Dottie

by Abdulrazak Gurnah

  There was no need to upset Dottie yet, Brenda thought, suppressing her own unease. Such a reaction from Hudson was only to be expected. It showed that his foster parents had treated him well, and being an affectionate boy he was understandably torn by conflicting loyalties. Nearer the time, she would have a long talk with Dottie and prime her for the battles that would surely come, at least in the early days.

  Dottie wrote to Hudson again, this time openly talking about the joyful news. She told him about the plans they were making and the school he would be going to. She mentioned that Sophie’s eighteenth birthday would be in May, hoping to nudge Hudson into a reply. No word came from Hudson. At last, with only days to go before Sophie’s birthday, Dottie wrote again. In her letter she asked Hudson directly if there was a difficulty. Why was he not writing to them? Did he not want to come back? Brenda Holly thought the time had come to intervene.

  ‘They’ve been good parents to him, and he feels loyalty towards them,’ she said to the sisters. ‘It’s only natural that the boy should be torn. You’ll have to be patient with him and not expect him to throw himself into your arms and that sort of stuff. He’ll come round. I’ve been trying to get a school report on him so we can sort all that out this end. The parents say he was doing well but that recently he has fallen off a little. I’ll need a school report, and that may well be awful. So he’ll need help to adjust to school as well. The important thing is not to over-react. You’ll have to do what you can to welcome him back, and you may have to put up with a little unfriendliness to begin with. I’ll be around, obviously, if you need help or advice.’

  Dottie took the news in silence, feeling her heart sink. She had been afraid they would steal him, teach him to be a little English boy so that he should despise his real family. They probably told him all the stuff about Sharon and the way she had died. To him she and Sophie must seem like ridiculous and dirty monkeys, the children of an old whore, who were living in a one-room slum in South London. She stopped herself at once, afraid that if she allowed herself to feel bitterness it would turn against Hudson, sooner or later. She must be patient, look to win back Hudson slowly, persuade him that it was with them that he belonged.

  Sophie did not believe what the social worker was saying. She glanced at her sister, a small smile hovering round her lips. The woman could not mean it, she thought. Even when she saw that Dottie believed, she still shook her head and grinned with derision. They were trying to keep him there so he would be a servant. What had they done to him to make him say such a thing? It was not true that he had said that about not coming back. It was a lie, Sophie said, dropping her eyes, although every line of her features spoke of obstinate determination. Dottie kept her eyes on Brenda Holly, hoping that she would somehow take it all back and say that Sophie was right. It was all a lie, a trick that jealous foster parents were playing on them.

  ‘I don’t think it is a lie, Sophie,’ Mrs Holly said after a moment. ‘We’ve had a letter from Hudson himself saying he doesn’t want to leave his parents. The social worker who keeps an eye on him in Dover reports the same thing. Of course he must come back to his real family. We’re all agreed on that, including the foster parents, as a matter of fact. All except Hudson. I think this is understandable, and perhaps even unavoidable. You all had a very rough time, and the kindness these parents have shown your brother has won his loyalty. What kind of a boy would he have been if it had not? From your point of view, you will have to make him happy to be back. I know you would have done anyway, but you’ll have to try harder than you thought, maybe.’

  The two sisters sat in silence after Brenda Holly left. Sophie was still inclined to be sceptical, to wait and see, but Dottie had a feeling that what Brenda said was true. It was the worst that Dottie would have expected, therefore it had to be true. She took the blame for it, at least a big share of it. She should never have allowed him to be taken away in the first place. She should have fought tooth and nail to save him from the fate that was being prepared for him. They would make him into a little white boy first then reject him later, and laugh at him because he had no idea who he was. Then he would have nothing but contempt and bitterness for everybody. In the days that followed Dottie waited nervously for further news. She was afraid the council would change its mind and keep Hudson in Dover. At other times she was terrified that they would not be able to make Hudson like being back. Sophie had persuaded herself that everything would turn out right once he was back. She would cook him his favourite sweets and give him lots of cuddles. She cheered Dottie with her optimism, but the effect did not last very long.

  On the evening of her birthday Sophie went to the cinema with Andy, the landlord. Dottie did her best to prevent it, but short of quarrelling with Sophie or barring the door to the landlord, she knew there was nothing she could do. Sophie laughed at all the objections that her sister raised, pretending that Dottie was just teasing her. Dottie waited up for her, not knowing what else to do. They came back late. The landlord was strutting in the flush of his conquest, stroking his moustache and smiling. Sophie was glowing with happiness, on her face a look of achievement and contentment. The landlord kissed Sophie’s hand as they said goodbye, and Sophie laughed with pleasure before shutting the door on him.

  A Picnic on the Cliffs

  1

  Sophie was in a stew of apprehension for the whole day, bubbling with impatience. Brenda had refused to let them go to Dover with her, and had even refused to let them meet her at Victoria. They had to stay behind and wait. Dottie laughed as she watched her sister worrying, and tried to interest her in the chores that remained to be done, thinking they would help her pass the time. They had put a curtain across one part of the room and made that Hudson’s. It made a triangle with the walls, across the corner by the window. The curtain was made of two bed-sheets sewn together, old and worn thin with use. It would do to begin with and would provide some privacy. Thin though it was, it was too heavy for the wire holding it up and sagged badly in the middle, but none of them was tall enough to see over the top so it did not matter. They had also found a bed in one of the second-hand shops near the market for a few shillings, and cleaned it up for him. It was a little too big for the space cut off by the curtain, so that the worn cotton sheets draped over the end of the old divan and revealed its battered and clawed legs.

  They laughed until tears poured down their faces, and their chests ached as if they were bursting at the sight of the room they had prepared for Hudson. The clawed legs suggested an animal hiding behind the old bed-sheets. From the position of its feet, it would be facing into the room, waiting for an opportune moment to leap out from its hiding-place. It would only be for a while, they reassured each other, because the landlord had promised them a flat in the house. It was not really a flat at all, but Andy liked the sound of the word. As a special favour to his darling Sophie, he had offered them another room upstairs. A two-bedroom flat, he said, and suggested an exorbitant rent. The room was barely much more than a cupboard under the eaves, and in any case it was occupied. Dottie haggled furiously over the rent, and in the end a compromise was agreed. Since the flat did not yet have a front door of its own, they would pay rent for the separate rooms. Once the landlord had added a front door, the rent would go up.

  It was a ridiculous compromise since the rooms were so far apart. The form of words, however, meant that honour was satisfied. Dottie reminded Andy that the room was occupied, but the landlord anticipated no trouble, especially as it was for his Sophie. Its tenant was a young man who looked no more than eighteen or so, and whose pallid expression and evasive eyes made Sophie giggle with incredulity. He seemed the very picture of a sickly and terrified boy. The landlord gave him notice to leave in a week, but the young man burst into tears and begged for an extension, mentioning aged parents and his dependent and dissolute siblings as part of his defence. He was working for a reputable solicitor in Aldersgate Street near Smithfield, and his prospects were good, he hoped. His snivelling a
ppeal touched the landlord, who recognised deviousness when he saw it and was partial to it.

  ‘So I gave him a month’s notice. Me and my big heart!’ the landlord said, bitterly slapping himself on the chest. Dottie felt a twinge of guilt about the young man. She had greeted him on the stairs, and he had responded with faded and tremulous smiles. After the landlord’s notice he gave her a wide berth whenever he passed her on the stairs, and kept his eyes down.

  It was late afternoon by the time Brenda Holly arrived with Hudson. Dottie heard their steps on the stairs long before Brenda knocked. Hudson smiled shyly and dropped his eyes, but Sophie brushed Dottie aside and swallowed her brother up. She danced him round the landing, bouncing him up and down as if he was lifeless and without resistance. Dottie laughed hysterically, delighted that her sister had known exactly what to do where she would have stood irresolute and embarrassed.

  They did not calm down all evening, and hardly noticed when Brenda silently departed. Hudson sat quietly while his sisters entertained him. He ate jelebis with amazed delight, opening his eyes wide as the memory returned. Sophie told him about how silly he used to make himself with his greed for jelebis, and he laughed with them. He relaxed a little as they talked to him and tried to cheer him. He said very little, but at least they had avoided any awkwardness or a terrible scene. It was when the time came to go to bed that there came the first sign of trouble. He asked where he would be sleeping, and the two sisters fell about with laughter as they showed him. He stood in front of the curtain with a look of amazement on his face, a boy of fourteen in front of that backdrop of thin, grubby sheets, looking humiliated and angry. It suddenly struck Dottie how small he was. On his face was a look of loathing, his eyes looking up at them from underneath lowered brows. His hands were bunched into fists, and he looked tense, ready to leap. Without another word he whipped round and disappeared behind his tent.

  Sophie whimpered slightly. Dottie put a hand on her arm to soothe her but Sophie shook it off. No sound came from behind the curtain, and the three of them stood in a tense silence until Hudson suddenly shouted: ‘Bitches!’ Sophie howled her misery, and Dottie ran to the curtain and pulled it aside. Her first thought was to give the boy a good clout and then slap his stupid face a few times, but Hudson was ready for her, his feet wide apart and his fists raised. He bared his teeth with the unutterable fury of his hate, and shouted the word again, wrapping his lips round it to express his full disgust.

  ‘Bitches!’

  Dottie involuntarily took a step back, and was unaware of the small defeated sigh that escaped her a moment later. ‘It’s only for now, until we get the room upstairs,’ she said, the unaccustomed plaintiveness in her voice hinting at the hurt she felt. Hudson lowered his arms very slightly. The shoulder pads of his emblazoned school blazer, which had arched up with his anger, straightened out a little. He did not feel sufficiently mollified to drop his arms altogether, though.

  ‘We’ll do the best we can, Hudson,’ Sophie said, and a melodramatic snivel escaped her. ‘We love you so much, and we are so happy to have you back . . .’

  Hudson snorted with contempt and lowered his fists. He angrily pulled the curtain back so he was hidden in his tent again. ‘I didn’t want to come back,’ he said bitterly. ‘You made me.’

  ‘Oh Hudson!’ Sophie cried, and would’ve rushed for the curtain had Dottie not stopped her. Dottie put her finger across her lips, stopping Sophie from saying any more. She nodded towards the beds, and, when her sister shook her head violently with protest, Dottie put an arm around her shoulder and pushed her. Sophie made a crying face and they exchanged miserable smiles. It will pass, Dottie thought as she made herself ready for bed. He was only a little boy who was selfishly distressed at having to return to the discomforts of their poor lives after having been spoiled by the foster parents. It was what she had been afraid of, but she was sure it would pass. And perhaps it was not so surprising that Hudson was so irate. It had been a difficult day for him. What kind of a boy would he be if he could not feel some loyalty to the people who had looked after him for two years, and may even have treated him with affection? No, Dottie thought, there was no need to exaggerate. They may have looked after him and provided for him, but how could they possibly have found room in their hearts for a black boy who was nothing to them, just someone they had found in a file.

  In the morning she would act as if nothing had happened, and soon enough it would be as if the outburst had never taken place. As Brenda had said, they had to expect some grumbling at first. What was required of her was calmness and control, to smooth the surface so that it would look as if it had always been placid and unmarked. She could not help feeling some bitterness, though, that after all the trouble she had gone to, Hudson should come out with that bitches business. If he did not like the way they lived, perhaps he should think what it had been like for her. Perhaps he thought he was above it all, now that he was civilised, whereas they were accustomed to living like hogs and did not know enough to mind. Well, he had best get himself used to it, because this was where he was going to find himself sooner or later. It will pass, she reassured herself. She spent an uncomfortable night, first turning this way and then that. Perhaps they should not have made themselves seem so weak, so loving. Should she have clouted him? She should have shown him from the beginning that they would take no nonsense. No, that would not have done any good, she thought. He was so obviously unhappy. What he needed most of all was the love and affection that only his family could give him. Soon enough it would be as if none of the troubles had ever happened.

  2

  When she saw him in the morning, he was sitting on his bed fully dressed, with the curtain pulled to one side. As soon as Dottie opened her eyes, a torrent of complaints and grumbles poured out of him. He had had no sleep in the horrible bed, which was lumpy and full of bugs. Look at all the bites on his arms and legs. They had both snored all night, keeping him awake. The room was dirty and smelt of grease and garbage and dirty washing. A terrible draught had whistled in from the window, making him stiff. He was not used to draughts. How could they live like this? He had tried the toilet but had been so disgusted that he had come out without doing anything. He had not yet had the courage to try the bathroom, but was resigned to being unable to wash. Why had they forced him to leave Dover to come and live like this? There he had lived in a nice house on the Folkestone Road, and had had a room of his own which looked out to sea. ‘You are nothing but a stupid selfish bitch to force me back here,’ he spat at Dottie, his eyes watering with misery.

  ‘Only for a while, Hudson. Please don’t take it so badly. Until we get the room upstairs,’ Dottie said, dropping her voice so as not to excite him any further. ‘The landlord has already given the upstairs tenant notice to leave. Only a few days . . .’

  ‘I don’t care. I hate you! I hate you! You’re just stupid and bossy, and you’ve always been jealous of me. I want to go back to Dover. Why did you force me to come and live here?’ he shouted. His face was hot and fierce with loathing, and tears of anger and frustration streamed down his cheeks. The memory of Hudson as he had been before he was taken away came flooding back into Dottie’s mind, and made her catch her breath with dread. She prayed they would not have to live through those times again, on the edge of violence and uproar all the time, their days filled with tantrums and screaming, and suffering his constant contempt. Sophie was awake too now, and called Hudson’s name with a voice that was on the point of breaking. He dropped his eyes for a moment, then looked up quickly, his glance darting from Dottie to the weeping Sophie. Then, with a look of insolence and cunning, he sneered at them and grinned. A moment later a small snivel escaped him, and he looked shamefaced and confused, frightened by all that had happened to him. Sophie lumbered out of her bed and threw herself on him. The two of them sat silently clinging to each other, with Sophie gently rocking Hudson from side to side as she used to. Dottie went round the corner to buy some fresh bread, so she could get
breakfast ready for all of them.

  3

  Brenda Holly told Dottie not to worry too much about it. ‘It’s bound to happen at first, my love. I told you. You just keep treating him with affection. You’ll have to move him out of here anyway, get him a room of his own. When he’s got over things a little bit, he’ll be fine. Not everybody is as hardy as you.’ Dottie laughed at that. She felt silly and interfering, and a distant part of her was viewing the task ahead with impatience and dislike. She did not feel hardy at all, not in the slightest.

  Brenda came round often. She had no choice. There were complaints from Hudson’s new school. He did no work at all and did not complete a single assignment that he was set. Not a day went past without him being involved in another fight, in class, in the playground, on the way home. He was unbelievably rude to the teachers, disruptive during lessons and a nuisance to everyone. He showed no signs of self-control, and when he fought he showed a streak of viciousness which the teachers found deplorable. Even against girls! Brenda spoke to him for hours, taking him to one side and speaking urgently and kindly to him. She would not allow Dottie to come near them when they were like this. And although Hudson fought a ferocious rear-guard, battling over every inch in his retreat, he appeared to listen to her and even agreed, at times, to try and improve his behaviour.

  He listened to Brenda when he would not listen to Dottie. Dottie lectured him on the benefits of education, pointing to herself as someone who had missed out on all of them. She tried to persuade him to visit the library where she herself had found so much to please and educate her. He sneered at her while his eyes glazed with a deliberate show of inattention. Invariably, Dottie’s attempts at inspirational heart-to-hearts with him ended in furious rows. After every confrontation she made herself swear not to lose her temper, not to mention the library, but when it came to it and she saw Hudson’s lip curl up with disdain, her resolutions came to nothing and her bitterness flowed out. How had he earned the right to hold her in that kind of contempt? Hudson would laugh tauntingly, and within moments would begin his own reply. Dottie was always quickly silenced, because she could not achieve the depths of cruelty that Hudson so effortlessly could. It revolted her to watch him turn poisonous, and she would feel herself growing smaller, gathering herself in like a small animal that had no defences and was rolling itself up for safety.