by Mike Gayle
As they sat in silence, Hubert took in the room. There was definitely a story here but the only way he was going to hear it was if his friend chose to volunteer the information, and Hubert guessed he wouldn’t anytime soon.
Gus made no attempt to start conversation. Instead he sat staring at the TV, even though it was switched off. Hubert used the time to take in more of his surroundings. The room was decorated exactly as he remembered from his days when he was a regular visitor. There was the glass cabinet Gus had bought from a small ad in the local paper; there was the dark brown sofa set that Hubert could remember being delivered; and on the wall above the fireplace were framed photographs of Gus’s parents, Samuel and Vernia. The only things that were new to Hubert were the TV, the mess, and the degree to which everything in the room, including Gus, seemed to have faded over time.
“So tell me, Gus, man,” said Hubert when he could stand the silence no more, “how you been keeping?”
Gus said nothing, so Hubert tried again.
“Come on, Gus!” He spoke a little louder this time in case his old friend’s hearing had deteriorated. “Me ask, how you been keeping?”
“I heard you the first time.”
“So why you no say nothing?”
Gus fell silent. Hubert wondered if he had offended him but then Gus spoke again.
“I don’t hear nothing, not a damn word from you for five years, and you think we can just pick up as if nothing happened?”
Hubert sighed.
“Come on, Gus. You know what happened. Me just couldn’t… couldn’t be around people… It wasn’t you… Me know you tried.”
“I call, I come by your house, I try everything and not a word from you!”
“Me know. It was my fault. And me sorry. But me here now and me want to help you.”
“Help me with what?” His voice was heavy with disdain.
Determined not to antagonize the man any further, Hubert surveyed the room again, hoping Gus would do the work for him, but he said nothing.
“Look,” said Hubert finally, “me can see things aren’t right. We all need a little help from time to time.”
Gus gave a short, bitter laugh.
“And you the man to give it? I don’t see you for years then out of nowhere you just show up on my doorstep and tell me you’re going to help me? Don’t make me laugh! I don’t need your help, Hubert Bird! I don’t need anyone’s help and if that’s all you came round here to say, then you can go!”
“But, Gus, man, you can’t—”
Gus picked up the remote next to him and switched on the TV, cutting off Hubert midsentence. Hubert wanted to box his friend’s ears. He raised his voice so he could be heard over the closing credits of some property program or other.
“So you not going to talk about this?” Gus remained silent, eyes fixed on the screen. “Man, me come all this way just to see you and this how you want to leave things?” Still silent, Gus turned the TV volume up even louder.
Hubert got to his feet. He didn’t want to leave his old friend in this pigsty but he didn’t want to get into a fight with him either.
“Fine,” yelled Hubert, fighting to be heard over the TV. “Me going to leave you alone but this is not the last word on this, Gus Campbell. Me and you have been friends too long for that!”
Ashleigh dunked her biscuit in her tea.
“And he kicked you out just like that?”
Hubert sighed.
“Him didn’t kick me out as such. Truth is me don’t think he’s got the strength to kick his way out of a wet paper bag at the moment, let alone anything else. Him just made it clear that he wanted me to go and so what else could me do? Me take meself up and left.”
It was just after lunch and Hubert was sitting at his garden table with Ashleigh, who had dropped in after work, having picked up Layla from nursery. Layla was plucking daisies from the lawn and handing them to her mother, who was piling them up next to her tea, while Puss lay stretched out lazily on the patio next to them sunning her belly.
Hubert hadn’t planned on telling anyone about his friend’s plight—it seemed like a betrayal somehow—but it was weighing so heavily on his mind that the words came out before he’d known what he was saying.
“So, what do you think’s happened for him to get like that?”
“Me don’t know. Me really don’t know.”
Ashleigh took a sip of tea.
“And he’s got no family?”
“Maybe a few distant relatives dotted here and there. Me pretty sure he had an auntie and a couple of cousins living up north at one time. But his auntie will be long gone by now and his cousins… Well, you know how it is… people move on and get busy with their own lives.”
“He never married?”
Hubert laughed, fondly remembering the lothario figure of his youth. After a while, however, it faded, only to be replaced by the unkempt man he’d left behind in Brixton.
“He was never one to settle down,” said Hubert. “He came close once but he let her slip through his fingers, fool that he was.”
“That’s so sad. And he’s got no kids or anything?”
“Not that me know of. Him never wanted to be tied down.”
“So he’s all alone in the world. That’s proper heartbreaking, that is. How come you lost touch with him? Did you have a falling-out or something?”
Hubert thought for a moment, recalling those days when Gus would ring, would come by, would bang on the door and shout through the letterbox to get his friend’s attention, just as Hubert himself had done yesterday.
“No, love,” said Hubert sadly. “We didn’t fall out. Me just… me just wasn’t very much of a good friend back then.”
Hubert could tell that Ashleigh wanted to ask more questions but he wasn’t in the right frame of mind to answer them, so he stood up and walked down to his shed, returning with a small plastic pot.
“Here you go,” he said to Layla. “You can put your mum’s flowers in here.”
Back in his seat at the garden table, he sat with Ashleigh watching Layla at play, neither of them speaking. He sensed that Ashleigh was aware this was difficult for him to talk about and was relieved that when she returned to the subject, she did so in more general terms.
“There are so many lonely people around these days,” she said. “I see it at the vet’s all the time: old dears whose only friend in the world is their pet and who want nothing more than a little chat when they pop in for worming medicine or whatever. The world is moving so fast and no one’s got time to stop these days. It’s sad, really. I read a thing in the paper last week while I was having my break at work. Apparently, loneliness is a bigger killer than cancer. Can you imagine that? There’s a bigger killer than cancer in the world and no one’s doing anything about it.”
“Well, that’s the thing,” said Hubert. “Whose job is it? It used to be the family all looking out for one another, but it’s not like that anymore. It used to be you at least knew your doctor, but these days you’re lucky to get an appointment, let alone see the same GP twice. It used to be your neighbors kept an eye on you, but people like to keep themselves to themselves now. It used to be that you belonged to a community, but really, is there such a thing anymore? Now it’s more like every man for himself.”
“Well, someone should do something,” said Ashleigh. There was a crack in her voice and tears in her eyes. “I’m sorry,” she said, aware that Hubert had registered her upset. “It’s just that the idea of Layla growing up in a world like this is so upsetting. If things are this bad now, what will they be like when she’s got kids of her own? I want something better for her, more hopeful.”
That evening Hubert sat alone in his living room thinking not only about Gus but also about Ashleigh. Her words had really resonated with him. She was right. Someone should do something about this loneliness problem. It wasn’t right to just let things deteriorate further. It wasn’t good to leave so many people struggling alone. Something had to b
e done, but the question was what, and by whom?
22
THEN
May 1972
As the plane’s wheels touched down on the tarmac of Kingston’s Norman Manley International Airport there was a spontaneous eruption of applause and whoops of delight, the loudest of which came from nine-year-old David. His big brown eyes were wide with excitement and his head twisted this way and that as he tried to get a peek through one of the windows. Not for the first time, he loudly voiced his disappointment that all four of them were stuck in the middle of the plane. “Can we get window seats on the way back?” he pleaded. “We’ll see, son,” said Hubert, trying to sound like a sensible grown-up, even though he himself had found it hard to contain his excitement, never having been on a plane before. “And if not, maybe we can have a word with one of the stewardesses and see if they’ll let you have a little look in the cockpit.”
David’s eyes grew even wider as he contemplated the possibility of such a wondrous thing. As the plane taxied to a halt, David relayed to Hubert increasingly fantastic scenarios that culminated in him being allowed to fly the plane while the captain stood by admiringly.
Hubert observed his son’s excitement travel all the way down to his feet and soon they were kicking the back of the seat in front of him.
“Well,” said Joyce, “you certainly won’t be allowed back on the plane at all, let alone to fly one, if you don’t stop that and sit properly.”
“Here you go, David,” said Rose kindly.
She offered her brother one of the sweets she’d saved from when the stewardess brought around a basket of them prior to landing. “Have this, and if you’re good I’ve got another one in my pocket for when we get off the plane.”
Hubert and Joyce exchanged glances and smiled. It had been Joyce’s idea they should all visit Jamaica together but it had been Hubert’s decision as to whether it would happen. The list of reasons not to make the trip had been long and at the top was the sheer expense, the children’s seats alone costing over five hundred pounds.
In addition to all this, Hubert had to turn down three weeks’ worth of work, money they could ill afford to lose. Then there was the worry of Joyce having to leave the nursery in the hands of the girls she’d been training up these past few months. All in all, on paper it had seemed like a terrible idea, but Joyce had made a convincing argument for now being the moment to go. “There’s never a perfect time for this sort of expense,” she’d argued. “But the children are old enough to travel now, your mum’s in good health, and I know if I were her I’d be desperate to see my grandchildren. We’re always being sensible, Hubert; maybe just this once we can throw caution to the winds.”
She was right, of course. With one thing and another he had been putting off even thinking about going back home to visit for the past ten years, but now was the time. After Joyce lost her mother, he was more than a little aware that he couldn’t take for granted that everyone and everything he’d left behind in Jamaica would always be there. As it was, his sister Vivian had moved to New York with her husband and was working as a teacher, and even his little brother, Fulton, was a grown man now, with a family of his own, living in Vancouver, carving out a good career for himself as a policeman. Things had changed, people had grown up and moved on, and if he waited any longer, who knew what would be left.
That same weekend, they’d visited the travel agent’s on High Street and after he’d put down a deposit for the airline tickets, he and Joyce had taken the children out for an ice cream in the park and told them the good news. “We’ll get to meet our grandma for the very first time,” said Rose, while David’s main concern was that they would be traveling by plane. “I can’t wait,” he said excitedly, unaware, Hubert noted, that his ice cream was dripping down his hand. “We’re going on a plane! We’re going on a plane! And if we crash we’ll get to use a parachute too!”
As row after row of passengers filed off the aircraft, Hubert had been so busy making sure that they had left neither carry-on luggage nor children behind that he was completely distracted as he stepped out onto the metal steps, only to be hit by a blast of hot, humid air that was like a punch in the face. When he’d left Jamaica he’d never imagined a day might come when he would forget what real warmth felt like and yet here he was, dressed in a totally unsuitable jacket for the weather, sweat already forming on his brow and upper lip as he guided his son and daughter carefully down the steps to the tarmac.
Collecting their suitcases, they found a water fountain for Joyce, who was already struggling with the heat, before making their way to the arrivals hall. Hubert was struck by the sight of so many Black people all in one place: Black people in police uniforms, Black people serving behind the counters in the numerous kiosks around them, Black people doing every job at every level. He had almost forgotten what it was like not to be the odd one out. He had almost forgotten what it was like to be just one of the crowd.
He began scanning the hall for the familiar face of his sister, which was, as it turned out after fourteen years away, not quite as familiar as he’d imagined it would be.
“Cora!” exclaimed Hubert when he finally found her. “Me would walk right by and not give you a second glance. You’ve grown up!” Gone were the gangly arms and awkward legs of the teenager he’d left behind, and in their place were the long and slender limbs of a woman. Wearing a pale blue cotton summer dress and straw sun hat, she looked just like a younger version of their mother, tall and elegant but at the same time not someone to be underestimated.
Cora laughed, hugged her brother, then stood back to look at him. “And you’ve grown wide!” she teased, poking a finger into the side of his belly. “Joyce must be feeding you up real good.”
Hubert made the introductions and Cora embraced her sister-in-law, then the children, with the same warmth and delight she’d shown to her brother.
“It’s so good to finally meet you all,” she said, taking hold of one of the suitcases. “Hubert always writes so fondly about you, and in such detail that me feel like me already know you.” She leaned down and stage-whispered for the benefit of the children. “And your grandmother is beside herself with excitement to meet you two! Let me warn you now, you are about to get spoiled!”
Leaving the relative cool of the airport terminal, Hubert and the rest of the family followed Cora across the car park past clutches of white holidaymakers, bored-looking taxi drivers, and unashamedly vocal tour guides trying to drum up trade for boat rides around the island and sightseeing bus trips.
Finally, hot and sweaty from the scorching midday sun, they reached a battered white pickup truck.
“It’s Lloyd’s,” said Cora as Hubert began loading the suitcases into the back. “My tiny car wouldn’t be able to fit you all plus luggage unless we strap this one to the roof.” She tickled David’s tummy. “You two go up front, and the kids can sit in the back.”
Joyce shot Hubert an anxious look.
“They’ll be fine,” he reassured her as the children eagerly scrambled in among the luggage. “We used to ride around in the back of trucks all the time when we were kids. Plus Cora is an excellent driver. Has been since she was Rose’s age.”
Cora laughed. “Me haven’t lost a single one of my nephews and nieces yet. And me not about to start now!”
As they drove through the streets of Kingston, past makeshift stalls at the side of the road selling all manner of things, from straw hats and handbags to fresh coconuts and iced drinks, Hubert marveled at how little things seemed to have changed. Yes, there were more cars on the roads and more tourists than he recalled, but the essence of the place, its heart and soul, seemed to be the same. And as they left Kingston in the direction of Spanish Town, his eyes were drawn toward the Blue Mountains, at once so familiar and yet still able to inspire awe. He chastised himself for having left this visit so long when it was clearly just what he needed. He could feel the damp of England evaporating from his skin, and the deep chill of the season he
’d left behind thawing from his bones. This was what he’d been missing all these years, even though he hadn’t known it.
As they pulled up the dirt track that led to the house, past tall lines of breadfruit trees, scattering whole flocks of wandering chickens pecking hopefully at the baked earth in front of them, past goats chewing joylessly at thistles sticking out of the bushes, Hubert delighted in the reactions of his family: Joyce’s laughter, the children’s gasps of wonder, the collective awe at the sights and sounds that had seemed so commonplace to him growing up. It was a joy to be able to set all this before them like a feast and watch as they devoured every morsel.
Hubert was not one for tears, but when he saw his mother standing on the front porch, hastily removing her apron and fixing her hair, he felt a lump in his throat so large he could barely swallow it down. In his memories his mother was always so slim and youthful, but the woman before him, with a thickened waist, patches of white hair, and the beginnings of lines forming around her mouth and eyes, was not the woman he’d left behind. And yet she was unmistakably his mother, from her dark brown eyes now brimming with tears through to the warmth of her smile that had provided so much comfort in his youth. They embraced for the longest time, as if trying to make up for the past fourteen years of separation, and she only released him in order to take hold of Joyce, in whose ear she whispered, “Thank you for taking such good care of my son.” After that she moved on to the children, planting a kiss on each of their cheeks before taking them both by the hand and demanding that they tell her every detail of their journey.
The afternoon that followed was one that the children, in all the years that were to come, would never forget. Eating their first coconut, fresh from the tree, its white flesh all jelly, unlike the dried stuff they had enjoyed at home. Seeing chickens roaming around the back of the house, unhindered by cages or fences, and looking on later with a mixture of horror and delight as their grandmother, armed with a razor-sharp machete, dispatched one with a single stroke, ready to be plucked and prepared for their evening meal. Sucking on sugarcane, its sweet juice so abundant that it ran in rivulets down the sides of their chins, while riding on the back of a donkey led past fields of corn by aunt Cora’s husband, Lloyd, a man so big with a voice so deep that they both reasoned he had to be a giant.
