And this is exactly what she did, gratefully, because she knew that to keep her maid satisfied, and working for her as long as possible, she would have to keep her happy, too. Dots knew this. The loan was arranged. But when Dots went to the bank to sign and receive the certified cheque of five hundred dollars, she changed her mind about trading in the old Chevrolet for the station wagon. Straight from the bank (the Toronto-Dominion Bank on the corner of Sherbourne and Bloor), she walked farther along Bloor Street, and opened a new account with the Bank of Nova Scotia, in her own name, and deposited the five hundred dollars in it. “When I leave that queen,” she told the new bank book, “we will see. I have watched that woman and that man for months now, Mistress Hunter and Doctor Hunter, and I have see how they operate, and now I’m taking a page outta their book. Let them take that!” She was laughing all the way on the subway to Bernice’s place. “I can move mountains, I can move mountains if only Boysie would cooperate and work with me. If only, if only that bastard would join-in with me. And I not even half finished with that queen, yet!”
Plan number three, the most daring and difficult of all, was still brewing in her mind, as she journeyed on the almost deserted three-o’clock subway to Marina Boulevard. In both of her plans which were completed, Dots had not once been challenged by Mrs. Hunter. Dots didn’t expect she would be challenged in her third plan. “One thing I find damn strange ’bout these people,” Dots was telling Bernice, “one thing puzzling me ’bout Mistress Hunter and it is that that bitch hasn’ even asked me one question in regards o’ my check-up her husband gave me. She isn’ suspicious at all. She ain’ curious. She even isn’ frightened that I leave her backside one o’ these days with half o’ the supper dishes left-back in the sink, or her supper left-back in the oven, burn-up. I just told you ’bout the check-up her husband gave me and Boysie? Nothing at all, nothing she didn’ ask me. She didn’ even ask, ‘Dots, what you want all this money for?’ She didn’ utter one blasted word in doubt. And all this now have me feeling sort o’ frightened. Because she must have something up her sleeve. I confess to you, Bernice, it got me on pins and needles. That is what I mean when I tell you that these blasted people is funny bitches. Now, if it was a coloured person I was working for, do you think I could play them two tricks so fast in succession, on her? Oh Christ, no, gal! That coloured bitch would have taken out all sort o’ search warrant and detectives on me, already.” Dots thought more of the situation, and said, “But then, you know Bernice, I would have to admit that Mistress Hunter is a woman who don’t ask questions. That man her husband, he comes in all hours o’ the night and day. And he don’t say where he now come from. And she don’t pick her teeth to him in question. Now, if that was Boysie, oh Christ, I would be tearing-loose in Boysie’s backside! But not her. She’s too damn quiet. And she is too damn lady-like for him. And that got me frightened.”
“You think though, that she could be laying a trap for you?”
“Bernice, the way I feel, she could lay two traps!”
“Be careful, darling,” Bernice pleaded. Now that they had shared their loneliness together in the form of physical love, Bernice was more open and more obvious in urging Dots to be careful, and in using terms of endearment. Dots, on her part, though not so expressive in this regard, accepted it and made as if she was a bit shy, now that everything about their formerly suppressed love was uncovered. They had spoken nothing about it since. They had accepted it as if it was their periodic exasperating flow. But of course, it was always very close to the surface in all their subsequent meetings.
“She can’t trick me, be-Christ, no! I am too smart for her, Bernice!”
“Be careful, though. You be careful, darling.”
Dots ignored this nauseating protectiveness. She was beginning to regret that she had allowed herself to be taken up in such an open expression of love with Bernice. Bernice was the type of woman who was oppressively and very oozily romantic. Perhaps, this romanticness, as Dots called it, would someday expose them to Boysie, and that would be the end of her happiness. Perhaps, Boysie would kill her. She knew he would, because she knew his feelings and attitudes towards female homosexuals.
“Them blasted kiss-me-arse wickers!” he screamed once, when Dots and another West Indian woman were discussing the subject. They had heard that some West Indian women working as maids
