The Meeting Point (14 page)

The guests were eating now. But when Henry looked round for the young Japanese woman, he didn’t see her. He didn’t see Miss Carmeeta Anne Bushell. He didn’t see Priscilla. “They gone,” Bernice said, unable to hide her triumph. “They gone!” Estelle was sitting, with a drink in her hand. Henry
went and stood in front of her. She looked up at him and smiled. Encouraged, he sat beside her. And she moved to give him more space; and again she smiled.

“Well, how?” he asked her.

“I here, boy.” She was not smiling now.

“And how the trip?”

And without answering, she got up, gave him a look, which if it had contained razor blades would have sliced him to pieces. With the weight of his humiliation on him, he attempted to smile, but as his lips formed themselves, he happened to see Agatha looking at him and that made him even more confused. Goddamn! And he got up to talk to Boysie. Boysie led him far away from the women. Dots, Bernice, Agatha and Brigitte were eating. Estelle remained sulky and morose. Agatha looked up from her plate, and smiled at whoever caught her smile; and then held her head back down to her plate. Then something happened. A bone lodged itself sideways in her throat. She closed her eyes, filled with water and swallowed hard. The bone was dislodged. “Emmmmmmmm!” she said, clearing her wind-pipe. But Dots mistook it for her pleasure and satisfaction with the food; she got up and said, “Get up, child; and help yuhself.” Agatha did just that.

“And what do you do?”

“You mean me?” Dots asked, behaving rather obstinately and deliberately, to regain her pound of disappointment for having lost her husband the whole night, talking in her Barbadian dialect. “What you mean what I does do?” She glanced over to Bernice to see whether Bernice approved. And of course, Bernice liked it.

“I meant, oh ahh, are you a student, too.”

“A big old-time bitch like me, you asking if I is a student?” And then she laughed out loud in her cackling way.

“Goddamn,” Henry said to Boysie, away in the corner. They knew what was happening.

“My kiss-me-arse wife!” Boysie said. “Trust her to fuck up my life!”

“Are you a nurse, then?” Agatha tried again, uncertainly; but not really uncertainly, not after having heard Dots speak, and having compared her with Miss Bushell and Priscilla. She felt she had to ask these questions, so as not to appear prejudiced.

“Yes!” said Dots, in a curt, punctuated tone. “Yes! I is a nurse. A nurse-maid. Chief-cook. Bottle-washer —
everything
!” And she laughed again. And Agatha could think of nothing else to do, but laugh herself.

“She’s a domestic,” Bernice said, simply.

“
I’m
sorry!” Agatha said, and wiped some crumbs from her mouth; just the two corners, with her Christmas-paper napkin. As she wiped, she raised her eyebrows, although she was only wiping her mouth, not her eyes.

“Why you sorry?”

“Oh, what I meant was that, that, that-that …”

“Ha-haaaaa-ooooo-Lord!” Dots screeled out, bending over, and pressing her right hand into her soft, undulating, jello-shivering belly.

“God knows, as a Jew …” Agatha began; but before she could say more, Henry came to her rescue.

“Come, man, some Sparrow, man,” he said, with forced gaiety. He selected a Sparrow record, and put it on. “Come, Estelle, let we do this thing, girl.” And he went to Estelle, bent down, outstretched his hand, and prepared himself in his
mind, to rest them under the plump softness of her breasts. Estelle got up; Henry, full with anticipation, held out his arms for her, and she moved away from him, like a ballet dancer, and went into the washroom. “I too tired, man,” she told him; and as she was about to close the bathroom door, she held her head out, and added, “And even so, Henry, I don’t dance with black men. You too black!” Henry’s body jerked to make a violent comment. He was mad. He was mad with Estelle. He was mad with Agatha for behaving like a fool in front of all these West Indian women. He was mad with Dots for being deliberately uncouth. He was mad with Brigitte because she was white; and because she said nothing. He was mad with Bernice for being … goddamn, I could kick this little poor-great bitch! … and since he could not have kicked each and every one of the women; and since he could not really kick
any
of them; he merely walked over to the table, and poured himself a large whiskey. He remembered, as he raised the glass to his face, that he had just beaten up a policeman in the street outside.

“Hee-hee-oh-Christ!” Dots bawled out. She clapped her hands together, and made them sound like two strips of thick, wet leather; and all the time, she was shaking her body like a bowl of Jello. Boysie looked at her, and wished an awful thing would happen to her; and he wondered whether he was really married to her. “Oh Lord, oh Lord! the thing turn round now! the thing turn round now, as good as a cent!”

“Shut your fucking mout,’ woman!” Boysie screamed. There was madness in his manner, as there was in Henry’s. The venom in his command took Dots in such chilling surprise, that rather than shut her mouth, she had to keep it wide open, because of the shock. Brigitte forgot what she was laughing about; and she stood at attention. “Come, Henry,
man,” Boysie said, gripping Henry by the hand, and spilling some drink in the movement. “Let we get to arse outta this place.” He pulled Henry to the door with him. He turned round as he was going out, and said, to no one in particular, but really to Dots, “When you ready, I outside.” And he slammed the door after him.

Estelle emerged from the washroom, looking less tense and more relieved, and said, “What happened just now?” Nobody answered her.

“Gorblummuh! … gorblummuh!” Boysie said over and over, going down the stairs. The lower he went, the louder and more venomously he uttered this exhortation. It seemed he did not want its earnestness to be diminished by his descent and exit. “Gorblummuh!”

“Women make my arse laugh!” Henry, said, and spat noisily on the street.

“I should make that woman o’ mine walk home, you don’t know?” He sniggered, and then turned on the car engine. He turned it off. He turned it on again; and finally turned it off. It was dark; for some time, they sat there, silent, looking up at the forms moving about in Bernice’s window.

“Brigitte nice, man!” Henry said, after putting a cigarette in his mouth. “That German beast, real nice, man. I hear that German women really like black boys, though.”

“Agaffa nice, too.”

“You telling
me
?”

“Jesus Christ, I wish I weren’t married!”

“That is your luck, boy.”

“You think I could do something with Brigitte, though?” There were no secrets between Boysie and Henry. “You think she would give me piece?”

“You didn’t hear what I just say? German woman
nice
!”

They were both sitting in a relaxed position in the car; Boysie, his feet on the steering wheel; Henry, with his hands under his head, and his legs spread under the dashboard. Henry was talking in a kind of audible thought-recollection. Boysie was scheming little spider webs of snares in which to trap Brigitte: and between the anticipated effectiveness and the ineffectiveness of these snares, he would hear Henry’s voice droaning: … “I have travel this territory from the Atlantic to the Pacific,
free
, as a railroad porter when I was still a railroad porter, and that is a advantage …” (… Boysie had just got Brigitte out of the party, and in his mind he was going through the alleyway where they were parked now; up through the side entrance, to her room on the top floor, and …) “I have seen prime ministers, cabinet ministers, ministers with, and without portfolios and goddamn plain ordinary ministers, gold-miners, students, university professors, Indians, male, female and juvenile and be-Christ, I say to you, tonight, Boysie Cumberbatch, I say to you …” (Boysie was wrestling with Brigitte’s rustling skirts, in the imagination of her room.)

“What?” he asked Henry.

“They
pukes
! That is what I say to you, you are looking at a man that
know
, a man that know. This goddamn country adopted me, nineteen, twenty years ago, and I don’t have one arse-hole beef ‘gainst this country, except that I am a black man. And I know that a day is coming when they won’t have no more goddamn use for me, and all the rest like me, Smitty, Willy, Harewood all o’ them from Nova Scotia, hanging round The Paramount; and there won’t be no more goddamn train to run, no more shoe to shine, no more boot
to lick, clean and polish, be-Jesus Christ, Boysie Cumberbatch, no bags to lift. And you will understand there won’t be no more tips to bring home, and no more tips mean no more draught beer at the Paramount Tavern, heh-heh! could you see me, a big motherfucker like me, without my draught beer and southern-fried chicken wings from Mr. Ting Ling, the Chinee man at the Paramount, heh-heh? don’t laugh, Boysie Cumberbatch …” (Boysie had left Brigitte by this time, because Brigitte had shut up her lap tight tight tight, like Hiddy-Biddy; and he had turned back to Estelle: Estelle lonely as hell, she come up here to live with Bernice, and all Bernice know is church and church-music, and and and you know, I had two good looks at Bernice tonight, and she don’t look too bad neither; but I wonder if Mr. Burrmann does get a taste from Bernice, ’cause she always praising him, and praising him …) “And Boysie Cumberbatch, you know something? I already plan for that day. And who you think caused me to think of that emergency? Well, I going tell you. That goddamn white woman sitting down up there with them black bitches, Bernice and Estelle … excepting Dots your wife … them bitches who was cursing the woman because she is a Jew and she dance with me, Godblindthem!” He rolled down the window, and spat the butt of the cigarette outside. He clapped his breast pocket, and laughed, in a superior manner. “And, Boysie Cumberbatch, I have a nice piece o’ land up in Rosedale. You ever heard of Rosedale? Well, this black son-of-a-bitch sitting down humbly beside you, owns land up there with the bigwigs. And look at my trial balance, Boysie, man.” He struck a match and showed Boysie the bank book.

“Jesus God!”

“That is my old age pension, Boysie Cumberbatch. Pension, beer money, whore money, sick money and hospital money.” It took Boysie some time to recover from the shock of seeing
fourteen thousand dollars
in Henry’s bank book. He never expected a black man to have that kind of money. “A white woman put that kind o’ sense in my head, and nobody like Bernice nor Estelle, nor even your wife, Dots, could make me ignore Agatha. Boysie Cumberbatch, I is not only a one-woman man, but goddamn, I have found out that that woman have to be white!”

“You want to know something?” Boysie asked, emerging from his dreams and schemes. “You talk a lot o’ sense, and powerful sense, too, concerning life. But all you been talking to me is ’bout pension and death-money. You didn’t say nothing ’bout
living-money
. I want to hear ’bout the present time.”

“Make yuh point, Boysie Cumberbatch.”

“Look, man, I had a job in a paint factory, once. In the east end o’ the city, at a place name Flow Glaze. And gorblummuh, before I even draw my first week’s wage, some damn man came asking me for pension-money, income-tax money, and various kinds o’ benefits like group-insurance. Christ, I wasn’t even suffering from a head cold! Now, I ask you, as a man who have seen many things in many shapes and forms, how the hell could, or should, a thirty-seven-year-old bitch like me be thinking ’bout pension-money?”

“You looking at this proposition wrong. If ever the boss man say to you, You fired! God-blow-me, Boysie Cumberbatch, where are you getting tomorrow’s cup o’ green tea from?”

“But why should a thirty-seven-year-old man like me, worry ’bout deading for?” When Henry could think of no good reason, Boysie went on to say, “You want to know something?
I come into this country, as you might say, through the back door, meaning I come in only in the behalfs of swearing out an oath that I was going to marry that stupid woman, Dots, in a specified time. Not that I had no fucking choice in the matter. I had as much choice as a rat in a burning canefield. I either married Dots, gorblummuh in that specified time, or
out goes me
!” Henry had heard this story before. “And in a sense, you could say that I is a man
on loan
to Dots, ’cause if Dots wasn’t so damn lonely down there in Rosedale, Henry, I is not such a blasted fool that I don’t know it is loneliness and
not
love, that signed my passport and turned me into a landed immigrant. That is how I come to be here, tonight. Otherwise, I would still be in some kiss-me-arse canefield, or chasing whores in Nelson Street, or on a ship bound for Brit’n, like the rest o’ arse-hole West Indians. But it pains my arse to think o’ myself, as a man sponsored, and sponsored, gorblummuh, by a woman at that! You stand all right, Henry, because you standing up ’pon dollars and cents. I also know where I stand. You know ’bout pensions and old age, but let me, Boysie Cumberbatch tell you something ’bout marriage and young-age!”

“Make yuh point.”

“Well, my point is this. I wake up one morning and find myself in bed with a woman, married and be-Christ, I don’t like what I married, ’cause I wasn’t no blasted free agent in the choice o’ that woman. I know I wasn’t no free agent, ’cause when I see skins like Brigitte, or Agaffa, or even Estelle, I know that being married to Dots as I
had
to be, wasn’t no choice.…”

“You is a man, Boysie Cumberbatch, in neutral gear, so to speak.”

“Prefuckingzactly!” The rum had worked a kind of mad
poetic articulateness throughout his system; and in the poetry of his words, he could hear his voice moving on. “Now, I do not know, or care, what immigrating or living in this damn place does do, or has done, to women like Bernice and Estelle and the other two farts who was up there at the party. I only know what it do to Dots, ’cause she is the woman I had to say
I do and I will
, to. I see a big change come over Dots, through immigrating. You didn’t see the mad insane way she was getting on, up there? There is two Dotses now. The Barbadian Dots who uses to sell comforts and lollipops and parched peanuts in the Bus Stand in Bridgetown,
and
the Canadian Dots, who spends every blasted night putting her hair up in curlers and filling up the bathroom with nylon stockings and black panties that she do not even wear no blasted place. Because I do not take Dots no place. I don’t think a man should take out his wife, too often. And gorblummuh, I do not take out Dots
at all
. But something wrong, Henry, something like a vast transformation come over my wife. Something wrong with the woman’ head, too. Every morning, she singing the same tune:
Boysie, you sleeping? it is time we put down something for our old age. Boysie, is time we get children. We should have a child, or two. I getting to be a old woman
. Dots is a young woman, thirty-five years, and she telling me she getting old? Why every-blasted-body in this place, Canada, always thinking ’bout death? When it isn’t children, or a house be-Christ, it is pension!
Boysie, let we move outta this place, and get a roof over we head. A roof with our name and initials in it. Let we move outta Dr. Hunter place. Don’t mind it is rent-free, and Mrs. Hunter is a lady, sometimes. She is my friend today, but tomorrow she might give me a frown instead of a smile
. Jesus Christ, Henry, the place we lives in now, is the best place I ever lived in in all
my stumbling through this damn Chinee world. And it is the best house Dots ever lived in, too. And she talking ’bout moving outta
that
? Man, tell me what gone wrong? ’cause something gone wrong. House! child! old age pensions! gorblummuh, and I been in this country for months and months now, and I only had one part-time job. I got fired from that, for going to work late,
three times
. Three times in two months! not thirteen, three! and I been looking for a permanent job for the past six months.” Henry, who was unemployed, had nothing to say to this. “But when it was me who suggest to Dots that she should have left the job when the missy, Mrs. Hunter, gave her her cheque one Friday, half-hour after the bank closed, Dots turned round ’pon me like a centipede, calling me ungrateful-this, and ungrateful-that, and ask me if I remember who put the down-payment ’pon the car, meaning this car we sitting in now. That is the kind o’ woman I married to. Ninety-five dollars and ninety-five cents a month. Five years now, Mrs. Hunter giving my wife that salary, and Dots insist Mrs. Hunter is a lady.”