Small Island Read Online Free Page B

mournful lament, sighed on each and every thing she see. ‘Is this the way the English live?’
    ‘Yes,’ I tell her, ‘this is the way the English live . . . there has been a war . . . many English live worse than this.’
    She drift to the window, look quizzical upon the scene, rub her gloved hand on the pane of glass, examine it before saying once more, ‘This the way the English live?’
    Soon the honourable man inside me was shaking my ribs and thumping my breast, wanting to know, ‘Gilbert, what in God’s name have you done? You no realise, man? Cha, you married to this woman!’
    Queenie was still standing by the open door when I dared fetch the trunk that Hortense had sailed across an ocean. ‘Everything all right, Gilbert?’
    ‘Yes, thank you,’ I tell her.
    ‘What did you say her name was?’
    ‘Hortense.’
    ‘Funny name.’
    ‘What, funnier than Queenie?’
    She gave a little laugh although I had not made a joke. ‘You’ll have to move that trunk. I need to shut the door. Someone will be away with it if you’re not careful.’
    ‘If they can lift it, it’s theirs,’ I muttered, before adding, ‘I moving it now, Queenie.’
    My idea was to sort of slide the trunk up the stairs. Now, I could do this for one stair perhaps – two stairs if I could rest up me feet for an hour after. But this trunk lifted like the coffin of a fat man turned to stone. I would have to get one of the boys to help me. So I knock on Winston’s room.
    Now, the man that answer the door was not Winston. True, him look likeWinston, him talk like Winston and him dress like Winston. But Winston was half of a twin. Identical as two lemons on a tree. This was his brother Kenneth. To tell them apart, try to borrow a shilling. Winston will help you out but pester you all over London till him get it back. Kenneth, on the other hand, will persuade you to give him a shilling, assuring you that he could turn it into a pound before the week’s end. Kenneth’s home was in Notting Dale with an Irish woman named Noreen. I knew this was not my friend Winston when, after I asked him to help me with my wife’s trunk, the man before me said, ‘So you tell me she jus’ come from home? You know what she have in that trunk?’
    ‘No, man.’
    ‘Come, let us open it. Mango fetching a good price. You think she have rum? I know one of the boys give me half his wage to place him tongue in a guava.’
    ‘Is my wife’s belongings in that trunk.’
    ‘Me caan believe what me ear is hearing. You a man. She just come off the boat – you mus’ show who boss. And straight way so no bad habit start. A wife must do as her husband say. You ask a judge. You ask a policeman. They will tell you. Everyt’ing in that trunk belong to you. What is hers is yours and if she no like it a little licking will make her obey.’
    And I asked this smooth-tongue man, ‘How come you in Winston’s room? Noreen throw you out again?’
    Silly as two pantomime clowns we struggled with this trunk – but at a steady pace. That is, until the trunk fell back down one whole flight when Kenneth, letting go, insisted that a cigarette – which I had to supply – was the only thing that would help him catch his breath. How long did it take us to reach the room? I do not know. A fine young man when we start, I was a wheezing old crone when we eventually get to the top. And there is Hortense still sitting delicate on the bed, now pointing a white-gloved finger saying, ‘You may place it under the window and please be careful.’
    Kenneth and I, silently agreeing with each other, dropped the wretched trunk where we stood, just inside the door.
    It is not only Jamaicans that like to interrogate a stranger with so many questions they grow dizzy. But the Jamaican is the undisputed master and most talented at the art. And so Kenneth began. The hands on a clock would have barely moved but he had asked Hortense which part of the island she came from, how many members in