Pao (15 page)

There was so much excitement I couldn’t hardly believe it. Lord Creator even make up a calypso ’bout how good Independence was going to be for all of us.

Then one hot afternoon Round Chin granddaughter come to see me. She called Merleen and she come to the shop still wearing her school uniform. As soon as I see her standing in the doorway like that I knew it was trouble. The girl look like she was shivering even though it must have been a hundred degrees outside. So I tell her to come in and send Hampton to fetch her something cool to drink.

She settle herself and drink down the lemonade and that is when she start to cry. Just some little drops outta the corner of her eye and she take out a pretty little kerchief with a flower embroider on the edge and she mop her face. She just dab it, ladylike. And I wait because it obvious that there ain’t no point rushing this child. Then she say, ‘Uncle, I hope you don’t mind me coming to see you like this but I hear tell that you help people and I got my fingers crossed that maybe you can help me.’

I look at her and I see she not shivering because she cold, she shivering because she ’fraid. So I say, ‘Is alright. You can tell me what you want.’

‘I came here to the shop because my grandfather is always at your house playing dominoes with Uncle Zhang and I can’t have anybody know that I came to see you.’

I just look at her and nod my head. And then I give Hampton a look that let him know it time to make himself scarce. After Hampton gone, she carry on.

‘I hope you don’t think me rude but whether you decide to help me or not I have to ask you to promise you will keep the secret I am going to tell you.’

‘Well it depend on what that secret is, because it might work out that I got to go tell somebody so that I can help you.’

‘I think that if my grandfather finds out he will kill me.’

‘Maybe you better just tell me what it is you have on your mind and we can figure it out from there.’

So she tell me. And I listen. And I think yes she right. She in a bad situation, and if all of this get out Mr Chin most likely coming to me to fix it and that prospect I didn’t fancy none.

So I ask her, ‘How old you now?’ And she say twelve and I say, ‘Who else yu tell ’bout this?’

‘No one, I just came to you.’

‘Good. So we keep it that way then. You come here this time tomorrow and I have somebody come see you. You don’t worry no more. You just leave this with me.’ And that is when she really start to bawl. She grab my hand like she going kiss it but all she do is hold it to her cheek and keep saying, ‘Thank you, thank you,’ till I tell her is time she better be getting home. But even when she leaving the shop she still crying like she never going to stop. I think it was relief more than anything had that girl sobbing like that.

Next day Morrison ask Merleen a lot of questions and then him take her ’round back and examine her. And when she leave him tell me, ‘Yes, it seems most likely that she is pregnant.’ But him done take some urine and blood sample so he can go check for sure.

So I say to him, ‘So what you going to do?’

‘What do you mean, what am I going to do?’

‘What you going do to get rid of it?’

‘I’m not going to get rid of it! That is against the law.’

‘What you talking ’bout against the law? She twelve years old and pregnant! Who you think been breaking the law?’

‘I am a doctor. I have taken an oath. It is against the law.’

‘So how come you no worried ’bout the law when you working over East Kingston?’

‘That is an entirely different situation. Those women are    well, they are what they are, and this girl here is an innocent child.’

‘That is right, she is an innocent child and when her grandfather find out he going kill her for sure. So then she going be a dead innocent child. Is that the blood you want on yu hands?’

Morrison look at me and then him say, ‘Maybe Margaret can do something.’

‘No, man! Nobody got to know ’bout this. You have to come up with something better than that.’

‘When did it become my responsibility?’

‘When you refuse to get rid of it. I already promise this girl that we going fix it. So now you have to do something, yu hear me?’

So the next day Morrison come to me and say he and his wife going adopt the baby and I say no. But then he plead with me ’bout how Margaret want a baby and I know how important it is to her and how she make a good mother and how she will love the baby and look after it and treat it good and how he already tell her that he sure I going let her have the baby.

‘Yu mad? Yu completely lose your mind? I can’t let you adopt that baby. What you going use for papers? We not registering that baby in Merleen Chin name, yu understand me?’

‘No, I can fix that. I’ll register the baby at the hospital and say that the mother died in childbirth. Father unknown.’

‘No, man.’

‘No, I have it all worked out. I have a house up in the hills in Cedar Valley. Margaret and Merleen will live up there and I will go up at weekends to check on them and look after Merleen, and deliver the baby when it comes due. And afterwards everybody will come back to Kingston.’

I just look at him in complete disbelief even though he standing there looking so hopeful.

‘I thought yesterday yu tell me yu not going break no law, now today yu going falsify documents up at the hospital?’

‘Margaret wants the baby.’

‘She want this half-Chinese baby so bad?’

‘This is her chance. It is not going to happen any other way.’

So I say OK but we can’t settle nothing till I talk to Merleen ’bout it. She have to agree as well because right now she think we going get rid of it.

And he say OK. And then I say to him, ‘So what you expect me to tell Mr Chin ’bout what Merleen doing up in Cedar Valley?’

‘Surely you don’t expect me to think of everything?’

I see he got a point so I say OK and leave it at that.

So now I have to go do something ’bout Merleen’s baby father, a English army captain from up the camp. And as it turn out, Morrison know him. Meet him at some cocktail party at Kings House and I think yes that about right because these white people always like to stick together.

‘What else you know ’bout him?’

‘I’ve heard about two other young girls with whom he was associated.’

‘Associated! You mean this man do it before?’

‘I don’t know that it involved any pregnancy, but I do understand that he has been involved in at least two such liaisons.’

Amazing. You got one doing what he doing with children, and another one talking ’bout liaisons. So I tell Morrison to tell this army captain to come meet me over the Blue Lagoon and to bring the money with him.

‘How much it cost for an abortion anyway?’

‘How do you expect me to know a thing like that?’

‘Well go find out, man, and tell the captain to bring the money in US dollars. I don’t want no pounds, shillings and pence.’

When I meet up with Captain Charles Meacham him look just like I expect him to. Not so much because he tall and broad but because he so straight. He is upright, and stiff like a piece of board. And even though he not wearing his uniform you can tell that he think he rule the whole British Empire. Him alone. And him alone command everything and everybody in it.

He walk up to the table and hold out the money to me. Just like that. He not even got the decency to put it in a envelope. So I just sit there with my elbow on the arm of the chair and my hand on my chin and I tell him to sit down. And even though he look surprise, he do it anyway.

I say to him, ‘It look like you trying to make a bad habit outta this?’

And he look at me and lift up his head and say, ‘I know who you are.’

‘And who is that?’

‘Just some local thug who thinks he has the upper hand and can use it to intimidate an officer of the British army.’

‘So you reckon it working or not? The intimidation thing, I mean.’ Meacham just look at me and put the money on the table and get up and walk out.

When I get back to the shop I tell Finley to go open a bank account for Merleen and put the money in it.

So now we all set with the Cedar Valley thing because when I talk to Merleen she say she happier to think the baby going have a home rather than it not even get a chance to live at all. I tell her she really need to think careful ’bout it because this mean she going have to carry the baby for the whole nine months and she only twelve years old. And she tell me that she think about it and it OK. She done meet with Mrs Morrison and she think she a nice lady. And the doctor seem a nice man too. And they done take her to Cedar Valley and she think the house nice. It in a quiet little valley with a river run through it, and a little river-water swimming pool, and beautiful hills, and sugar cane and orange trees. She think it all going to be just fine. And Mr Morrison being a doctor and all, she know everything going to work out good. So I say OK and then she ask me what she going tell her grandfather and I say to her, ‘Is OK, you don’t need to say nothing to him. I going sort all that out. You just get yourself ready because we going do this soon before you start show.’

But there is no way I can talk to Mr Chin ’bout any of this. Mr Chin is a whole generation older than me. It not seemly for me to go talk to him ’bout anything so personal as his granddaughter’s condition. The only way ’round it is I have to go explain the whole thing to Zhang, because he is the only one old enough and honourable enough to go talk to Mr Chin.

When I tell Zhang he mad as hell. He mad at Meacham, and he mad at Merleen.

‘He beat her? He force her?’

‘No. Meacham tell her she a woman and he treat her like she grown and it make her feel important.’

‘She bad girl?’

‘No, she just young, that is all. She just young and she make a mistake.’

‘And you not know better? Now you mix up in it?’

‘What you want me to do? Just leave the child crying on my doorstep?’

‘You tell her grandfather.’

‘And what you think going happen then?’ And that is when Zhang stop because he know the answer to the question just the same as I know, and Merleen know as well.

‘What captain say?’

‘When she tell him he laugh. But he done pay me the money already so at least he accepting the baby is his.’

Zhang shake his head from side to side and start mutter to himself ‘money, money’ and then he turn and walk off up the yard to his room. And all I hear is his wooden slippers slapping on the concrete path.

When I tell Gloria ’bout it, it turn out that she know about Meacham as well. He ask some girlfriend of hers if she had any girls and when she say yes he say, ‘I mean young, young girls,’ and she say, ‘Go ’way, man, what you think this is?’ and that was the end of it. But she know he was asking ’round the place.

Then she say to me, ‘Is Zhang going help you?’

‘I dunno.’

‘So what you going do?’

And that is when I realise that this time I really done get myself in a jam because there is no way that this can turn out OK unless we can save face for Mr Chin. And Zhang is the only person that can do that.

So the next few days I worry myself sick. I can’t eat, I can’t sleep, all I can do is fret ’bout how Merleen belly going start swelling up soon and how everybody going lose face and it being a damn mess. I so worried I even tell Father Kealey ’bout it, which afterwards I think most probably a mistake, but all he say to me is that he will pray for me. And I think well maybe I need all the help I can get.

Then finally Zhang say to me, ‘Chin come dim sum tomorrow. Eleven o’clock. Make sure you here.’

Early morning Zhang get up and prepare everything himself. Chicken soup, glutinous rice and sausage, pork and peanut dumpling, prawn dumpling, roast pork buns, chicken feet, beef and ginger dumplings, choi sum. A feast for Mr Chin.

I don’t know what he say to everyone, but by the time I get up the house is empty. And Tilly and Ma even take Mui with them wherever they gone. I shower and get ready. And eleven o’clock on the dot Mr Chin is at the gate.

Zhang welcome him and we all sit down to eat. Zhang happy and gracious. He waiting on Mr Chin hand and foot. Nothing is too much trouble.

‘More rice, Chin, more pork, more soup?’ Zhang cook enough food for ten people. Then he chat ’bout the news from China and how business is doing in Mr Chin’s bakery now that his son running it for him. Finally, when Mr Chin cannot swallow another morsel, Zhang invite him to walk up to the top of the yard where he has put out a straight-back chair and his own rocking chair under a bit of shade next to the duck pond.

I look at the two of them a walk up the path with their heads bow and I can’t imagine what Zhang going say to him. Then they sit down and Zhang invite Mr Chin to sit in his rocking chair, and the two of them start talk.

They stay up there over three hours, with Zhang motioning to me to bring more tea every time the pot go cold. And when they finish, they walk down the path together to where I am still sitting and waiting.

I stand up when they get to me. Zhang say, ‘Mr Chin’s granddaughter is going away on an educational trip and he would like you to see to the arrangements.’ And that was it. Mr Chin just stand there and nod his head in agreement. And then they bow to each other, slow and low, and Mr Chin walk outta the gate.