Bernice began to think of a man, of Lonnie, the only man she knew, as a defense against thinking of Mr. Burrmann, who was still walking above her head. She had forgotten Lonnie for such a long time now; not since his last letter which came shortly before Estelle went into the hospital had she actually thought of him in the way she had permitted herself to when her loneliness swept itself into that strange soft-heartedness when she addressed him as my darling Lonnie. There was also a great urge which throbbed about her thighs, and brought a faint hunger, a yearning with it. Thinking of this sexual hunger, she had to remember what had happened between herself and Dots. But that was not satisfaction. That was merely a sort of jerking-off of a deeper hunger which her deprivation and Dots’s availability had made possible. But it was Lonnie who gave her this deep insatiable hunger, a hunger built and intensified upon the time and distance and the miles of sea and memory, which made it more desirable than it was satisfying when it did happen. She was ready, her mind was adjusted, her body throbbing, every nerve filed and waiting for Lonnie. Oh dear darling, darling, darling Lonnie, You been weighing heavy on my mind. Life in this country is a battle. I have lost the first battle so far, but I declared war. A woman my age should be resting on her oars in a nice three-roof house with a couple of chickens and a cow perhaps, to help give milk. Instead, I find myself in a country where every woman have to work until the day she enters her coffin. I heard a man on the television say one night that if people was to stop working for even a fraction of a minute in North America, which Canada is a part of, being in North America, this whole big powerful country will collapse, overnight. In Barbados, as you know, many men and women do not work at all, because there is no work. Now I told you one time in a letter about a girlfriend of mine, Dots Cumberbatch. She is a Bajan like me. She have a husband, Boysie, who came up nine months or more, perhaps a year. Boysie have not lifted a finger in a honest days work in support of Dots in all that time since he emigraded to this country. Boysie is lazy. Boysie was offered a job in a large company in the heart of Toronto, called Macleans-Hunter. Boysie refused that job because it was a job picking up paper from off the floor. Now, I do not know what your views are concerning working in a job like that. But in this country, a job is a job. But I hope that when you come up, as I intend to take out papers soon to bring you up, that you would not scorn a job because they do not make you the prime minister of Canada the day after you land in this country … Mr. Burrmann’s footsteps were now coming down the runway of the carpeted stairs. Bernice did not hear him. She was too deep in the reverie of her letter-writing. And Lonnie was too close to her, in mind, as was the letter she had been writing to him, for her to notice somebody else. Mr. Burrmann went into his study on the ground floor, along the hallway from the sitting room … I stand here in my place and I think of the temptation and the wickedness in this world. You will have to work when you come up though, because you will have to pay me back for the money I spend on you for your plane ticket and other things to bring you up. I am offering marriage now, Lonnie. Think of it. I have plans for the future. I want to buy a house. I will wait till you come up before I decide the final plan. I have the money already saved up and keeping on the bank. I have taken all my money off the Royal Bank of Canada because they was not employing enough black people as bank clerks and other workers, as another bank here, the Bank of Nova Scotia does. So my money is now in the Bank of Nova Scotia. That is a good bank. I think that was the best decision I have make since I emigraded to this country … Bernice heard the cat’s paws of footsteps behind her, on the thick broadloom rug. She looked back and saw him standing behind her. Her fear for him returned and its intensity wiped all thoughts and words going across the telepathy of her imagination to Lonnie, from her brain.
“How’s it going, Leach?”
She took some time before she answered, “Fine, sir. Just fine! I was just cleaning up these dishes, sir!” She felt the need to justify her standing up in the kitchen doing nothing, merely thinking, at this hour of the morning. Mr. Burrmann did not understand this confession, or its reason. As he approached, Bernice saw that he held her cheque (in the customary manila envelope) in his hand, although he was not offering it to her just then.
“How’s it going?” Sometimes, in his absent-mindedness, and in his secret desire to be far away from this house, he forgot that he had asked the same question twice.
“Under control, sir.”
“Here’s your pay.” He gave her the envelope. There was nothing he could think of saying to her, or doing, now that he had given her the envelope. But there seemed to be something resting uneasily on his mind. “How’s your sister?” he said at last. He had tried to rob his inquiry of all concern, all feeling. But he was not entirely successful.
“She coming round all right, sir.”
“She’s coming
