“You think he’s there, though?”
“Oh hell, Dots! He’s in there, man. Only thing he don’t know the blowing is for him. Put your hand here, not there, woman! Christ I tell you here! Here! Yes, there! I say put your hand here, yes, right here, and press this silver thing slightly and feel how nice she sounds.”
“It sound nice, in truth, Boysie.” Dots was blowing the horn now. Boysie leaned back and the upholstery of the seat creaked, and leaned back with him. “I hope Henry come out soon, and see how nice she look, man.” Dots was becoming impatient. Although she liked the sensation of feeling and blowing the horn, she still felt it was making too much noise unnecessarily.
“I am only sorry that she ain’t a sedan or a convertible, though. ’Cause, she being a sedan or a convertible, we could go to Henry’s wedding in her, with a real good wash and a shine, inside and out, and have her shine real bright, man! and some pretty coloured paper ’pon she, like how them Eyetalians dresses up their motor cars for a wedding. Dots, girl, don’t you see that we are ’bliged and bound to bring in the first prize …”
“But don’t begrudge she, though, Boysie. This automobile that me and you sitting down in on this nice afternoon in late summer, this is a investment. It bought because we have plans. And so, I say, don’t begrudge she, because she is a station wagon and won’t be proper enough to follow Henry to his wedding in tomorrow morning.”
“Oh Christ, girl! do you think my gratitude is buried? My gratitude ain’ buried, Dots. I acknowledge what you did for me to get this. I proud as arse I could sit down behind a steering wheel in this white man country. ’Cause Jesus-christmas! I didn’t born here.”
Dots was looking back while Boysie was talking. She wasn’t sure that the man she saw get out of the car at the far end of Baldwin Street was in the uniform she thought he was wearing. “Look back there, Boysie, a sec, and see if you think that man, the one in the uniform, is a Salvation Army man. Ain’t he?” The man had just got back into his light green car. Boysie looked hard, and then he saw the aerial on the roof of the car. The car was coming towards them. And without waiting anymore, Boysie slammed the station wagon into gear, and without knowing it, roared off in second gear, although the salesman at Ted Davy Used Car lot had warned him to “take it easy, sir, in the gears. Move off in first, and then break her in …”
“Is a fucking police! A police! You think somebody called the police …” Boysie was trembling. Dots wasn’t concerned about whether anyone had called the police. She was already shaken up by the quick getaway. And the door had slammed itself shut, without her help. And through the jerk forward she had heard a little noise in her neck say snep! But she wasn’t hurt. She only got her dress caught in the door.
“I wish Henry could have seen the car, though.”
“Dots, do you know that that blasted police still following we, just because we blow our car horn, our blasted car horn that we just bought … that blasted cop who do not have nothing better to do, he is still following we … there is a lot o’ crime in this blasted city, all downtown … the bastard been following we since Baldwin, and we just passed Danforth and Broadview, two miles from the apartment …”
The traffic policeman had already taken down Boysie’s licence number. When Boysie swung out into the crowded hawking foreign-language street of Augusta, and then into College, the policeman made a note of the station wagon, its colour (guessed at its year of make), and the red letters printed on the side of the wagon, in amateur lettering: BOYSIE CUMBERBATCH LIMITED, CLEANERS. It was then that the traffic policeman had turned back to other police and private business. It was a different policeman driving behind Boysie now, along Danforth Avenue. He was actually going to the East General Hospital where a woman had tried to kill herself, after having first successfully killed a nurse. This policeman thought of stopping Boysie for speeding, but he had to think of reaching his call before the woman killed another nurse.
Suddenly the house was filled with Beethoven’s Sixth Symphony. Mrs. Burrmann was home. And she had brought Mexico back with her. She was tanned and she was lovely, and she looked wealthy and healthy and younger. And judging by her quietness in the house, Bernice imagined that she had come back a different woman.
She had returned a different woman. When Bernice heard the noise of the music, she came hurriedly downstairs, and before she went into the room where Mrs. Burrmann was, she noticed that a smudge of fatigue and worry was on Mrs. Burrmann’s face. Bernice then tiptoed into the sitting room, expecting to hear a quarrel. She could see Mrs. Burrmann in full now, and Mrs. Burrmann saw her, and rushed to her and embraced her, while Bernice said to herself: but to think that this woman had to sneak into her own house! and suppose I was entertaining friends! but she went to Mrs. Burrmann and entered the offering of embrace and friendship.
“Oh Bernice! Bernice! a wonderful time! and how are you? and how are the children?”
“Mistress!”
“Bernice, I’m never going to be unhappy again, as long as I live! How’re the children? When’re they coming back? I am so glad I got back before the children and before my husband.” It was not often that Mrs. Burrmann called Bernice, “Bernice”; not often that she called Mr. Burrmann, “my husband.” Bernice wondered what goodness had happened to her in Mexico. But she knew she could not ask what had happened. She was happy that Mrs. Burrmann was
