Dottie

by Abdulrazak Gurnah

  ‘That’s what he’d like to do,’ raved Dottie when they got back, frightened that the doctor had not seemed to know what was wrong with Sophie’s milk. ‘Did you see his hand shaking, and his blood-shot eyes. He tries the bottle himself all right. It don’t matter to him just how sick you are. Just try the bottle, girl. I don’t trust that man one inch.’

  Hudson did not like the bottle, but Sophie was now in such a state that as soon as Hudson began to cry she pummelled him without mercy and without any respect for his age. The young prince was well on the road to becoming another battered baby. His frightened howls and tear-stained face filled Dottie with anguish, and made her intervene in the most determined way, despite Sophie’s protests. They were not travelling that old journey again, she thought. Dottie took the responsibility of feeding him, ruling mother and son with inflexible insistence. To save Sophie the bother, she took Hudson to Joyce in the morning and picked him up in the evening, and she lectured Joyce furiously when she discovered that the young woman did not bother making a bottle for Hudson but simply put him on the breast. She took no notice of the strange, accusing looks that Joyce gave her, as if she was a bully to all of them. In her mind she snapped her fingers at her. Who cared what a painted-up whore thought? It was painful for all of them but Hudson was forced to accept the bottle. Sophie too found some relief in having Hudson taken off her hands, and she improved a little.

  Hudson accepted the new dispensation grudgingly, having forgotten all his elegant good manners. He still pestered his mother for the breast, and when Dottie was not around, Sophie would let him suck. He would snuggle down with contented mutters, only to drop the breast in a howling tantrum once the milk began to flow. Then it would be left to Dottie to enforce the rules. Dottie saw with what ill grace Hudson came to accept her ministerings, and saw how Sophie laughed to see her rejected by him.

  ‘You’re a bad boy,’ she would say, unable to stop herself from chortling with laughter. ‘Auntie Dottie will smack you for that.’

  Dottie accepted the injustice of this arrangement with resignation. What else could she do? What would be the point of saying anything? She was happy that the boy was weaned, and that Sophie was getting better. Hudson will soon forget all this, she thought, and will go back to being the fine-tempered little lord he had been in his younger days. Sophie will get better and they will buy their dream house, and all their lives will be summer and full of joys everlasting. Late at night, or at moments in the dark when she felt by herself despite Sophie’s heavy breathing near her, then she was afraid that she had given too much away, that her life was already given to tasks that would never bring her any joy.

  The House in Horatio Street

  1

  On the fourth Sunday since they had last seen him, since Her Majesty had taken him away for her pleasure, the two sisters waited for Patterson’s return. They waited for moderately different reasons, and revealed their anticipation in contrasting ways. Dottie sat by the window, preoccupied and a little nervous, toying with a multitude of apprehensions. Her sister had preened herself, wearing her church best. Make-up glistened on her lips and face, and made her seem fatted and dressed for a ceremonial sacrifice. Hudson, though safely past his seventh month, was made to wear a frilly white frock with purple ribbon, an indignity he bore with fortitude, though not quite yet with his old good-humour. But Patterson did not come. Sophie did nothing to hide her disappointment, sulking for hours and shouting ill-temperedly at Hudson whenever he transgressed.

  She had looked forward so much to seeing Patterson again, she said, speaking as if to herself. But that was how women were always made to suffer by their menfolk. It was the heavy lot they had been fated to bear. ‘What have we done? What have we done to drive him away?’ she asked plaintively, growing into her part. When she started to cry, it seemed that she could not stop. Dottie ignored her at first, nursing her own disappointment. She took Hudson out for a walk to the Tooting Bee common near by. She pushed Hudson’s chair absently and tried to reassure herself that the loan was safe and Patterson would be there the following week. Hudson chanted his praises of the beautiful summer afternoon, a faraway look of rhapsody in his eyes, utterly oblivious to the quotidian gloom afflicting his aunt. When they got back, Sophie was lying face down on the bed, and her sobs were forlorn and distressing enough to start Hudson bawling. Dottie sat beside her on the bed and tried to comfort her, humming sympathetically as she stroked and massaged her shoulder.

  Sophie was not to be comforted, and her tears of disappointment had long since become sobs of self-pity. Hudson had stopped crying and was watching his mother with anxiety. When he tired of the game, he went to play under the sink, something he was not usually allowed to do, inhaling the smell of drains with disgusted wonder.

  Sophie got better as the evening wore on, but she could not stop completely. It was no longer about Patterson, Dottie thought. Something had frightened her, and Dottie thought she knew what it was. She often complained of pains in her chest and one night she broke out into a sweat, waking Dottie in terror. She was afraid, she wept. She did not want to die. Whenever anything upset her now, she sobbed and wept, and sooner or later her mind turned to death. Dottie lay on her bed feeling resigned and defeated. She was almost past caring, and whatever would come would come. She no longer felt that she had the strength to keep fighting for all of them.

  That night she dreamed of deliverance. Flights of angels, male and glittering in the slanting light, swooped down for her. She rose with them, a warm breeze blowing through her, ruffling the hairs on her body. Later she was on her own, capable of movement in any direction, but she lay instead under an apricot tree that was cream and pink with blossom. In the sudden stillness she knew she would wait there until darkness came. Slowly it dawned on her that she was sleeping and the dream was over. Even before she reached the surface, she knew that the clucking noises drawing near were Sophie’s tortured snores.

  Sophie was tearful all week. She was so tired. As soon as she came in from work, she collapsed on the bed and shut her eyes tight, squeezing out tears of pain and misery and then letting them run heedlessly down her cheeks. Dottie gave Hudson some mess to eat and his milk bottle and then massaged Sophie’s legs while their supper was cooking. She tried to persuade Sophie to give up work, to stay at home and rest, but that only upset her more. She thought of going back to the doctor and asking for his help, but she could not imagine that big, raw-faced man being interested in Sophie’s tearful decline. She thought of going to the Reverend Mosiah. He was a good man and he would try to help, but she was afraid that he would demand too much of Sophie, would vex her with sermons and lessons. In the end, she pinned her hopes on Patterson.

  ‘You want Patterson to come and see you like this? What’s he going to think when he sees this? He’s coming this Sunday, you know. Maybe he’ll bring you something.’

  ‘Do you think he’s coming?’ Sophie asked.

  ‘And I would like to know what’s going to stop him,’ Dottie said, her voice rising with a maternal quarrelsomeness that was meant to suggest indignant conviction. ‘Of course he’s coming. Then we can sit down and talk about our house . . .’

  Sophie was diverted for a while, planning the afternoon, but soon she started to worry again, making Dottie groan to herself as she wondered for how long she could bear the snivelling. ‘He isn’t coming, Sis,’ Sophie said. ‘We offended him, I know we did. It was that business of money and all, asking him for a loan. Lord knows what he thinks of us now. He isn’t coming again.’

  Dottie went to church with Hudson on Sunday, to escape the room and Sophie, leaving her sister heaving and groaning on her bed. What that girl needs is a good kick up her pants, she thought. She felt guilty that she no longer had the strength and resolve to outface the miseries that had pursued them all their lives. She sought comfort in the hymns and in the warmth of the child sitting on her lap. Her singing was conducted with such vigour that Hudson began to laugh. Dottie smiled at him
through her words of devotion, feeling a familiar pain in her chest as her heart filled with love for the child. She had made mistakes with one Hudson, driving him to his death, unable to make him stop by them for longer. She would try her hardest to help this one to live.

  She hurried home, invigorated, filled with schemes of retrieval. The gutter smells in the room, rising with the heat of early summer, weakened her resolve and made her want to rush out again into the clear air. And as she looked at her sister’s slumped body she felt her resolution turning into impatience. Hudson cried to be allowed on Sophie’s bed and then squeezed himself between her and the wall. He burrowed into her open nightdress and started to suck on her. Dottie bit her tongue. She wanted to tell the boy not to do that, that it was not right, but the matter was between mother and child and nothing to do with her. ‘Oh Hudson child,’ Sophie groaned. ‘You’re my baby, you’re my handsome man.’

  She was no longer producing milk. Dottie could not see that it would cause anything but trouble to let him start sucking again, and on an empty breast. She fought down her irritation and resisted the temptation to bang the pans as she cleared up and cooked their meal. When the sucking noises ceased, she went over and peered down on them, and found both mother and child asleep. She rebuked herself then, calling herself twisted and loveless. She wanted to be fulsome and affectionate, loving and self-sacrificing, yet all she could manage at the sight of a child craving comfort from its mother’s breast was discomfort and dirty thoughts. She wanted to be a good woman. She could sense with each passing day that her life was trickling wastefully away, yet all this would be worth bearing if she could achieve something real with what was left of it. She wanted to give herself fully, to find contentment in endless giving and selfless affection. What could she achieve for herself that was grander than that? If her mean ambition for herself were fulfilled, what good would it do her or the world she lived in? But to make life better for others . . .

  Yet she always failed, in her own eyes and in the eyes of those she sought to serve and help. She wanted to deserve the life she had been given, but she failed. Even with the other Hudson, her self-sacrifice was always laced with resentment. She had been ready to deny herself everything to make his dream possible, to help him get to New York or become a sailor or whatever. She had loved him as dearly as life itself when he was her lost little brother abandoned with strangers in Dover. Yet . . . yet . . . there had always been a nagging resentment that no one thought to make such sacrifices for her. And she could not completely lay low the thought that she would have made better use of the opportunity if it had come her way. Such grumbling discontent only made her feel that her heart was envious and sour, that she lacked the warmth that put people at their ease and made them warm in return.

  She cooked more rice and beans than they needed, in case Patterson should turn up while they were eating. When they sat down to eat, she only had a token portion of the fried snapper, keeping some back for him. She gave up her share gladly, not only because it fitted in with her self-sacrificing mood but because hospitality demanded it. Dottie felt guilty that they had decided not to buy the special food that the doctor had said Sophie should have. She had tried to argue with Sophie, and she was sure in her own heart that she would not have begrudged her the means to regain her health, but Sophie had become difficult, obsessed with buying the house for Hudson.

  Patterson came late in the afternoon, later than usual. As if she guessed the nearness of his arrival, Sophie rose from her bed about half an hour before he appeared. She went to the bathroom to wash herself. When she left the room, she was a grumbling, garrulous tangle of prose, but she returned humming and smiling, full of grace. She sat by the window to make her face up, colouring her cheeks with a hint of gaiety. When Patterson arrived she had shed the grey look that had haunted her face for so long. Sophie clapped her hands when the knock came, and was at the door before Dottie could get to her feet.

  He looked different. His hair was only just growing again after being cropped. He was conscious of it and stood at the door rubbing his head. His face looked leaner, more tormented. He looked at Sophie’s delighted face for a moment, smiling and nodding his head, then ran his eyes over her ample body. Sophie smiled and Patterson laughed softly before opening his arms to her. He looked at Dottie, standing by Hudson’s cradle, over Sophie’s shoulder, and smiled at her too. Dottie did not want to move, did not want to invite comparisons between the way he had greeted Sophie and the way he might greet her.

  ‘Let me salute my little father,’ he said, loosening Sophie’s embrace.

  ‘It’s so good to see you, I could hang on like this all day,’ Sophie said, holding on to him as he walked towards the baby’s cradle. ‘Say hello to the boy. He missed you so much, didn’t he, Sis?’

  Hudson answered for himself, laughing and waving his arms and filling his nappy all at the same time. Patterson bent forward to talk to the child, standing only a few feet from Dottie. Her whole body craved for a warm touch, an affectionate pat or a squeeze of the shoulder, but he only glanced at her once, smiling vaguely. When he straightened, Sophie claimed him again and Patterson laughingly returned her crushing embrace. Dottie made some tea, hurrying but trying not to show it. If she was not around he would have expressed his affection and hunger for Sophie without awkwardness, she thought. When she had made the tea, and had changed Hudson’s nappy, she suggested that she should take him out. It was what she had intended to do anyway, she insisted, anticipating any protests they might think to make. Sophie smiled gratefully at her while Patterson talked casually to the child.

  She took Hudson to the common, her heart filled with resentment. She tried not to think of what would be happening in the room. Poor Jimmy, gone and forgotten. The thought of their passion made her think of Ken, and of how things had been between them. He was still the only man she had been with, and that made her feel bad in some way, as if she should have known more of them. What good would that have done her? How would any of them have been different? But perhaps the knowledge of them would have made her feel stronger, more worldly, and less as if there was something wicked in her aloneness. She forced herself to be cheerful, to smile at everything she saw, to think of herself as just another oppressed working woman. Poor Sophie, who could blame her for turning to him. Jimmy had not sent any word to her since he was sent to prison. She found that it gave her pleasure to beat down her misery, to brow-beat herself out of her loneliness, to contain her bitterness in corners and crevices of her mind.

  She stayed out for as long as she could. When she returned, because Hudson was getting hungry again, she found Patterson sitting in his chair eating rice and beans with fried snapper. Sophie was standing at the sink, preparing Hudson’s bottle and humming a lullaby. Dottie allowed herself a secret, cynical smile. ‘Come and eat some food, little father,’ Patterson said, holding out a spoonful of rice and beans. To Dottie’s surprise, Hudson perched on Patterson’s knee and ate what he gave him.

  Later in the evening, when Hudson’s gripe and indigestion had abated and he had gone to sleep, the three of them sat talking. It surprised Dottie how forceful her sister had become in an afternoon, keeping the conversation going with shameless flattery and forced hilarity. Patterson accepted the homage without embarrassment or acknowledgment, like an African potentate listening to a ceremonial praise-song. He dismissed Dottie’s question about his time in prison, looking angry and distant for a moment. Sophie looked daggers at her.

  ‘We don’t want to talk about that business, Sis,’ she said, her attempt at a fierce tone managing only to sound churlish and whining. ‘We’re just glad you’re back, honey. Oh it’s so good that our big man is back.’ All that he would say was that it had been harder this time. As he said this he rubbed his cropped head and looked away from both of them. Dottie wondered if she would be able to raise the matter of the loan.

  Sophie reclined on the bed, beginning to tire. Every so often while he talked, Patterson glanced at
her and smiled. Dottie found the look frightening. It was a look of ownership, and it made Sophie squirm with pleasure and affection. She found Sophie’s manner silly, she decided. Giving herself up like that, at her age. It was Patterson, in the end, who raised the matter of the loan. She told him the exact amount they needed and how far she had got with the building society. He nodded, promising the money next time he came. Dottie saw that her sister was looking tired and worn now, and hardly interested that they were another stage nearer their house. With an effort, she reminded herself that Sophie was ill, and smiled apologetically at Patterson. He looked unsmilingly back at her, making her wonder what the look was intended to mean.

  2

  Patterson went with Dottie to see the manager of the building society. He was a soft, balding man with glasses, and he listened to them with a grave, hunched-over look, as if they were discussing big business with him. Dottie liked him and felt her confidence growing as she talked to him. She liked the way he took the matter so seriously, and that he had so many questions to ask. Patterson did not say much, but she was glad he was there. It made her feel respectable. Afterwards, they pored over the figures the manager had given them to take away, calculating what they would have to pay back every month.

  ‘You should get another job,’ Patterson said to Dottie when he saw how much she earned in a week. He offered the advice as if it were a judgment from the gods. Dottie found herself defending her job, saying that she was reluctant to lose all her mates or something like that. She did not like his tone of voice any more than she liked the smiling young woman interfering in her life.

  He came with them when they went to view their first house in Tooting. Dottie knew even before they went into it that it was not the one. It was too near the big intersection between the Broadway and Garrett Lane, and would be both noisy and unsafe for Hudson. Inside the house she found that the rooms were too small, the living room was at the back of the house and there was a bad smell in the kitchen. The garden was only a small piece of concrete with flower-beds around the edge. She did not like the English couple who lived there either. She thought they were laughing at them. They saw another house in Streatham. Patterson was very enthusiastic about it because it had been fully done out with new plumbing and wiring, had been re-decorated and was going at a good price. Sophie kept shivering while they were walking around, saying that there was something there. Patterson laughed at her, saying it was only because the house was a little chilly, not having been lived in for a while. Sophie was not convinced, and behind his back shook her head firmly at Dottie.