I am sitting there this long while and she nuh come back. So I start examine the floor and make my own patterns outta how the white colour swirling through the dark grey tiles and then after a while I get the feeling of someone standing there in the doorway. When I look up it is Marcia. She say to me, ‘Gloria not here, yu know.’
‘She not here?’
‘No. She gone into town.’
‘She gone into town?’
‘Yu going repeat everything I say?’
I just stop and I look at Marcia because I can’t believe Gloria do this to me. This thing gone beyond a joke now.
‘I dunno what time she coming back, so I can’t say nothing to yu ’bout how long yu should spend your time waiting here.’
I don’t bother go there the next afternoon like I supposed to. But come evening I go pick up the money and she is there dress in a tight red frock that show off every curve of every inch of her body. And I can see that every man in that room want to reach out and touch her, but him know that you can’t just grab a woman like that, all you can do is maybe brush up against her like it a accident, or pat her arm as you talking, or maybe take her hand like you playing with her or swinging into a little dance, but just when your other arm want to reach ’round her waist and pull her in you have to check yourself. It like Gloria got a big notice hanging ’round her neck and it say, ‘Watch yourself, man.’
When she finally decide to come give me the money she don’t say nothing to me. She just walk over to the door where I am standing, but when she get close to me I step outside. So she follow me, and when it just the two of us on the porch I say to her, ‘I know I not got no place complaining ’bout how you treat me this week. I just wondering how much longer you going carry on like this.’
She staring out into the dark yard and after some long while she say to me in this calm, cold voice, ‘I only ever ask you for one thing and you do it, and that was a piece of business for both of us. That is how it started. It didn’t start out as personal, but I dunno what happen. Maybe it was because of how patient you was, sitting there drinking tea and doing your handiwork, till in the end it was me that had to give you permission to make a move. You are the only man I ever know like that. Every other man I know just want to jump me the minute he clap eyes on me. That is how it been for me my whole life.’
All that is there in the silence between us is the click of a cricket here and there. So I just wait because I can feel that she got more to say.
‘When I find out you going marry Fay Wong I almost couldn’t believe it. It was like I must have dreamed it when I thought you had some feeling and respect for me. Not that a woman in my position can have much to say ’bout respect. But it hurt. It hurt bad because the worst thing about it was it put me in my place. It told me who I really am to you. Your three-time-a-week whore.’
I grab her shoulder and turn her ’round.
‘Gloria, it not like that. It not like that at all.’
And she look me in the face and say, ‘How is it then, Pao? What is it like?’
‘It is like -’ and I stop because I really have to think what I am going to say to her. ‘It is like every day you go out and you see this independent, strong, beautiful animal. Maybe something like a tiger, and you happy with that, but everybody tell you that a grown man got to have him something to keep at home. He can’t be out every day chasing after some tiger that is going about her own business. And you think yes, so you go get yourself a cage and you get the tiger and you put it in there. And maybe you happy for a while but it not long before you start to think well this tiger just sitting there every day now, waiting for me to feed it, and clean out the cage, and entertain it and tend to it when it sick. It don’t do nothing for itself no more. And after a while it start to vex you because it nothing like the animal that you used to see running free and full of life. Now it just lazy and dead. Yu no get no pleasure from it no more, but you have to live with that because is you that kill it.’
‘That is all about you. You ever think that maybe the tiger, as well as wanting to be free, also sometimes want some security and some rest so maybe it don’t have to fret every day ’bout where the next meal coming from or how it going defend itself against everything out there that want to hunt it down? That maybe the tiger want to be able to look forward to some support and company, especially when it getting older and it not so independent, or strong, or beautiful? That maybe the tiger just want some day to find some peace?’
‘You can have all of that, Gloria, and yu don’t need no cage to get it.’
She just look at me like maybe she believe me or maybe she don’t. And then she say, ‘You spend too much time listening to what everybody tell you.’
Well after we done say all of that I realise I can’t go ask her now how she hear ’bout me marrying Fay. So I miss my chance. And that was that.
After I leave Gloria, Hampton is waiting for me outside in the car and I say to him, ‘Come on, man, let us go walk back to town.’
‘Is ten o’clock at night, man, you mad? Don’t you know it dangerous?’
‘What, you ’fraid duppy going get you? And anyway, who you think foolish enough to go jump you and me? Come on, leave the car, you can come get it in the morning.’ And we start walking.
When we nearly reach into town we hear a commotion in a alley, like a barrel knock over or something like that. And we follow the noise because we think maybe somebody in trouble. When we get down there, there is the two of them. One of them stand up with his pants open and the other one kneel down in front of him. When the one on him knees turn ’round we see him young, and him get up and run. The other one is a grown man. Him do up him pants and disappear ’round the next corner. Me and Hampton just look at one another and carry on walk back to town.
10
So I marry Fay, and we do the church and we do the party that Miss Cicely organise up Lady Musgrave Road with pink champagne and a little orchestra in the garden and a whole heap a people I never see before and never had nothing to say to, and who had nothing to say to me. And we drive up to Ocho Rios.
The whole week me and Fay having the honeymoon she say hardly two words to me. She busy with her hair, she fixing her face, she straightening her dress. She instructing the maid and telling the waiter what she want to eat, and she chatting with these complete strangers that she meet here and there every day. Me, she don’t say nothing to. She can barely even bring herself to look at me. We got the double bed right there inside the room and I am sleeping so far over my side I nearly falling out. Is just the sheet tuck in there under the mattress that saving me from hitting the cold tile floor every night.
And then the last night before we go home we do everything just the same way we been doing it all week. Fay take her shower and fix up herself and when she finish in the bathroom then it my turn to go take a shower and get ready for dinner. They serve dinner the same time every evening. Seven thirty for drinks and the little snack things on the terrace, and the band playing some gentle calypso. Eight pm you seated and working yu way through these five courses that they serve you every night. Not that I am complaining. The food is good, and every night is something else that I never see before. Like to me callaloo was callaloo but here they got it pile up in a little sandwich tower with some thin fried bread in between each layer and some strips of saltfish on top lay out like a star. And what they doing with the lobster I don’t know, but it cheesy and good, and the steak and the cream and the pork and the apple, and a whole heap a green and purple vegetable I can’t even recognise. But it good. It all good. It beautiful too under the clear Caribbean sky with the stars, and the music and the white linen tablecloth and the ice cubes clinking in the big water glass and the candles flickering on a little evening breeze. It nice. It civilised. They know how to look after you in this place.