Cha, blood running wet down my chin and I wiped my nose on the sleeve of my one good suit. It soaked up the indelible liquid like sponge. I went to go. Leave these white folks to their problems. Looking at the front of my stained, ripped and ruined suit, I knew I had problems too. Plenty.

But he had not finished yet. He sprang up to jump on my back. This man was tenacious as a vine. I swung this way and that to dislodge him. His hand was clawing nails in my face. So I whacked him with my elbow hard in the stomach. He deflated fast as a pricked balloon, but not buzzing off round the room: he slipped almost gracefully from me on to the floor again – his knees curling him up tight. At last, I’d killed him! He stayed that way. Breathing heavy as a crying child, wrapped up rigid on the floor. Come, I had not hit him that hard. ‘You all right, man?’ I asked, after a little while. I got no reply except his anguished breath. So I told him once more, ‘Cha, nah, man, I sorry for you. But this business is nothing to do with me.’

Softly I hear him mumble. ‘It’s everything to do with you. You and your kind.’

And hear this, soft-hearted man that I am, I go to help him up. For suddenly pity for him flowed over me like a wave. No man – no matter how fool-fool a white ras clot – should have to look on his wife suckling a baby that is not his. ‘Let me help you up, man?’ I said. But he thrust my hand away. Then, slowly lifting his head, he glared upon my face with unmistakable hate. The man attack me, pour blood from my nose, accuse me of all sorts of things I had never got the chance to do with his wife. Come, let me tell you, all at once I was pleased this dogheart English bastard had too-too much to bear.

Cha, I hobbled up the stairs to the room – one bare foot, one clothed – rather than stay another second looking for the item. Let them keep the wretched shoe, for I wanted no more of Queenie and her fool-fool husband’s confusion. I was fed up. Perhaps Elwood was right. Of course he was. About what? I could not remember. But he was warm in Jamaica and I was here, bloody and barefoot. Come, that must make my cousin the cleverer of us two. When I got to the door of the room I found it was locked.

‘Hortense,’ I called. ‘Come, let me in, nah?’ How long did I wait before I realised she would not? Shivering and hopping on my shoed foot I called again, ‘Hortense.’ I worried she might be asleep for there was no sound from inside. I rattled at the lock. ‘You in there? Come, I am freezing out here. Hurry.’ Suddenly the door opened and there was she dressed neatly in her hat, coat and white gloves. Before I had a chance to enter the room she had told me, ‘I will call for my trunk when I am settled in.’

‘Settled in where?’ I asked her. But she gave no reply except to throw her nose once more into the air before brushing me aside to pass. ‘Wait, nah,’ I called.

I intended to follow her but my bare foot stood on an open nail. The sharp metal entering my foot put me in mind of a fork sticking a pickled onion. I had to cry out. Hopping up and down on the landing I could just hear Hortense calling back to me. ‘You disgust me, Gilbert Joseph.’

Come, I finally get it. She had weighed up the evidence and reached the same conclusion as the fool husband. The brown baby in Queenie’s arms must be the child she had for me. Cha! Am I the only black man in this world? Why everyone look to me? I have been back in England for only seven months. Why no one think to use their fingers to count out that before they accuse?

‘Hortense, let me explain,’ I called to her. Man, as soon as I said that I wanted to stuff the words back in my big mouth. It did not sound good. I had nothing to explain. Only men that have guilt have something to explain. ‘It not my pickney, Hortense. I only been seven months here with . . .’ I was saying before the wretched nail pricked me again and I lost most of the words to another pain-filled yell. ‘Wait,’ I shouted.

As she reached the landing by Jean’s room, Jean appeared at her door. It was late – she was dressed for work. Powdered and painted as an ugly doll. She looked on Hortense, who said a polite, ‘Good evening,’ to her, as she passed by. Then Jean turned her gaze to me, perused me curious, then threw her head back and laughed. I heard the front door shut. Where could Hortense go? She knew nobody but, worse, she knew nothing.

How long it take me to find another shoe? The only one that show itself to me is for the wrong foot. I hurried down the stairs after Hortense on two left feet. I could not see her on the street. The blasted cold misted my breath so the way ahead was hazy. Left or right? Cha, I followed my shoes – if she had gone the other way I was ready to blame them. Up towards the square I hobbled like a cripple. A man walking his dog came towards me. Only when I saw his look of terror did I realise what a fright he was beholding. A man with black skin, covered in red blood, walking ungainly in two left feet. Man, I swear, the little dog, looking on me, jumped in his owner’s arms. I thought to say, ‘Good evening,’ but was sure this man would scream once he realised I was indeed real. Who could blame him? I was a sore sight in this green and pleasant land. If I did not find Hortense soon and return once more inside someone would surely call a constable. Come, I looked like a suspect. What crime? Oh, any will do.

Then I saw her. Unmistakable even from afar. Her haughty gait swinging her white gloves like two fireflies in the dark. But she was lost. She stopped by a corner on the edge of the pavement looking to all the world like this cold dark spot was precisely the place she had left Jamaica to be. But, just like this afternoon, she looked to the left then to the right. Which way held the most promise?

This woman had no plan. No place to go. No mummy, no brother, no friend, no cousin round the corner who would hold up their arms to take her in. This was London, not a stroll in the evening air of Constant Spring. But come, let us face it, to be far from me this woman would walk off a cliff.

I thought to call to her but my voice carried on the evening air might cause her to run. I walked slowly towards her, hiding in the street-lamp shadows. Just then I saw the headlights of a car. It pulled to a stop by Hortense. I watched as the passenger door swung open. Hortense, ever polite to strangers and more innocent than that pickney newborn, leaned down to talk to the driver of the vehicle. For a few moments she was doubled, her head to one side attentive, listening. I quickened my pace and cursed the odd shoe for slowing me. Suddenly she straightened. She leaped back from the car saying, ‘No!’

Her next step bumped her into me. She screeched until I said, ‘It’s me.’ And for the first time she looked on my face with the pleasure of seeing kin. She clung to me – her head burrowing into my neck like a chastened child. Just in time I slapped the roof of the car. Grabbed the door that the driver was rushing to close and yelled at him: ‘Fuck off, man. This woman is not your whore.’

Fifty-five

Queenie

There are some words that once spoken will split the world in two. There would be the life before you breathed them and then the altered life after they’d been said. They take a long time to find, words like that. They make you hesitate. Choose with care. Hold on to them unspoken for as long as you can just so your world will stay intact. But from whichever side you looked at it I owed Bernard an explanation.

I’d waited so long for him to come back. I’d resigned myself to it – taking up where we’d left off. I wasn’t the only one to make the wrong bed and I was ready to lie down in it. (I’d only used my half of it for years so no bad habit would have me hog it when he got home.) For so long I just twiddled my thumbs. I went to find a job. But a married woman working when there were deserving men who could do any job better? Go home, they told me, twiddle your thumbs the other way, missus. I’d never felt loneliness like it. (Well, maybe, just after Auntie Dorothy died.) Waking every morning, I’d get two seconds of blessed forgetfulness when I could have been anyone, before the boring leaden yearning settled about me again.