by Hannah Lowe
I left straight after lunch. ‘Can’t you stay for a while?’ he asked, looking up from the table as I shrugged my coat on.
I can’t remember what excuse I gave.
♣
I’ve had a hundred dreams that say the same thing since then.
I’m leaving a stranger’s house at dawn after a party. No one knows me there, and the slam of the front door echoes my loneliness. I go down the steps, and there at the gate is the familiar car. It’s winter, still dark, the engine running soft below a street lamp, and sitting at the wheel, waiting to bring me home is my father.
Or I’m on the phone to my mother and she says, Oh no, love, no, your dad’s not dead; whatever gave you that idea? No, he’s not dead, but he doesn’t live here now. She gives me an address, and I go out into the thin blue light of morning, rushing up one street and down another, but every one is signless, and each one looks the same. And although I must see my father, I find myself in water, pounding up the fast lane of an outdoor swimming pool, the water freezing cold, but there’s no way of getting out. I wake and nothing is resolved.
Or, in the worst of dreams, I’m leaving work on a hot day in summer, and there across the car park is my father’s car. I walk across the asphalt, climb in and sit beside him, but he’s crying, and when I look at him, I see he’s dead already and decaying. ‘It’s too late,’ he says. ‘It’s too late. I wanted to tell you, but you came too late.’
♦
I came back too late, with a rucksack of clothes, enough for the week the doctor said my father might have left, but the cancer was already at his brain. He sat in his old dressing gown on the single bed in the front room, his cup of tea rattling loudly on its saucer, a pile of unread newspapers on the floor. ‘Hello, Dad,’ I greeted him, but he didn’t speak. He looked at me without recognition, his eyes glassy and distant. His language was gone.
♠
Two Macmillan nurses arrived at the door. ‘Hello, Mr Lowe,’ they both said, laying him out on the bed to undress him, clean him, wiping his arms and legs with wet-wipes, powdering his back and bottom, putting him into clean pyjamas. Naked, my father was just papery skin and bone, a concave stomach, thin chest, his stick legs marked by the scars my grandfather had made. His feet and hands looked too big for his body. Only his legs weren’t covered in moles. They tucked him up in clean sheets, two pillows to prop him up, a morphine drip taped into his wrist.
‘They’re angels,’ my mother said afterwards, and told me how, two days before, one had sat for hours with my father as he told her the story of his life, or as much of it as he could manage. Too late for me to hear, I thought.
♥
That night, we found him on the stairs on his hands and knees, the drip ripped out. He was nearly at the top.
‘Oh no you don’t, sunshine,’ my mother said, blocking his path. ‘He must want the toilet,’ she said to me. ‘We’ll have to carry him back.’ My father sat on the top stair, tears rolling silently down his face.
‘I’ll do it,’ I said. ‘Come on, Dad.’ I scooped my father up into my arms and carried him down to the bathroom. His head lolled back. He was so light, the weight of a child.
‘Look, he folds like a deck of playing cards,’ my mother said, as I placed him on the toilet. Her stoicism amazed me. I left them alone for her to help him.
♣
The doorbell rang all the next day: Gloria, my half-sister, flown from America; Tom, my half-brother; Charlie White; Uncle Terry; Dionne from Peckham with a Tupperware box of rice and peas; Sid, who had only met my father once. The back room was full of laughter, chat and cigarette smoke; the front room lamp-lit and silent where my father slept.
The nurse told us he could still hear, so after dinner we went in one by one to fill the air with words.
And then who else was on the step but Auntie Lyn? It had been ten years. ‘Hello, Han,’ she said. ‘I’ve come to see your dad.’
♦
‘Mr Lowe, can you hear me? Can you hear me, Mr Lowe?’ The doctor shouted, his face bent to close to my father’s face. He was African, a bald shiny head.
‘What will happen now?’ we whispered in the hall door. He’d been asleep in bed for three days.
‘Mr Lowe is very ill,’ the doctor said. ‘The brain cells are changing rapidly. Tonight, there’ll be long gaps between his breathing, a rattle in his chest. Don’t give him food or drink now. Just wet his lips.’ He lifted his bag, turning away. ‘It won’t be long,’ he said.
♠
I sat at the edge of my father’s bed, remembering when I would creep into his room to watch him sleep – the curtains holding back the light, the rise and fall of his chest, the smell of sweat.
I leant forward and kissed him on the cheek.
The sun came up outside.
♥
In the morning, my mother shaved him. I passed the doorway as she held his face, a bowl of milky water on her knee, a razor at his chin. After she left the room, I went in.
‘Morning, Dad,’ I said.
♣
I went into the kitchen. ‘Mum, I think he’s dead.’
18
1952
The boy, who was now a man, slipped through the red door on King Street, climbed the stairs to the hot room where already thirty or so others were sitting in rows of chairs. The stocky black man at the front stood up and turned to the group. ‘Comrades,’ he said, ‘welcome to the fourth meeting of the West Indies Committee branch of the Communist Party. Happy to see new faces in the room, and hoping some of you will make it to the Allies for Freedom conference next month.’
The boy slipped into a chair, nodding to the folk he knew in the room. Plenty of Caribbeans experiencing the hardships in Britain but still caring about home politics had turned to the Communist Party. For a while, the boy had sold the Daily Worker outside the Tube station but had stopped when he realised the Party wasn’t listening to his concerns. He, like many of them, had been quickly disillusioned with British communists, who, despite their shared politics, didn’t seem to care about their plight with work and housing in Britain and the ongoing struggle for independence in the Caribbean. The boy and the others hoped for change through this new faction. He read Caribbean News and came to these meetings, staying in touch with the work of Thomas Reid back in Jamaica, still fighting the long fight for the island’s independence.
The agenda for the meeting was the treatment of Caribbean workers, how to tackle the colour bar in employment. Since more of them had arrived, more were being channelled into the lowest menial work, way below their competence and terribly underpaid. The boy’s experience at Somers Town was enough for him, but others didn’t have the choices he had. The housing situation was worse too – women and children had come to join their husbands, living in cramped rooms in run-down quarters of the city: Brixton, Notting Hill, Finsbury Park. And there was more hostility too – the tuts and jibes of ‘Watch it, darkie’ or ‘Why don’t you go back to where you came from?’, places they avoided for fear of trouble, and now, painted on street walls, Keep Britain White and Blacks Go Home.
But the boy didn’t want to go home. He had friends here, a girl, a decent place to live. And he was making money, far more than he had as a shunter, playing most nights and half the day at underground dice games and card clubs, and sometimes at the chemmy parties up West. People knew him. He dealt and rolled the dice. He was using his skills.
♦
In a small, rented flat in Aldgate, the boy’s friends sat around the table on comfy seats, the room thick with cigarette smoke. There was Lionel, Sue, John, Charles Dee and Enoch Leaford. It was March, bitterly cold outside, but inside the fire glowed in the chimney breast and the windows slowly steamed up. Calypso music played on the old gramophone – Sam Manning, and Wilmoth Houdini, the boy’s favourite singer. He sat at the table in the corner and sang along.
Elsie came through the living-room door with a birthday cake in her hands. It was iced bright pink and flocked wi
th candles. ‘Happy Birthday, Chick!’ she said, setting it down front of him. ‘Make a wish, then?’ she said.
‘Really?’ the boy said, gently prodding the cake with his finger. ‘You make a pink cake pink, Elsie.’ He laughed.
‘Make a wish, that’s what you do.’ She laughed, flicking her fair hair out of her eyes.
‘You never had a birthday cake before, Chick?’ Sue asked from the sofa. She was Lionel’s girlfriend, a small freckly girl from Manchester. They were engaged to be married. Lionel’s arm was hung around her neck, pulling her close to him.
‘You know, I don’t think I ever did,’ the boy said. He closed his eyes and blew out all the candles.
‘Hmm-mmm. Nice-looking cake, Elsie,’ said Lionel, leaning forward to inspect it. ‘I do love a nice bit of cake, don’t I, Sue? And a cup of tea.’ He raised an eyebrow at her.
‘Make it yerself!’ Sue laughed, pushing him.
‘I’d love a cup of tea,’ said Enoch Leaford from his spot in the corner, raising his head from the newspaper.
‘Don’t look at me,’ Elsie said, slicing the cake, handing the paper plates round. ‘But I’ll have a cup if you’re making.’ Lionel huffed and sighed, finally getting up from the sofa.
‘How old are you, Chick?’ asked John from his armchair. ‘No, let me guess, man. You twenty-five?’
‘No,’ said the boy. ‘I’m twenty-nine. How old are you? I never think to ask before.’
‘John look like him still in nappies,’ called Lionel through the kitchen hatch.
‘John can’t be no more than twelve,’ Charles Dee said, opening one eye. His big frame was squeezed into the other armchair, his head dropped back, listening to the music.
John gave him a bad look. ‘I’m eighteen,’ he said. ‘And a half.’
‘Oh boy,’ Charles Dee said. ‘No one counting halves any more, man.’ He turned to the boy and raised his beer bottle. ‘Many happy returns, sir.’
‘Eat your cake then, old man,’ said Elsie.
There was a knock at the door. The boy stood to answer it, coming back into the room with his arm around another fellow. ‘Look who it is,’ he said. The other man smiled, blinking in the lights of the room. One of his eyes was bad.
‘Evening, Felix,’ Charles Dee said. ‘Look like the rain found you.’ He laughed his big laugh.
‘Evening, all,’ said Felix, shrugging off his mac, laying his hat down on the arm of the chair. ‘This damn weather. Now where you good folks going to squeeze me in? I need to get warm.’
‘Squeeze in here,’ Sue said, moving up on the sofa. ‘I was just thinking of you the other day. What’ve you been up to?’
The music played and the room filled with talk and laughter. The boy sat listening and laughing, eating his cake.
♠
Later, when the party was over and everyone had gone home, the boy reclined on the sofa. They had moved three times before a Greek woman, a friend of Elsie’s mother, had let them rent this place. It was a small flat, lacking light and a bit damp, but it was good enough – a world away from the wet, freezing basement he had shared with Lionel and the dank rooms he and Elsie had shared in other houses.
He sank back into the cushions, shutting his eyes. He was tired. It had been a good day, so good to see his friends. It was a month since he’d walked into the cellar club in Marylebone and seen Felix sitting at a table at the back, cards spread in his hand. He’d walked up behind him, placed his hand on his shoulder, making him jump. Felix had turned round and leapt up, grabbing the boy’s hand and shaking it vigorously. ‘Chick!’ he exclaimed. ‘I know I’m going to see you soon, just not sure when!’ The boy hugged him. ‘Long time no see, Felix,’ he said into his shoulder. ‘Long time no see.’ He thought about the others, too – Charles Dee and Enoch, his old friends from America, Lionel, John from St Lucia. Before he left Jamaica, he’d never thought about those other islands, only knew that they were hundreds of miles away. But in London the islanders were friends – all in the same boat. Charles Dee said there was nowhere like England to make a man feel black.
Elsie came in, breaking his reverie. ‘I forgot,’ she said, holding out a thin blue envelope. ‘A letter came for you. Looks like it’s from abroad.’ He opened it and sat reading in silence. Outside, the rain was still heavy, beating on the stone walkway that ran past their door.
‘It’s from my mother,’ he said. ‘Says she’s getting married. To an American man. What a name this fellow has. Mr Walwyn Pennyfeather.’
‘Pennyfeather?’ Elsie said, and laughed. ‘Does she say Happy Birthday? I thought it might have been a card. A thin one at that.’
‘No,’ the boy said, looking up. ‘I don’t think she knows when it is.’
‘How can that be?’ Elsie raised her eyebrows. ‘Every mother knows the date their child was born.’ She patted her stomach. ‘I’ll not be forgetting this one’s birthday.’
The boy smiled. ‘At least I know she’s OK,’ he said.
♥
The pavements flashed in the rain as the boy made his way down Oxford Street. He remembered what a fellow in Notting Hill had told him once. The London streets weren’t lined with gold, but it rains so much, squint hard enough and you’ll see the pavements shine with diamonds. He narrowed his eyes now and sure enough, from the right angle, there were diamonds stretched on the stone.
Five years he’d been in England, and he’d had good fortune, his share of diamonds. He had money – enough to send something to Kathleen in America, enough for rent, enough for smart clothes – the suit on his back was hand-tailored, his shoes good leather. But no, the boy thought, that wasn’t right. It wasn’t fortune, it wasn’t luck. That morning he’d sat at the kitchen table for three hours, practising slipping a card from his sleeve into the deck in his hand. He could do it perfectly, in one swift move no one would ever see. Yes, gambling was luck and risk, but what the boy did was take the reins of chance and hold them tight. He wondered if Mr Ho Choy would be impressed with the move, forgetting for a moment the news that Felix had passed on from Mr Manny – Charlie Ho Choy was dead.
It was a Sunday night, quiet in the city, but as the boy neared the corner, he could see a queue moving outside the Feldman Club, 100 Oxford Street. He joined it, and bought himself a drink downstairs, standing at the bar, taking the place in. The lights were dimmed, the room packed with bodies. Smoke lifted in the coloured lights, making a strange haze in the room. When the band walked on stage and took their places, there was a murmur through the crowd. Four black men, one on drums, one at the piano, one with trumpet, and in the middle, the front man, his cousin Joe, tall and elegant-looking, his alto sax gleaming in his hands.
The air filled with their brash, jumpy sound. Bebop. The crowd took to their feet – black men swinging white women around, white men holding the hands of black girls – applause and whistling as the air grew hot with the energy of the dance. This was a different London, the boy thought – away from the unfriendly stares, the graffiti, the taunts in the street. Here, black people were respected and rightly so. The band looked so sharp in their suits, Joe howling through the sax he angled up into the air, his white shirt sweat-soaked, and on the stools around the room, women who weren’t dancing lapped him up with their stares. The band played for an hour, and the boy stood at the bar the whole time, drinking his drink, nodding to the other punters, black and white.
After the show, Joe came through the crowd looking for him. ‘Chick, you came.’ He smiled his broad smile, reaching out his hand. The boy shook it.
‘Long time no see, Joe,’ said the boy. ‘You looking good, man.’
‘What you think of the music? We sound good?’
‘Joe, you boys playing so well, looks like you on fire. Look like you get plenty admirers too.’ He gestured to the girls, and Joe laughed. They chatted until the manager came to tap on Joe’s shoulder.
‘I have to go,’ Joe said, ‘but come for a drink in the back? Then we’ll play some more.’
‘Fair enough, Chick. Take me next time, eh? Good to see you. You looking good, man, looking good.’
Out on the street, the boy hailed a cab, holding his mac over his head to keep the rain off. One pulled up and he jumped in. ‘You can take me to the Edgware Road?’ he asked.
‘No problem, guv,’ the bald driver said, pulling away along Oxford Street where the street lights were a white, starry blur in the rain. The boy watched from the window, remembering the rain at home, those quick, hot storms, and the light of the oil lamps flickering outside his father’s shop.
‘My other life,’ he said to himself.
He’d swapped it for another.
The rain gleamed on the streets, and from the back seat of the cab, the boy saw diamonds again – there for a second, then gone.
This place was his home now – for better, for worse.
19
The Ace of Hearts
If wishes were horses, then beggars would ride
When my father went back to Jamaica in 1962, he placed an advertisement in the classified section of the Gleaner newspaper.
I am searching for my mother, it said. Her name is Hermione Harriott. Also known as Ida. Last known abode on Altamont Crescent, Kingston.
He’d listed his hotel details. He’d last heard from Hermione in a letter ten years before. He’d written back, but hadn’t heard from her again. He didn’t know if she was still alive.
He and Ray the Pilot were staying in Kingston for a few days before heading to Port Antonio for Ray to bake in the sun and my father to read books in the shade. The phone rang on the bedside table of his hotel room. My father answered, and on the phone was Dolores, a cousin he hadn’t seen since he’d left Jamaica fifteen years before, when she was four or five. What a coincidence it was to learn she was now an intern at the Gleaner. She’d seen his ad and phoned his hotel immediately. ‘And you’ll never guess, Cousin Ralph,’ she said, out of breath. ‘I’m living with Auntie Ida!’
