‘Because I said so. He don’t wanna work with you.’

‘But it is his job.’

‘And I don’t bloody blame him. I said you’d be trouble.’

‘I am not the one giving the trouble.’

‘One more word out of you, coon, and you’re out. You can pick up from King’s Cross on your own. Or get your cards. You got it?’

This was the first time I had been to King’s Cross. And standing by the trolleys of sacks that had been taken from the train it was not obvious to me which were for Post Office sorting. I did not want to mistakenly take railway parcels as this would cause great commotion.

‘Which ones are post?’ I ask a group of workers – four men – who were standing watching me.

‘Did I hear someone speak?’ one of them say. They looked as idle as layabouts, leaning on a wall scratching themselves. All began chuckling at this man’s funny joke.

‘Will you help me?’ I ask again. I got no reply but all looked to me mischievous like I was sport. Rolling their eyes around pretending they cannot hear where my voice is coming from. Ignoring them, I move to lift a sack.

‘Look, a darkie’s stealing from the railways,’ one of them shout. I put down that sack and go for another. As long as I take the right thing that is all that concerns me. As I pick up another sack I hear, ‘Oh, my God, what’s the coon doing, now?’ How many sacks I pick up and with all they jeer that I am wrong?

‘Can you please help me?’ I have to ask them.

‘Speak English,’ one of them say.

‘It is English I am speaking,’ I tell him.

‘Anyone understand what this coloured gentleman is after?’ More laughing.

But, man, I could not afford to get into trouble. ‘Could you please tell me what I am to take?’

‘All right,’ one of them say. This man pushing himself from the wall moved closer to me. One of his eyes looked at me while the other roamed in the socket like a lost marble. I am thinking maybe they had tired of this sport – after all, they had been playing with this coon for a long time now. But this cross-eye man just say, ‘I’ll tell you, if you answer something for me.’ His friends start chuckling again in anticipation of a nice piece of humiliation.

But I answer him civilly, ‘What?’

‘When are you going back to the jungle?’ Oh, man, this is the best joke these four men had heard today. They all laugh at this. A coon. The jungle. What a lark. Two of them light up cigarettes. Man, I am better than a tea-break. While the hands on the clock keep moving. I pick up another sack. ‘Oi, darkie, you ain’t answered me. When are you going back to where you belong?’

And I said straight into this man’s one eye, ‘But I just get here, man, and I not fucked your wife yet.’

‘What did you say? What did he say?’ He turned to his pals but they had not heard. ‘Fucking wog. What did you just say?’

‘Nothing,’ I tell him.

Then this man grabs a handful of my Post Office uniform to pull me to him. ‘Go on, hit him,’ his chums encourage. But this is one fool man. My arms are free. So, let me see, I could have whacked his nose until it cracked and bled. Or punched his stomach so his breakfast choke him. I could have pulled his head back, grabbed his throat and wrung breath from him. Knee him in his balls. Wind him with an elbow. Smash my forehead into his mouth to dislodge a few teeth. And all before his friends had time to reach me. His grip was not strong. This man was skinny from rationing. Come, let us face it, I could have just blown on him to push him to the ground. But if I was even to friendly tweak this man’s cheek, or matey pat his back, I knew I would lose my job. Three white men looking on would have the story – the day the darkie, unprovoked, attacked this nice gentleman. Savages, they would say. And all would agree, we must never employ any more of these coons: they are trouble – more trouble than they are worth. What else could this Jamaican man do? I dropped my head.

‘I said nothing, man. Nothing.’ And then I cringed craven until my submission cause this man to leave hold.

‘I’ll have to wash my fucking hands now I’ve touched you,’ he told me, pushing me from him. I stood pitiful as a whipped dog while this man said, ‘There’s decent Englishmen that should be doing your job.’ I kept my eyes at his feet while he indicated with his chin, ‘Over there, that trolley. Now get packed up and fuck off.’ And I went about my business with a gunfire of cuss words popping and pinging around me, while the postal sacks and an aching shame stooped me double.

Come, let us face it, I had forgotten all about Hortense by the time I arrive home from work that evening. All I am dreaming of as I climbed the stairs was to lie down on the bed and sleep. Perhaps dream of walking in the heat of the sun nyamming a mango. Or sipping sorrel with Elwood on the veranda. But I am woken rude as I opened the door of the room. Hortense was on her hands and knees there before me on the floor.

‘Get up! Get up!’ I shout. The anger so loud the force bounce from the wall to slap me back. She is startled. She jump and spill water from a bucket. She fuss to mop at it but I grab her arm. Enclose my hand round it and pull her from the floor. With the shock her feet make no struggle to stand upright. ‘Get up from off your knees,’ I tell her.

Suddenly she is looking in my face. Fear rounding and watering her eyes. She leaps away from my grip, her chest gasping for breath. ‘What is wrong with you?’ she say.

‘I am sorry,’ I tell her. ‘I am sorry.’ I back away from her to show her I am not a madman. To let her know she is safe. ‘But I cannot stand to see you on your knees, Hortense.’

‘But I have to wash this floor. The floor need washing.’

And I say, ‘I cannot see you on your knees so soon. I did not bring you to England to scrub a floor on your knees. No wife of mine will be on her knees in this country. You hear me?’

‘How you wan’ me clean the floor, then?’

‘Any way,’ I plead. ‘Any way, Hortense. But please, please, not on your knees.’

Thirty-one

Hortense

‘This is not chips,’ Gilbert Joseph say to me. ‘Your mummy never tell you how to make chips?’

‘My mother,’ I tell him, ‘taught me to be thankful for the food the Lord provide.’

‘But your mummy not here to eat this.’

The man was fussing again, looking on his plate as if all that was odious rested there. Everything I do in this sorry place he find fault. I move his suit from the wall. All day it hang flimsy there – this jacket and trouser like the trace of a man. And it watch me. Each time I catch this empty suit in my view, I swear, an arm would move or a leg would wiggle. But when I turn on it sudden it would stop. I placed the garments in the chest of drawers so it could no longer menace me. Why I touch his suit? His suit will crease. That is his best suit. So vex is he his bottom lip stick out far enough for me to wipe a postage stamp on it.

‘I have to tidy the place,’ I tell him. But I cannot even wash the filthy floor without raising his wrath. ‘Get up, get up!’ The Lord will be my witness – this fool man was unreasonable.

‘How you don’t know what is a chip?’ he ask me. He pick up the potato with his finger to hold it up to show me. Any fool could tell it would burn him. He drop it again and blow on his hand. I tell him the Englishwoman downstairs assure me this is a chip. His eye is wide awake now. ‘You been talking to Queenie?’

It was she that inform me that a chip is a potato cut up small. Reminding me twice that it must be peeled first. So I cut up the little Irish potatoes as instructed. I have only the one little ring to cook on but I place the chips of potato in a pan of water so they might boil.

When Gilbert Joseph came in from work the cold clung to him so fierce the room shivered in his trail. He proceeded straight to the fire, not even stopping to remove his coat. He pulled up the chair in front of it and lordly placed himself down on it, blocking all the heat as sure as a stormcloud before the sun. And it is in this fireplace where I am having to cook his wretched chips. The ring of blue gas flame I am to cook on snake just in front of the fire in the hearth. I cannot get round this brute of a man to carry on my work.