The Final Passage

by Caryl Phillips

  At the hospital the nurse held Leila by the shoulder and whispered she had better go now as her mother needed some sleep. She also told her that, there was someone here to see her. Leila walked slowly out of the ward, glancing back all the time. She always got the impression her mother was fooling with her, that she was not really tired and she just felt what had to be said had been said. But, as Leila neared the door, she looked again at her mother. There was no sign of mischief in her face, and no sign that the relationship Leila had dreamed of for so long would ever materialize.

  Earl stood in the corridor, his face heavy. Untidy and stooping, this was not the Earl who had so confidently introduced them to London. Leila could see he had been drinking. She could smell it.

  ‘I'll leave the pair of you to it,’ said the nurse. She spoke to Leila. ‘I'll be around the corner if you need me.’

  Earl waited until the nurse left.

  ‘How is your mother?’

  ‘Tired,’ said Leila. ‘Apart from that she's fine.’

  ‘Good.’

  Leila waited for him to carry on, but he just looked at her. As she steadied herself to leave, Earl began to speak.

  ‘You hear of the department of public health, like sanitary inspectors back home?’ Leila nodded. ‘They say I must have only two lodgers.’ He paused. ‘I lost my business to the people.’ Earl shifted his weight from one foot to the other. ‘Maybe you would like a cup of coffee at the flat?’

  ‘I have to pick up Calvin from the lady next door.’

  Earl understood.

  ‘Well, maybe I see you later then?’

  Leila turned and left.

  Leila went to bed alone. She thought of Earl and felt uneasy. She switched off the light and settled down. Of late Calvin seemed to be sleeping right through the night, but Leila lay in darkness knowing that at some point Michael would come in, wake her and perhaps try and quarrel. These days she waited, for she hated being woken up and then not being able to get back to sleep. But, against her will, she fell asleep and for the first time she woke up in the morning still alone.

  Leila dashed downstairs and found Michael on the settee. Even though he was still sleeping he looked angry and moody. She wandered into the kitchen where she made Calvin's food and a pot of tea. Michael heard her. He rubbed his face and sat upright. He had a hangover.

  ‘Tea?’ shouted Leila. Her voice betrayed no anxiety. Michael nodded gently, even though she could not see him. Leila brought the tea and he drank it but said nothing. She was upstairs bathing Calvin in the sink when Michael left for work. Leila heard the door slam.

  That afternoon Leila looked at her mother across a crowded ward. She could see she was in a deep sleep. When she woke up her mother's conversation was odd. She spoke of beatings, and asked if Michael had ever beaten her. Again Leila wondered if her mother was going to die in England, but the thought was banished as soon as it appeared.

  That night it was Leila's turn to sleep on the settee. She did not mean to but she just fell asleep there; and when she woke in the morning, and heard the children playing in the street, she knew a new day was beginning.

  She took Michael a coffee and he began to drink it as if nothing was the matter, as if he had not noticed that his wife had not slept beside him. He lit a cigarette and blew a premature cloud of smoke. Leila took Calvin out of his cot and cradled him in her arms. Then she crossed the room and looked out of the window.

  ‘You're late for work.’

  Michael laughed. She heard him resting down the cup on the floor by the bed.

  ‘I've decided to give up work now. Edwin and myself are thinking of going into business together.’

  ‘Business?’ asked Leila, turning to face him. ‘What kind of business?’

  ‘We don't know as yet. We still have to discuss it, this morning maybe.’

  ‘How are we going to live until this business materializes?’ Leila spoke quickly, as if already arguing.

  But Michael, having finished his coffee, slid his naked frame out of bed. Leila looked at him as he first put out his cigarette, then touched his toes as if anxious to demonstrate his flexibility.

  ‘You see, you don't got no ambition, girl. You come to this country just to sit in this house and play with the child? Well? You come here to push pram around London with the old woman next door?’ Leila turned away from him.

  ‘You don't want to look, then don't frigging look. What you can see is good enough for some people even if you don't think so.’

  Leila felt as though someone had struck her. Michael went on, ‘Why you can't back me up like any wife should do? Why you can't say, Michael, I think it's a good idea, or Michael, I'm proud of you showing some ambition and spark even though I know it's a risk, or something like that? Other fellers have wives who help them, why I must be different? Why?’

  ‘Because,’ said Leila, ‘You have a wife who cares more about her child than pubs and drinking.’

  ‘So you don't think I'm interested in Calvin or what?’ Michael shouted. ‘You don't think that what I'm planning is for the benefit of my son or what!’

  ‘Is it, Michael? Is it? And if it is, why can't you talk to his mother about it?’

  ‘Because his mother is a selfish, superior arse who think she do me a favour by marrying to me.’ Michael kicked over the coffee cup. He stalked towards her.

  ‘You know nothing about this country,’ he said, pushing her back up against the wall, ‘and it's maybe about time you started to ask instead of complain, to support instead of looking down your long nose at me, understand!’

  Leila could feel his finger in her chest, and Calvin twisting and turning in her arms, but she dared not look Michael in the face. Then, after a long pause, longer than she thought she dared wait, she nodded, first once, then twice, then three times, just wanting him to leave her alone. Eventually he turned and walked naked from the bedroom and into the bathroom.

  She waited a moment, then moved from the window. Then she bent down and picked up Michael's cup from the floor. She went downstairs to the kitchen and lit the cooker. Mary's daughter, Val, was off work this week with a cold. She would ask her to look after Calvin while she went to the hospital. Michael would no doubt go out to see to his new ‘business’ and she knew she could not rely upon his help. Then Leila looked up and water began to drip from the ceiling into a well-placed bowl on the kitchen floor. Michael had flushed the lavatory. A few minutes later she heard him tumble down the stairs, and then the door crash shut as he left the house.

  Leila prepared herself for the journey that only seemed to depress her. After four months it had not become any easier. This time, she thought, she would try and ease her depression on the bus by calculating how many times she had visited the hospital.

  * * *

  WINTER

  Her mother's funeral was a sad affair. Leila wore the large silver earrings she had last worn at her wedding, not knowing or caring whether it was a good thing or a bad thing to do. In the end it would seem to have been a bad thing. They stood underneath a huge oak tree, whose arms were spread out like a great umbrella trying to hold off the cold drizzle, and they stood, each holding a smaller, mushroom-like version of the tree in their hands. The nurse and the doctor shared one between them, and Earl stood apart and got wet. Harry, Mary and Val, heads bowed, looked cold and uneasy, and Harry kept glancing at his wife and daughter, but they were oblivious to his discomfort.

  Michael and Leila each sheltered under their own umbrella, neither of them showing any emotion. Beneath Leila's feet the grass felt like mud and the slightest movement of foot reduced it to such. The priest opened the pages of his Bible and covered them with a plastic sheet, and the four men waiting to lower the coffin looked like the evil characters from the Dickensian novels Leila had read at school.

  ‘Ashes to ashes, dust to dust . . .’

  They all stood and waited.

  Mary wished that she had known Leila's mother, and Earl screwed up his face in pain at th
e cold. Then Leila finally closed her eyes and cried. The men rubbed their hands and marched briskly forward to take up their positions at the four corners of the coffin. They lowered it down with little care for the horizontal, and it disappeared into the earth, head first.

  The priest beckoned Leila forward. She passed her umbrella to Michael, then took up a damp handful of earth. Again she closed her eyes as she tossed the dirt on to the coffin. It made a sound like rain, only louder. As she opened her eyes and looked down, she saw the other two coffins and her mouth fell open, slowly. Everybody looked at her as she turned and walked the half-dozen paces back towards the priest, with tears of anger now displacing the tears of grief in her eyes. Her voice was unsteady.

  ‘The other coffins,’ she pointed. ‘What are they doing in my mother's grave?’

  ‘Later,’ whispered the priest, his face adopting a sepulchral but understanding smile. He turned over a page of his Bible and adjusted the sheet of plastic.

  ‘Now!’ she shouted. ‘I want to know now!’

  The sheet of plastic gently circled its way into the mud and they both watched it land in complete silence. The only noise was the brittle tap of the rain smacking against the leaves of the trees, and the more resonant plopping as the drops eventually squashed against man-made umbrellas.

  The inheritance Leila had expected to receive upon her mother's death was not to be. It turned out her mother had spent what funds she had on bringing them to England. What was left had to be spent on the funeral and the paying of unexpected bills. For Leila the dream of a rich father was a dream buried with her mother. For the first time in her life, Leila found herself troubled about money. Only last week her knowledge of the impending seriousness of the situation had been made apparent.

  As usual, Leila and Mary had gone shopping together, not for anything in particular although Mary had talked of buying Calvin some gloves and a scarf. It was when they finally found a stall on the market and they both agreed upon a scarf that Leila discovered she had no money left and Mary, rather than put the scarf back, had insisted upon paying for it.

  ‘No, Mary.’

  ‘Don't be daft. I know you'll give it me back. Anyhow, it's only 1s 6d.’

  Leila walked home in silence while Mary jabbered on. Leila had no idea of what she was talking about. They turned into Florence Road and Leila stopped by the door.

  ‘I'll send it round with Val.’

  Mary looked at Leila and realized she had worried all this time.

  ‘You know, you're a bundle of nerves. It's not right, Leila. It's really not right at all.’

  Inside the house Val stood and offered Calvin to Leila, but for once Leila passed him by unseen. She began to search frantically through the drawers, and on the mantelpiece, and under magazines. Eventually she stopped, feeling on the edge of tears, and she took Calvin from Val but felt too ashamed to tell her about the 1s 6d. So she waited until she heard Val close the front door before slumping down, with Calvin in her arms. She grew darker in herself as the light failed.

  That night Michael came home. As he slept Leila stole the 1s 6d from his jacket pocket. She went out into the night, the money in an envelope, and slipped it through Mary's letterbox. Leila came back but she could not sleep, and for two days and two nights she worried herself sick that her deceit would be discovered. But Michael said nothing, and gradually Leila learned to touch Calvin without feeling as if she was dirtying him.

  A week later Leila got up and waited until Michael had made his familiar silent exit before she got dressed and turned off the paraffin heater. She took Calvin downstairs and made him something to eat, then she telephoned Mary who hurried around.

  ‘Is it that bad, love? I mean is it definite that you have to go out to work?’

  Leila finished changing Calvin.

  ‘I have no money.’

  ‘Well, where does he get his money from, then?’

  Leila paused. ‘I don't know.’

  Mary tutted and shook her head, and Leila took Calvin on her knees and stood him up to block out the look of disbelief she knew Mary was giving her.

  ‘Leila, love, next time you should just tell him that you haven't any money, and you need some or else it'll make you and Calvin poorly. I mean,’ said Mary, ‘he must be bloody crackers. Does he think you can eat fresh air?’

  Leila shrugged her shoulders. She felt humiliated.

  Leila signed the papers and saw that her wages would be £11 a week, with overtime a possibility if she wanted it. The man told her that she looked so bony he was putting her on the factory run, to start with, which meant she would ride an empty bus out to the factory to pick up the workmen at the gate. She was to collect the standard fare of 3d and they would drop the workmen off en route back to the depot, and begin again. He gave her the bundle of tickets and told her he usually gave the older women this run. Leila did not know whether she was expected to look grateful or feel insulted.

  The bus swung violently off the main road and swept up the gravel drive. It pulled up outside the huge double gates where the men waited impatiently, sheltering from the rain. They jeered ironically as it turned around, then they rushed out like school children and fought among each other, eager to get the best seats. Leila stood back against the luggage-rack as they passed her by on either side. Then she pressed the bell. There were already too many on the bus, but she had lost the control that she had never really had.

  As the bus pulled away she decided to take the fares from upstairs first. A barrage of whistles and chanting greeted her as she adjusted her ticket machine.

  ‘Fares, please.’

  ‘’Ere, take mine first.’

  ‘No, mine.’

  ‘Fares, please. Any more fares, please?’

  ‘Piss off. Mine's untouched by human hand. Here, love.’

  ‘Any more fares, please? Any more fares?’

  Just the short walk up the stairs seemed to have tired Leila, so she turned around and began to walk back down the centre aisle.

  ‘Any more fares? Any more fares, please . .?’

  Her voice cracked and she felt her knees turning to jelly. The cold steel rail burned like ice as she held on tight and lowered herself down the stairs of the bus to the lower floor. Then the jelly melted and she fell and grabbed hold of the pole and clung on for her life as the bus turned a sharp corner. A whistle echoed in her head, and her money flew out of her bag and into the road. Her face seemed only inches away from the tarmac and suddenly she heard the deafening roar of the engine just beside her ears. Two men jumped up, pulled her back on to the bus, and sat her down on the seat they had just left. Upstairs the chanting continued unabated. Downstairs there was silence punctuated only by the solemn shaking of heads and whispered enquiries as to what was the matter with her. Then beads of sweat began to appear on Leila's forehead, even though it was freezing, and then the rain outside turned to hail.

  The man looked again at the silver splinter of wood that was a thermometer.

  ‘First day on the job and I would think it might well be your last, Mrs Preston.’

  Leila opened her eyes and saw the smooth untroubled outline of his young face, his blue eyes and his tidy, sandy coloured hair that fell away from his forehead. She heard his shoes squeak as he moved away to his desk.

  ‘You can get up now if you like.’

  Leila managed to sit up straight. She noticed his teeth, which were chipped, but she had come to expect poor teeth.

  ‘You're not well. You haven't been eating properly.’

  The man came towards her and stretched the skin around her eyes.

  ‘No life whatsoever, and you haven't been sleeping, have you?’

  Leila looked blankly at him.

  ‘Worst of all, you shouldn't be working if you know that you're going to have a baby.’ He smiled conspiratorially at her. Leila lowered her head. His voice sounded like a door closing.

  ‘I'm going to get an ambulance to take you home and I'll have someone call ar
ound to see you tomorrow.’

  Leila opened her mouth to speak, but the man read her mind and dropped a hand on to her shoulder.

  ‘Now, I didn't say do you want someone to come around and visit you tomorrow. You make sure you're in and not gallavanting off looking for a job on the railways, or the underground, or anything else equally ridiculous.’ He moved back to his desk and began to dial. ‘The ambulance won't be long.’

  Leila closed her eyes and waited. As she did so her tired mind threw itself back to the funeral, and to Earl who had turned up as though it was expected of him, and left as though he had done his duty without ever looking honestly in Leila's direction. It was his eyes that made her despise him, for when he did look they never kept still, as if he were thinking something he was ashamed of. He reminded her of the men, one man in particular, who used to stare at her as she walked through Baytown to get the bus back to St Patrick's.

  This was before she took note of Michael, or he of her. The walk back across town to the country bus was made either in solitude or with Millie. Either way the man would stare, but if she were on her own then the stare took on a peculiar ferocity, more a leer, though she did not as yet know the word, and it made her feel she had been attacked, that his hand was already resting in her lap. One day — it was late afternoon — Leila found herself alone and rushing to catch what she imagined would be the last bus to the country. She heard him before she saw him, and he did not really jump, it was more a spring. He flew into her path and stood embarrassed, as if a friend had pushed him there as a practical joke. It was the first time Leila had a close look at him and she realized much to her horror that almost everything about him, from his fingernails to his hair, the corners of his eyes, his clothes, were all dirty, and pity quickly replaced fear in her mind. Somehow she felt happier now that she pitied him, and though he continued to appear occasionally he never again made bold with anything but his eyes.

  Leila pitied Earl in the same way. She pitied him but she feared her pity, for if she were to pity every coloured man she saw in England then she would have no space left for any other emotion. It was this that made her dislike him, made her feel weary in his presence, made her look at his sexually hungry eyes. It was only Arthur's eyes, dark and a little mysterious (his own description) that had ever made her feel safe. In them she had seen both innocence and ultimate disappointment which betrayed the well-polished maturity he liked to project. When he first kissed her she felt as though somebody were rubbing sandpaper against her lips. It was her first kiss and in truth she had been satisfied, but it had only raised within her a further curiosity that would need satisfying, though she knew Arthur would never dare do so.