The Pink House at Appleton (22 page)

When Mama and Papa returned from St Catherine, they were full of the smell of death.

‘Did Boyd behave himself?' was the first question Papa asked Mavis.

‘Oh, yes, Mr Brookes,' Mavis replied sweetly. ‘He behave himself very well. He was a good boy, Mr Brookes, a good boy.'

‘I'm glad to hear it,' Papa said, giving Boyd, who stood meekly nearby, a hard look.

Mama was weepy all through the next day and kept to her room, Yvonne her only companion. Barrington went off on his bicycle and, brazenly, stayed out late. Papa was more impatient than ever, betraying a restlessness that couldn't be contained. He left the house early, missed lunch and dinner and returned in the wee hours, like a man hunted, stumbling into bed exhausted. The following day was the same, except that during the magical part of the morning, during the
Housewives' Choice
hour, Yvonne ran up to Boyd.

‘Susan's at the gate on her bicycle,' she said. ‘And Poppy's with her.'

Boyd, his senses reeling, was filled with a sudden boldness but pretended that the news meant nothing. Then, as Yvonne left, he looked round to see that no one was about and ran to his bedroom window. He was too late, getting there just in time to see Susan riding away and Poppy looking about mystified. Elated in the extreme, Boyd knew that he would have to go to her that night and do what he had to do.

In bed that evening, Susan put away her
Lambs' Tales from Shakespeare
, opened at a certain page. She thought of the picture of the Forest of Arden, where Orlando lived, of the moment at the pink house with Boyd's little spotted dog, of the feelings that defied explanation. She saw the pretty blackness outside the opened window and breathed the scented night air. The small hand of her bedside clock pointed to eight.

It was so nice to wake up every morning and feel the crimson feelings. Tomorrow she would ride her bicycle yet again up the driveway of his house and hope to catch a glimpse of him, forever hiding in the shadows, watching her. She could always tell if he was hiding in the bushes because his little dog made yapping noises. He was bound to come out this time. She'd never had a playmate in her life, not in England, not in Barbados and not at Monymusk. The other children had been so silly, like everybody, not magical like Boyd. She knew he wanted to play. She was desperate to play too.

At eight o'clock, Boyd got out of bed in his day clothes and clambered out the window to join Poppy. Together they crossed the periwinkle fence in the moonlight and, frightened but exhilarated, continued up the road in the dark. Poppy led the way. Susan's scent was strong and Boyd started to run, blind to every obstacle. They crept through the Mitchison's fence and got to Susan's window, where the curtains quietly danced. Boyd was about to stand on a low ledge to get up to the window when shadows appeared. Rigid in the dark, they saw Papa and Mrs Mitchison come down the path to the gate. For the first time, Boyd recognised Papa's Land Rover, parked under the trees. He squatted low down, his heart in his mouth. Then, fright giving him wings, he hurt himself dashing back to the house and through his bedroom window before the headlights of the Land Rover lit up the driveway.

That night, Papa stayed up late on the verandah smoking fiercely, flinging the cigarette butts into the darkness, ill at ease. Boyd heard him when he finally went to bed, slamming the French windows. And Boyd heard him when he locked the bedroom door. But the locked door could not keep out the tumult that night.

The children woke up thinking the worst. There were dreadful noises coming from Mama's bedroom. They heard Mama say, ‘Stop it!' Frightened, they stumbled out into the hall, Yvonne in crumpled crushed cotton Peter Rabbit pyjamas. Barrington stood by the door to his room, glaring at Papa.

‘Get back to your beds!' Papa bellowed, and they scattered like rabbits.

The following day, there was much activity. Nurse Lindo, State Registered, was sent for. She arrived in her little pastel cream and green Morris Oxford, bought in England where she'd studied. Nurse Lindo was like polished ebony. Her perfect skin, pink tongue and white teeth set against the white of her dress and shoes made the children think of Sunlight soap and Colgate Palmolive toothpaste. Displaying professional calm, she spoke to Papa, who listened earnestly with his hands behind his back. After she'd gone, Papa called Mavis to him.

‘Get Mrs Brookes' bag,' he told her.

Mavis had no time to apply
Cutex
and
Essen
or put on her new shoes to look presentable, but was bundled into the Prefect with Mama. And Papa drove away without a word. The children were left on the verandah, biting their fingernails, Vincent looking on from the front lawn, his sharpened machete in his quivering hand.

* * *

It seemed that Mama had been away for a whole year when Papa packed them into the Prefect and drove along the winding roads to the Maggotty Nursing Home run by Nurse Lindo, SRN.

As he entered the nursing home, Boyd looked across the street and saw a modern house with a double garage at the end of a wide driveway. His eyes travelled along the radiant bougainvillea and past the garage doors to the front door, where a small girl in white shorts emerged into the sunlight. Following behind her was another figure in powder-yellow shorts. Boyd blinked, certain that this was no other than Susan. But the girls were Ann-Marie and Dawn, two pretty Chinese girls who attended the Balaclava Academy. Their father, Mr Michael Chin, drove up in a red and cream Studbaker Champion, brand new from America. The girls got in and the car drove off. Papa and Mr Chin exchanged purposeful waves.

Nurse Lindo gushed with charm and efficiency as she welcomed them into her house of women and babies. She wore brilliant-white, crepe-soled shoes and spoke in a low, firm voice. She led them down a corridor, the
swish, swish, swish
of her white nylon dress and stockings the only sound. The children could see that Papa was nervous because he kept his hands behind his back and sweated.

The white door at the end of the hall opened and Nurse Lindo stepped back, beaming. Papa entered, a plastic smile upon his face. He was very awkward, tripping over a rug by the bed. Mama smiled and started to cry, glad to see them ‘Come in, come in.'

Boyd stood back, wanting everyone else to go first. He felt tearful, especially when Mama said, ‘Boyd, here, come here,' pointing to a spot near her.

When Nurse Lindo opened the door, the smell of floor polish gave way to baby smells – Johnson's Baby Oil, Johnson's Baby Powder, freshly laundered baby nappies. Yvonne had exuded those same smells not long ago, but now she just smelled of crayon. Mama's room was large and airy. A big sash window brought the sparkling sunlight in and showed a small pink baby in her arms, fast asleep, its dark curly hair slicked back, eyes funny like baby puppy eyes.

‘It's a girl,' Mama said.

They stood looking at the baby for a long time, barely breathing, not knowing what to say. Yvonne eventually reached out to touch the tiny figure, glancing at Papa as if she expected him to stop her and giggled when he didn't. She touched the little bundle twice, each time reluctant to take her hand away.

‘She's the new baby now,' Nurse Lindo said, massaging Yvonne's arm fondly as she left the room.

‘I was never a baby,' Yvonne retorted, pulling away, lip trembling.

The daffodil-yellow sun came through the window and crept up to the baby, who shifted in Mama's arms and yawned, lips seeming to form into a silent operatic note, one arm reaching into the air, tiny fingers groping. Boyd reached out and touched the baby then. It was pink and soft and fragile with wrinkles around its neck, like the baby mice he once found in a drawer in the storeroom. He touched its little fingers while Barrington stayed back like Papa.

‘Go sit on the verandah and behave yourselves,' Papa told them. ‘You can play with the baby later.'

They kissed Mama, stroked her arms and looked at her as a long-lost friend returned with impossible gifts. She smelled of bed-things and baby, an achingly beautiful scent. She radiated intrinsic goodness. And they knew why Papa had been so affected. They hoped desperately that he and Mama would be friends again.

* * *

When they arrived back at the pink house, they saw a pretty woman in a yellow polka-dotted dress on the verandah, sipping lemonade. Mavis was in animated conversation with her. Mama burst into tears again for it was Aunt Enid. Mama was crying so much she couldn't get out of the car and Mavis rushed out to attend to the baby, cooing and aahing and crying too. Papa stood to one side awkwardly. The children couldn't wait to get to Aunt Enid and galloped into the house. Boyd hugged Aunt Enid and caressed her silky, ample woman's arms. Aunt Enid kissed him on the lips, nose and forehead and hugged him close, her eyes closed.

‘Hello, my little darling,' she squealed.

Boyd wept.

Then the two sisters were together in a tender embrace. Papa, trying for something appropriate to say, muttered obliquely to the children, ‘They're like twins, y'know.'

The tiny baby lying on the bed in Mama's room, watched over by Mavis, opened her eyes and started to splutter. Aunt Enid rushed to the bedroom, closely followed by Mama and the children. Papa brought up the rear in slow motion. Aunt Enid took the baby in her arms and rocked it gently back and forth, humming. The baby, arms and legs bicycling, eyes wide open, gurgled and kept on gurgling.

‘We'll call you Babs,' Aunt Enid said as the baby clapped its little hands. Who could refuse an aunt like Aunt Enid, standing in the centre of the room in summer yellow, holding a baby so clean, so pure, so new, everyone looking, waiting, expecting.

Papa and the children were banished from the room while Aunt Enid and Mama chatted. Papa took refuge on the verandah with a glass of rum and ginger and a packet of Royal Blend, but not before he motioned Vincent over.

‘Give the Prefect a good polish,' he said. ‘And use that new wax. I want to see my face in the paintwork.'

‘Ah always use the new wax, sar,' Vincent replied quickly.

‘Well, use more of it,' Papa told him impatiently. When Vincent hesitated, intending to offer his congratulations on the birth of the infant Brookes, trying to find the right words to do so, Papa's reaction was a gruff ‘Well, get on with it, man!'

After Vincent sloped off, feeling terribly slighted, Papa sipped his rum, spewed cigarette smoke and surveyed the gardens. The significant events developing so rapidly could sink a less able man. It was a dangerous position to be in but one he accepted as an indisputable challenge. Thoughts of Mama and the baby, such a wonderful little thing, his own flesh and blood, the fruit of his loins, were partly crowded out by white-hot images of Ann Mitchison.
He wanted her at
that very moment.
And he felt ashamed. She assailed his veritable maleness. Her image was in Appleton heat, impossible to deny. He was the wet sugar in the centrifugal drums at the factory, falling and spinning and sucked dry into the honeycomb walls. The process was dangerous if not managed. He would let events dictate and act decisively and manfully at the appropriate moment. There was no question that his father would have opposed his shoddy behaviour, in no uncertain terms, even though he was a philanderer himself. Papa would oppose it too if it were another man. But it was a unique test, and only he knew how it mattered, what it really meant. The situation was fully under control. His chemistry saw to that. He poured another rum and ginger, measuring the rum carefully. The Dowdings were visiting for a celebratory drink and he wanted to be on tip-top form. He expected Ann Mitchison to visit too.

Aunt Enid's gentleman friend, Theolonious Washington, an American, was driving down from the Melrose Hotel in Mandeville to take her back to Waterloo Avenue, Kingston that evening. He had delivered Aunt Enid to the pink house (‘In a fishtail American car,' Mavis gushed) while the children were at Maggotty. When Mr Washington arrived in the afternoon, he cut quite a figure in a milk-chocolate-coloured suit, cream and brown shoes and a wide tie with pictures of horses on it. He said very little for an American. Aunt Enid did all the talking and, over drinks on the verandah, described Mr Washington – Theo – as a realtor who lived on Sugar Hill, a rich district in Harlem, New York. He had taken Aunt Enid to concerts at the Apollo Theater and to the Newport Jazz Festival, where they had heard Ella Fitzgerald sing. He knew about Richard Wright, who wrote the bestselling novel
Native Son
and had attended the Josephine Baker celebrations at the Golden Gate Ballroom on Lenox Avenue. He knew, or was acquainted with, Eartha Kitt and Harry Belafonte (Everyone drew breath at this).

‘We are nothing in America,' Aunt Enid suddenly said, after shocking everyone with the impossible news that they actually knew people who sang on the radio –
the radio
. ‘Over there we're worse than the coolies.'

Everyone gasped at this because they knew about coolies,
dark people,
whose blue cooking smoke rose lazily into the sky every day – coolies like Mr Ramsook, with their dirt and awful butchered pig smell.

‘If you only knew the things I've gone through.' Aunt Enid shook her head slowly, a bitter smile turning into a look of outrage. ‘Me! Enid Pratt! Treated like dirt, treated worse than
dark
people
.'

‘Drink your drink,' Papa said in an attempt to console her.

Aunt Enid sipped her drink contemplatively. Her lips were pursed. ‘I couldn't go to the Cotton Club,' she said, shaking her head, ‘just because I'm black.'

‘But you're not black,' Papa said sympathetically. ‘You're coloured.'

‘Coloured? Don't be a fool, Harold. I'm a black person. I'm
coloured
black, as you are. You see, you don't understand, like those who describe blacks as
people of colour
, forgetting that white people are coloured too.'