Whenever Boysie was home, he was reading. Dots had just started her practical course as a Nurse’s Aide at the Doctors Hospital on Brunswick Avenue; and she was too busy to read, and too tired, too. But she was happy. For the first time in her life in Canada she thought she was doing something worthwhile. “Something with dignity, gal.” And she more than once encouraged Bernice to stop wasting her time and postage stamps applying for living-in jobs in the rich kitchens of Cooksville and Oakville and Montreal, and instead learn to do something “more dignified than a damn domestic slave.” Estelle was saved from an equally searing tongue because she was just beginning to show her pregnancy. They all knew it was hopeless for a woman “with a belly” to get a job in Toronto. Estelle would have to wait until after the baby came.
Estelle and Bernice were still staying with Dots and Boysie in the apartment, and the arrangement worked well. Bernice would be out all day looking for work; Estelle would do the housekeeping, and cook the meals; and Boysie would sleep in the daytime, while Dots would be at the Doctors Hospital, lifting old decrepit men and women, mostly Jews and Italians, learning how to aid a nurse, and learning a lot about the habits of these two ethnic groups. So far her course was more interesting than it was backbreaking, or scornful.
“Live along with us a little longer, till you can catch yourself, gal. Boysie don’t mind. And you and Estelle are helping me,” she said to Bernice one night when she found her sitting in a corner of the bedroom. Bernice was beginning to become self-conscious about her position in Dots’s household at such things as not being able to change the record from a calypso to a gospel hymn. She had to listen every day, and on weekends especially, to the noise of the calypso and the shrieking of the rhythm-and-blues singers which Boysie and Estelle liked so much. And she was thinking of moving out because of it.
“I can’t impose,” she said.
Dots could see nothing wrong with her living with them. She had even given it her blessing. Once they even drank a rum to seal and celebrate it. Boysie, when he heard, was sorry they were going to leave. He was getting used to Estelle; he was getting to know Estelle: he and she would sit together in the late mornings and talk about Barbados, and about life in Canada, and Boysie began to give her advice about getting a job, even although he was no expert in this department.
Agatha repeatedly told Estelle she must give her baby up for adoption. “You have to think of the future of the baby. After all, Estelle, the baby didn’t ask to be born. And with no father in the home …” Not once during the long discussions on this subject did Agatha mention the responsibility of the baby’s father, Sam Burrmann.
Estelle merely shook her head, and smiled. Finally, when Agatha persisted, Estelle simply said, “What’s in my belly is mine. Wherever I go, he goes!” Agatha automatically sensed a strong resentment in Estelle.
“I was just doing my duty as a socially conscious friend. I was just telling you what I have told hundreds of unwed mothers with unwanted children, when I did field work with the Big Sister Organization.” It was at this point that Estelle really lost her temper.
“Listen to me! You have come in here, telling me a lot o’ blasted foolishness ’bout adoption and responsibility. But I want to tell you something now. The man who breed me and got me pregnant and who hasn’t looked back yet to see if I’m dead or alive is not a West Indian, yuh know? He ain’t a negro, Agatha! And he isn’t a black man! He’s a fucking white man, just like you! And he is the same blasted Jew as you, too! Now, I want you to go and talk to him, and tell him about his responsibilities.”
That happened two weeks ago. Agatha never called again. She never came back to visit. But Estelle didn’t care.
During the afternoon discussions and coffee drinking, which Boysie learned to drink through his imitation of Mr. Macintosh and which Estelle made for him, the two of them would play lots of calypso records and dance together. Estelle would tease, “This little bitch inside me is kicking like hell!” Once Boysie held her close, and for a second of reckless infatuation he saw himself lying on top of her, making love to her. But when he considered that she had already been made love to, and by a white man at that, and was now protruberantly repentant from that love-making, the thought became repulsive. And he apologised to himself for having thought it. Estelle was now almost five months pregnant, just beginning to be obvious. Boysie felt sorry for her. Sorry that such a beautiful, kind-hearted young woman could not go out to dances and to clubs and private parties and meet a man without the men trying to take advantage of her. And he wished he had the nerve to take her dancing.
One morning, just as he came out of his bedroom, and walked towards the bathroom, he saw Estelle coming out. She had only a towel round her. She did not expect him to be awake so early. It was only ten o’clock. He usually got up around two in the afternoon, since he came home after cleaning at about four in the morning. Here he was, standing an inch from her. In pyjamas, with the pants hanging under his waist, his fly completely open, with no pyjama top on. And she, in a towel, with her round slightly pointed belly showing. And he saw that
