Fifty-nine

Hortense

I never dreamed England would be like this. Come, in what crazed reverie would a white Englishwoman be kneeling before me yearning for me to take her black child? There was no dream I could conceive so fanciful. Yet there was Mrs Bligh kneeling before Gilbert and I, her pretty blue eyes dissolving beneath a wash of tears, while glaring on we two Jamaicans, waiting anxious to see if we would lift our thumb or drop it. Could we take her newly-born son and call him our own? Not even Celia Langley, with her nose in the air and her head in a cloud, would have imagined something so preposterous of this Mother Country.

Gilbert insisted Mrs Bligh came from her knees. He lifted her, still snivelling, from the floor, supporting her with a careful arm round her waist. And he placed her down on the settee beside me. It was not the time to talk of such things but the baby’s backside was damp under my hand. I paid it no mind. Gilbert tried to squeeze himself down on the chair between Mrs Bligh and myself but there was no room. So it was then he that took up the kneeling position.

‘Queenie,’ he said, with as gentle a voice as a woman might have, ‘how can you think to give up your baby?’ Those tender-spoken words caused Mrs Bligh to sob with such ferocity that the sleeping baby was once more aroused. But Gilbert’s look carried such concern that I forgave him. ‘How you believe that we would be better for your child than its mother? We are strangers to him.’ But questions were useless, for this woman’s anguish had rid her of the power to speak. Still he waited patient for her sobs to subside. When they did not, he wriggled himself once more between us on the settee so he might place a comforting arm round her shoulders. Returning the consolation, Mrs Bligh lifted her hand and placed it on Gilbert’s arm. With the vigour of a blast, that delicate touch was enough to see Mr Bligh on his feet and exploding, ‘Get your filthy black hands off my wife!’

Gilbert was soon squaring up to this tall man. The two of them standing facing each other. ‘What is your problem, man?’ Gilbert said.

‘My problem is you, with your hands on my wife.’

‘You sure that it is my black hands on your wife that is worrying you, man?’

‘How dare you, you savage?’

It was at this point that Mrs Bligh, tired of all this rough stuff, fled from the room. Leaving me alone to comfort the crying baby.

‘Now look what you’ve done.’ Mr Bligh pointed a finger almost inside Gilbert’s nostril. Gilbert batted it away. While I stared down into the chasm of this baby’s mouth, where the little pink knobble at the back of his throat was wiggling with the wind of his howl.

‘Please mind the baby,’ I said, with the thought to calm the situation. But little notice was being taken of I or the child. Join the sweet little baby and howl, I thought, for the situation was taking another bad turn.

Gilbert pulled himself up until, I swear, he was almost the same height as Mr Bligh. ‘Listen, man, your wife just ask us to take her baby and all that is worrying you is that a black man might think to comfort her.’

‘I don’t want to hear any more from you. Just shut your mouth!’

‘Well, you gonna. You gonna hear plenty more from me.’

Mr Bligh stepped back one stride, not in fear of Gilbert but only so he might better show his disdain by perusing him up and down. ‘Why, in God’s name, would Queenie think to entrust the baby’s upbringing to people like you? That poor little half-caste child would be better off begging in a gutter!’ he said.

Gilbert sucked on his teeth to return this man’s scorn. ‘You know what your trouble is, man?’ he said. ‘Your white skin. You think it makes you better than me. You think it give you the right to lord it over a black man. But you know what it make you? You wan’ know what your white skin make you, man? It make you white. That is all, man. White. No better, no worse than me – just white.’ Mr Bligh moved his eye to gaze on the ceiling. ‘Listen to me, man, we both just finish fighting a war – a bloody war – for the better world we wan’ see. And on the same side – you and me. We both look on other men to see enemy. You and me, fighting for empire, fighting for peace. But still, after all that we suffer together, you wan’ tell me I am worthless and you are not. Am I to be the servant and you are the master for all time? No. Stop this, man. Stop it now. We can work together, Mr Bligh. You no see? We must. Or else you just gonna fight me till the end?’

Gilbert had hushed the room. It was not only Mr Bligh whose mouth gaped in wonder. Even the baby had fallen silent. For at that moment as Gilbert stood, his chest panting with the passion from his words, I realised that Gilbert Joseph, my husband, was a man of class, a man of character, a man of intelligence. Noble in a way that would some day make him a legend. ‘Gilbert Joseph,’ everyone would shout. ‘Have you heard about Gilbert Joseph?’

And Mr Bligh, blinking straight in Gilbert’s eye once more, said softly, ‘I’m sorry.’ Of course, I thought, of course. Who would not be chastened by those fine words from my smart, handsome and noble husband? But this Englishman just carried on, ‘I’m sorry . . . but I just can’t understand a single word that you’re saying.’

Gilbert’s august expression slipped from his face to shatter into tiny pieces upon the floor. He leaned down to me and took the baby from my arms. Straightening himself he handed the bundled baby to Mr Bligh. He then took my hand in his and guided me silently from the room.

Gilbert mounted the stairs in a furious anger. The first two flights he took three stairs at a time, his feet banging loud as a giant’s foot. I decided not to keep pace with him, for still those stairs rose like an empty bookcase in front of me. But by the third flight, whether through exhaustion or concern for me, he slowed. In the quiet of the gloomy hallway Mrs Bligh’s voice could be clearly heard shouting a tormented, ‘No’. By the fourth flight Gilbert had stopped. The baby was crying. The sound encircling me appeared to grow louder as I climbed to where Gilbert stood. Both his hands were pressed firmly over his ears. As I approached him he suddenly struck out and punched the wall. Then, hopping with the pain from the ill-advised wall mashing he wailed, ‘Damn them, damn them.’ He sat down hard on the stair. I rested beside him and took his throbbing hand in mine.

‘Your mother never tell you that a wall is hard?’ I said.

For the briefest moment he looked on my face before hanging his head back to his boots. ‘Hortense,’ he said. ‘What can we do, what can we do? I can’t just walk away. Leave that little coloured baby alone in this country, full of people like Mr Bligh. Him and all his kind. What sort of life would that little man have? Damn them.’

I squeezed his hand to be kind but had to stop when he said, ‘ouch’. This man was still a buffoon. Nevertheless I began. ‘You wan’ hear what I know of my mummy? A flapping skirt, bare black feet skipping over stones, the smell of boiling milk and a gentle song that whispered, “Me sprigadee,” until my eyes could do nothing but close. That is all I remember of her. As a little child I was given away too – brought up by my cousins because I was born with a golden skin.’ He placed his hand over mine and lifted his chin to kiss my cheek.

‘And this Michael?’ he asked.

‘Oh, Michael Roberts, he was my cousin’s son, we grew together.’

‘You loved him?’

‘Of course.’

Jean opened the door of her room. Just enough so her nose could poke through, smell the darkies on the stairs and shut it again to laugh.

‘They took me from my mummy because, with my golden skin, everyone agreed that I would have a golden future.’

‘Well, then, a golden future you must have, Miss Mucky Foot.’

‘I intend to, Gilbert Joseph. That is exactly what I intend.’The baby’s crying was enfolding us again. ‘You wan’ us take the child, Gilbert?’ I asked.