“Goodmorning, Boysie, boy!”
“Hi!” He had got this too, from Mr. Macintosh.
“Boy, I didn’t know you was up so early, eh! Excuse me, man, for walking round your place dressed like this.”
“All right, it’s A-OK!” He was talking like Mr. Macintosh again. And something inside him started to work an unquenchable desire from his spine, from the top of his spine all through his body down to his thighs into a stiffening.
“The bathroom is yours now, boy.”
She had not been able to move since she first saw him.
“I know.”
He was standing still an inch from her; and the way he was standing made her know she could not completely come out of the bathroom without touching him with her belly, or he touching her with his stiffened jointed desire. But she knew there could be no touching.
“I left back a lot o’ hot water for you, man.”
“It don’t make no difference. Hot or cold, the same thing.”
“Well, you better go and catch your bath. I am going to make your breakfast for you.”
“It’s all right, it’s A-OK,” he said, waiting for the minutest sign from her that she was as willing as he was to do what was on his mind.
He thought how frustrated he was, how “thirsty”; for he had come home late, this morning, and Dots was in a nasty mood, and he had had a few drinks with the boys, and a few hands of poker, and everything had worked a great passion and a great desire for Dots in him. But Dots was tired too, and she had turned over on her belly, as a sign that she didn’t want him. And before he could get up, foreday morning, to go into the bathroom to spit out some of the awful saliva of rum-drinking, Dots was dressed and putting the cup of half-full tea on the hasty table, and rushing through the door “to see what these bitches got up their sleeves for me this blessed morning. I gone, Boysie, boy!” And she left him more thirsty. Now, as if someone was sending him a blessing, here was Estelle before him. But he had to wait for a sign, the sign. If only this goddamn woman would give me the signal! “You sure you have finished bathing? I could wait back in the bedroom.”
“Oh no, man! You go in, and get your bath, man!” And she held him round his shining stocking-capped head, and drew his head close to her belly, and she kissed him on his stocking-cap, and said, “Feel! Feel there, man. And feel how this little half-black bitch kicking inside of me, already. Be-Christ, and he even isn’t born yet! You feel it, Boysie? You are going to be the godfather, yuh know!”
Boysie thought he felt the movements of a terrible chastisement in Estelle’s belly. And he felt dirty. And with his eyes averted from hers, and from her belly, he went into the bathroom and remained standing in there for a long time, trying to find out for the sake of his own guilt and conscience whether she knew that he wanted to have a quick screw off her. He got into the tub and turned on the tap. It was the shower tap. And it was the hot water tap. “Shite!” he cried, beneath his breath.
Estelle went into the bedroom which she shared with Bernice. She sat on the unmade bed and cried.
“Estelle and Bernice have to leave!” Boysie was screaming. “Estelle and Bernice gotta go! Right now! Tomorrow morning, at the latest.” He was talking so loud that Dots felt sure the neighbours were hearing him. Estelle and Bernice were out. “What the hell kind o’ home you running at all, woman? A woman almost ready to drop a child, and you have her in here? Suppose the child come and she don’t want to move out? Don’t you know that the city or the health people or the welfare people or somebody could prosecute me for throwing out a pregnant woman at the last minute? So she gotta go now!”
“Jesus Christ, man, hold your horses! I heard yuh. It always was me telling Bernice she should go, and it was you, Boysie, remember? who always say, ‘Wait a little longer.’ ”
“That’s different now.”
“All right. I will tell them tonight when they came in. I will tell them.”
“Tell them.”
“All right, all right.”
He was so filled with anger, the anger of guilt and frustration, that he wanted to tell somebody, anybody, why all of a sudden he wanted Estelle and her sister to leave the apartment. But of course, he couldn’t tell Dots; neither could he tell anybody else. He worked himself relentlessly into this anger; and he felt that Dots with her remarkable sensitivity would soon discover his motives. But how could she? She was no fortuneteller! And he did not think she was studying psychology in her nursing aid course at the hospital. Still something worried him: it was his manner of bringing up the subject. Perhaps, he ought to have hinted at it, and let Dots make the open statement of their leaving. It should have been her entire desire. Suppose Estelle was to talk about what he did to her that morning at the bathroom door!
“Well, after all, they didn’t invite themselves here,” Boysie said, lamely.
“I glad as hell you come to see that! The way you been carrying on ’bout Estelle, a poor girl, pregnant, I swear to God something must have happened! And her sister, Bernice, who haven’t done you one blasted thing in the weeks they been living here. Eh? Doesn’t Estelle make my home tidy for me? Cooks your meals? Washes your blasted clothes as if she is a servant? Whilst I am at that damn hospital learning my course? Isn’t Bernice always ironing, always ironing and
