Dottie

by Abdulrazak Gurnah

  It amused her, in a wry, self-pitying way, that she should now turn to Sophie for comfort. It was she who always thought herself to be strong. For years she had felt equal to this expectation, had felt capable of carrying the burden of her sister’s imbecility and of her brother’s naivety and malice. Now she felt tired, weary, irritated by dependence. She suspected that it was all over, that the urge and the zest for anything that she might have wished for was now gone. Hudson and the house had taken it all, and Sophie and Patterson . . .

  It all went back to Patterson, she thought. It was the way he had taken over their lives that made her feel weary. If she was a man, she thought, she would have gone to sea and roamed the world for a year or two, to get the sense of oppression out of her blood. Then she would have returned refreshed and wiser, and put her life to rights. Regained control of it, at the very least. She realised now that the sense of control had been some compensation for the responsibilities she had assumed to be her burden. Patterson had taken that away and had made them dependent on him. He demonstrated to her, wilfully and with ease, how hopeless and vulnerable their position was. They would now no longer be able to afford the house on their own. Dottie knew no way in which they could earn more, unless she found a better job, and she did not know how she could do that. She had looked in newspapers, she had applied, she had even used the phone as some of the ads had asked her to do. The incident with the man made her more determined that she would leave, but her heart was not in any of the jobs she had applied for before. Where would she find the job that would take her away from that factory? She could always ask Patterson, she thought. Or the Reverend Mosiah. A man would know what would be best for her to do.

  3

  It all went back to Patterson. There was no disguising his tyranny over them now. Dottie knew with every instinct in her that Patterson was too much for them, just as she knew that he led a life of cruelty and violence which he hid from them. Sophie had devoted herself to him because she always devoted herself to someone, and she neither saw nor cared for the finer points. That was how it seemed to Dottie, anyway. How else could she not be alarmed by some of the men who called on Patterson sometimes? Not only were their appearances frightening, but the respect they showed him seemed close on deference, very like homage. Their conversations with him were whispered and urgent, and sometimes packages and boxes were left behind. Dottie had been very ignorant with Hudson, but she was alert enough now to know that Patterson was running some kind of racket, some kind of crime, and was perhaps its leader. Once she saw a long package lying on the floor in Sophie’s room, wrapped in greasy sacking and looking suspiciously like a gun. A gun! But it had disappeared later in the day, and Dottie had never been able to work up the nerve to ask Patterson about it, even to enquire if it really was a gun.

  Despite all her unease, though, and despite her distress that he dominated and ordered their lives, he was as he had always been with them. He was courteous and helpful, and Dottie still found there were times when she wished he would turn into her room rather than Sophie’s. She had nightmarish dreams of Patterson coupling with her, and woke up disgusted with her lust. In the winter months, she could hear their voices as they rumbled through the floor-boards, and could hear the bed grumbling and creaking as they made love. She tried not to listen, but when her own need was most strongly on her she could not be as strict with herself as she would have liked, and thrilled with both envy and desire as she heard Sophie’s abandoned laughter gurgling through the beams and joists of the house.

  4

  In the autumn, Dottie enrolled on an evening secretarial course at Morley College, which was near her factory in Kennington. The woman in the library, the one she had asked about Dr Murray and who had smiled at her when she visited the library, had told her about the college. She had been delighted to see Dottie again. ‘I wondered what had happened to you,’ she said. On an impulse, Dottie asked her about any office courses she could do, and the librarian had brought out leaflets and reference books and had spent half an hour going through them with her. Of course it was not really an impulse, but Dottie would not have asked if the woman had not spoken to her first. She chose the college because the librarian was so enthusiastic, saying it was one of the best evening schools in London, and because it was so near the factory, and therefore she would not have to travel to places she did not know.

  The secretarial course was a lot easier than Dottie imagined it would be, and her teacher was delighted with her, exclaiming to the whole class about her astonishing progress. All the students were women, and after class the whole group went out to the pub next door to the college for half an hour or so. Some of the students were very young but several of them were women in their twenties, like Dottie. An older woman who had been coming to the classes for years without making any progress, and who attended for the company rather than out of ambition, mothered all of them and gave them courage when they began to flag and feel discouraged. Her name was Elke and she delighted in reeling out the benefits and comforts that were unavailable in her day, and which her younger class-mates could take for granted. Despite the predictable nature of her inspirational messages, she had an uncanny sense of who it was who was most in need of bolstering over a glass of beer or shandy. She was also the chaperone of the younger women when any unwelcome attentions were forced on them.

  Inevitably, people talked about their ambitions and the urgency that had driven them to the evening classes. It humbled Dottie to hear the stories her class-mates told, of uncooperative relatives who put obstacles in the way, of parents who were suspicious of their children over-reaching themselves and tried to hold them back for their own good. There were stories of unfulfilling marriages and lazy, demanding husbands who could not even fry an egg for themselves and who resented the absence of their houris for two evenings a week. Stories of unwanted children. Of the violence and oppression some of the women had to live with daily. Of the spirit with which they vowed to make themselves independent and useful. Yet there had been nothing to stop Dottie, and she had wallowed for years in self-pity and ignorance, and had done nothing for herself.

  Their teacher, who was no older than Dottie herself, came with them to the pub. Dottie had been wary of her at first. The notification she had received from the college at the beginning of the year told her that the class would be led by Stella Hoggarth, a name which struck terror in Dottie’s heart. It sounded so frightening, and she imagined a large woman with metallic hair and a heroic voice. Stella Hoggarth turned out to be Estella Hoggar, as she explained to them with a smile when she introduced herself on the first day. The office always changed it, even if she spelt it with capital letters, she said. She was neither fair nor large, but dark and slim. Her face was shapely and attractive, the lines of her features clean and precise, perhaps a little on the gaunt side. First appearances suggested a look of fragility, a careful, small woman with obsessive habits, but this too turned out to be untrue. Dottie discovered, when she went to stand next to her in the process of receiving instruction, that Estella Hoggar was taller than her and almost certainly larger in the hip and bust.

  When she came to know her a little better, Dottie found out that Estella’s parents lived in Birmingham, and that she regularly went to stay with them once or twice a month. It seemed a wonderfully complete life to Dottie. She had been a school teacher before she came to London to look for work, and was now very glad that she had moved, despite the hard times to begin with. Dottie liked her enthusiasm and her unfeigned good nature. Her way of speaking was strange sometimes, unpredictable and exaggerated, but always followed by a cheerful smile. There was a directness and self-confidence about her that was a little intimidating at first, although the kindness quickly shone through to disperse Dottie’s wariness and suspicion.

  Estella offered her a lift after classes sometimes. She lived in Wimbledon, so driving through Brixton was not excessively out of her way so late in the evening when traffic was light. ‘And I like Brixton
,’ she said. ‘Don’t you? It’s so seedy.’ Dottie told her that she thought Brixton was very likely the cradle of human civilisation, the exact place where God’s first garden was built. She had heard people claim, she said after a moment, that it could possibly be the legendary site of the underground merging of all the world’s greatest rivers as well, the famous Underground Lake. Estella turned to her with a delighted grin and pronounced her crazy. ‘One hundred per cent!’

  She drove a noisy and ancient VW Beetle, a sign of fashionable tastes at the time. She was obviously fond of the frightening machine and spoke affectionately to it whenever it seemed to be struggling under the demands made of it. Everything about her intrigued Dottie, but she admired most of all the free life that Estella seemed to lead. She was an attractive woman living on her own in a prosperous part of London. She had a good job and drove a rakish car with some style. Even her name demanded interest. And since that was the safest subject among the many that interested her about Estella, it was with enquiries about her name that Dottie began her exploration. Estella smiled and said that it was a French name. She said one or two other things about herself, but it was clear she did not want to elaborate, and Dottie was relieved to see her change the subject. That determined her to be patient, not to pry and chase Estella away with her nosiness. It was nothing to do with her, and she herself would be just as evasive if someone she was doing a favour to suddenly wanted to know all about her.

  5

  The encouragement and praise that Dottie received in her evening classes, and the kindness and friendship with which Estella treated her, made bearable the worsening circumstances under which they all lived. At the turn of the year, Harold Wilson became Prime Minister at the head of a tiny Labour majority in Parliament. Labour had spent thirteen years in the wilderness, and clung to their tiny majority with gasps of relief, plotting to transform it to a more comfortable one in another election within a few months. In the meantime, some lessons were being very quickly learned. During the election, Patrick Gordon Walker, the proposed Foreign Secretary and a Labour stalwart, had lost his seat in Smethwick, defeated by the Tory candidate’s slogan If you want a nigger for your neighbour vote Labour. When Patrick Gordon Walker was defeated again in a hastily called by-election in another safe Labour seat, the signs could no longer be ignored, and the Labour government was well on the way to proving to the British people that it could be as tough on the niggers as anyone else. In 1962, Labour had fought fiercely against Macmillan’s Immigration Act. In 1965, at a time of national catastrophe, it was ready with new measures to make that law even more effective. After Smethwick, there were beatings and demonstrations of support in Rugby, Coventry, Birmingham and London. Crosses were burnt in the front gardens of houses that were known to be occupied by niggers. A schoolboy in North Kensington, whose parents were migrants from Trinidad, was beaten by a gang of English youths carrying iron bars and broken bottles, and was very nearly killed.

  The newspapers carried scary stories of waves of barbarian hordes breaking on the shores of England, as implacable as a force of nature, and requiring drastic vigilance and the classic bulldog qualities of the British genius to roll back into the sea. The police forces of Essex, Kent and Sussex were kept vigilantly on patrol, scouring the beaches of southern England and the streets of the coastal towns. Pakistanis were discovered in freezer trucks, Indians in container-boxes, and all sorts captured by immigration and customs officials, carrying either cooked papers or no papers at all. The entire edifice of civilisation seemed on the point of being dragged down into the primeval mud.

  Every week figures were published in newpapers to demonstrate that the epidemic was still raging. The appropriate government departments tried to put these figures in perspective by publishing figures of their own, showing how many Pakistanis or Jamaicans were refused entry, or how many were still languishing in their own countries, frustrated and driven mad by their inability to gain entry into Britain despite the most devilish machinations. People of goodwill organised conferences and seminars, to condemn and express their dismay, and held street parties to show solidarity with the despised immigrant, offering cups of tea and tiny bunches of heather to any dark-skinned person who strolled past their revelry. Dottie learnt to skim the newspaper without allowing her eyes to rest on the horror stories, and learnt not to hear the mean outbursts of her fellow workers. Yet she had done nothing about making her voice heard. She had filled her name in on the electoral register forms when they came round, but she did not vote. Neither did Sophie. And even if they had, who would they have voted for?

  Patterson simply shook his head at Dottie’s outrage. ‘What did you expect?’ he said. ‘These people have put us in chains and sold us in market places. They transported us worse than animals, and made disgusting use of our bodies. What else did you expect of them? They are being polite now, but soon they will get tired and make us carry passes and live in ghettoes. The only language they understand is violence and oppression, and the only way they will leave us alone is if we scare them enough. We have to make them fear us the way they taught us to fear them.’

  Dottie had her doubts about Patterson’s cynical summary, but she felt the force of it. The cruel judgments of the newspapers deserved no less, she thought. She could not believe that any people that had talked itself to such a pitch of hysteria could ever listen to anything approaching reason. When she said this to Patterson, he shrugged. ‘You could put it like that if you want,’ he said, looking at her for a moment before speaking. She knew the look, and she had had it often in recent days, and had felt the unavoidable thrill of excitement at its meaning.

  It happened at last one afternoon in the spring. She had taken a week off work to help Patterson decorate the bedrooms. He could have done it all himself, but she did not want him rummaging in her room while she was not there. It was a way of asserting her presence, of clinging on to her own corner, her little space. She had given up the parlour to him and his affairs, and once or twice an associate of his had stayed the night, carrying on with his quiet and unexplained business the following day. The shed in the garden was full of Patterson’s boxes and bundles, and was now kept under lock and key. He was the master of the house, the keeper of their fates. She and Sophie were treated with respect by the people who came and went to see Patterson, as if they were his family. Even Joyce had taken to calling her Miss Dottie. There was no disguising that it was Patterson who made this possible for them, who ordered and organised their existence. So when it came to the bedrooms, Dottie took time off rather than have him tramping over her little things.

  Despite everything, they worked well together, urgent and purposeful, both keen to get the work done. She sought his approval, pleased by his praise. It was inevitable that working so close to him, sometimes for long periods on their own while Sophie was in another part of the house, she found herself aroused by him and felt her longing for him revive. On the Thursday afternoon Sophie went for her fortnightly check-up with the doctor. Patterson insisted that she take Hudson with her, as he would otherwise be in the way. As soon as the front door closed, he put down the scraper he was using on the wall and approached her. It was not unexpected and Dottie turned to him without any pretence of reluctance or surprise. He pulled off the dust sheet that was on the bed and made love to her without a word.

  She thought of it quickly like that because she hated to dwell on what it had aroused in her. She had revelled in the feel of him inside her, the way he had forced himself in without ceremony, without affection. She had clung to him, finding excitement in the knowledge and feeling of being used. She had encouraged him, had squirmed under him in feigned abandon, groaning and sighing, and drowning in the sweet shame of her submission. He had raised himself up, still moving inside her, and looked at her with delighted and startled eyes. When she felt him burst, a cry of ecstasy willingly burst out of her.

  Afterwards he sat on the side of the bed, looking at her as she lay slightly away from him, h
er knees tightly gripped together. She saw his smile of contentment, his contemptuous, knowing look. She saw him rub his stomach with his hand, an unconscious gesture of satisfaction. ‘That was some fucking, Sis,’ he said.

  At that moment, she could have died of shame for having allowed herself to be so misused. He would know that she had lost control, and would know that sooner or later she would do it again. He would know her long hunger and would despise her for it. She had given him so much more than she needed to, and he would know how to use it. He rose and dressed and went back to work without a word. She followed immediately after, leaving him alone in her room while she went to the bathroom to clean herself. In her shame she withdrew from him, and he looked at her now and then, smiling at her torment. She lowered her eyes in his presence and left as soon as she could when he entered a room. Sometimes he brushed against her when he passed, and once he put his hand on her shoulder while they were both standing in the kitchen, waiting for the kettle to boil. Most of the time he ignored her, knowing that he had mastered her.

  After that day she sensed him lying in wait for her, waiting to subdue her thoroughly. In a way, she resigned herself to it, although she did her best to avoid being alone with him. It was not that he wanted her, she could not believe it was that. She suspected that to him she was a diversion. In his silent persistent way, he was doing what he wanted with them, and Dottie was appalled that she had allowed herself to fall so acutely a victim of his scheming.