15 Chalfenism versus Bowdenism -1

It was Me Jones all right. Six years older than the last time they met. Taller, wider, with breasts

and no hair and slippers just visible underneath a long duffle coat. And it was Hortense Bowden.

Six years older, shorter, wider, with breasts on her belly and no hair (though she took the peculiar

step of putting her wig in curlers) and slippers just visible underneath a long, padded baby-pink

housecoat. But the real difference was Hortense was eighty-four. Not a littleoldwoman by any

means; she was a round robust one, her fat so taut against her skin the epidermis was having a hard

time wrinkling. Still, eighty-four is not seventy seven or sixty-three; at eighty-four there is nothing

but death ahead, tedious in its insistence. It was there in her face as Me had never seen it before.

The waiting and the fear and the blessed relief.

Yet though there were differences, walking down the steps and into Hortense's basement flat,

Me was struck by the shock of sameness. Way-back-when, she had been a fairly regular visitor at

her grandmother's: sneaky visits with Archie while her mother was at college, and always leaving

with something unusual, a pickled fish head, chilli dumplings, the lyrics of a stray but persistent

psalm. Then at Darcus's funeral in 1985, ten-year-old Irie had let slip about these social calls and

Clara had put a stop to them altogether. They still called each other on the phone, on occasion. And

to this day Irie received short letters on exercise paper with a copy of the Watchtower slipped inside.

Sometimes Irie looked at her mother's face and saw her grandmother: those majestic cheekbones,

those feline eyes. But they had not been face to face for six years.

As far as the house was concerned, six seconds seemed to have passed. Still dark, still dank,

still underground. Still decorated with hundreds of secular figurines ("Cinderella on her way to the

Ball', "Mrs. Tiddlytum shows the little squirrels the way to the picnic'), all balanced on their

separate doilies and laughing gaily amongst themselves, amused that anyone would pay a hundred

and fifty pounds in fifteen instalments for such inferior pieces of china and glass as they. A huge

tripartite tapestry, which Irie remembered the sewing of, now hung on the wall above the fireplace,

depicting, in its first strip, the Anointed sitting in judgement with Jesus in heaven. The Anointed

were all blond and blue-eyed and appeared as serene as Hortense's cheap wool would allow, and

were looking down at the Great Crowd who were happy-looking, but not as happy as the Anointed

frolicking in eternal paradise on earth. The Great Crowd were in turn looking piteously at the

heathens (by far the largest group), dead in their graves, and packed on top of each other like sardines.

The only thing missing was Darcus (whom Irie only faintly remembered as a mixture of smell

and texture; naphthalene and damp wool); there was his huge empty chair, rstill fetid, and there was

his television, still on.

The, look at you! Pickney nah even got a gansey on child must be freezin'! Shiverin' like a

Mexico bean. Let me feel you. Fever! You bringin' fever into my house?"

It was important, in Hortense's presence, never to admit to illness. The cure, as in most

Jamaican households, was always more painful than the symptoms.

"I'm fine. There's nothing wrong with'

"Oh, really?" Hortense put Irie's hand on her own forehead. "That's fever as sure as fever is

fever. Feel it?"

Irie felt it. She was hot as hell.

"Come 'ere." Hortense grabbed a rug from Darcus's chair and wrapped it around Irie's shoulders,

"Now come into the kitchen an' cease an' sekkle. Runnin' roun' on a night like dis, wearin'

flimsy nonsense! You're having a hot drink of cer ace and den gone a bed quicker den you ever

did in your life."

Irie accepted the smelly wrap and followed Hortense into the tiny kitchen, where they both sat down.

"Let me look at you."

Hortense leant against the oven with hands on hips. "You look like Mr. Death, your new lover.

How you get here?"

Once again, one had to be careful in answering. Hortense's contempt for London Transport was

a great comfort to her in her old age. She could take one word like train and draw a melody out of it

(Northern Line), which expanded into an aria (The Underground) and blossomed into a theme (The

Overground) and then grew exponentially into an operetta (The Evils and Inequities of British Rail).

"Er .. . Bus. ni/. It was cold on the top deck. Maybe I caught a chill."

"I don' tink dere's any maybes about it, young lady. An' I'm sure I don' know why you come

'pon de bus, when it take tree hours to arrive an' leave you waitin' in de col' an' den' when you get

pon it de windows are open anyway an' you freeze half to death."

Hortense poured a colourless liquid from a small plastic container into her hand. "Come 'ere."

"Why?" demanded Irie, immediately suspicious. "What's that?"

"Nuttin', come 'ere. Take off your spectacles."

Hortense approached with a cupped hand.

"Not in my eye! There's nothing wrong with my eye!" "Stop fussin'. I'm not puttin' nuttin' in

your eye."

"Just tell me what it is," pleaded Irie, trying to work out for which orifice it was intended and

screaming as the cupped hand reached her face, spreading the liquid from forehead to chin.

"Aaagh! It burns!"

"Bay rum," said Hortense matter-of-factly. "Burns de fever away. No, don' wash it off. Jus'

leave it to do its biznezz."

Irie gritted her teeth as the torture of a thousand pinpricks faded to five hundred, then

twenty-five, until finally it was just a warm flush of the kind delivered by a slap.

"So!" said Hortense, entirely awake now and somewhat triumphant. "You finally dash from that

godless woman, I see. An' caught a flu while you doin' it! Well .. . there are those who wouldn't

blame you, no, not at all... No one knows better clan me what dat woman be like. Never at home,

learnin' all her isms and skis ms in the university, leavin' husband and pickney at home, hungry and

maga. Lord, naturally you flee! Well.. ." She sighed and put a copper kettle on the stove. "It is

written. You will flee by my mountain valley, for it will extend to Azel. You will flee as you fled

from the earthquake in the days ofUzziah king of judah Then the LORD my God will come, and all

the holy ones with him. Zechariah 14:5. In the end the good ones will flee from the evil. Oh, Irie

Ambrosia ... I knew you come in de end. All God's children return in de end."

"Gran, I haven't come to find God. I just want to do some -quiet study here and get my head

together. I need to stay a few months at least till the New Year. Oh .. . ugh ... I feel a bit woozy. Can

I have an orange?"

"Yes, dey all return to de Lord Jesus in de end," continued Hortense to herself, placing the bitter

root of cer ace into a kettle. "Dat's not a real orange, dear. All de fruit is plasticated. De flowers are

plasticated also. I don't believe de Lord meant me to spend de little housekeeping money I possess

on perishable goods. Have some dates."

Irie grimaced at the shrivelled fruit plonked in front of her.

"So you lef Archibald wid dat woman.. . poor ting. Me always like Archibald," said Hortense

sadly, scrubbing the brown scum from a teacup with two soapy fingers. "Him was never my

objection as such. He always been a level-headed sort a fellow. Blessed are de peacekeepers. He

always strike me as a peacekeeper. But it more de principle of de ting, you know? Black and

white never come to no good. De Lord Jesus never meant us to mix it up. Dat's why he made a

hoi' heap a fuss about de children of men building de tower of Babel. "Im want everybody to keep

tings separate. And the Lord did confound the language of all the earth and from thence did the

Lord scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth. Genesis 11:9. When you mix it up, nuttin'

good can come. It wasn't intended. Except you," she added as an afterthought. "You're about de

only good ting to come out of dat.. . Bwoy, sometime it like lookin' in a mirror-glass," she said,

lifting Irie's chin with her wrinkled digits. "You built like me, big, you know! Hip and tie and rhas,

and titties. My mudder was de same way. You even named after my mudder."

"Irie?" asked Me, trying hard to listen, but feeling the damp smog of her fever pulling her under.

"No, dear, Ambrosia. De stuff dat make you live for ever. Now," she said, clapping her hands

together, catching Irie's next question between them, 'you sleepin' in de living room. I'll get a

blanket and pillows and den we talk in de marnin'. I'm up at six, 'cos I got Witness biznezz, so don'

tink you sleeping none after eight. Pickney, you hear me?"

"Mmm. But what about Mum's old room? Can't I just sleep in there?"

Hortense took Irie's weight half on her shoulder and led her into the living room. "No, dat's not

possible. Dere is a certain situation," said Hortense mysteriously. "Dat can wait till de sun is up to

be hexplained. Fear them not therefore: for there is nothing covered that shall not be revealed," she

intoned quietly, turning to go. "And nothing hid, that shall not be known. Dat is Mat-chew, 10:26."

An autumn morning was the only time worth spending in that basement flat. Between 6 and 7

a.m. when the sun was still low, light shot through the front window, bathed the lounge in yellow,

dappled the long thin allotment (7 it x 30 it) and gave a healthy veneer to the tomatoes. You

could almost convince yourself, at 6 a.m." that you were downstairs in some Continental cabana, or

at least street level in Torquay, rather than below ground in Lambeth. The glare was such that you

couldn't make out the railway sidings where the strip of green ended, or the busy everyday feet that

passed by the lounge window, kicking dust through the grating at the glass. It was all white light

and clever shade at six in the morning. Hugging a cup of tea at the kitchen table, squinting at the

grass, Me saw vineyards out there; she saw Florentine scenes instead of the uneven

higgledy-piggledy of Lambeth rooftops; she saw a muscularshadowy Italian plucking full berries

and crushing them underfoot. Then the mirage, sun reliant as it was, disappeared, the whole scene

swallowed by a devouring cloud. Leaving only some crumbling Edwardian housing. Railway

sidings named after a careless child. A long, narrow strip of allotment where next to nothing would

grow. And a bleached-out bandy-legged red-headed man with terrible posture and Wellington boots,

stamping away in the mulch, trying to shake the remnants of a squashed tomato from his heel.

"Dat is Mr. Topps," said Hortense, hurrying across the kitchen in a dark maroon dress, the eyes

and hooks undone, and a hat in her hand with plastic flowers askew. "He has been such a help to me

since Darcus died. He soothes away my vexation and calms my mind."

She waved to him and he straightened up and waved back. Me watched him pick up two plastic

bags filled with tomatoes and walk in his strange pigeon-footed manner up the garden towards the

back kitchen door.

"An' he de only man who made a solitary ting grow out dere. Such a crop of tomatoes as you

never did see! Me Ambrosia, stop starin' and come an' do up dis dress. Quickbefore your

goggle-eye fall out."

"Does he live here?" whispered Me in amazement, struggling

to join the two sides of Hortense's dress over her substantial flank. "I mean, with you?"

"Not in de sense you meaning," sniffed Hortense. "He is jus' a great help to me in my of' age.

He bin wid me deez six years, God bless 'im and keep 'is soul. Now, pass me dat pin."

Me passed her the long hat pin which was sitting on top of a butter dish. Hortense set the plastic

carnations straight on her hat and stabbed them fiercely, then brought the pin back up through the

felt, leaving two inches of exposed silver sticking up from the hat like a German pickelhaube.

"Well, don' look so shock. It a very satisfactory arrangement. Women need a man 'bout de house,

udder wise ting an' ting get messy. Mr. Topps and I, we of' soldiers fightin' the battle of de Lord.

Some time ago he converted to the Witness church, an' his rise has been quick an' sure. I've waited

fifty years to do so meting else in de Kingdom Hall except clean," said Hortense sadly, 'but dey

don' wan' women interfering with real church biz ness Got Mr. Topps do a great deal, and 'im let me

help on occasion. He's a very good man. Butim family are nasty-nasty," she murmured

confidentially. The farder is a terrible man, gambler an' whoremonger ... so after a while, I arks him

to come and live with me, seem' how de room empty and Darcus gone. "Im a very civilized bwoy.

Never married, though. Married to de church, yes, suh! An' 'im call me Mrs. Bowden deez six years,

never any ting else." Hortense sighed ever so slightly. "Don' know de meaning of being' improper.

De only ting he wan' in life is to become one of de Anointed. I have de greatest hadmiration for him.

He him proved so much. He talk so posh now, you know! And 'im very good wid de pipin' an' plum

ming also. How's your fever?"

"Not great. Last hook .. . there that's done."

Hortense fairly bounced away from her and walked into the hall to open the back door to Ryan.

"But Gran, why does he live '

Me 1990, 1907

"Well, you're going to have to eat up dis marnin' feed a fever, starve a col'. Deez tomatoes fried

wid plantain and some of las' night's fish. I'll fry it up and den pop it in de microwave."

"I thought it was starve a fe '

"Good marnin', Mr. Topps."

"Good mornin', Missus Bowden," said Mr. Topps, closing the door behind him and peeling off a

protective cagoule to reveal a cheap blue suit, with a tiny gold cross pendant on the collar. "I trust

you is almost of a readiness? We've got to be at the hall on the dot of seven."

As yet, Ryan had not spotted Me. He was bent over shaking the mud from his boots. And he did

it formidably slowly, just as he spoke, and with his translucent eyelids fluttering like a man in a

coma. Me could only see half of him from where she stood: a red fringe, a bent knee and the shirt

cuff of one hand.
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