A Million Aunties

by Alecia McKenzie

  He was seventy-eight when he became our first prime minister, did you know that?

  Really. So old? Stephen asked. He looks younger in the painting.

  I nodded. I had done two paintings of Busta and given one to him and Lady B. In the one I gave him, he looked even younger. I always felt there was no point in making people feel unhappy about how they were portrayed. Just call me old-fashioned. He loved the painting, kept it in their living room the whole time.

  How did you start working with them? Stephen asked.

  Well, when I got back from the States, I wrote to Busta. They weren’t married yet. She was his secretary at the time, and she was the one who wrote back to me, the one who interviewed me. We clicked right away, like an aunt and her favourite nephew. She must have been fifty at the time, twice my age, and she had come from nothing and built herself up, put herself through school, learning secretarial skills. She was interested in education and she and Busta gave me the job of going round and visiting people in their yards, all over the city, giving out milk powder and biscuits if they needed food, and asking them if they were sending their children to school. All three of us were country people but we had ended up in Kingston because that’s where the work was. The yards shocked us, though, people living on top of one another, in dark little rooms.

  I wanted to tell Stephen about all the riots that had happened in the year I was born, things my father had told me about, and how Busta stood up for people, but I could see his eyes glazing over. People have no patience these days. And the last thing they want is stories from old people. So I just said: I met them at the beginning of ’62, to cut a long story short.

  Wow, Stephen said. So you were there at Independence?

  His voice held awe, making me feel ancient. Your aunt must have been too, I said. But she might have been a teenager. I was a young man raring to help build our new land.

  I laughed when I said that. I don’t know what we’ve built, but I tried to do my part, going back to the country and teaching art and math, helping my mother and sisters when my father passed and we all moved here to Kaya Bay. I’ve seen so many people leave, so many people pass on. And now here I am with just the paintings left.

  Stephen was looking at the one of Lady B. again. I’d tried to capture her sweet smile, along with the regal look.

  But Independence. We had parties for days. Lady B. got me an invitation to the official ball, and I was there that night, sitting close to her when Busta twirled round the dance floor with Princess Margaret. The queen had sent her flighty sister. The one who loved a good time. It was just as well. Everybody liked her. At one point that night, Busta introduced me to her and she said: You must come to England and visit us. And she said it as if she meant it. A whole lot of other people accepted that invitation. But not me. There was nothing drawing me to the mother country.

  Stephen burst out laughing when I said that, and I remembered then the pencil sketch I’d done from that photo in the Gleaner. It had never become the planned painting, but I still had it somewhere, probably in Veronica’s scrapbook. Busta towering over Miss Princess on the dance floor, while Aunt Gladys looked on with a smile. She had nothing to worry about. A month later, she and Busta got married, and I was there, right there in the middle of the church. Ten years later, she came to my wedding too, when Connie and I got married up here in Kaya Bay. By then Busta was sick. He would have just another five years.

  He died on Independence Day, I told Stephen. Almost like he planned it.

  I asked Stephen if he wanted to see the scrapbook, but he said Chris had told him about it, so he felt he already knew the contents. He was much more interested in the art, and in the “historical work.” That’s what he called it. So I dug through to the back of the stack of canvases. I have so many. Maybe he’s right, maybe I should sell some.

  The last one I showed him is the biggest canvas in the studio. It’s a life-sized portrait of Busta and Lady B., standing together, she in a patterned dress and he in a floral shirt. They both look happy in a quiet way, but also as if they’re thinking about things, about the long way they’ve come. I’d taken my time with this one, painting each flower of the dress and the shirt. I finished it a month before she died but didn’t get a chance to give it to her.

  She was ninety-seven when she passed, I told Stephen.

  I want to be your agent, Stephen said. Just think about it and let me know what you decide.

  What did I have to lose? All right, I said. But some of these paintings aren’t for sale.

  chapter ten

  Lists and Shirts

  An ill-at-ease-looking young man sat in the kitchen with Aunt Della when Stephen returned from Kaya Bay. “This is Richie,” Aunt Della said, as the boy sprang to his feet. He seemed about nineteen, lanky and awkward, with big eyes that stood out in his smooth face.

  “Hi, Richie.” Stephen shook his hand, wondering if he were the son of a neighbour, somebody he should recognize.

  “Sorry bout yuh madda,” the boy said.

  Stephen stiffened. What did this boy know about him?

  “Richie is the one who lick down Miss Pretty with his motorbike,” Aunt Della said baldly. “He just bring us a whole heap of nice Julie mango.”

  Stephen exhaled. Oh, that mother. He could see the questions in Richie’s eyes. Why had Stephen allowed his mother to roam the streets like a common madwoman? Stephen was on the point of saying, “She’s not really my mother,” but then thought it really was none of Richie’s business. Besides, why had the boy been riding a motorcycle without insurance, not looking where he was going?

  He asked this out loud, and Richie looked sheepish. “I get insurance now. I glad Miss Pretty don’t press charges.”

  “Yes, you could’ve been in jail. What if she had died?” He was surprised at his own sternness, but there was just too much lawlessness and recklessness going on in the country. Uncle Alton’s grief over his helper’s death had affected him too.

  “Luckily the fur coat kinda cushioned her,” Richie said. “Is a good thing she was wearing it.”

  “Right,” Stephen said in exasperation. He heard sounds coming from the staircase and rushed to help Miss Pretty descend, but Richie beat him to it, taking the steps two at a time to give the woman a hand.

  “He came to visit her in the hospital too,” Aunt Della said. “He’s not a bad boy.”

  No, Stephen could see that. A phrase from long ago came into his head. It was Aunt Myriam at the children’s home who’d said it: stupid people do more harm than wicked people. But Richie seemed to be neither, just young. Stephen wondered if he himself had ever looked so clueless.

  Miss Pretty hobbled into the kitchen on her crutches and Richie helped her to sit down. “I bring you some mangoes, Auntie,” he said.

  Stephen rolled his eyes. He went over and squeezed Miss Pretty’s shoulder before moving her crutches to a corner of the kitchen, so no one would trip over then. That was one of the first things he had crossed off his list—crutches for Miss Pretty. But he still had a few other things to do before leaving.

  Aunt Della washed and cut up three of the mangoes, and they sat round the kitchen table biting into the succulent flesh. Stephen knew he would eat more than he should and pay the price later with trips to the bathroom. But he couldn’t help himself. What was it about mangoes? Sometimes in New York he bought boxes of them, more than he was able to consume, and then felt a feeling of betrayal when some rotted.

  “Auntie, we need to do something about the roof,” he said, when he’d had his fill and was washing his hands at the sink. “Before the rainy season comes again.”

  “What wrong with yuh roof?” Richie asked.

  “It leaking,” Aunt Della responded.

  “All you need is some special tar,” Richie said. “I can fix it for you.”

  Stephen stared at him. “What do you mean?”

  “I know how to fix roof,” Richie insisted. “That’s what I do from time to time. But I looking
for a real job. Things tough right now.”

  “What kind of job?”

  “Maybe like in an electronics place. I can fix TV and all kinds of things.”

  Hmm-mmm, Stephen thought. Jack-of-all-trades. “You should specialise in one thing, and then do all the other things on the side,” he muttered.

  “Yes, I know,” Richie said.

  “That is good advice,” Miss Pretty said in her succinct schoolteacher’s voice, and they all looked at her. Every time she spoke, Stephen felt that frisson from her first comment to him all those years ago.

  “Yes, but things not so easy.”

  “You have to find a way,” Aunt Della said. “Maybe Stephen can help you.”

  There she goes again, Stephen thought, putting me in the position of assistant-general. “Well, you can start with the roof,” he told Richie.

  * * *

  The next days were spent fixing up the house. Richie came with tubs of tar piled high on the back of his motorcycle in the morning, and Stephen helped him to climb onto the roof from the balcony, handing him up the containers. Aunt Della kept telling them to be careful as she and Miss Pretty watched them at work.

  The sharp smell of the tar filled the air as the day warmed up, but Richie was done in a little over an hour. “That should keep the rainwater out fi now,” he announced. He held onto the ledge that ran around the roof and let himself drop onto the balcony. He moved with such ease that Stephen wondered if burglary was one of his skills, but he pushed the idea out of his head. Féliciane always said part of his problem was that he didn’t trust anyone, not even himself. But that wasn’t true. He trusted Aunt Della.

  “How long will it last?” he asked.

  “Oh, it should be a’right.” Richie was nonchalant. “I goin give it a touch-up in a couple of months. If water come in before, Auntie can just call me.”

  “She has your number?”

  “Yes, I put it in her cell for her.”

  Stephen nodded. He was pleased to see how Aunt Della had taken to the phone. He’d told her to go easy on the Internet, though, because the 4G could break the bank until he managed to get her a regular subscription. This, too, was on the list. But he could now tick “roof” off. Still to be done was the painting of the outside walls of the house, and Brandon had offered to help—for half what a professional painter would cost. Richie said he knew how to paint houses too, and Stephen was hardly surprised. Yes, jack-of-all-trades.

  Later, as they sat in the kitchen, drinking the lemonade Aunt Della had prepared, Richie said, “I can ask you something, boss man?”

  “All right. But the name is Stephen. I’m not your boss.” He wondered what was coming—a request for cash, no doubt.

  “No problem, boss. You know things tough down here, right? Job so hard fi come by, even when you willing fi work from morning till night. I been looking a long-long time.”

  “Yes, I know.”

  “So, what I want to ask you is—you think you can sponsor me fi go to America? I fraid of what might happen if I don’t leave, all the shooting, all the gang ting.”

  “America? You serious? Sorry to disappoint you, man, but that is kind of beyond my powers.” He hesitated, seeing the crestfallen look on Richie’s face. “But, listen, what if I find a job for you here? You know my aunt need more help at the nursery and you could fix things up around the house from time to time. I can talk to other people, too, who want to come back to their house. What you think?”

  “But who goin pay me?”

  “We can sort something out. You just have to text me and tell me what you do each month, and we’ll arrange things.”

  Richie nodded, looking doubtful, but happier than when he’d arrived. Afterwards, Stephen couldn’t help wondering if Aunt Della had put the boy up to the whole thing; he dismissed the thought before it took hold.

  * * *

  The weekend before his departure, he, Brandon, and Richie worked for two days with rollers and brushes to give the house a new coat of off-white paint, while Aunt Della kept them refreshed with lemonade, coconut water, and patties she had made herself. Stephen’s palms were sore at the end of it, but he was able to tick “paint house” off his list. Later he would take pictures for the website he planned to create, of Aunt Della’s residence for artists. They still had to discuss the name. Jasmine would be the first “official” lodger.

  * * *

  As when he’d arrived, Stephen had to go round again to say goodbye to Miss Della’s friends. He spent another half hour on Miss Vera’s verandah, listening to her talk about Teena and her life as a teacher in Florida.

  “I don’t understand how pickney can behave like that at school,” Miss Vera said. “Teena tell me bout how them facety, how she can hardly talk to them. I hope she find another job. Still, she getting paid more than if she had stayed down here.”

  Before he left, she told him she had something for him, and for Chris. She went into the house and brought out two short-sleeved shirts, one dark blue and one leaf green.

  “The blue one is for you. Try it on and see if it fit,” she instructed. He stood up on the verandah and put the shirt on over the tee-shirt he was wearing. The size was perfect.

  Although he already knew the answer, he asked admiringly, “Did you make them, Miss Vera?”

  “Yes,” she said. “Of course.”

  When he took it off, she folded the shirt and put both garments in a paper bag that she handed to him. “Tell Chris thanks again for me.”

  Stephen didn’t quite know for what, but he said he would. He then asked her a question that had been on his mind for years: “Miss Vera, do you know what happened to Miss Pretty’s son?”

  “Oh, the baby? She lose it after the car accident,” Miss Vera replied. “Miscarriage. Just a month before he was to born.”

  “And the father?”

  Miss Vera shrugged and raised her hands, palms upwards. “Who know? People say it was some white man. Water under the bridge. Miss Pretty have us now.”

  Stephen gave her a brief, awkward hug, and headed back up the hill for his last dinner with Aunt Della and Miss Pretty before he had to fly back to New York. He would come home more often, he thought.

  chapter eleven

  The Trees

  I want to think it is over now, but I know the weather just playing with we. The downpour start again before I can say “where mi umbrella,” and the wind making the trees bend left and right like a spite. I feel sorry for them. Standing proud one minute, as if them going be there forever, and the next swaying and shaking like them have no will at all.

  Nothing to do but wait it out. Three days cooped up in the house. The first day I sit at the machine and work on the two dress that I making for Miss Della. She need them for when she go travelling next month, she say. First she going to New York to see Stephen and then after that is big-big trip because Stephen taking her to France. To Paris. What a excitement. She ask me if I can take care of the house and all the dog-dem while she gone, and I say of course, no problem.

  Miss Della is the one who beg me to make the dress-dem because although I sick of sewing, nobody can buy in a store what I know how to make. It woulda cost them nearly a whole month wages. When I finish with hemming the dress, I decide to do some housework, so I dust everything, even on top of the fridge. And I clean the stove and wipe all the grease from the wall tiles until them shining like new. Hard to believe how high grease can fly. I scour the bathroom sink after that and want to start on the tub, but I get too tired and mi shoulder start hurting like hell. Still, the house look damn good now, and I proud of meself because cleaning is another thing that I kinda let slip.

  The second morning, I look outside and see the tree-dem pon the ground like dead body, and lawd-god-a-massy burst from mi mouth. I go out on the verandah and wave mi hand to Lorraine across the way, who also looking pon the destruction. After the landslide last year, is like bad luck just can’t done. Lorraine raise up her arm-dem, like she asking: What to do?
The rain still coming down, and Lorraine probably worried bout Miss Della nursery down the road. Every time flood and hurricane come, she have to start over with all the plant-dem. I sigh and go back inside. I spend the day folding up clothes in the chest of drawers, putting blouses together, sorting panties according to everyday wear and the one-dem for going out, folding up the cotton housedress Teena send me last month from America. I already tell her that I have enough, but every time she see one that she think I might like, she send it down with somebody coming to visit. So a stream of her friends always coming by, bringing me housedress from Sears or JCPenney. I know where they come from because of the tag. She take the price off but leave the tag on, maybe to show me that they brand new, she not sending me secondhand stuff. Not that I would ever think that. I wonder sometimes if she trying to tell me: Check out these dresses, Mommy, they nothing compared to what you can stitch up from scratch.

  When I finish with the chest of drawers, I start on the closet, which is not in a bad condition since the things Albert did leave behind burn and gone already. Is a hell of a fire I light in the yard, even though the big-big flame-dem shooting up in the air didn’t make me feel much better. Him clothes used to hang on one side and mine on the other side. Now some of Teena clothes, things I make for her, hang where him shirt and pants used to be. Teena like to keep a few clothes at the house so that when she come home on holiday she don’t have to bring heavy suitcase. She moved to Florida only a few months after me and Albert separate, and when the divorce finalise, she ask me if I didn’t want to come to America. But what I going to do there? I don’t want to be a burden on her. And she say she don’t want to come back right now because when she was here she was just boxing bread outta horse mouth, couldn’t get paid right for all her hard work. Now she making decent money in one of dem-town near Miami, even if she have to get up at six and drive one hour to the school and one hour back. When we talk on the phone, she always telling me things bout her students, how nearly every day police come and have to cart off one of them in handcuff. I worry bout her, but when I look at her clothes-dem in the closet it make me feel like she not gone forever, that one day she going come home again and things will go back to normal. Sometimes I tell her that she should call Albert too, he still her father, but she say she don’t feel like talking to him. Nothing I can do bout that.