If I Never Went Home

by Ingrid Persaud

  We closed at five sharp but it might as well have been midnight because I was wiped out. Mr. Morris said I did well for a first day. I nearly fall asleep on the bus home. Nanny was sitting on the veranda rocking.

  ‘You gone whole day. I hope that mean you find a work.’

  ‘Yes. I working in a café in town.’

  She wanted to know where it was exactly and what it was called and if the owner is a Christian man.

  ‘How much they paying you?’

  ‘Ten dollars an hour.’

  ‘That is cash or you have to pay tax?’

  ‘Cash.’

  ‘All right. When the week done I go work out what you have to give me for rent.’

  She looked me up and down. ‘They give you a uniform?’

  ‘No. You wear an apron over your clothes.’

  All I wanted was to take off my shoes. My feet were killing me. I didn’t even want to eat – just a shower and my bed. I had to be back at the café for eight o’clock in the morning. One thing is sure – if I stay in this job I’ll save plenty money because I’ll be too tired to go spend it in the mall.

  Within a few days I understood the rhythm of the café and how to deal with the men that want to get fresh. None of them mean anything – is only talk, and if you don’t encourage them they end up treating you like a normal human being. It’s a long day on your feet. With traffic I have to leave the house by seven to make sure I’m on time. And when I finish is still rush hour. It takes anywhere from thirty minutes to a whole hour to reach home. I am so exhausted when I reach home that I only want to shower and go in my bed. I don’t see much of Nanny thankfully since I don’t want to get my head bite off every time I open my mouth.

  First Saturday I had the day off Nanny came at me as soon as I woke up.

  ‘Don’t think because you giving me a little piece of money that go be enough. I expect you to cook and clean when weekend reach. I getting too old to have to keep house when it have a healthy young person living under my roof.’

  I didn’t say anything. I just vacuum the house and clean the kitchen and bathroom. I’m not cooking. She could starve for all I care. I tried calling Charmaine to go for a little lime in the mall but she said the work you have to do for A levels is ten times the amount we had before and she don’t have time to go out. She sounded different. When I told her about my job all she said was that she’s glad I found something. I texted Ken but he hasn’t texted back. Maybe he has a new number. Whatever. I don’t need them. The girls at work planning a beach lime next weekend and I in that. I think Gerry, who is like the main cook, is the one driving us to the North Coast. It might take most of my money but I going to get a new bikini to wear. I’m looking real thin these days.

  I’ve been thinking it’s time I made a serious attempt to find my father. Someone must know something. I am going to swallow my pride and beg Nanny to tell me.

  I waited till the afternoon when she was rocking in the veranda and reading the Bible.

  ‘Nanny, I sorry to bother you, but I want to ask you something.’

  She didn’t look up. ‘What you want?’

  ‘I finish school. I’m working for my own money. I giving you rent. You don’t think is time you tell me who my father is?’

  She laughed one nasty laugh. Actually it was more like a pig snorting, with a laugh at the end.

  ‘You think I would put myself through all this trouble to bring you up if I did know who you father was? Man, I would have sent you to live by he long time now.’

  She began rocking harder. ‘No, child. Your mother take that name to she grave. But your father couldn’t have been a decent body. Why else it so secret that her own mother never find out his name?’

  Okay. I don’t know why I expected anything different from the old witch. I hope she dead soon. The only other person in the world left who might have that secret locked away is Aunty Indra. I doubt she will want to help me, but is not like I have a choice. When she came to drop a bag of oranges for Nanny I walked her out to the front gate.

  ‘Aunty Indra, I know you still vex with me, but I have to ask you something.’

  She let out one steups. ‘You right about that. What you want? I hope is not money you want because your Uncle Ricky and me don’t have nothing more to give you.’

  They certainly not teaching forgiveness at St. Theresa’s church.

  ‘No, Aunty.’

  Maybe I should leave it alone. I want to but I can’t.

  ‘I was wondering, now I’m working and thing, if you could tell me who my father is. It only natural I want to know. And I big enough to take the truth.’

  She bit her lip. ‘If your mother wanted you to know then she would have told you. But she passed now and that is that. You can’t live your life expecting no father to come carry you away. Is you and you alone have to make something of your life. And let this be the last time you bother me with this foolishness. I have enough worries of my own.’

  That was so kind and helpful. Thanks for nothing. Bitch.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Although as a child Bea had frequently sat in these pews, this was the first occasion when she really examined the flooring of St. Theresa’s Church. Between rows of shoes, it was clear that the mosaic of large black and white tiles was not in the best condition. Hairline cracks had created a secondary pattern and time had ground the white closer to a dirty grey and left the black lacklustre. It did not help that it had rained earlier and the crowd of perhaps two hundred people packed inside the small church had each brought a little of the damp earth indoors. Father John’s words interrupted her thoughts.

  Dearly beloved, we are gathered here to commend our brother, Alan Jeremiah Clark, who has been called home to the arms of Jesus Christ our Saviour who is in Heaven.

  It needed a proper clean on hands and knees with a solution of one part vinegar to three parts water. After that, if the tiles still looked dull, they should try one of the specialist tile-cleaning liquids sold at the hardware.

  Let us stand and join in singing hymn number 714, ‘Through all the Changing Scenes of Life’.

  At a push they could even try a mild solution of bleach and water, but that risked damaging the tiles further. Bea wondered who was in charge of decisions on tile cleaning. Was it the priest? Perhaps a particularly involved lay member with special knowledge of tiles? Or was there a church committee entrusted with such decisions? Maybe, thought Bea, the issue fell through the cracks. Ha, ha, ha. The congregation was singing.

  Oh, magnify the Lord with me,

  With me exalt His name;

  When in distress to Him I called,

  He to my rescue came.

  The black and white tiles faded into blocks of colour in her mind. Black and white. All light and no light. Bad and good. Dirty and clean. Base and sophisticated. Hell and Heaven. The pews were flooded with black cloth, draped, stretched and pulled over brown skins.

  According to Aunty Doris it was becoming quite acceptable to wear alternative, bright colours. She had even heard of a man whose deathbed wish was honoured when everyone wore yellow to see him off this earthly existence.

  ‘The Lord be with you,’ Father John proclaimed.

  Her funeral would be an all-white affair.

  ‘And also with you,’ responded the congregation.

  If white was good enough for the queens of mediaeval times then it would do for her.

  ‘A reading from John 14, verses 1-6,’ said Father John.

  White was the colour of mourning for millions of Hindus. She made a mental note to wear more white.

  In my Father's house there are many dwelling places.

  If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare

  a place for you?

  And if I go and prepare a place for you,

  I will come again and will take you to myself,

  so that where I am, there you may be also.

  Bea wondered if her maternal grandma seated a few rows be
hind had worn white when her husband died. In spite of all her misgivings about the living Alan, this grandmother did her duty with an appearance. The congregation was asked to stand. It was that wonderful hymn asking to be made a channel of peace, to bring love where there was hatred, and to pardon those who injure us.

  Bea’s mind drifted to other funerals she had attended. Great-Aunty Sonia had been given quite a send-off. Was it really ten years since her cancer-riddled body had been laid to rest? Back then the family had been unable or unwilling to channel inner or outer peace. From the moment of death to the descent of the coffin into the earth, her husband, children and step-children publicly raged and tore at Great-Aunty Sonia’s memory. No one could forget the moment her stepson, emboldened by the weed of wisdom, seized the briefest of pauses between hymn and scripture reading to leap to his feet. Those present in that packed church twittered for months, perhaps years after, as they recalled his incoherent but impassioned speech setting out the reasons why his father should never have married the now deceased blood-sucking bitch in the first place. It had taken three male relatives to forcibly remove him from the church. Bea smiled to herself that this would never happen at a funeral in Boston.

  Father John announced that Bea would deliver the eulogy. She felt an imposter taking centre stage. Her wish was not to speak at all, but Granny Gwen had insisted.

  ‘How it go look if you don’t say two word in the church?’

  ‘But Granny Gwen, I can’t talk in front of all those people. Uncle Robin should be doing it, or one of Dad’s good friends. I bet one of them really wants to do it.’

  ‘So what you have all them big degree for?’ asked Granny Gwen scornfully. ‘Your father work hard-hard to make sure you always had the best of everything. This is how you show your respect?’

  The old woman had turned away muttering. ‘Young people today too damn ungrateful. Think they get big all by theyself like nobody ain’t help them.’

  Bea stepped up to the podium. ‘I have been asked to speak about my father.’

  Someone rushed up to adjust the microphone downwards to her mouth. ‘I have been asked to speak about my father,’ she repeated in a disconnected, newly amplified voice. ‘He was a popular man who was much loved by all who knew him.’

  A loud deep cry rose from somewhere on the left side of the congregation.

  ‘Oh God he gone! Oh God Alan gone!’

  Everyone turned to try and locate the cries. It soon became apparent that the guttural sounds and loud pleadings to the Almighty were originating from a petite woman, yellow-skinned with jet-black straight hair and oriental features.

  Bea’s mind raced. There really are more than fifty ways to leave a lover.

  Get that stupid song out of your mind, Bea urged herself. Concentrate.

  The woman’s cries ebbed and flowed. ‘Oh God he gone! He gone! Why Jesus had to take away my Alan?’

  People stared at each other and whispered about the woman they did not recognise as either a family member or friend. Those sitting closest tried to pacify her, but the wailing continued to cut into the sacred atmosphere.

  After about thirty long seconds of this explosive grief, Father John whispered in Bea’s ear that they would pause for a hymn to give the lady time to compose herself and then continue with the eulogy.

  Bea returned to her seat and Father John directed the organist to move along to the next hymn. But even through a hearty rendition of ‘The Old Rugged Cross’ the howling and distressed cries could still be heard. As the organ faded Bea was beckoned to the pulpit for a second attempt.

  ‘All you carrying on like I ain’t here,’ the woman bellowed. ‘I ain’t see me name with the death notice. You could leave me out but this is a public church and all God’s children welcome here. Treating me like the man never love me.’

  ‘We pray that our sister and others in the congregation will now be comforted by the words of Beatrice Clark, Alan’s only child,’ said Father John.

  ‘Well, we know that not true,’ laughed the unknown woman. ‘Gwen well know that I did treat the man like a king. Now he gone and dead. Oh, God help me!’

  The unknown woman had cornered the market in popular grief, and throughout Bea’s brief eulogy there were occasional high-decibel cries bemoaning the loss of Alan Clark. Despite stiff competition, the stranger’s grief retained pole position to the end.

  Bea cleared her throat. ‘I have been asked to speak about my father. He was a popular man who was much loved by all who knew him.’

  She paused and took a deep breath. It was now or never.

  ‘Truth is, I don’t remember when we last spoke. But we have been actively engaged in a joint project. Over the last two decades we have been building a wall of silence. When he died the wall was near completion.’

  Bea shifted her weight from one leg to the next and glanced up at the congregation. Everyone was concentrating on her short form. Even the wailing Chinese woman looked momentarily rapt.

  ‘The building materials we used are testament to our innovation and persistence,’ continued Bea. ‘We stacked block upon block using whatever we found at hand. Sometimes we worked away using resentment and anger. Those are materials you can count on to withstand hurricane-force winds. At other times pride would be added for fortification.’

  Bea felt the burning of two hundred pairs of eyes in this church with standing room only. She had made it this far. There was no turning back.

  ‘But a huge amount of rejection, dejection, regret, self-preservation and denial were harnessed as well, until the wall of silence was a solid and deafening structure. While we worked there were continual challenges, assaults that the wall of silence barely endured. There were even incursions that threatened to undermine its very foundations. Once or twice I thought the whole barricade would tumble down.’

  Her voice broke and she took a deep breath to steady herself. ‘Since I have lost my fellow builder I can only give you a partial history of attacks on the integrity of the wall as I witnessed them. One of the hardest to repel was the sight of my father on his side of the wall. Every time I saw him I wanted to smash a brick and reach over.

  ‘Daddy, you have died young and so will forever be preserved in my memory with a lean, muscular body and handsome, rugged face. Pity I did not inherit your good looks and, ahem, height. I can still see your thick head of hair, always well groomed, and your elegant hands. Experience taught me to look quietly so that I could glimpse that beautiful smile lighting up your eyes, or watch you walk away with your deliberate, measured gait.’

  Bea dared to look up at the congregation. There was a look of disbelief on some faces, mere surprise on others. No one looked bored.

  ‘The wall of silence managed to withstand the assault of these periodic sightings of my father. But when they were accompanied by touch you could actually see this huge fortification shake as if it were at the epicentre of an earthquake. With the Dutch courage of Johnny Walker, he occasionally reached over the wall to give me one of his warm bear hugs. Lately these have been rare. It is unclear how many embraces our old wall would withstand if we administered this stress test now. It certainly caused cracks and crevices in the early days when, as a child, I seized every opportunity to literally hold on to my Daddy in the time we had together. Such a shame. So simple an act might have blown the whole wall apart.’

  Bea’s eyes welled up with tears and she could barely read from her script. ‘Territory demarcated, divided, enclosed, protected. We were walled in, walled up.’

  The tears were now big drops blotting the printed pages, but she had to keep going. It was almost over.

  ‘And like Hans Christian Anderson’s story about the little match girl,’ she said through tears, ‘I wish a little light, as small as that from the box of matches you always carried in your pocket, Dad, the one you used to light your cigarettes. I wish that light would magically transform this wall into one of Granny Gwen’s light net curtains and I could see you alive and well once m
ore. And like the little match girl, no price would be too high if we were on the same side of the wall.’

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  If people would please stay out of my damn business I can get on with my f-ing life. They wanted me to get a job and I did. Now they don’t like the friends I made at the café. They don’t like me going to the beach come weekend. The pay not good enough. Nanny wants me to ask Mr. Morris for a raise. How I going to ask for a raise when I lucky to have a job at all? She doesn’t realise how hard things are out there. Yes, I know he is paying me a little bit less than the others, but I am younger and I’ve not been there a year yet.

  Aunty Indra thinks he’s taking advantage of my age and making me do too much for the pay. She wants to come down to the café and talk to him. How will that look? My Aunty Indra coming in my workplace to talk to my boss? They didn’t give a shit about me, now they care so much they want to come and ruin my job. I have begged them to please leave it alone. I will ask for a raise when the time is right. I reminded them I didn’t exactly have a choice of jobs. Every day they don’t appear at the café is a blessed relief.

  And both Nanny and Aunty Indra have this really annoying habit of talking about me in front of me, as if I’m invisible. You should hear them. Once I heard Nanny saying to some stranger that I should learn to do hairdressing. People does always need their hair do, recession or no recession. Aunty Indra wants me to learn to cook properly so I can get a job in a hotel kitchen or a fancy restaurant. She is convinced there are always chef jobs because Trini people like their food. But Nanny doesn’t agree. It seems I am so hot up with myself I better off doing beautician work. I could do nails. Not once have those blasted witches taken a second to ask me if I want to do hair or nails or cook. And I don’t see why anything has to change. I am doing fine, thank you very much. They should f-off.