‘My walker?’ I ask. ‘You mean all of this fuss is just because I left my walker behind?’
14
I was already sitting down with Pearl when I saw what happened to Morayo – saw the staff rushing towards her, the shock on her face and her embarrassment at being placed in a wheelchair. Now they’ve brought her to our table and I don’t know what to say. Whether to try reassuring her or just pretend not to have noticed to save her any further embarrassment. ‘Don’t mind the staff,’ I find myself saying. ‘They’re always afraid of getting sued. That’s all it is. I’ve seen you walking perfectly fine in the hallways. All that panic back there. Completely needless. And please excuse Pearl’s clapping, she gets a little excited whenever there’s a bit of commotion.’
After we’ve been given our plates (tonight it’s curry) I pass the basketful of poppadums to Morayo. I’m pleased to see that she’s enjoying the food and I tell her that the menus are always much better with the substitute chef. The regular cook is away on vacation. When she asks me how I know these things, I explain that I’ve been coming here for almost a year. ‘I’m here to be with Pearl who has Parkinson’s disease with memory loss. She’s doing much better now. Now that she’s in the care of others more skilled than me.’ I turn to Pearl but as she’s not paying attention I return to Morayo. ‘The worst part for Pearl, well for both of us, was when she knew that she was forgetting things. That was very hard, but now we’re past that stage, so it’s much less stressful.’ I add, making an effort to sound cheerful while aware that Pearl has now started blowing kisses to the man across the room.
‘It must be hard,’ Morayo says, ‘but I can see that you have a very calming effect on her.’
‘That’s kind of you,’ I smile, knowing that sometimes Pearl goes further, trying to actually kiss these men. It’s not Pearl’s fault and she’s not deliberately trying to hurt me, but I still feel betrayed when she does it. ‘You seem to be the calm one,’ I say to Morayo, hoping to distract her from observing Pearl’s antics. ‘You didn’t seem flustered earlier. Right through all the alarm, you stayed serene.’
‘The verb ‘dazed’ might be the better word to describe it, I think,’ she replies. ‘I actually thought we were having an earthquake. But I do like that word serene. It’s almost as if you could fly or float on it. Ser-eeeene.’
I watch, bemused, as she stretches out her arms mimicking flight. ‘May I ask, what you’re reading?’
‘It’s called Winter Journal,’ she sighs, pulling out the book from where it was tucked into the side of her wheelchair. And because I’m not sure whether she’s sighing because of what happened earlier or because she’d rather not talk about the book, I mutter again about how annoying the staff can sometimes be.
‘It’s just been one of those days,’ she says, insisting that I take the book. ‘It’s one of Paul Auster’s. Do you know him?’
I shake my head. ‘I’m afraid I don’t read much fiction, but Pearl used to and still does, in her own way. It’s a shame she’s not in a state to talk to you about it now. I’m sure she would have heard of this author.’ I say, even though I suspect she wouldn’t have. Pearl liked mysteries and romance novels, and this doesn’t look like one of those sorts of books. But I don’t see anything wrong with making Pearl seem more literary now that her dementia has reduced her to such an infantile state. And as if agreeing with me, Pearl returns to us and leans over to peer at the book. We look together and I glimpse some handwritten notes at the back. ‘Are these yours?’ I ask, before realizing that my question might be perceived as nosy.
‘They’re nothing really, just my own attempts at copying the author’s style,’ Morayo explains before retrieving the book.
‘Come,’ I call to Pearl who doesn’t want to let go of the book and now stands next to it with Morayo.
‘Would you like me to read to you?’ Morayo asks Pearl.
Pearl smiles and Morayo hesitates, looking to me for confirmation. But when Pearl sits down next to her and looks up, expectantly, there’s no question of what Pearl wants. I’m embarrassed both by Pearl’s juvenile behaviour and by the fact that I’m embarrassed, but Morayo doesn’t seem to notice. She smiles at Pearl and invites her to choose a page. Then she reads a passage and explains to both of us that there’s something in the author’s way of describing his life through the history of his body that she admires. ‘It’s what inspired me,’ she says, ‘to do the same, but from a woman’s perspective.’ And then addressing Pearl she asks if she’d like to hear more. This time she reads from her own notes. ‘Your body,’ she begins, ‘happily crouched next to bushes and shrubs, pruning, trimming, and always checking for beetles and whitefly. Your body bending to turn the mattress, to make the bed, put clothes in the washing machine then hoisting the heavy hamper onto your hip. Your body bending and stretching to hang each item upside down on the clothesline with the pegs carried in your mouth. Your body as a girl, tumbling and rolling and headstanding and cartwheeling and tottering around in mummy’s canoe-sized shoes. Your body,’ but here she stops as Pearl begins to clap.
‘You write beautifully,’ I tell Morayo. ‘And Pearl, I think, is under the impression that she’s the author.’
‘Well that’s wonderful,’ she smiles, as Pearl takes a bow and resumes the blowing of kisses. ‘It makes me realize just how much I miss my students. But is she okay?’ Morayo asks, looking concerned now that Pearl is wandering off.
‘She’ll be fine,’ I explain. ‘Tonight is music night and Pearl loves to sing. And the staff are watching her, do you see? It’s the one thing that she doesn’t forget. But back to books, would you be able to give me some tips? I have lots of spare time these days so it would be good to do some reading.’
‘Well,’ she smiles, ‘I used to be an English professor so my lists tend to be long and also not very contemporary.’
‘Perfect,’ I say, ‘I’m not exactly contemporary myself.’ Such conversations, I realize, are what I’ve been missing. How refreshing it is to talk of things that have nothing to do with aches and pains or the status of an illness. Cancer. Diabetes. Dementia. And she speaks with such authority on literature. But it’s not just the content of what she says that I’m enjoying: it’s also the gentle lilt of her voice and the thoughtfulness with which she ponders what she says. The way her hands move in sync with her words. She has nicely manicured nails, which speak to her elegance and sophistication. She begins with well-known works, some of which I’d once read at school but have since forgotten. And then she lists her favourite African authors followed by some from the Caribbean. She asks if that’s where I’m from.
‘Yes, good guess,’ I smile, ‘I come from Guyana, but I’m afraid that I know very little about our writers and not even about the more famous ones in the region like Walcott and Rhys.’ I hope that my name-dropping comes across well. ‘So it’s about time I read them and I’m sure I can find some in the library.’
‘Or I can always lend them to you,’ she offers, pausing for a moment before asking what it is that I do.
‘What does Reggie do?’ I repeat. ‘Well, like you, I’m also an academic. Or was, before I retired. I taught courses on political and economic development with a focus on the Caribbean. But unlike you, I can’t honestly say I miss teaching. I do miss the academic environment though.’ And then I change the subject, afraid that she might ask more. I don’t want to have to admit that I was never given tenure. As Morayo seems particularly interested in where I come from, I tell her about my childhood and then how Pearl and I first met. I’m flattered by her interest, and especially so given that nobody else has asked about my life in all the time that I’ve been coming to the Home. I’m wise enough though not to let the conversation linger for too long on me. I remember my mother saying, ‘Don’t be fooled, Reginald, into thinking that woman is lovin’ the sound of your voice, man. Most women is jus’ waitin’ for the man to shut up.’ So I ask her how long she’s been a professor and what she did before that. I mar
vel at the many places where she’s lived. She tells me she was once a diplomat’s wife. I tell her that this doesn’t surprise me given her grace, but she insists that she wasn’t the most graceful of diplomat wives.
‘Well, for one thing, I could never get terribly excited about menu planning and all the protocol one had to observe,’ she says, ‘so that didn’t really make for a good hostess. And those sorts of things were important back then. But more than that, I think I’m just not a natural diplomat.’
‘Is that a bad thing?’
‘For an ambassador’s wife it is,’ she sighs, ‘whereas for teaching I suppose I found it useful. I do miss my students. Do you have children, Reggie?’
‘I have a son, Anthony. He got his MBA and now works at Goldman Sachs; much brighter than his old man. And Pearl has four. And you?’
‘No, no children of my own, although at times many of my students felt like my children. And I do like the name Anthony.’
15
I thought, of course, of Antonio when Reggie mentioned me his son’s name, and I was imagining how nice it would be to travel back to that part of the world when I noticed that the dining room had emptied. We were now the last ones there. ‘We should be leaving,’ I say, thinking that Reggie would need to say goodbye to his wife and that I should be getting back to my room. ‘Oh, I think I can walk now, don’t you? Besides nobody’s around.’ I remark, having forgotten all about the wretched wheelchair until he gallantly steps behind me, ready to push.
‘But the staff might just suddenly appear if you start walking on your own,’ he says. ‘I would offer you a piggyback, but you’re taller than me.’
‘And heavier too!’ I laugh. ‘Which means you might drop me and then that would really give the staff cause for alarm. Not that I’m doubting your strength, of course.’
‘No, of course not,’ he laughs. ‘You’re far too diplomatic for that.’
‘Well exactly! Gosh, I can’t even remember the last time I had a piggyback.’ But then I do.
It was in London, 1 October 1965. Nigeria’s Independence Day. I was at a glamorous party, sprinkled with the cream of the Lagos jet set, at the centre of which stood Caesar – the reason I was there. We’d met a few weeks earlier at the British Council where Caesar was the invited speaker. Caesar meticulously turned out in a crisp white shirt and tantalizing aftershave – ever attentive, always the diplomat, living up to his imperial namesake. He was so tall and lean and with such high cheekbones, all of which added to his air of effortless sophistication. It seemed almost too good to be true that I, amongst the many, was the one he’d chosen. And after the party, he invited me to his hotel. It was raining so he’d lifted me onto his back, saving my dainty, black suede shoes from getting wet; shoes that I’d bought specially for that night. And while we waited for a taxi, I looped my arms around his neck and breathed him in – every ounce of him: his Brylcreem, aftershave and cigarettes. He leant back to nestle my cheek and bounced me gently on his back. Later, at the Dorchester, we would bounce together on top of white sheets while I anxiously held my breath. It was my first time, and I was embarrassed by the noise the bed was making, afraid that others might hear. Nobody had warned me that I would bleed, so this is what I remember: Caesar covering the bloodstained sheets with a towel and then wrapping me warmly in the blankets. He had withdrawn early so no need to worry, he’d said lovingly. But of course I was terrified, and everyday thereafter I found myself checking for the blood of my menstrual cycle and praying for my bleeding to resume; if I were to fall pregnant what shame this would bring to my father. Caesar joked that he was probably too old, in any case, to have children. He was my rock in those days, so I never suspected that the reason he didn’t mind not having children was because he already had children of his own.
I’d been married to Caesar for several years before he told me that my way of making love was ‘motherly’. Motherly. Of all the words he could have chosen. It hit me in the gut, right there in the uterus. ‘I don’t mean that as a criticism,’ he’d added. ‘It’s just what I’ve noticed.’ For having slept with more than one he could make such observations, whereas I, having only slept with him, well what would I know? But I could feel that something was wrong in the way he kissed me: the way his tongue thrust ever deeper, impatient with my reticence, as it flicked and plunged, unsatisfied back and forth. I sensed from him a yearning for love more urgent and erotic, and felt wretched for not being able to reciprocate. One morning, unable to continue with the pretence of enjoying our twice weekly copulation, I bit his lip hard so that it bled and instead of stopping to daub it clean, to kiss it gently better in a motherly way, I ignored the cut and thrust my tongue deep into his mouth. I wanted him to back off. I wanted him to be more tender and patient, but instead he mistook my anger as passion and rose to an occasion of only his own imagination. How could I explain that the way he craved my body made me angry?
In contrast, Antonio’s tenderness and the timid uncertainty with which he occasionally dared to touch me made me feel alive. Often, when the world sat enthralled, leaning in to catch Caesar’s words, I would lean out, imagining some far away place, in a distant galaxy where no one else existed but Antonio. It was only occasionally that Antonio and I would meet and stray out of sight of others, and although we always kept things within the confines of kissing and fondling, stopping short of undressing, this prolonged restraint made us all the more desperate for each other. We both knew that one day we would go further, that in some highly erotic or romantic moment we would jettison all the reasons that got in our way and just get on with it. We might find ourselves rolling in an English meadow or on some breath-taking Mediterranean beach or, for nostalgia’s sake, in the back of a cinema a few empty rows behind everyone else. Or, what the hell, we would sit wherever we pleased. Let anyone who found us too distracting move to other seats. Or let them stay if they wished and watch us: bodies entangled and moving as two, then one, while the film danced off our backs. But in the end, of course, the location for our first lovemaking was neither glamorous nor risqué, but in Antonio’s nondescript Parisian hotel beneath instructions of where to run in the event of a fire. There, in room 212, behind the hastily hung ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign, I undid my gown and let it drop to the floor before reaching to steady Antonio. Holding him gently, I stroked the lapels of his pale blue shirt before ripping it open, surprising a dozen white buttons that popped like champagne, as the two of us stumbled, hungrily to the carpeted floor.
As we wait for the elevator that will take us back to our rooms, Reggie, with his hands resting on the back of the wheelchair, asks what I plan to do for my birthday.
‘Intuition,’ he smiles, when I ask him how he knows. Then he points to the noticeboard next to the elevator that’s too far away for me to read, but where he tells me that all the birthdays for the month are listed. ‘The kitchen will buy you a cake. So all you need to do is tell them what you’d like. You can even request the number of candles.’
‘Well, sitting in this wheelchair makes me feel like a hundred and one,’ I laugh. ‘So let’s just hope they have enough candles.’
I’d almost forgotten about my birthday. How depressing to think that I might have to spend it here. Surely, I wouldn’t still be here next week? The PT had said I should be home in a few days, so I cling to that. But, nevertheless, just in case, shortly after Reggie drops me off, I head back down to the dining hall. No wheelchair this time and no bloody walker either.
16
Being a chef at an old folks’ home isn’t glamorous. It’s not like cooking at some fancy restaurant with celebrities coming in and hooking you up. It’s nothing like that. No famous people here, unless you count the mother of some opera singer, but I ain’t never seen her. Only opera person I know is Pavarotti, and he’s dead, right? Basically there’s nothing glamorous here on the clientele front and the food isn’t fancy either. No caviar, no foie gras, no truffles, although, now that I’m thinking about it that would be kinda id
eal for old folks – soft to chew, easy on the stomach. But I have to make do with just the basics and that’s cool with me. I didn’t learn at the Cordon Bleu. I learned from my mama then got a credential from the Man. But my real cred, my street cred, is from my building and my mom. Turning ordinary food into crack food is what I do. Just one hit of my cooking and you gotta come back for more. Besides, the expectations are so low here; it’s not hard to beat. Plus there’s no real pressure – everyone gets served the same thing at the same time. All I got to do is stay within budget and make sure meals are nutritionally balanced and don’t make nobody sick. Old people with the runs ain’t good. The director lets me know that when I’m doing the cooking he never gets complaints – no notes dropped in the complaint box. But I don’t need him to tell me that. I can see how much they like my food here by how little comes back. I’m the celebrity chef around here. ‘Shit!’ I say, startled to find a woman, out of nowhere, suddenly standing beside me. How long had she been there while I was busy talking shit to myself? ‘S’cuse my French, ma’am, but I didn’t know you was there. You okay? You lost or something?’
Like A Mule Bringing Ice Cream To The Sun Page 7
