would you like some, Nana? Rachel asks politely, she’s the most considerate of her grandchildren
Winsome sets to slicing the vegetables and gathers the ingredients for the dressing of thyme, salt, ground black pepper, hot pepper flakes, grated lemon and sunflower oil
tell me about how you and Grandad met, Rachel asks her out of the blue, stroking Madison’s back who’s perched sleepily, precariously on her lap
Winsome must look taken aback because Rachel adds, I want to know your stories to pass on to Madison when she’s older, Nana, I want to know what it was like when you were a person in your own right
Winsome has listened to her grandchildren’s lives since they could speak, and they’ve never asked about her
she understands that young people are consumed by themselves, and her role is to comfort and reassure and be caring towards them when their parents are cross with them
Winsome likes the fact that Rachel is curious enough to know who her grandmother was before she was a mother, when she was a person in her own right, as she described it
except she never has been, first she was a daughter, then a wife and mother, and now also a grandmother and great-grandmother.
2
I met your grandfather soon after I arrived in England in the fifties, Rachel, at a West Indian gathering in a pub in Ladbroke Grove where I found myself sitting next to none other than Clovis Robinson from Six Men’s Fishing Bay
our fathers were fishermen, but we only knew of each other at a distance
it took travelling thousands of miles for us to properly connect, he’d already been in England two years
he told me, it hard here, girl, it hard
we courted over the forthcoming winter months when I was adjusting to the weather and the culture
I was grateful to have him to support and steer me, even though he wasn’t particularly good-looking or with a dashing personality, both attributes I’d imagined for a husband before I was mature enough to accept that it was easier to dream
than it was to make the dream come true
Clovis never once left me shivering outside our regular haunts, the Odeon Astoria on a Saturday evening or Stockwell Park on a Sunday afternoon
he was nothing like some of the wide boys from home who went crazy and jumped from one woman to another
who left half-caste babies all over England
who’d grow up without their daddies
we married and moved into a room in Tooting where we shared a sink curtained off in the hallway, and toilet in a cardboard cubicle, with a house full of other tenants
we started saving for a house because ordinary people could afford to buy houses in London in those days if they saved for long enough
then Clovis went and had the dam chupid idea that we use our savings and head off for the south-west of England
he’d heard it was warmer there and he could find work as a fisherman
what he was put on earth to do, he said, not slave away in a factory making fertilizers and inhaling toxic chemicals
as we both did for twelve-hour shifts
Clovis said he longed for the sea where he could breathe again
the last thing I wanted was to be a fisherman’s wife, being a fisherman’s daughter had been hard enough
I used to wake up at four to go out on the boat with my father and brothers, I worked in the market as a fish boner and fish scaler, spent summers selling the sea eggs my brothers dived for on the coral reefs and brought back for me in nets – their black spikes still moving creepily about
I had to take each one and crack it open with a spoon, scoop the golden roe out, and sell it as a delicacy at the market
what could I say to Clovis? a woman had to obey her husband in those days, Rachel
divorce was shameful and only granted on the grounds of adultery, if a marriage didn’t work out, it was a life sentence
we took the train from Paddington to Plymouth where he looked for work in the shipping offices, and among the trawlers down at the harbour
he thought he’d walk into a job with his experience
I watched him approach the fishermen at the wharves or on shore, English cloth cap on his head, big English boots on his feet, see him doff his cap at the whiskery men of over sixty years ago who looked like they was something out of the Old Testament
he didn’t have to say a word when he returned, I could tell by the way he walked, and felt sorry for him – and for myself
it was obvious most people in this part of the world were poor
why should they give work to a stranger, let alone him?
one evening we sat on a windy harbour wall eating fish and chips out of filthy newspaper, which is how English people used to eat it, yes, you can screw up your face, it was a disgusting custom
I tried to persuade him to give up on his silly pipe dream and return to London
he said, Winnie, I want to try the small islands of the Scilly Isles further south where it’s warmer, and there must be lots of work for fishermen
Clovis, if that’s what you want, why don’t we return home where we belong?
Winnie, I mek up mi mind, I got to try this place, I have a hunch
if it was twenty years later, Rachel, I’d have left him there and then
if it had been thirty years later, I’d have lived with him before marrying him, you see it occurred to me that I didn’t really know this man who wanted me to follow him around like a mindless idiot
oh well, I said, the Scilly Isles is a pretty name, mebbe it’s a pretty place
I looped my arms through his to reassure him I was on his side
we go find out, love, he replied
we took buses and trains along the coast, and when we missed those, we walked
imagine us, Rachel, over sixty years ago, a coloured man and woman, Clovis six foot four with me a foot shorter, wearing my smart dress, coat and heels because we had to look respectable, a suitcase each, walking down country lanes where it seemed most people had never seen coloured people before, by the way the cars slowed down to gawp or hurl insults
we slept in train stations when nobody let us kip in lodgings
we travelled through places with beautiful names I wrote down and memorized: Looe, Polperro, Fowey, Mevagissey, St Mawes, Falmouth, St Keverne, the Lizard, Mullion, Porthleven
we reached Penzance, took the weekly boat to St Mary’s
‘The largest island of the archipelago of the Isles of Scilly’
soon as we landed, people wasn’t just unfriendly, they was downright hostile, who were these two monkey people arriving on their likkle island?
the whole town came to a standstill when we walked down the main street, I grabbed hold of Clovis’s arm and could feel him trembling
I needed him to be strong for me
you can’t work here, they said, when Clovis asked down at the quay
you can’t eat here, they said when we entered a little caff
you can’t drink here, the barman said when we entered a pub, all eyes on us
you can’t sleep here because your colour will come off on the sheets, said the woman who had a sign for lodgings in her window, people was that rude and ignorant back then, they spoke their mind and didn’t care that they hurt you because there was no anti-discrimination laws to stop them
the only thing you can do is leave here and never come back, the policeman advised us when we went to complain
we boarded the ferry to Penzance, slept in the doorway of a church where we’d knocked the night before on the door of the rectory and curtains moved, nobody answered
Clovis, I said, I told you it wasn’t worth the bother, now you and me are going straight back to the capital where people are more used to seeing coloureds
don’t tell me what to do, Winnie, I will mek up my own mind, I want to give Plymouth another chance, it’s on the coast, weather’s still warmer than London, the countryside ain’t that far away, and when we have pickney they can roam free like on Barbados, trust me