City of Spades

12

Foo-foo in the small, late hours


When I arrived with Muriel outside this Moonbeam club (which every Spade we met seemed heading for, like night beasts to their water-hole), I saw at once, from very much past experience, that trouble was going on inside. People were peering down the entrance stairs and jabbering, and noise of shouts and crashings floated up. I drew Muriel far into a doorway, as I expected any moment the intrusion of the Law.

Then customers came scurrying up too. Among them I see Montgomery, and with him his Miss Theodora. I said to Muriel to wait, and went across to them.

‘Oh, Mr Fortune,’ Theodora cried. ‘There’s fighting going on downstairs.’

‘Your brother Arthur,’ said Montgomery, ‘and Billy and his friends are battling with some wild West Indians.’

Well, I suppose our African troubles aren’t his business, but all the same, has he not a pair of fists to stay and help my friends?

I’d seen there were two quite old American saloon cars with drivers that seemed Africans to me. I went over quickly and asked were they for hire? They were.

‘What is a place to meet not far from here?’ I asked Miss Theodora.

She said the big radio building of the BBC.

‘Get in,’ I told her, ‘with Montgomery. Muriel,’ I shouted, ‘come over here! Go quickly where this lady says,’ I told the two drivers, putting pound notes in their hands, ‘and all of you wait for me there till I arrive.’

Then I plunged down the Moonbeam stairs.

At the bottom, by the entrance door, I saw Dorothy and Cannibal and various other friends all torn and tattered. The West Indians had expelled them out. I told them where to scatter at the place I’d sent the cars.

‘But, Johnny!’ Dorothy cried out. ‘Billy’s still in there, and Ronson and your brother Arthur.’

‘Do as I tell you, Dorothy, I am always best alone. Cannibal, now, blow with these people to the big radio building. I bring all the others soon whether dead or else alive.’

I heaved and pushed open the club door. The band was still playing, all now up upon their feet. Chicks were standing on the chairs, laughing and screaming, and GIs cheering and acting with no responsibility at all. On the dance floor I saw Billy with Ronson and one other, who were murdering, and being murdered by, the West Indians.

I climbed over the bar counter, and started smashing crates of Coca-Cola by heaving them with loud crashes on the floor. The band stopped and faces began to turn round in my direction. ‘Look, Mr Jasper!’ a tall West Indian cried. ‘Your valuable stock is being depleted.’

I picked up four bottles, and burst through to the dance floor. I grabbed up the microphone, which lay there overturned, and cried out: ‘Billy, we cut out! The Law will soon be intruding! Here, Billy, catch this bottle!’

We battered our way towards the door. The customers were generally friendly, and seemed to regret the ending of this silly mess. ‘Come on, Bumper Woodman,’ they kept crying to a huge West Indian. ‘Show us how you beat Joe Louis to his knees.’

But it was Ronson Lighter he was fighting now, and that crooked boy, even despite his dirty blows, looked like getting massacred by the big West Indian’s bulkiness, till Billy Whispers snatched the microphone from my hands and cracked this Woodman on the skull with a cruel smack. We all beat it up the stairs.

‘Come on, let’s run,’ said Ronson Lighter. ‘I smell the coming of the Law.’ And we saw two beetle cars come sweeping round the distant corner.

‘Not run, no,’ I said, ‘is better stroll rapidly like serious gentlemen.’

‘Thank you,’ said Billy, ‘for your interference.’ He wiped blood from both his hands.

‘Who is this third boy?’ I asked him. ‘Can this be my brother Arthur?’

For I’d seen him fighting also on the Moonbeam floor, and his certain strong resemblance to my dad, and doing him great credit with his vigorous blows; but as I walked beside him now, and he turned smiling to me, smoothing his knuckles, I also caught his mother’s crazy glance in both his eyes.

‘What say?’ said Arthur, as we turned two swift corners. ‘Bless you, my brother – you’re my boy!’ He put his arm around me and said softly, ‘You’ll help me with some loot now, Johnny, won’t you.’

‘We see about this, Arthur. We talk about all those things.’

By twisting around in zigzag circles, we had now arrived outside a big white block building standing on its own. Our friends were by the cars in a cluster on the street, laughing and chattering in this silent London early dawn.

Billy introduced me round. ‘Come!’ I cried out. ‘What’s needed is to celebrate our survival from these dangers. We all of us go now to my friend Hamilton’s and eat some foo-foo.’

‘Foo-foo?’ said Miss Theodora, needlessly wrinkling up her nose.

‘Is a standard African dish, lady, like your English shepherd pie, but I think nicer.’

This English lady smiled and shook her head.

‘Then let us drop you off, Miss Theodora,’ I said, ‘at your house, or any other convenient point of your selection. Billy, you take Montgomery and some of us in this one car, and Miss Theodora and we here will travel in the other.’

Of course Billy understood what I intended, and our cars shot ahead through the dark, wide thoroughfares. When Miss Theodora saw we were not going near her house at all, she turned to me and said, ‘Am I being kidnapped?’

I said, ‘No, lady, just forcibly invited. And you have your good friend Montgomery to take care of you as well as me.’

I felt Miss Theodora next to me relax.

At my new Holloway home, I found that Hamilton had partly returned to life, and was wandering about, holding a coffee cup, with just some slacks on, and talking to Mr Cole, who was in striped pyjamas. I told them to make themselves suitable to welcome all my guests, and I took Mr Cole upon one side.

‘These are good friends,’ I said, ‘and perhaps you could fix some liquor at a reasonable price for their entertainment that will do honour to your house.’

‘You have the loot for that now?’

I gave him more pound notes, and he looked dignified, and blew.

Billy asked for the necessary meat and semolina to make foo-foo, and Hamilton took him and Cannibal and Ronson Lighter to the kitchen. Arthur all this time was following me about, his eyes with a look of admiration, and his arm always on my shoulder. ‘There you go, man!’ he kept saying to me. ‘There you go!’

‘Take it easy, bra,’ I said to him. ‘I see you straight tomorrow morning.’

‘Tell me about my dad. Is he a rich man? Is he loaded?’

‘He’s a fine man, our dad.’

He looked at me hideous all at once. Even I was just a little scared.

‘Then why’s he left me skinned in hopeless destitution?’

I took no notice of this foolishness, and put some Billy Eckstine on to Hamilton’s radiogram. Soon Mr Cole appeared with armfuls of Merrydown cider and Guinness stout and VP wine. All the while I saw that this companion of Montgomery’s, this Miss Pace, examined me as if I was a zoological exhibit. I went and sat down beside her on the collapsible settee.

‘So you are in the employment of the BBC, Miss Theodora,’ I said to her. ‘That’s a real serious occupation.’

‘I’d thought,’ she said rather rapidly, ‘of putting on a series of talks in which colonial citizens would relate their experiences when they arrive here.’

She looked at me. I said nothing.

‘Though I’m wondering if, to tell anything like the truth, these talks might perhaps reveal more than our listeners would stand for.’

Now I can tell as well as any when a chick has been reduced by my physical appearance, and behind this white girl’s word I read a positive design to drag me between sheets before too long. But this was most unattractive to me in her case, particularly as little Muriel, who was much more to my liking and intention, was standing by.

‘Oh, yes, Miss Theodora?’ I said, playing cool.

‘“Theodora”,’ she told me, ‘please, no “Miss”. If I do decide to go ahead with the talks, would you consider taking part?’

I told her politely it would no doubt be a pleasure; and thinking I’d done my duties as the host, I was leaving her for Muriel when she shook my hand and said, ‘Then won’t you dance with me?’ Someone had now swept Muriel away, so I smiled at this not so tempting girl and took her hands.

But even above the high cry of Billy Eckstine we all heard a wild scream, and there was Hamilton, still half naked in his slacks in spite of what I tell him, standing stiffly by his empty bed, pointing and gazing down at it and crying, ‘This poor little boy is dead!’

‘Hamilton!’ I ran over and held his shaking shoulders. ‘What little boy?’

‘Me, Johnny! Look! There I am – dead!’

‘Man, you’re still high! Sit down now, and act serious. There’s company present all around you.’

‘I’m not dead then, Johnny?’

‘Oh, Hamilton!’

He began to sob.

‘Come with me in the kitchen and cool down, man. You’ll find they’re making foo-foo there. Eat some, it will calm you. Really, my dear friend Hamilton,’ I said when I’d got him past the door, ‘you must get off that needle – it will kill you dead.’

‘You’ll have to help me, Johnny.’

But out in the kitchen, though the pots and pans were simmering, there were no Billy, Cannibal or Mr Ronson Lighter. I sat Hamilton down, gave him a cigarette, and went and looked out through the back door to the garden.

There, in the early light, I saw Billy and Ronson Lighter beating Jimmy Cannibal. This man was a boxer, yes, but Billy, I could see, was a little killer, and Ronson grabbing at Cannibal in evil places.

I opened the door and shouted: ‘What is it, Billy?’

Cannibal broke free and scrambled over the garden wall.

‘What for you mix in this?’ cried Billy. He raised up his hands against me, then he said, ‘Oh, well …’ smoothed down his clothes, and came to the kitchen door. There was blood on Ronson Lighter’s coat, and I led him to the tap.

‘That Cannibal has been making a friendship with the Law,’ said Billy.

‘How you know that?’

‘That Jumble friend of yours saw him talking with coppers in the station.’

‘Montgomery tell you that? But I was there with him too.’

‘You were? All the time with him?’

‘No, not all the time … Why didn’t that foolish man tell me about he see Cannibal?’

‘Is that Jumble to be trusted?’

‘I think so.’

‘He’d better be.’

‘Billy,’ I said, ‘if Cannibal was with the Law, how do you know they didn’t just pull him in for something? What make you think he’s blowing off his top?’

‘He tell us, when we ask him, he was not in there at all. So if he was, it must be for some evil purpose. I finished with that man, and if he’s said a word against me … Well, if ever the Law puts the hand on me, that boy had better leave town.’

‘Billy, you get so excited. And your foo-foo will all be burning.’

He came over to the stove and dished it out on the big plate. ‘You can’t trust even your own people in this country,’ he said. ‘This country turns men bad.’

‘Well, Billy, you was never one big angel yourself, were you?’

He gave me a sideways smile. ‘Maybe I not, but I not shop my friends like Cannibal.’

Mr Cole came through the kitchen door. ‘Did I hear fighting noises? I must have no fighting on my premises.’

‘Play cool, man. There’ll be no more battle.’

‘This Hamilton,’ said Mr Cole. ‘He must control his conduct.’

‘Who sells him this bad stuff?’ I said. ‘He can’t get all that bad on just his legal ration.’

I caught the glance of Billy and of Cole, who looked at each other.

‘Whoever sells my friend that stuff,’ I said, with a hard stare at each of them, ‘is going to find himself an enemy of mine. And you, Hamilton, you’d better change your habits of life unless you wish to die when still quite young.’

We all drank some ruby wine in silence; then carried the dishes in among the dancers of the bigger room.

We passed round the water to wash, and everyone sat down upon the floor: even the Jumbles, who we showed how you crouch around the dish, and take up your wad of semolina, dip it in the red peppery gravy, and scoop up your piece of meat. They did it quite free and nicely, though burning painfully in the mouth, and with sometimes the unnecessary dribbles.

‘And how is recent developments in Africa?’ said Mr Cole to me.

‘Oh,’ I told him, ‘it looks like in one or two years’ time we have our freedom.’

‘What you need in Africa, Africa man,’ said Arthur, ‘is a blow-everyone-up party, including your own crooked Africa politicians.’

‘Tins man is talking ignorant and foolish,’ said Mr Karl Marx Bo. ‘What’s needed is more education, and more honesty.’

‘They’ll never let you govern yourselves, man,’ said Larry the GI.

‘They will, because we’ll make them,’ said Mr Bo. ‘And then we Africans come across and free our poor American brothers, who all they do is sit on their seats and sing their spirituals.’

Little Barbara thought this so funny, and let out a cheap laugh.

‘If we don’t get this freedom soon, we take it, like the Mau Mau do,’ said Mr Ronson Lighter.

‘Mau Mau haven’t managed to take much,’ said Miss Theodora, in a sharp way, ‘except a lot of African lives.’

‘Oh, stop all your politics,’ cried Dorothy, ‘while we’re eating food.’

‘We shoot you like Mau Mau, man,’ said Ronson Lighter, pointing a pepper-pot with an evil grin upon my friend Montgomery.

‘If you was in Kenya, Mr Montgomery,’ said Billy Whispers, ‘what side would you be?’

‘My own people’s, of course,’ Montgomery replied. ‘When trouble comes, you must go with your own tribe.’

‘Oh-ho! And if I take you prisoner, you know what I do?’ said Ronson Lighter to him.

I broke in. ‘If I take my friend Montgomery prisoner,’ I said, ‘I grab away his weapon, yes, but maybe himself, I turn him loose.’

Muriel smiled up at me, and move much closer.

Hamilton jumped up. ‘This man’s an African!’ he cried, taking Montgomery round his neck. ‘I know my brother, because I see he is an African.’

‘No, no, not me.’

‘Yes, man! You’s an African! And I prove it to you now! I give you a present, a great gift.’

Hamilton went to his cupboard, and pulled off a hanger the dress of our dear tribe. ‘Come, man, you put this on!’ he cried.

‘I couldn’t accept,’ Montgomery said.

‘You are my guest,’ Hamilton told him severely.

‘Yes, put it on,’ said his friend Theodora. ‘I’m sure it’ll suit you to perfection.’

Hamilton pulled it on over Montgomery, and tied the cloth round his head. He looked really quite strange in it, but he stood there quite clearly filled with flattery and pleasure. He took my friend Hamilton’s hand. ‘I do appreciate it,’ he said. ‘Thank you very, very much.’

Now Billy Whispers and Ronson Lighter were starting to roll weed, in company with Hamilton and Mr ‘Nat King’ Cole: which I’d rather they’d practised in private in the kitchen, instead of in this public way in front of strangers. They passed the sticks round, and Dorothy was eager, and little Barbara, and my brother Arthur, as I of course expected of him.

But Muriel wouldn’t touch the stuff, and our other English visiting friends, though Billy Whispers tried to press them to it, which he shouldn’t do, really, because weed is something it’s best not to handle unless you have the mastery of its action from experience since an earlier age. In this refusal, they had the support of Larry the GI and Karl Marx Bo.

‘All you get out of that,’ said Mr Bo, ‘is crazy antics and then ruin. That rubbish is the ruin of my people.’

‘Many good men,’ said Larry, ‘have lived inside penitentiaries on account of that goddamned ganga.’

‘Just listen to this Yank,’ said Dorothy, all tough and daring. ‘Man, ain’t you never raved nor rocked in your career?’

‘With this I forget my troubles,’ Arthur said, soft and silly. ‘And of troubles, I say that I have plenty.’

‘It’ll give you plenty more,’ said Muriel. ‘It’ll send you right back inside where you came out of.’

‘Let Arthur be,’ said Dorothy. ‘Is he telling you what you should do?’

‘Why let him be?’ cried Karl Marx Bo. ‘She’s right, this chick. Weed kills your conscience, don’t we all know it? It opens the door to what is violent inside of you, and cruel, and no good sense, and full of fear.’

‘It don’t make you silly like this liquor does,’ said Mr Cole. ‘It may slow you up, your bodily movement, but it leaves you with a better control and perfect speech.’

‘Perfect speech to say some rubbish like you do,’ said Larry the GI.

Little Barbara laughed. ‘Why you all so serious about it, anyway?’ she said. ‘Isn’t life hard enough without it?’

Miss Theodora, she was listening closely. She seemed a little troubled with anxiety, and also by her unusual ignorance of this subject. Though this did not stop her now from saying her word.

‘But you, Mr Bo,’ she asked him. ‘If you know so much about it, surely you must have smoked it once yourself?’

‘Who hasn’t, lady!’ cried this legal student. ‘But some, when they burn their fingers in the fire, can learn, and others not. What this man Cole here says is true. It leaves your mind clear, yes, but only half of it, the half that has the proud and the darker thoughts. You think that the world is you, is yours, you think it is you that make the laws of all creation. Off goes your personality, you lose control of it, and in walks the dark spirit to take over. And all the time, under that stuff you say to yourself: “How can anyone as wonderful as me be wrong?” Then you go off and rob a bank, or kill your grandmother.’

The weed-smokers laughed at this serious fellow countryman. Myself, I thought the mistake was to mix up the smokers with the others. These arguments often come up when those who smoke hemp sit down with those who don’t …

So I got up and put on discs, and asked Muriel to dance with me. But this was the time, I could clearly see, when the party came near its death, because the light outside the curtains grew stronger than the electricity inside, and everyone was losing pleasure in the other’s company. The two boys waiting with their cars outside came knocking to ask for instructions, or else they’d shoot off, and wanted more money for waiting, anyway. So Larry the GI went off with Dorothy, and Billy told Ronson Lighter to see little Barbara home. And in the other car, Montgomery went with Theodora and serious Mr Karl Marx Bo. I saw them off there in the already daylight street.

Dorothy leant out and snatched a kiss I hadn’t offered. ‘I’ll see you again soon, my man,’ she said.

At the other car I shook hands in a more steady manner.

‘Keep in touch, Johnny,’ said Montgomery, sitting like an emir in his native dress. ‘You know my telephone number.’

‘And don’t forget,’ said Theodora, gripping my hand, ‘I rely on you for my colonial programme.’

‘Yes, yes, yes, yes,’ I answered, and told the drivers in the Yoruba tongue to hurry them all off.

Back in the room, I found Hamilton in a deep slumber, and Cole inviting Billy and my brother Arthur to a game of dice. ‘You will come too?’ he said. I wished this badly, for dice are in my blood, but first there was the question of my Muriel. So they went upstairs without me, after Arthur had borrowed from me three pounds which was all that I had left.

Muriel was sitting by the radiogram. I kissed her quite freely, and she came up easily into my arms.

‘Stay with me now, Muriel,’ I said.

‘No, Johnny, no, not here …’

‘Then where? This is my home, and Hamilton will sleep soundly for six hours …’

‘No, Johnny, not till I know you better.’

That woman’s phrase! Which means, as all men know, ‘Not till I ask you!’ And why did she not go with all the others in the cars, if her real purpose was not to stay? If I had not been fond of this little child, and tired too, to tell the truth, and longing for my sleep, she would not have escaped me by her feeble answers.

So I said, ‘Very well, Muriel, get all your things, and I shall go out to find your cab.’

She got up slowly, but by the door she stopped and clung and kissed me. ‘Africans’ skins are soft,’ she said to me.