City of Spades

8

Theodora languishes, not quite in vain


This Miss Theodora! Outside the Vial man’s flat, I found her with the cat, two legs in each hand, searching the late darkness for a taxi. ‘Let me take it for you, please,’ I said to her. ‘You don’t want it to scratch you on your nylon blouses.’

‘They’re not nylon,’ she said to me, and I saw she was in tears.

I took the animal.

‘We walk a bit together, you and me,’ I said, ‘and get the fresh air in our weary choke-up lungs.’

‘You’ll catch cold without a coat on.’

‘Me? I’m hearty! Walking warms up the circulation.’

After a silent while, she said, ‘I suppose you think I oughtn’t to have done that, Johnny.’

‘Is for you to judge. Each man is jury of his own actions – even women.’

‘I didn’t mind all that much about the cat, but I couldn’t bear them all enjoying themselves so much.’

This cat was wriggling, so I shoved it inside my shirt and buttoned it. ‘Ju-ju is ju-ju,’ I replied. ‘Surely, is best to stay away from watching it, or, if you come, not interfere.’

‘But you took me there to see it.’

A remark how like a woman!

‘African ju-ju, or Haitian voodoo,’ I explained to her, ‘is not to be despised like you do through your ignorance. Medical science is, of course, a European discovery, as we know when we buy our spectacles, or have the appendix out. But living and dying is also very much a mystery of the mind that ju-ju understands.’

With my conversation, and the night air, she was recovering her usual sharp brain. ‘According to what I read,’ she said, ‘the latest European opinion bears you out.’

A taxi sailed by, cruising cautious, slow, and eager for custom like a prostitute would do. I hailed it, and opened up the door. ‘Here is your quadruped,’ I said. ‘What will you call it?’

‘You choose a name.’

I took the cat beneath the taxi headlamps to examine it for sex. ‘Tungi,’ I said, ‘is a nice name for a boy.’ I handed it back, but she grabbed my arm as well as Tungi when I did so. ‘Come home with me, please,’ she asked, ‘just for a while.’

I know what ‘for a while’ means, once a chick’s got you inside her front door … and I wasn’t eager for any close association with this not so young, young lady. All the same, she’d given me the twenty pounds, and perhaps she might be helpful to me on some later occasion. I climbed in and took the cat again, to make sure I had a good excuse not to hold whatever else that might be offered.

‘And how is Muriel?’ she said, in that voice women use to hide their disapproval.

‘Muriel is well. Her health is good.’

‘Are you fond of her, Johnny?’

‘“Fond of” is not some words I use. Either is “love” or “not love” in my language.’

‘So you love Muriel, then.’

‘Well, yes, I do. She makes me quite mad with all her practical remarks and weepings, but I have some love for Muriel, that’s certain.’

‘So you’ll get married soon?’

‘Who said I would? Did I say so?’ The cat was wriggling once more – I slapped it. ‘Any conversation about loving a woman,’ I exclaimed, ‘ends up always with some talk by her of marriage.’

‘Excuse me, Johnny.’

‘Oh, I excuse you, naturally.’

This argument gave me excellent reasons for saying my farewell to her once delivered safely at her address; but when the cab stopped, she asked me to dig some earth up from the little garden there outside the rails. ‘For the cat,’ she said. ‘He’ll need a tray upstairs. Just bring it up, will you, when you’ve done? I’ll leave the door open.’

This woman beats my time! I gathered up two handfuls, kicked the door closed behind me, and climbed three steps up at a jump, leaving trailings and spots of dirty earth upon the landings. Inside her room, the lights were already on, the radio in operation, and she was pouring out some drink in quite a hurry.

‘Where is this tray?’ I cried.

‘What tray?’

‘For Tungi your dear cat, Miss Theodora. Or shall I lay this soil upon this sofa?’

‘Oh, don’t be so angry with me, Johnny. I know men don’t like being asked to do a menial task.’

Didn’t that make it worse? She handed me some drink. I gulped it, then said, ‘Goodbye, Miss Theodora, Montgomery would not approve if I should stay.’

‘Him? He’s nothing to me! He’ll be out drinking somewhere, anyway.’

‘Nothing to you, you say. Am I then something?’

This chilly lady, all skin and eagerness and spectacles, now flung herself upon me like some jaguar, and covered me in tears and kisses. I could not speak even until I’d wrestled her away. ‘It’s not always Spades, then,’ I shouted out, ‘who try to seduce white ladies, like they say.’

At this remark of mine, which I agree was not a gentleman’s, like it wasn’t meant to be, she stood up, smoothed all her body down, and said, ‘Accept my apologies. I’m making myself just a little cheap.’

‘If you say so, lady – but I didn’t.’

‘Don’t call me “lady”!’

She was so pale and furious. ‘All right, all right, Miss Theodora.’

‘Or “Miss” anything.’

‘Okay, Theodora. Just play cool.’

She picked up her spectacles from the floor, where they had fallen, and propped her lean body against the fireplace.

‘All right,’ she said. ‘You know I’m in love with you, and you’re not with me, and I’m not fool enough not to know that makes me just a nuisance. All that I ask you, though, is … that if I promise there will be no more scenes like this one, you’ll stay a friend of mine.’

‘Of course. I’m everybody’s friend.’

‘Oh, don’t be so cruel! After all, I’ve helped you once already, and it’s possible – in fact, it’s very possible – I may have to do so once again.’

I got up.

‘You gave me loot, yes,’ I said. ‘You want it back? Well, I’ll have to owe it, because I need it.’ And I went towards the door.

‘Oh, come back,’ she said. ‘Let’s stop quarrelling, and have a drink.’

This seemed quite reasonable to me. We clicked both our glasses, and both sat politely down.

‘Even if you don’t marry Muriel …’ she began.

‘Must we still speak of that?’

‘Yes, because a practical matter’s involved. Even if you don’t marry her, she may have children.’

‘One child she certainly will have.’

‘Already?’

‘So she has said to me.’

She frowned like some prime minister. ‘When you people get independence,’ she said sharp, ‘we’d better change our immigration laws. Otherwise we’ll soon have a half-caste population.’

‘Like in the West Indian Islands, or even in parts of Africa.’

‘People here don’t understand what’s happening.’

‘Then when they do, what splendid opportunities they will have! Always you preach in England against colour bars in other countries! Now you can practise what you preach at home.’

‘They just don’t realise that you’re here to stay. They think you’re all here just temporarily.’

‘Then they must learn.’

‘I suppose we must.’

She reached for a notepad and made some note on it. ‘For your radio programme?’ I enquired.

She nodded. ‘Why won’t you marry Muriel?’ she said.

‘For many reasons. Is a bad family, is one.’

‘You mean her sister Dorothy?’

‘For example, her: I do not wish a sister-in-law who is a prostitute.’

‘How did she become one in the first place?’

‘How should I know? Ask Mr Whispers. These boys meet some foolish chick at a dance. They take her home and give her the good time. Then suddenly – the smiles all disappear, also the money. The chick is afraid to go home to her mother. And so she accepts to step out on the streets and be agreeable …’

‘And what do they earn?’

‘The girls? Now, Theodora! Are these informations also for your broadcast programmes?’

‘No, I’m just curious. Don’t tell me if you don’t want to.’

‘A hundred pounds a week or more, if she is sharp … If less than twenty a day is brought, the man will beat her.’

‘What man?’

‘The ponce. Her man.’

‘Does he take everything?’

‘If she keeps even one shilling from him, he will beat her.’

‘But in return, he protects her?’

‘No – not at all. She does not do her business in the house where they both live … What happens outside is not his concern at all. His only thought is to be where they live at daylight to collect his loot …’

‘Then what does she get out of it all?’

‘She? Love, so she thinks. Also the power to hold him, through fear of the Law, even though he takes everything from her.’

‘And he?’

‘He gets the good time: nice suits, and drinks, and taxi fares, and money to gamble all way. They never save it.’

‘And can they separate if they want to?’

‘The one who first will wish to leave will be the partner who is stronger. If the chick is making a good business, she can turn her eye on a new boy. Or the man may grow up to be a fashion among those women, and all then will try to steal him from his girl. Dorothy, for example: she now wishes to leave Billy Whispers, so I hear.’

‘To go to whom?’

‘I have been kindly suggested by her.’

‘You’d not do that …’

‘Me? No, thank you. I have my family to think of, and my blood.’

‘What will Billy Whispers do if she should go?’

‘Use the razor on Dorothy, I should say. Unless she first shops him to such police officers as Mr Inspector Purity.’

‘But if she does, the case must be proved in court?’

‘With the woman as witness, that is not difficult at all. But when the man comes out of his jail again, that chick should leave town by the first train she can catch.’

I finished my drink, and held out my hand to thank her. ‘Telephone me, Johnny,’ she said. ‘You’ve got the number.’

‘I will.’

‘You promise?’

‘I do.’

‘Kiss me goodbye.’

While holding her, I thought of Dorothy and Billy, and whether I should not go down to Brixton and advise that little Gambian to turn his Miss Dorothy loose before the trouble started. These serious thoughts were interrupted by Miss Theodora, who was saying in my ear, ‘Won’t you just once, Johnny? I promise I’ll never ask you ever again …’

Oh dear, this female person! Where was her modesty? ‘Oh well, if you feel so bad,’ I said to her. ‘Where is it you keep your bedroom in this flat?’