The Pink House at Appleton (14 page)

That hot August night, Mama waited up for Papa, wishing to be magnanimous, wanting to be tender and kind, to dispel any imagined obstacle that might have come between them. But Papa was late coming home as usual and she fell asleep. When he arrived, in the early dawn, she awoke. And when he came to her in bed, he was unnaturally fierce, like a mountain ram.

After lunch the next day, Mama cornered him in the bedroom and asked him tearfully, ‘What have I done, Harold? What is the matter? Tell me, I want to know.'

‘Dammit, nothing's the matter,' Papa retorted, walking quickly out of the room. Minutes later, Mama saw him speeding away, the dust violent and scathing behind him. She couldn't help it and burst into tears. Ever since the Mitchisons' dinner, it seemed not a single day passed without a row, even though she went out of her way to be accommodating.

In those days, Papa quarrelled with everyone in the house, including Mavis, Vincent and Poppy. He glared at them and ignored them and held them in contempt. He imagined they were on Mama's side and that was enough. Weren't they all together at the house while he was away at the factory? They were all in her camp, every single one of them. He was the outsider, always outnumbered, never receiving any support, a stranger in his own home. And all the time he was slaving away at the factory to put a roof over their heads, clothing on their backs, food in their bellies, what did he get? She was poisoning them against him, his own children. That was what was going on. See the way they huddled and broke away at his approach? See how they kept away from him, their own father? See how they looked down, always suspicious and guilty, whenever he called them, in a firm voice, to come to him? Ungrateful wretches, every single one of them.

The children kept well out of Papa's way during these internecine wars, quietly reading, fidgeting in their rooms and longing for him to leave the house. When he did leave, in a thunderous walk down the hall and out the kitchen door, they hoped Poppy would be sensible enough to remain under the house or, if he happened to be lounging on the patio near the kitchen, remain motionless, not giving eye contact. Twice before Papa had found his presence obtrusive, frankly disrespectful and threatening. Poppy had felt hard brogue leather about his ribs on both occasions. And Mavis, going about her business conspicuously in the kitchen, was always given the cold shoulder. Vincent, crouching by the flowerbeds on his knees, always kept his back to Papa and his head down.

Whenever Mama and Papa made up, the sun seemed more radiant. Everyone helped the mood. Mavis's washing up in the kitchen took on a musical sound. Vincent whistled as he worked under the windows. Poppy barked a joyful bark and chased invisible mongoose. Papa's face shone brilliantly too, like the moon in Yvonne's drawing book, with a smile so wide it cut his face in two, laughing loud and long and showing perfect teeth. This Friday evening in late August was typical.

‘You little angel, you,' Papa said, suddenly appearing in the drawing room and pinching Yvonne's cheek. When she presented the other cheek, he pinched that too, swept her off her feet and took her to Mama, where the noises coming from the bedroom were the same as from a school playground. Papa was like a little boy, cuddling and tickling and shocking everyone. He chased Yvonne around the room so that she could feel the gritty hairs on his chin. She shrieked and ran to Mama, only pretending, running back to Papa and falling into his arms for another feel of the bristles.

‘Boyd, you'll be a great man one day,' Papa said, walking fast down the hall. ‘Just look at you. You've got great written all over you. A chip off the old block, I tell you. You shall have the best education, you and Barrington and Yvonne. We were destined to be great, we Brookeses. Like father, like children. You shall be as great as your Papa – no, greater – and carry on the family name, my son!' He slapped Boyd on the back, and Boyd sniffed the Royal Blend, the sugar, the contents of test tubes, that Papa aroma, and believed every word. And in that moment, all his doubts about Papa disappeared, especially when Papa said to Barrington, ‘My
big
son, shake your Papa's hand!' And Barrington, smiling proudly as only big sons do, put out his hand in that pretend adult way with a boyish grin.

Papa, rushing down the hall singing,
Beecaause you come to me,
beecaause you speak to me, beecaause,
gave instructions to Vincent to have the car washed and polished within the hour.

‘Put your back into it,' Papa said good-humouredly.

But Vincent, feeling low after his encounter with Mavis, took it badly. The only person who seemed to have reservations about his diligence and the quality of his work was his current employer. He missed Mr Maxwell-Smith with every passing day.

‘We're going to the club,' Papa announced, ‘as a special treat.'

The house exclaimed joyously at this announcement. Boyd immediately inhaled the scent of delicate pink lilies. Beautiful music filled his ears. He and Barrington dressed in their pepperseed trousers, tailored by Mr Tecumseh Burton of Balaclava, and applied palmolive pomade to their hair. Yvonne wore black patent leather strap shoes and a cotton dress gathered at the front. Mama wore club clothes, her two-tone shoes of cream and brown and dabbed
Evening in Paris
behind her ears, under her chin and several places on her arms. Pleasures smote Boyd at every turn: the sunset, the
Shhh, Shhh, Shhhing
of the factory, Mama and Papa speaking again, Papa singing
Beecaause
, Mavis competent in the kitchen, the car polished and waiting. Somewhere, distant but near, Susan waited all nervy and trembly in torrid loveliness. He hoped intensely that she would be at the club too.
Beecaause you come to me
,
Beecaause.

White birds flew into the sunset as they left the car after a brisk drive and walked up the steps to the club enveloped in Mama's
Evening In Paris
. Miss Chatterjee and Miss Hutchinson were the first to greet them. Boyd's heart raced. Miss Hutchinson was the curling blue smoke from a poised cigarette, the intoxicating drink from a sparkling glass, the perfume in a hand-cut crystal bottle that savaged the senses, the look that carried deep, powerful meaning. But she was no match for Miss Chatterjee, who simply stepped out of a book, an undying sensation. Miss Chatterjee was exclusive, although quite friendly with Patricia Moodie, as they both came from the same suburb of Kingston. Men avoided her because she was a perfect picture, only to be looked at, never touched.

There was no sign of Susan yet. But Boyd knew that the Mitchison's Jaguar (‘A cream Mark II with red leather seats,' Barrington said) was at that very moment making its way across the bridge and to the club. He would turn casually and there they'd be, coming up the steps to the terrace, Susan with shining hair, wearing little white gloves and smelling like pink lillies. And the evening would be dramatic, like a film, full of crimson skies and seductive music.
And he would try to get her away alone and do it then
.

Older women than Mama sat at green wicker tables in the gardens, in perfume and evening shadow, shielded by clipped green hedges against a soft sunset. The evening breeze buffed their tender skins, dark skins, caramel and pink skins, while they showed glimpses of thigh and crinoline petticoat. They were all of flashing eyes, pearly teeth and pretty lipsticked mouths, and Boyd completed dramatic stories in his head about them all.

At the table on the terrace with Mama, he watched Miss Chatterjee between cream soda bubbles. She was teaching Barrington, who would rather have played football, how to grip a tennis racket. She laughed and moved towards his brother, putting her arms about him to demonstrate the correct racket position. Earlier, when they'd arrived and everyone kissed, Boyd had been overcome by her
Essen
and the look in her eyes, and found himself pulling away from her embrace, unable to manage his exploding feelings. Now the same sensation overcame him as Miss Chatterjee giggled, smacked the ball with elegant arms, the poise of a ballet dancer in tennis skirts, dark hair flying, smooth thighs subtly rippling. She brought her own racket with her, Slazenger Challenge or something or other, withdrawing it carefully from its case each time. Everybody else used club rackets.

Boyd moved to the edge of the terrace, looking down on the court as men at the bar downed liquor in small chunky glasses. The men who had lived abroad drank Johnnie Walker Scotch whisky (born 1820 and still going strong). They watched Miss Chatterjee out of the corners of their eyes and propositioned her in secret.

They eyed young Barrington with impatience, disdain even, thinking that, if given the chance, they wouldn't stand about like a moron. The fact that he was a boy meant nothing – they saw themselves in his place and berated him in their hearts for not behaving like a
man.
They would do something, anything but let a fine opportunity slip by. Through a haze of liquor, boiling sugar aroma drifting up from the factory, that mixture of sensations that only estate workers who spend their time at the club know, they dreamed. But some things were only club dreams. The men had experienced a moment of recklessness. They returned to their rum and ginger, their whisky and water. Miss Chatterjee's squeals and giggles, a red-blooded reminder of their youth, fleeting fast. But Boyd, only eight years old, sniffing the warm sugar smells, seeing the radiant sunset, studied Miss Chatterjee and saw the future.

‘Have some salted biscuits and cheese, darling,' he heard Mama say as she placed her Babycham on the table, bubbles bursting silently.

Mama was sitting with Miss Hutchinson, charming Miss Hutchinson with the shapely calves, who, people said, had pulled down her panties at the club during the last Crop-Over Dance while drunk and dancing on a table. She had stopped only when the music stopped, gin and tonic in one hand and panties in the other. Mama and Papa arrived at the estate the following year so hadn't been present.

‘People will say anything,' Papa had remarked. Mama, clearly in agreement, confirmed by saying, ‘Did you know she speaks three different languages?' Boyd had heard every word, lurking behind the living room door, picturing the fascinating half-naked Miss Hutchinson. Miss Hutchinson was laughing with Mama now and smoking a cigarette, Senior Service, legs crossed, eyes half-closed and mouth sultry. She wore what Mama called “tropical clothes”, and when she blew her cigarette smoke it was done with the sort of sophistication that people who depended entirely on posing and vanity lacked.

When Mama wasn't looking, Boyd wandered down the hall to the men's room, basking in the ubiquitous attention of powdered, plump women with big pearls, on their way from the women's room. But the Mitchisons were nowhere to be seen.

On his way back, he saw Edgar, Mr Burton's nephew, fondling a pretty girl in the parking lot. Edgar's cigarette smoke rose up from the pink oleander bush, a young man's cigarette smoke, not adult like Papa's Royal Blend or Miss Hutchinson's Senior Service. Edgar probably smoked Four Aces, the cigarette of a man on the make.

‘Men like him have a baby in every parish,' Mr Samms once said at dinner, shaking his head. ‘Not to be let loose on nice girls.' And yet certain girls ran to Edgar like bees to honey.

When Boyd returned to the terrace, every vibrant face was Ann Mitchison's, every seeking, small face was Susan's. But they were not on the terrace or in the garden. Barrington sat next to Mama, bored, while Yvonne picked her nose and listened loudly to Miss Hutchinson. Miss Chatterjee sat three tables away, her skin glowing, eyes glancing repeatedly towards the club's entrance, tense, waiting too.

‘Mama, will Miss Chatterjee teach us to play tennis?' Yvonne asked.

‘You're too young, darling.'

‘Oh, they're never too young,' Miss Hutchinson said quickly. ‘Dennis Dowding can teach them. He's up from Munro now. If he can't do it, we'll get young Pamela Carby. She's very good.'

Mama smiled reluctantly.

‘She was teaching Barrington,' Yvonne quickly pointed out.

Barrington grimaced, more bored than ever. He would have preferred talk about Wembley and English football, or Brazilians like Pele and Garrincha. He'd been watching the terrace and couldn't see Geraldine Pinnock anywhere, but he hoped that the Pinnock's car would arrive at any moment. They drove a grey Riley with brown leather upholstery.

‘She's far too busy,' Mama said. ‘She won't have the time.'

‘She wasn't teaching,' Miss Hutchinson said. ‘She was just playing about. Anyway, she goes off to Kingston almost every weekend these days. We'll get Dennis or Pamela to do it. Since their Senior Cambridge exams, they've had nothing to do. They'll teach you so that one day you'll be as good as Althea Gibson.' Miss Hutchinson threw back her head and calmly blew blue smoke stylishly towards the heavens.

‘Who's Althea Gibson?' Yvonne asked.

Miss Hutchinson smiled and tickled her arms. Yvonne shrieked and threw up her hands, displaying frilly white bloomers. Mama's eyes went immediately to the white bloomers, and seeing that they were clean, displayed maternal calm.

‘Althea Gibson? She's a black American girl. She played at Wimbledon, the big tennis tournament in England, and beat everybody. She's the best woman tennis player in the world.'

Barrington looked up. He knew something about sports but he had never heard about this Althea Gibson who was the best in the world.
The world
.

‘In the whole world?' Barrington asked the world the question.

It was impossible. They knew Miss Chatterjee, who was a great player, and Dennis, who beat everybody at Munro College and boasted about it incessantly at half-term. Pamela was very good too, even Miss Chatterjee said so. She used to be the captain of the lawn tennis team at her school, Hampton. And yet Althea Gibson was better than all of them! But, surely, no one could beat Miss Chatterjee with her Slazenger Challenge racket. The children were quiet for a long time and then, just when they were about to pepper Miss Hutchinson with questions, Papa said it was time to go. It was eight-thirty.