The Pink House at Appleton

by Jonathan Braham

  Adassa walked on her toes after that, bursting with confidence.

  * * *

  Mr Radcliffe BA, UCWI, finally sent word that he couldn’t be more sorry. He really had been looking forward to teaching the children and spending time on the estate, but an opportunity that he could not let go had come up – the post of junior master at Cornwall College. Papa was livid. An agreement was an agreement. Radcliffe might have a university degree but he was still one of those people. He wouldn’t amount to much.

  It was such a disappointment, Mr Radcliffe not turning up. All three children had been readying themselves for the first session with him and felt badly let down. Barrington had planned to talk about football and Pele, a Brazilian footballer who was only seventeen years old, and Denis Law, also only seventeen, from England. Their pictures were in the Sunday papers and now in his scrapbook. He’d planned to surprise Mr Radcliffe with page after page of arithmetic, and astonish him with textbooks from Worthy Park Prep. Yvonne planned to recite Ride a Cock-Horse to Banbury Cross, and Hush-a-Bye Baby on the Tree Top. She had also assembled a pile of books including The Water Babies to read to Mr Radcliffe. In a quiet moment she might show off her collection of “pretty lady” pictures, dressed up in an assortment of frocks, cut from the Sunday newspapers and from Mama’s discarded Woman’s Own magazines.

  Boyd wasn’t at first looking forward to meeting Mr Radcliffe. The wretched man would only make it more difficult for him to muse about Susan. But Papa had said Mr Radcliffe would arrive and so, at the last minute, he too made his plans. He would read passages from Gulliver’s Travels and Robinson Crusoe because these were the sort of books Mr Radcliffe would probably expect him to read, children’s books. He would recite “Excelsior” by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and “Silver” by Walter De La Mere. And then, since Mr Radcliffe’s degree was in English which Papa had praised at the dinner table, describing Mr Radcliffe as a man of literature, he would talk about Tropic of Cancer. Miss Hutchinson had mentioned the book at the club when talking about her life abroad, the things she’d done, visiting Sacre Coeur, the Louvre, the Left Bank, and having her portrait painted by the street painters of Paris. Not many people had read the book, Miss Hutchinson had said, since it had been banned. But she’d managed to get a copy. It was revolutionary, a real masterpiece of literature. When she said masterpiece, Boyd had been intrigued because of what he imagined such a word to mean. He’d asked her, in a quiet moment, if he could borrow the book. She’d smiled sweetly and bent down for a hug, her breasts spilling out like frolicking puppies about his cheeks.

  ‘I promise,’ she said. ‘When you’re older.’ And she kissed him.

  After that it was difficult to tell her that he had read Great Expectations (about Pip, Estella!). He just wanted her to know that he wouldn’t find it extraordinary to read grown-up books, that he read them all the time.

  ‘You said it’s a masterpiece,’ was all he said, bottom lip trembling.

  Miss Hutchinson smiled warmly. ‘It is. A book about life.’

  ‘I want to read it. I can.’ He had begged like a child, sensing, too late, that that was the very thing he shouldn’t have done.

  ‘I know. You are a very bright little boy, Boyd. One day you must come round to my house and read my books.’ And she’d left him in her lingering fragrance contemplating that incredible invitation.

  A book about life. That was what he had intended to say to Mr Radcliffe. If they’d got along, as Boyd hoped they would, he might have talked about the new feelings in him, the bewildering Susan feelings. Maybe Mr Radcliffe understood them and could explain.

  * * *

  Adassa started her baking early that Saturday, buoyed up by the compliments Papa had heaped upon her. As Boyd left the house for the gardens, he heard her singing “Brown Skin Gal” in a voice that radiated pure happiness. But when he returned that afternoon, drunk with secret pleasures, Corporal Duncan’s horse, Cyrus, was tethered to the lime tree by the water tank. A bad sign.

  He entered the pantry just in time to see Papa and Corporal Duncan, in his squeaking police riding boots, walk grim-faced out the door. The mouth-watering aroma of sweet potato pudding filled the pantry. Mama, Barrington and Yvonne stood silently looking out the window. From the radio in the drawing room a voice sang out, You made me cry, when you said goodbye, ain’t that a shame.

  Through the pantry window, Boyd saw Corporal Duncan and Papa at Adassa’s door, Poppy frantic behind them. Corporal Duncan must have knocked a devastating police knock, for Adassa came to the door instantly, her arms flung wide. There was a flurry of movement. Adassa fainted on the steps but came to as suddenly as she went out, helped up by Corporal Duncan. Then they all disappeared into her room, Poppy close behind.

  Soon Adassa emerged, weeping noisily. Papa appeared, big bundles in his arms. They saw him throw the bundles onto the grassy verge. The objects rolled about and came to rest in the dirt. Poppy was upon them instantly, savaging each one in turn.

  ‘It’s the puddings,’ Yvonne breathed.

  ‘How many did she bake?’ Mama stared, baffled.

  Later that evening, as Adassa left the house for good, a bankra on her head, she was a sad figure in the creeping darkness.

  ‘Why can’t she leave in the morning?’ Mama asked, deploring Papa’s hardness. ‘How will she get to Accompong at this time of the evening?’

  ‘She should have thought of that when she was busy thieving,’ Papa said with vehemence. Mama turned away, exasperated at such reactionary logic.

  They watched as Adassa struggled down the driveway on her way to Accompong, ten miles away, with night approaching. Their hearts went out to her. But no one saw the dark figure of Mr Gordon, her “uncle”, standing up against his bicycle, waiting impatiently at the end of the road. He had waited there many evenings before under the tamarind tree. As she came towards him, he smiled roguishly, then hoisted her upon the crossbar, placed the last of her bundles across the handlebars and rode off. The Brookeses were not the only people trying to find the right maid. The pretty Indian woman, Miss Chatterjee, was searching too, his spies told him. He would ride up to her house the very next day with Adassa on the crossbar of his Raleigh and try his luck again.

  The following afternoon, unusually for him, Papa stayed at home reading the newspaper. He seemed uncharactersitically restless. As it was Sunday, the house was quiet, but because he was home, it was extraordinarily quiet. Mama kept to her room. The radio played Bach’s Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring, as on so many Sunday afternoons. The quietness and the music enthralled Boyd, as he sat on the windowsill with the binoculars focused through the trees upon the Mitchisons house, seeing vivid images in pink and feeling wonderful palpitations. And so he did not see Papa pause suddenly in the hall, stare at him hard and walk away shaking his head.

  That evening, Papa slapped on more lime-green Limacol cologne than usual. Mama noticed this but said nothing. And even when, just as it got dark, Papa announced, much to Mama’s consternation, that he was visiting Tim Mitchison on estate business and left the house with indecent haste, she said nothing. Boyd, staring out the window, full of deep urging, consumed with pleasure and melancholy, longed only for tomorrow.

  CHAPTER 12

  Tomorrow arrived with a new maid looking so smart that Mama looked her up and down. Her name was Mavis. She came from the district of Taunton where Mr Ten-To-Six lived. Boyd saw at once that she had swelling breasts that moved about and a bottom that wiggled under her dress. She had dimples at the back of her knees and his eyes wandered there. Once she caught him looking and pushed out her tongue and wagged her little finger. ‘You little cutie,’ she said. They giggled.

  Mavis radiated a scent that he did not know (she called it Essen) and on weekends wore bright red paint (she called it Cutex) on her fingernails. He spent much of his time watching her from behind curtains and doors, through louvres, from behind trees and from other places. Sometimes, when he thought she wasn’t looking she turned unexpe
ctedly and showed him her wet, pink tongue. She came with music too. Every day, from the first day she arrived, “Since I Met You Baby” echoed throughout the house.

  ‘Is Ivory Joe Hunter,’ Mavis said, when Yvonne asked, before bursting into song, breasts bouncing, skirts shimmering.

  Ivory Joe Hunter came from America. He crooned from the small brown radio with the cream knobs in Mavis’s room all day and all night: Since I met you baby, my whole life has changed, and everybody tells me that I am not the same. They had never known a maid to own a radio. This surely must be the best maid of all.

  During the week, Mavis smelled of the kitchen, thyme and rose water, Ajax “the foaming cleanser”, Jeyes and stewing and baking things from the black Caledonian Modern Dover stove. The aroma of detergent, baked pork and fried plantain wafted from her in complex whiffs and draughts. But on weekends, starting on Friday nights, she changed, becoming a sweet-smelling lily-of-the-valley. She became pink powder and red lipstick. She was Essen, drifting cleanliness and Cutex. Her scents told of exotic nightlife, thumping music in dance halls, the world of film shows, blazing guns, people embracing and kissing. The children knew this because Mavis told them so as they sat on her bed, listening rapt to her adventures as she dressed. At weekends she was romance and danger, provocative, exuding mounting excitement about what men did to maids on a Friday night in the dark, hot places out of reach of the coloured lights. She came out of the radio at weekends just like “Since I Met You Baby”. And she took Boyd’s breath away. Even Susan took a back seat that first week. It was because Mavis reflected, vaguely, some of the characteristics of Lydia Parsons, Pepsi, Estella and the pink women.

  At the end of the second week, Mavis left the house before it got dark, when the sky was bright orange and the swallows were out. When she left her room to say good evening to Mama and Papa, she was powdered, lipsticked and Cutexed. She was a new person in floral skirts, oiled calves smooth and firm, black high-heeled shoes loud on the polished floors, white earrings clipped to fleshy lobes and Essen all about her. It was an event, and the children hung about to witness it. Mavis’s breasts were as moist as her lips, and when she walked, so confident on the polished floor, her bottom made her skirt shudder. Boyd looked up at her with feeling, his senses enveloped in Essen and thoughts of the beautiful evening. Mavis, looking round, bent down low to caress his cheek, and her breasts smothered his face.

  ‘Will you be back before ten?’ he heard Mama ask.

  ‘Ah don’t know, ma’am,’ Mavis replied.

  ‘Well, when?’

  ‘About twelve, ma’am. Ah getting a ride back.’

  ‘All the way from Siloah?’

  ‘Yes, ma’am.’

  ‘The dishes washed and everything put away?’

  ‘Oh, yes, ma’am.’ Mavis’s breasts rose. Her high heels made little clicks on the floor and Essen came off her like steam from horses galloping in the rain.

  ‘And everything ready for tomorrow? Peas shelled?’

  ‘No, ma’am. But ah can do that first thing in the morning.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘You know me, ma’am.’ Mavis smiled confidently.

  To the children listening, this was unfamiliar territory for Mama. If Mavis said that she could manage to shell the peas first thing in the morning, everyone knew the job would be done. They suspected a hidden hand in Mama’s questioning. The words, though spoken by Mama, belonged to Papa. Just then, in that moment of quiet between Mama’s question and Mavis’s answer, a passionate voice from the radio said, I want you to taaake me, where I beeelong, where hearts have been broken with a kiss and a sooong.

  ‘Is Fats Domino,’ Mavis breathed at them.

  Boyd, overcome with passions, watched her from behind the curtains of his bedroom window as she walked down the long driveway to her evening of indulgence. He saw himself leaving the house, like Mavis, as the day ended, to meet a waiting Susan silhouetted against a crimson sunset. And the Black River valley was the valley of tears, where hearts have been broken with a kiss and a song. Vincent watched too, standing by the door to his room, his arms hanging straight down at his sides, his loins on fire.

  Papa said, ‘Is she gone?’

  Without waiting for a reply, Papa rose from the sofa, keys in hand, and went out the kitchen door. The children, sensing drama in the air, followed. Mama stayed behind. When they trooped past the ironing room and past the maids’ bathroom, Mavis’s smell of fresh Lifebuoy soap was still there, as were the soapsuds in the gutter. It was a decent scent. They got to Mavis’s room and Papa opened the door. Cutex, Essen and the smell of straightened-hair met them at the door. There was a guilty air about as Papa went through Mavis’s things. What he was looking for, no one knew. They stood back, breathing in her Essen. Her bed was made but slightly ruffled; the state of young women’s beds everywhere who go out for the evening. Pink talcum powder from a pink box was scattered over one half of her small side-table. Hair curlers, a black comb, white plastic brush, two small bottles of Cutex and her hot-comb full of pulled black hair covered the other half of the table. Her brown plastic Bush radio with the round cream-coloured knobs was in the middle of everything, looking enchanting and important because it brought foreign voices and bewitching music into her room. Papa saw it and raised his eyebrows. He opened her drawers and her wardrobe, searching between hanging dresses. He searched under the bed, the cardboard grip in the corner and looked towards the ceiling. He found nothing.

  ‘All right,’ he said at last. ‘That’s it.’

  ‘That’s it?’ Yvonne was disappointed. She’d been expecting them to find secret boxes filled with puddings, bed linen and other things stolen from under their noses.

  Papa ignored her, closed Mavis’s door behind them and returned to the house. They could see Vincent sitting on the doorstep of his own room roasting cashews. Boyd stayed back. Vincent’s fire was red and orange and gave off twirly blue smoke with a delicious odour of dry burning leaves. Although his eye was lowered, Vincent observed Papa closely, his brows Rasputin-dark, breathing like a trapped volcano.

  * * *

  Mavis was outrageously half-naked but that was nothing to her. Yvonne and Boyd sat on her bed and listened to her talk excitedly about a world they did not know. In that world were dances, gambling, goings-on everywhere and films (The Robe, Billy the Kid, Red River, High Noon). Boyd had been to the pictures only once, to see a western called Ride, Vaquero! Papa hadn’t wanted to take them as they would have to mix with the riff-raff, people rank with sweat and cheap perfume. But Barrington had begged because Robert Taylor was in it, and finally Papa had given in. That was over a year ago but Boyd remembered the gripping movie music, “The Melody of Love”, precursor to the unforgettable images, the kissing, the galloping horses, the shoot-out, the sudden death.

  Mavis spoke eloquently of the Roxy, where the screen was full of crimson writing dripping in drama, music extracting emotions so powerful that she did not always know who she was when she emerged from the cinema. She mentioned names they had never heard of, in a tone surpassing worship – Randolph Scott, Joel McCrea, Ava Gardner, Victor Mature, Gary Cooper, Robert Mitchum and Jennifer Jones. These people were film stars and were “starring” in the films, which were in something called Technicolor. She told them about the films she’d seen, films of romance, westerns, about cowboys dressed in black. She talked engagingly about how women and men kissed (she hugged herself to demonstrate) in stunning and intimate close-ups: lips squashed together, the women’s lipsticked lips quivering like a red beating heart, writhing as the music rose with their tortured breaths filling the cinema. And they kissed with their tongues.

  ‘Why do they kiss with their tongues?’ Yvonne’s brows were wrinkled.

  Mavis gave her a compassionate but pitiful look. ‘You too young to know.’

  But Boyd knew at once. Kissing was the closest thing to sucking the flowers and Mama’s titties. He wanted to do it too, enveloped in Essen and Cutex and movie mus
ic and passion. He wanted to do it with the squashed red lips of someone, in Technicolor. He wanted to do it at sunset or in the afternoon in the shade, do it hidden in the rain, do it in the grass on a bed of crimson blossoms, do it in the fragrant heat. He wanted to do it when there was no one about, only her, and he wanted to do it soon. Kiss was a crimson lollipop on his tongue.

  Sitting on Mavis’s bed with growing intimacy, it felt as if they were at the cinema hearing the breathless voices, seeing the stunning close-ups. The sweet scent of kiss was everywhere. And the perfume from Mavis’s beauty bottles, cachets and vials and the music from her pretty plastic radio evoked a palpable sense of drama.

  ‘Who’s in it?’ Yvonne asked.

  ‘What, sugar?’

  ‘The Robe.’

  Mavis flashed her hands to dry her Cutex. The Robe was the latest film she’d seen. Her titties bounced. ‘V-i-c-t-o-r M-a-t-u-r-e!’ She pronounced the name with wonder and adulation. ‘It’s about the robe that Jesus wore before he was crucified. God is coming to take his world. There will be fire and brimstone. Mark me words.’

  ‘When?’ Yvonne asked excitedly.

  ‘When? When? When him ready.’

  ‘But why?’

  ‘Why?’ Mavis said, looking with genuine sadness at Yvonne. ‘Why? Because man wicked.’ She looked at herself in the mirror. ‘God said, “Follow me and I shall make you fishers of men.” But what did man do? Turn to wickedness, turn to adultery.’

  Yvonne and Boyd looked up instantly. It was Papa’s word, adultery, the thing that those people who were going to England were only good for.

  ‘What is adultery?’ Yvonne glanced sideways at Boyd.

  ‘What? What? Wickedness. Man turn to wickedness, drinking and gambling.’ But Mavis did not finish her recitation. Her pretty plastic radio spoke to her. ‘Johnny Cash!’ she cried, snapping her fingers, arms in the air, body twirling, eyes dreamy.