by Sam Selvon
‘Boy, when you not working you does feel bad.’
Moses light a cigarette and sit down before the fire.
‘That —ing skylight still leaking,’ he say, looking up as he lean back in the chair. ‘I try to put some putty yesterday, but the water still coming through.’
‘Why you don’t tell the landlord about it?’
‘I tell him already, man, but you know how these fellars is. I take the broom and put a rag on it and wipe the glass, and that help a little. Sometimes the heat from the fire make water on the glass.’
‘You hear from home lately?’
‘No man. I write my brother and tell him to send £500 for me, but I ain’t get a reply. You hear?’
‘I get a letter from a fellar yesterday who say he want to come up.’
‘All them fellars want to come up. They must be think life easy here.’
‘They don’t know.’
The pigeon and rice have Moses feeling good and he in the mood for a oldtalk.
‘Aye Galahad,’ he say, ‘you used to know a fellar name Brackley in Charlotte Street?’
‘Brackley? Charlotte Street? But how you mean? You think I would be living in Port of Spain and don’t know Brackley! Ain’t he is the fellar who ain’t have no nose, and he always riding about town on a ladies bicycle, peddling with his heels, and his fingers sticking out on the handle bars? And if you tell him anything he curse you like hell?’
‘Yes! Just as I was sitting down here I remember Brackley. Boy, he was one test could make you laugh! If you call out to him he stop the bike and start to curse you. “What the – you want? What the – you calling me for? Brackley is your father?’ ”
Galahad laugh. ‘Yes, I know. You ever hear bout the time when Brackley sleep with a whore?’
‘No.’
‘It was Tina. It was a Tuesday night, so things was really bad with the girls, and Brackley broach Tina. She say all right, but only thing Brackley must get up early in the morning and out off, because she don’t want them other girls to know she sleep with a fellar like him. Brackley agree, and Tina carry him home in George Street and they went to sleep. Next morning Tina get up very early and gone in the market for her fresh piece of beef, thinking that by the time she come back Brackley would be gone. But Brackley take time and get up, and start to yawn and stretch, and he open the window and stand up there scratching his chest. All them whores in the backyard looking at Brackley and saying: “A-a! Brackley sleep with Tina, me child!” And Brackley stand up there waving his hand: “Morning neighbour! morning!” and laughing all over his face. When Tina come back she start to kick up hell, but Brackley say, “What the hell happen to you? I give you my money and I sleep with you and everybody know.’ ”
Moses laugh. ‘You hear bout the time they nail Brackley to the cross?’ he ask Galahad.
‘No.’
‘One Sunday morning they nail Brackley to the cross up on Calvary Hill. You know where that is? Up there behind the Dry River, as you going up Laventille. Well it had a gang of wayside preachers, and Brackley join them, and he decide this morning to make things look real. So he tell them to nail him to the cross before they start to preach. Brackley stretch out there, and they drive nails between his fingers and tie up his hands with twine. Brackley look as if he really suffering. A test went and get a bucket of cattle blood and throw it over him, and Brackley hang up there while the wayside preachers start to preach. The leader take out a white sheet and spread it on the ground, and three-four women stand up with hymnbook in their hand, and they singing and preaching. But them boys start to make rab. They begin with little pebbles, but they gradually increase to some big brick. Brick flying all by Brackley head until he start to bawl, “Take me down from here!” Brackley shout. “They didn’t stone Christ on the cross!” And this time big macadam and rock flying all about in the air.’
Galahad laugh until tears come, and Moses suddenly sober up, as if it not right that in these hard times he and Galahad could sit there, belly full with pigeon, smoking cigarette, and talking bout them characters back home. As if Moses get a guilty feeling, and he watch Galahad with sorrow, thinking that he ain’t have no work and the winter upon the city.
‘Boy,’ Moses say, ‘look how we sit down here happy, and things brown in general. I mean, sometimes when we oldtalking so I does wonder about the boys, how all of we come up to the old Brit’n to make a living, and how years go by and we still here in this country. Things like that does bother me. With this night work, sometimes I get up all around eleven o’clock in the morning -’
‘So you wouldn’t miss elevenses,’ Galahad say.
‘I talking serious, man. And I can’t go back to sleep, ‘I just lay there on the bed thinking about my life, how after all these years I ain’t get no place at all, I still the same way, neither forward nor backward. You take my advice, Galahad. Is how long you in the country now?’
‘Three-four years.’
‘Ah, yes.’ Moses lean back in the old armchair the Polish landlord give him - that is to say, Moses see the armchair in the landing and put it in his room - and a look come in his face that bring all the years of suffering to light. ‘When was my second winter here, I was still ready to go back home. I used to go by them shipping offices and find out what ships leaving for Trinidad, just in case I happen to raise the money. How long you think I in Brit’n now, Galahad?’
‘Five years?’
‘Ten years, papa, ten years the old man in Brit’n, and what to show for it? What happen during all that time? From winter to winter, summer to summer, work after work. Sleep, eat, hustle pussy, work. Boy, sometimes I sit there and think about that, think about it real hard. Look how it is, them Jamaican fellars who only here for two-three years save up enough money to send for their family and I ain’t have cent in the bank. How them fellars manage to save money on five-six pounds a week beat me, and yet they do it. Boy, if I was you, I would save up my money and when you have a little thing put by, hustle back to Trinidad.’
‘Who me? No boy. I not going back.’
‘Ah, you just like Daniel and Five Past Twelve and them other fellars. You know what they say? They say that if they have money they would go all about on the continent, and live big, and they would never leave Brit’n. Boy, you know what I want to do? I want to go back to Trinidad and lay down in the sun and dig my toes, and eat a fish broth and go Maracas Bay and talk to them fishermen, and all day long I sleeping under a tree, with just the old sun for company. You know what I would do if I had money? I go and live Paradise – you know where Paradise is? Is somewhere between St Joseph and Tacarigua, is a small village, one time it had a Portugee fellar name Jesus there and he had a rumshop, so Ripley had him in Believe It Or Not – Jesus have a rumshop in Paradise. Anyway up there life real easy. I would get a old house and have some cattle and goat, and all day long sit down in the grass in the sun, and hit a good corn cuckoo and calaloo now and then. That is life for me, boy. I don’t want no ballet and opera and symphony.’
‘You know,’ Galahad say, ‘last year I had a feeling to go back too, but I forget about it. It ain’t have no prospects back home, boy.’
‘Sometimes I look back on all the years I spend in Brit’n,’ Moses say, ‘and I surprise that so many years gone by. Looking at things in general life really hard for the boys in London. This is a lonely miserable city, if it was that we didn’t get together now and then to talk about things back home, we would suffer like hell. Here is not like home where you have friends all about. In the beginning you would think that is a good thing, that nobody minding your business, but after a while you want to get in company, you want to go to somebody house and eat a meal, you want to go on excursion to the sea, you want to go and play football and cricket. Nobody in London does really accept you. They tolerate you, yes, but you can’t go in their house and eat or sit down and talk. It ain’t have no sort of family life for us here. Look at Joseph. He married to a English girl and they have four childr
en, and they living in two rooms in Paddington. He apply to the LCC for a flat, but it look like he would never get one. Now the children big enough to go to school, and what you think? Is big fight every day because the other children calling them darkie. When they not at school they in the street playing. Boy, when I was a little fellar my mother cut my tail if I play in the street. And you think Joseph could make out on that six pounds ten he getting? As it is he have ten pounds for me and I feel bad to ask him for it when I meet him. Boy, when I see thing like that happening to other people I decide I would never married. Look what happen to Lewis, how his wife divorce him.’
‘Lewis look for that, thumping the woman every night.’
‘Yes, but still. And another thing, look how people does dead and nobody don’t know nothing until the milk bottles start to pile up in front of the door. Supposing one day I keel off here in this room? I don’t take milk regular – I would stay here until one of the boys drop round. That is a hell of a thing to think about, you know. One time a test dead in this house – right there down the hall, in the second room. You know what? I miss the test – was one of them old geezers, every morning she see me she say, “Cold today, isn’t it? I bet you wish you were back home now.” She used to wear a fur coat and go in the park and sit down, crouch up like a fowl when rain falling. Well I miss the test: when I ask the landlord for her, he say she dead about a month ago. You see what I mean?’
‘The best thing to do is to take milk regular,’ Galahad say.
‘Laugh kiff-kiff if you want, but I here in this country longer than you, and you still have a lot to learn. You never leave the gas fire on by mistake?’
‘No. I only use it when I cooking.’
‘Oh, I forget you don’t want heat in the winter. Anyway you don’t read the papers? Every day somebody dead with leaving gas on. If a test don’t like your head, all he have to do is come in the room when you sleeping and put on the gas, and next day you get two lines in the newspaper.’
‘The trouble with you,’ Galahad say, ‘is that you want a holiday. Why you don’t take a trip to Berlin or Moscow? Listen, I hear the Party giving free trips to the boys to go to different cities on the continent, with no strings attached, you don’t have to join up or anything.’
‘Who tell you so?’
‘I get a wire. I hear two students went, and they say they had a sharp time, over there not like London at all, the people greeting you with open arms. Why you don’t contact the Party?’
‘Take it easy, I have enough grey hairs as it is. But talking about holiday, what does happen here when is Christmas? No fete at all, everybody in the house eating Christmas pudding. Boy, you remember what Christmas does be like back home? Fete like stupidness. And right after that come New Year. They don’t celebrate that in this country at all, though I always want to take a trip to bonny Scotland, I hear Old Years is big fete there.’
‘Who tell you they don’t celebrate here?’
‘Ah, bags of people stand up in the Circus and throw balloon in the air – you call that fete? The only thing is them white girls does want to kiss you. They say if the first thing they do for the new year is see a spade, they will have luck for the whole year. Them bastards!’
‘It good to lime out there every Old Year,’ Galahad say.
‘To do what? Get a kiss? Man, you really foolish, yes. Fellars like you would stay in Brit’n till you dead. You come like a old spade I know. He living down Ladbroke Grove. He come to this country since he was a young man, full of ambition, and he never went back. He had some good times, yes, but what you think happen to him in old age? If you see him now, crouching about in them tube station in a old beast coat, and picking cigarette butt from the pavement. Study for old age, boy. Study what will happen to you if you stay here and get old. Boy, if I was sure that I would get a good job in Trinidad, and I had my passage back home, you think I will stay here? But is no use talking to fellars like you. You hit two-three white women and like you gone mad.’
‘I don’t know why you shouting down the old country like that,’ Galahad say. ‘If you ain’t do well is nobody fault but your own. Look at all them other fellars who do all right for themselves. Look at the students –’
‘Don’t talk about students,’ Moses say. ‘That is another thing altogether. Them fellars have their bread buttered from home, they ain’t come to Brit’n to hustle like you and me. They spend a few years here, learn a profession, then go back home stupider than when they come. They go back with English wife and what happen? As soon as they get there, the places where their white wife could go, they can’t go. Next thing you hear, the wife horning them and the marriage gone puff. Look what happen to that Indian fellar what married a German girl and went back after he study. He kill the girl, cut she up and put she in a sack and throw she in the sea. You don’t know about that case?’
‘I hear about it.’
‘That was a big thing, man. They even send detective to London to check up fingerprint and thing. You should know in the end they hang the test, and the boys make a big calypso out of it.’
‘What I mean,’ Galahad say, ‘is the impression on the English people how the papers always talking about fellars coming up here to work and creating problem. I mean, it have a lot of other fellars who come to study and visit and so on. It ain’t only hustlers like we.’
‘Yes, but nobody interested in them fellars.’
‘We had better chances when the Socialists was in power, you know. You ever vote?’
‘But how you mean? I always go and put my X, man. And I always canvassing for Labour when is elections.’
‘Boy, you think fellars like Daniel and Harris does vote Conservative or Labour?’
‘I suspect Harris, you know. He tell me Labour, but I have a mind he is a Tory at heart. He always talking about the greatness of the old Churchill and how if it wasn’t for him this country go right down.’
‘Well,’ Galahad get up, ‘we will pick up. I have to go to school this afternoon to collect the rent.’
‘If you happen to see Cap,’ Moses say, getting ready to go back to sleep, ‘tell him to pass around by me.’
It have a p.s. episode with the pigeons what happen to Cap, and he never tell any of the boys because he fraid they laugh at him. What happen was this: One time in his migrations Cap was staying in a top room in Dawson Place, near the Gate, and for some reason or other seagulls start to sleep in the night on a ledge up by the roof. These seagulls that come up from the old Thames when things too hard for them by the sea, you could never tell where you will see them. Sometimes they join the pigeons in Trafalgar Square, and it have some of them does hang out by the Odeon in Marble Arch. Anyway, nobody surprise to see seagulls sitting up there on the roof, and in fact how Cap get to find out is because one day he had a girl in the room, and he went out and forget to take the key. So when he come back he ring the bell, and as is the habit with the fellars who living in top room, whoever there would open the window and throw the key down for the person outside instead of climbing down all them stairs to open the door. So when Cap ring the bell, the girl open the window to throw the key, and when Cap look up he see these seagulls flying about and settling on the roof.
However, he didn’t think about it again until much later, when he was laying down on the bed after the girl left. In fact, he fall asleep and get up in the evening feeling so hungry that his head giddy and he frighten to get out of bed and exert himself. Cap lay there thinking about big meals at Chinese and Indian restaurants, and remembering the times when fortune favour him and his belly full so he didn’t have to worry about food. And while he was in this meditation, the seagulls start to fly across his mind.
Cap leap out of bed and fly by the window. Sure enough, the ledge passing near the window and a good stretch could bring him in contact with the gulls. Cap get so excited that he make a wild snatch and catch a seagull by the tail. The seagull cry out and flutter out of his grasp, leaving him with two feathers in his
hand.
Now them seagull not as tame as the pigeons in London, and from the time Cap make the wild attack they all move out of range. Cap went back and lay down on the bed, for he does think best in that position.
Then he leap up again and went in the cupboard to look for bread. He find an end slice and he break it up in little bits. All this action getting him hungrier and hungrier and he contemplating how seagull would taste, for he never eat one before.
When the bread break up Cap find a piece of long twine in a drawer and he make a slippery knot. He went and open the window again and put the twine down, making a circle, and in the circle he put a few pieces of bread and he jam himself up against the wall, just twisting his head so he could see what happening.
Two-three seagulls come, but instead of settling they hover in the air like hummingbird and eat all the bread. Cap put more bread and wait. This time two come and one of them that was greedy decide to settle down and eat off all the bread.
As soon as the bird foot touch the ledge Cap make the pull. The seagull jump up a little, as if it playing skip with Cap, and when the twine fly underneath - Cap pull real hard - it settle down again.
Cap throw away the twine in a corner and went and lay down again, the old brain wrestling with the problem. Then he leap up again and take up a old cardboard box. He went and take his clothes off the hanger. He tie the twine to the hanger. He open the window, and he prop up the box with the hanger, and he put bread in the space under the box and jam up against the wall to wait, holding the other end of the twine in his fingers.
Two seagull come to investigate and they see the bread and start to eat. As soon as one was under the box, Cap jerk the string, the hanger fall and the cardboard box fall on a seagull.
The old Cap, frighten that the bird might get away, drag the box in through the window, keeping it down.
When Cap pull the box in it fall down inside and the seagull start to fly about in Cap room. He shut the window quick and stand up there watching the bird. He know for sure that he have it now, so he just stand up there enjoying anticipation, waiting for a good chance to catch it.
