’s stomach.

And she helped her to the washroom.

Boysie chuckled as if he was choking, and then he gave Henry an affectionate slap on his shoulder. “Gorblummuh! man, you is my real friend, in true. You even took a stiff cut-arse in my behalfs!” He chuckled again. Henry did not see it as a joke. His pains were still paining, and the bandages were on his head, one covering his right eye. “And look, since you’s such a damn real friend, I am not even sorry, and I am not mad at all at all, that you was screwing my woman, Brigitte, behind my back, man!”

“Stop!” Henry warned him. He held the rum bottle poised, threatening to throw it at Boysie’s head.

Boysie chuckled, and said, “Man, you’s a bitch.” He chuckled again, and imitating the blows which Henry got from the two policemen, he said, “Whupp! Whhop! Whhhapp!”

“Stop!”

“Man, I gotta tell you something. I am going to tell you something now, man. Gorblummuh! if them licks was in my arse, instead of in yourn, be-Christ, I would be in a damn funny position now, in regards to my wife, Dots. Man, but look at you, though! You’s my friend, and screwing your own friend’s woman? Man, I think you deserved to get them blows.”

“Stop!”

“Okay, man, I going to stop. But before I stop, let me ask you one thing. What happened to all the story and the pictures you tell me the papers was going to print concerning you and the beating? I been watching every paper for three days now, and I haven’ seen nothing appear ’bout a black man getting beaten up. Them papers-people fooling you, yuh! And I understand that you pay that lawyer-man a lot o’ money already. One hundred dollars you gave the lawyer-man for doing nothing for you with the papers. You better go back for the money, boy.”

“Who the hell are you calling boy?”

“Sorry, man.”

“The papers will print that story, Boysie. The papers got to print my story. They have to. That is justice. And justice got to be done, goddamn, or I will do something about it.”

The pains in his head sent a throbbing of fury through his whole body. Delirium had kept him restless on his spinning bed last night. Hope was not yet dead, although the newspaper had not used the story the day after, as Mr. Turnbull, the reporter Agatha’s lawyer had introduced to him, had assured him. Hope was the only thing he had to keep him going. And pride. But the fear of disappointment was deep-seated, more real than the