by Alex Wheatle
“Me husband is ah mon of de Lord,” interrupted Jenny. “He never go sporting an’ dem kind ah t’ing. We come over here to work hard an’ live good, may Massa God bless we.”
“Jenny, me cyan speak fe meself,” protested Jacob.
Hortense hunted in the other cupboards for the biscuits and once she found them, shared them out. She then fell into her seat, suddenly feeling her exhaustion.
“So me guess yuh nuh waan to walk aroun’ Brixton wid me,” laughed Cilbert.
“Yuh mad?” returned Hortense. “Jus’ tek me to me bed.”
“Yes, I agree,” said Jacob. “Come Jenny, mek I show yuh to our new room.”
“Yuh cyan’t wait ’til me finish me biscuit dem an’ me mug ah tea?”
Cilbert pulled Hortense to her feet and with a massive effort, lifted her into his arms. Unsteadily, he moved along the hallway as Hortense giggled. “Cilby, yuh mek it so obvious. Yuh waan to christen me inna me new home, isn’t it? Yuh sure ya back cyan tek de strain?”
“Cilbert,” Lester called as Jenny was inwardly raging with jealousy. “Me will come fe yuh inna de marnin. Me ’ave to tek yuh an’ Jacob to de labour exchange to register. Den to sign up wid de doctor so don’t sleep in too late. Mek sure yuh bring ya papers.”
“Alright, sa,” answered Cilbert, his cheeks still warming to Hortense’s teasing. “T’ank yuh fe everyt’ing.”
Lester then left, leaving Jacob and Jenny in the kitchen. Jenny filled the kettle with more water, placed it on the cooker and grabbed a handful of shortcake biscuits. The dimly lit staircase still unnerved her and she didn’t want to hear Cilbert and Hortense making love, even though they were in separate bedrooms. The very thought of it dismayed her.
Calling at nine o’clock the next morning, Lester found he wasn’t only escorting Cilbert and Jacob to the labour exchange but Jenny and Hortense as well. Before noon, Cilbert found employment in the maintenance of outside telephone lines. Jacob accepted work as a labourer on a building site, Hortense gained a job as an early morning cleaner at County Hall and Jenny a position preparing tarts and pastries in a Lyons tea house; she had to pass a thorough medical check and a maths and English test.
During her third day in her new job, from her position in the kitchen, Jenny spotted that the waitresses were overwhelmed with orders. Showing initiative, she picked up a tray laden with Chelsea buns, a pot of tea and serviettes and intended to carry it out to the customer. Before she reached the dining area, Jenny’s manager, a slim, hollow-cheeked white man in his mid-thirties, stepped in front of her.
“Where do you think you’re going with that?” he asked.
“De waitresses overcome, Misser Dawkins,” Jenny explained. “So me t’ought to meself dat me should bring de tray to de people who waan it instead of dem complaining.”
Mr Dawkins was not impressed and leant his face towards Jenny so that his lips were only a few inches away from her forehead. “I pay you to remain in the kitchen! And remain in the kitchen you will! Now get back! I employ the waitresses to carry the trays in.”
Her mouth primed to reply, Jenny managed to control her fury but when she arrived home, she wasted no time in telling Jacob and everyone else what had occurred. Sitting at the kitchen table, grimacing as he ate his roast beef, brussel sprouts and boiled potatoes, Cilbert could relate to Jenny’s anger. On his first three working days, he had been ordered to service the phone lines in man-holes and other unsavoury locations, a dirty, grimy task. He had asked his boss why was he singled out to perform ‘dese dutty tasks’, and Cilbert’s supervisor answered, “why do you think we need guys like you coming over here for work. You will get better opportunities when you prove yourself.”
Shrugging off his supervisor’s comments, Cilbert wasted no time in setting up a bank account. He promised himself to start saving for a place of his own as soon as he received his first wages. Also, the image of the Rover car pricked his mind.
By the end of his first week at work, Cilbert was simmering with frustration. Colleagues at the depot had difficulty understanding his accent and subsequently, everyone ignored him, save a Trinadadian man called Delgado.
“You have to talk slower,” advised Delgado on Cilbert’s sixth morning. “Your voice sound strange to them. Anyway, the manager’s put you with me for your next month. You will discover that most phone lines in this country are underground, unlike the Caribbean where it’s all overhead. But the wiring principles are the same so you should be alright. They will respect you if you show that you can do the work.”
“Me don’t mind so much dat white mon nuh understand me,” replied Cilbert. “It’s de monkey noises dem mek an’ de funny looks. If dem carry on dem way see me don’t tek me longest screwdriver an’ stab ah white mon tongue!”
“Cilbert, over here you have to cool yaself,” soothed Delgado. “You don’t want to get sacked. Just ignore them. They’ll soon get bored of winding you up. When I first came here they started on me, but now they leave me alone. Just laugh with them.”
“Alright, Delgado. But me don’t know if me ’ave de patience.”
Working on a building site with many other West Indians, Jacob didn’t have the same problems as Cilbert found on his first week. On his first day he made endless cups of teas and mixed cement. He kept his own counsel. Upon his second day, asked on what he did for a living back in Jamaica, Jacob revealed that he was a minister of the church. Immediately, Jacob’s stock rose to his fellow West Indians and they sat around him during dinner breaks, asking him of news of Jamaica and if he would consider blessing their homes and christening their children.
By the end of his second week, Jacob had been promoted to a position of an electrician’s mate. He worked under the stewardship of a Jamaican nicknamed Buju – Buju being the Jamaican slang for a large breadfruit.
“If yuh is ah preacher mon,” Buju asked one morning. “Why yuh here ’pon building site? Where is ya church?”
“Me don’t ’ave one yet,” Jacob answered. “But me will. Me promise yuh dat.”
“An’ me will attend ya service,” replied Buju. “Me hear of ah West Indian church inna nort’ London but dat too far fe me an’ me wife. Der is not’ing around here fe we so if yuh start church yuh should find nuff follower.”
Buju had advised Jacob to enrol at night school and he began studying for a City and Guilds electrician’s certificate at a college on Brixton Hill. He had trouble deciphering the tutor’s broad Scouse accent and felt intimidated by his fellow white students. Pointing to Jacob seated at the back of the class, a white guy quipped, “that’s what happens to you when you get an electric shock.”
“An’ those who laugh wid yuh will suffer ya mighty ignorance,” retorted Jacob, standing up defending himself.
Aided by Cilbert’s counsel and experience that he offered in the evenings following dinner, and Buju advising him at work, Jacob learned his new trade swiftly.
Disliking English cuisine and unable to find Jamaican foodstuffs in Brixton market, Jenny was introduced to a Jamaican man, Mr Campbell, who lived in Camberwell. Mr Campbell, who never revealed how he managed to obtain Caribbean food, pulled up in his large white van every Monday evening outside Jenny’s home and supplied yams, green banana, canned callaloo, tinned ackee, rice, red kidney beans, plantain, ardough bread, ginger, peppers and salt fish. It wasn’t much of a variety, Jenny thought, and she would have committed a crime just to sink her teeth into the amber-coloured flesh of a ripe mango, but her family felt that much closer to home whenever they ate their meals. It sure beat the roast beef, corned beef, spam meat, roast potatoes, carrots and tasteless cabbage that they consumed in their first week. Curious as to what was frying in her kitchen, even Mary Skidmore chanced a taste of fried dumpling and plantain one Saturday morning. She hated it but her daughter Stella asked Hortense for more.
Three weeks after their arrival and having paid their first rent, Mary Skidmore invited Cilbert, Jacob, Hortense and Jenny for a Sunday evening’s dr
ink in her living room. She had opened all the windows but the breezes that came through couldn’t shift the lingering aroma of polish. Framed pictures of a long-haired, blue-eyed Christ decorated the walls alongside black and white photographs of rusty-haired relatives. A radiogram was placed in one corner and a mahogany-coloured piano, untold scratches upon its surface, stood by a wall. An open music book, gripped by its metal support, was propped on top of the piano alongside a Catholic prayer pamphlet. Hanging above the mantelpiece was a velvet banner, a souvenir of the Irish town, Fermoy.
With a large wooden brush in her right hand and a comb in the other, Mary Skidmore was seated in an armchair with her seemingly petrified daughter Stella kneeling on the carpet, viced between her mother’s awesome thighs. Her four guests were squeezed up in a three-seater sofa, their politeness overriding their discomfort. Mary noticed Jenny looking at the banner. “Yes, that is where I was born. On the muddy banks of the Blackwater river. A lovely place, lots of space and fresh air. More churches than you could ever count. My maiden name is O’Donahue, and my Jesus, there’s a lot of us. Every time I go back I get introduced to more and more cousins. Truth of the matter is they all jump on my nerves. Want this want that. That’s all I ever hear. They think I’m rich like Rockefeller.”
Cilbert and Jacob chuckled but they wondered who Rockefeller was. “Do any of yer want any more whiskey?” Mary asked. “I have two more bottles in the cupboard, imported from my own country. Take it now because my offerings don’t occur every day. But I think a woman must receive boarders into her home with generosity. It breeds a certain respect and understanding, don’t yer agree?”
Everyone nodded but Hortense was the only one to say, “yes please,” to Mary’s offer. She stood up and served herself.
“I have to be honest with yer,” resumed Mary, thrusting the comb into Stella’s long auburn curls. “I for one am glad that you people are coming in droves to England. I tell yer why. Before you came, it was the Irish the English treated like shite. Now they treat you people like shite. And yer’ll have to suffer that until the smelly Indians come over here in greater numbers – they’ll be treated like shite. I hope the Holy Father forgives me for my thoughts but it’s a relief that my folk don’t get it as bad as we used to. My Sean couldn’t go to a pub without some Proddy English bastard calling him names. My advice to yer is not to frequent pubs. Yer will not be made welcome.”
“When did yuh come to Englan’, Miss Mary?” Hortense asked while Cilbert and Jenny were expressing their shock at the way the conversation was developing.
“Just after the war,” Mary replied. “Bomb sites all over the place. London looked like God himself decided to use his mighty right hand and finger-walk across the place. Yer had to have keen eyes about yer or yer would find yerself falling into a crater. And there was nothing to eat. I don’t know how we survived on that godforsaken ration book. Three eggs a week and a tiny side of beef that couldn’t feed a cat, I tell yer.”
“But yuh ’ave done well fe yaself,” said Cilbert, looking around the room.
“Oh, yes. My Sean worked every hour available. When we first come here he worked on the train tracks throughout the night and laboured on building sites during the day. I tell yer, it was us Irish who rebuilt this Proddy country, oh yes, by the sweat of our brow and that’s no lie. And are the English grateful? No bloody chance! They call us Bogtrotters and other names. And I can tell yer this, yer might work alongside them and they be all polite and smiles, but behind yer back? They’ll be calling yer nigger, coon, monkey-face and sambo. Trust my words. The English are two-faced bastards, forgive my blasphemy Holy Father.”
“Wha’ about de local churches?” queried Jacob. “Are der any dat are…? Appropriate fe we?”
Mary laughed a horrible laugh. “Are yer joking with me, Jacob? Proddy churches infest this cursed country. My advice to yer is to sing yer praises at a Catholic church. Yer won’t be made welcome in a Proddy church. No bloody chance! Yer find more integrity in Soho.”
Jacob wasn’t brave enough to tell her that he and his family belonged to the Anglican order, despite Jenny pinching him to do so.
Ignoring Mary’s warning he escorted Jenny on the next Sunday to a church of England service in Camberwell New Street. They were immeadiately impressed by the sheer size of the church and its carved figures and interior decor. They found hymn books on their pews, sat down and looked around them. They were the only blacks in the congregation and Jenny whispered, “Lord help we! Jacob, dis was ah very bad idea. Me don’t know how yuh convince me to come wid yuh! Everybody staring at we!”
“Calm yaself, sweetheart,” soothed Jacob. “We inna God’s house an’ everybody equal here.”
Feeling like an automaton, being asked to stand up, sit down and sing, Jenny missed the handclapping, verve and excitement of a Kingston church. Even the vicar’s sermon was sober, uneventful and boring, she thought. Kingston ministers were larger than life, fiery and animated, Jenny remembered and even she thought they were sometimes over the top. But this vicar? He should be confined telling his stories to children before they went to bed.
Sensing every eye upon her, Jenny refused to sing. Instead she studied the way white women were dressed. Most of them were sporting bright-coloured pencil skirts with matching, single-breasted hip-length jackets. Crowned by bonnets and hats of all shapes and sizes, Jenny felt a little better for she was similarly dressed in a sky-blue skirt and jacket with white blouse. She had to admire Jacob, garbed in his blue suit and pointed black shoes, who sang his heart out and spoke out loud every prayer
Departing the church after what Jenny and Jacob thought was a very short service – they were used to three or four hour services in Kingston – they thought it would be polite to offer their greeting to the vicar who was standing at the exit of the church. Shaking the hands of his regular flock, the vicar blatantly ignored the presence of Jacob and Jenny who were waiting in front of him.
Ushering his furious wife away, Jacob heard Jenny vent her outrage once they had returned home.
“Me cyan’t believe it!” stormed Jenny. “Me will never set foot der again! How cyan ah mon of God ignore people who come to him? He made we stan’ up in front of him like damn idiots. Me shoulda cuss him backside! Sometimes me wish me ’ave me sister’s mout’. Miss Mary was right! Jacob, yuh better set up ya own church quick!”
Jacob decided to conduct his own services in his own room. His first congregation consisted of seven people, including his workmate Buju and his wife. News spread quickly in the local Caribbean community and weeks later Jacob had to ask his followers for funds to enable him to hire a local hall; Mary Skidmore let it be known in plain words what she felt about ‘a whole loada black Proddy worshippers trooping up her stairs’. The altar was an old school table that Jacob had acquired and his flock could only sing from two hymn books, but the verve and gusto they brought to praising their Lord soothed Jacob’s soul. The only blot he felt on his heart was the absence of Cilbert. He didn’t even rebuke Hortense when on one occasion he spotted her reading a letter when she was supposed to be studying the Bible.
The letter was from Miss Martha and Hortense grinned when she read it.
Dear Hotty,
Thrilled I was to learn that you have reached London safe and sound, and forgive me for my delayed reply to your letter – it was only two weeks ago that my husband and I returned from Germany. Germany was tedious to say the least. Full of miserable people who stare at the ground beneath them, so unlike Jamaican people. I’m afraid I’ll soon be on the way to Hong Kong which is my husband’s next post of duty. I’m looking forward to it though – the Orient and all that mystery.
Before we left for Germany I spent my days tending to my garden and reading books. Not much to do here in Berkshire – my neighbours only talk of horses and farms – and I do miss the Jamaican sun. But my husband allows me to travel to London for the weekends. I book myself in a small hotel in Kensington and go to a West End the
atre or a dance show. Not sure I should be telling you this but it will surely make you giggle! At one of these shows I met a black man who offered to buy me a drink. He’s a dancer! Edwin is his name and he comes from Guyana – such lithe limbs! Taking your advice about grabbing your heaven on earth, I took him back to my hotel! Can you believe that? It was so devilishly exciting and on a few occasions I didn’t even bother attending a show. I would just meet Edwin outside the hotel and there we would stay all weekend. It doesn’t bother me at all that I am paying for everything.
So now I venture to Hong Kong with a little sadness in my heart – I can’t imagine there are any black men there! But, Hotty, the memory of Edwin and his taut body can sustain me while I’m away and who knows? Edwin might be there when I return to England.
Now I have become a demon in the kitchen, cooking varieties of dishes that my husband adores. So I thank you for that. And give my love to the rest of your family, especially Cilbert. May you all fare well in my country. When I return we’ll have to share a bottle of imported overproof rum some sunny afternoon (I don’t care too much for the watered-down rum that is available in England but have no fear! My husband still has his contacts in Jamaica). And when we finally meet again we can laugh like we used to.
Your friend
Martha.
Reading Martha’s letter again and again, Cilbert wondered what was so funny about it as he watched Hortense collapsing in sudden giggles.
Working all the overtime available to him, Cilbert initially declined Lester’s invitations to taste the London nightlife.
He couldn’t shift the memory of visiting a local pub and having to wait forty-five minutes before he was served. The barman didn’t acknowledge Cilbert’s presence, so lifting up and dropping a glass astray upon the counter, Cilbert displayed a pound note held aloft in his hand. “Rum an’ coke,” he ordered.
