City of Spades

4

A pilgrimage to Maida Vale


This Maida Vale is noteworthy for all the buildings looking similar and making the search for Dad’s old lodging-house so more difficult. But by careful enquiry and eliminations, I hit on one house in Nightingale Road all crumbling down and dirty as being the most probable, and as there was no bell or lock and the door open, I walked right in and called up the stairs, ‘Is Mrs Hancock there?’ but getting no reply, climbed further to the next floor. There was a brown door facing me, so I drummed on it, when immediately it opened and a Jumble lady stood there to confront me: wrung out like a dish-rag, with her body everywhere collapsing, and when she saw me a red flush of fury on her face.

‘Get out! I don’t want your kind here.’

‘I have to speak to Mrs Hancock.’

At these words of mine her colour changed to white like a coconut you bite into.

‘Hancock!’ she called out. ‘My name’s Macpherson. Why do you call me Hancock?’

‘I don’t, lady,’ I told her. ‘I merely say I wanted to speak to a lady of that name.’

‘Why?’

‘To bring her my dad’s greetings – Mr David Macdonald Fortune out of Lagos, Nigeria. I’m his son Johnny.’

By the way she eyed me, peering at me, measuring me from top to toes, I was sure now this was the lady of Dad’s story. And I can’t say, at that moment, I quite admired my dad in his own choice. Though naturally it was years ago when possibly this woman was in better preservation.

Then she said: ‘You’ve brought nothing ever to me but misery and disgrace.’

‘But lady, you and I’ve not met before.’

‘Your father, then. Your race.’

‘So you are Mrs Hancock, please?’

‘I used to be.’

‘Well, I bring my dad’s greetings to you. He asks you please for news.’

‘His greetings,’ she said, twisting up her mouth into a mess. ‘His greetings – is that all?’

I was giving her all this time my biggest smile, and I saw its effect began to melt her just a little. (When I smile at a woman, I relax all my body and seem eager.)

‘Your father’s a bad man,’ she said.

‘Oh, no!’

‘You look like him, though. He might have spat you out.’

‘I should look like him, Mrs Macpherson. I’m legitimate, I hope.’

This didn’t please her a bit. She stared white-red at me again till I thought she’d strike me, and I got ready to duck or, if need be, slap back.

‘So you’ve heard!’ she shouted out. ‘Then why’s your father never done anything for Arthur?’

‘Arthur, lady?’

‘For your brother, if you want to know. Your elder brother.’

Clearly she didn’t mean my brother Christmas. Then who? I began to realise.

‘I’ve got a half-brother called Arthur, then?’ I said, trying to act as if I felt delighted. ‘Well! Can’t I meet him?’

‘No!’

‘Oh, no!’

‘No! You certainly can not.’

At this very moment, there glided up beside her a little Jumble girl, quite pretty, seventeen or so I’d say, who I noticed had a glove on one hand only.

‘Don’t shout, Mother,’ she said. ‘You’d better ask him in.’

‘Oh, very well,’ this Mrs Macpherson said, coming over all weary and looking even ten years older.

Their room was quite tidy, with assorted furniture, but poor. I do hate poor rooms.

‘I suppose I’d better go and make some tea,’ the old lady told us both.

(These Jumbles and their tea in every crisis!)

The little girl held out her hand – the hand that didn’t wear the glove. ‘I’m Muriel,’ she said. ‘I’m Arthur’s sister, and Mum’s second daughter.’

‘But Miss Muriel,’ I said to her, ‘I can guess by your skin’s complexion that you’re not Arthur’s true sister.’

‘I’m his half-sister, Mr Fortune. Me and my sister Dorothy are Macphersons, Mum’s proper children after she got married.’

‘And your father?’

‘Dad’s dead. They caught him in the war.’

‘I’m sorry …’

‘Arthur, you see …’ (she looked modest as she spoke, though I wasn’t sure if it was felt or acted) ‘… Arthur was Mum’s mistake before she met our dad.’

‘And Arthur: where is he?’

‘In jail.’

‘Ah!’

‘He’s always in and out of jail.’

‘Oh. For what?’

‘Thieving and suchlike.’

She stood and fiddled with the table-cloth frillings, then said to me: ‘And didn’t your father know about Arthur, and all the trouble Mum’s had with him for more than twenty years?’

‘I’m sure he didn’t.’

But I began to wonder.

After a polite and careful pause, I said, ‘Then Muriel, you and me are almost relatives, I’d say. We’re half-half-brother and sister, or something of that kind.’

She laughed at this. ‘We’re not real relations, Johnny. But Arthur is a link between us, I suppose …’ Then she looked up at me and said, ‘But do be careful what you say to Mother. She hates all coloured people now.’

‘On account of my dad and Arthur?’

‘Not only that. There’s Dorothy – my elder sister, Dorothy.’

‘Yes?’

‘She lives with a coloured boy. He’s taken her away.’

‘To marry?’

‘No … He’s a Gambian.’

‘Oh, those Gambians! Nigerians, of course, are friendly folks, and Gold Coast boys respectable often, too. But Gambians! Don’t judge us, please, by them …’

‘This one’s a devil, anyway,’ she told me. ‘Billy Whispers is his name, and he’s bad, bad, a thoroughly bad man.’

And now the old lady she came shuffling back. It was clear that she’d been thinking, and maybe refreshing herself a bit as well.

‘Is your dad rich?’ she said at once.

‘He’s reasonably loaded.’

‘In business now?’

‘Export and import – he has his ups and downs.’

She stood right in front of me, nose to chest.

‘Well, in return for his greetings, will you ask him please to make me some small return for his running away and leaving me to rear his son?’

‘I could write to him, Mrs Macpherson …’

‘Can you imagine what it was to rear a coloured child in London twenty years ago? Can you imagine what it’s like for an English girl to marry when she’s got’ (I saw it coming) ‘a bastard nigger child?’

I made no reply whatever.

‘Mother!’ cried Muriel. ‘That’s no way to talk.’

‘He’d best know what I think! I could have done better than your father, Muriel, if it hadn’t been for that.’

‘Mother!’

‘And your sister Dorothy’s going the same way.’

‘Oh, Mother!’

‘I was a pretty girl when I was young … I could have been rich and happy …’

And here – as I could see must happen – the lady broke down into her tears. I understood the way she felt, indeed I did, yet why do these women always blame the man? I’m sure Dad didn’t rape her, and however young she was, she must have known a number of the facts of life …

Little Muriel was easing her off into a bedroom. When she came out again, I said to her, ‘Well, perhaps I should go away just now, Muriel. I’ll write to my dad much as your mum requests …’

‘Stay and drink up your tea, Johnny.’

We sat there sipping on the dregs, till I said, ‘What do you do for a living, Muriel?’

‘I work in a tailor’s, Johnny. East End, they’re Jews. Cutting up shirts …’

‘You like that occupation?’

‘No … But it helps out.’

‘Don’t you have fun sometimes? Go dancing?’

‘Not often …’

And here I saw she looked down at her hand.

‘You hurt yourself?’ I said.

She looked up and shook her head.

‘We must go out together one day, if you like to come with me,’ I said to her.

She smiled.

‘Next Saturday, say? Before I start out on my studies?’

She shook her head once more.

‘Now listen, Muriel. You’ve got no colour prejudice, I hope …’

‘No, no, Johnny. Not at all. But you’d be dull with me. I don’t dance, you see.’

‘Don’t dance? Is there any little girl don’t dance? Well, I will teach you.’

‘Yes?’

‘Of course I will, Muriel. I’ll teach you the basic foundations in one evening. Real bop steps, and jive, and all.’

Here she surprised me, this shy, rather skinny little chick, by reaching out quite easily and giving me a full kiss on the cheek.

‘Johnny,’ she said. ‘There’s one thing you could do for me … Which is to get me news of my sister Dorothy. Because she hasn’t been here or written for over a month, and I don’t like to go out and see her south side of the Thames in Brixton, on account of that Billy Whispers.’

‘Just give me the address, and I’ll go see.’

‘It’s a house full of coloured men and English girls.’

‘Just give me the address, will you, Muriel, and I’ll go out that way immediately. I want to get to know the various areas of this city, if it’s going to be my own.’