Minty Alley Page 3

  ‘I ain’t going home until I get two drinks o’ that rum,’ said John.

  ‘I ain’t goin’ till the bottle finish,’ said Aucher. ‘Wait till Mr. Benoit come.’

  ‘The boss mustn’t drink. It not good for ’im,’ said John.

  ‘Tell ’im that you,’ said Aucher. ‘If is the doctor ’e wouldn’t listen to, is you’e goin’ to hear?’

  The two of them sat down on the little bench and the others began to eat inside. Philomen came in, on her arm a heavy basket.

  ‘Eh, nurse? You come, then. O Lord!’ and she started to laugh.

  ‘How are you, nurse? You lookin’ well,’ she laughed again.

  ‘But how is Miss A.?’ said the nurse during a pause. There was a burst of rippling laughter from Maisie.

  ‘Behave yourself, girl,’ said Mrs. Rouse, and there was some whispering. Nurse called out.

  ‘Good evening, Miss A.’

  The door did not open, but a voice from inside replied, ‘How are you, nurse? I am glad you is back. I myself is not too well.’

  There was some more talking, voices lowered. Haynes felt sure this was about him. The voices rose again. Aucher was sent for ice and there was drinking. He and John went inside and had a drink each. There were jokes about the amount John poured out.

  ‘You think is beer?’ said Maisie.

  And again there was a general laughing.

  The two men came back and sat on the bench. Mrs. Rouse called Wilhelmina to put out some supper for them, while she and the nurse sat talking. Philomen moved in and out, joining in the conversation and calling out bits of news to the nurse whenever she happened to remember them.

  ‘Eh, but nurse, you know we have a new cook? Mr. Haynes cook. Her name is Ella.’ This from the sink.

  ‘Eh, but nurse, you know my mother came down last week and brought some eggs? I remember you to her. She ask me for you too.’ This from the yard.

  ‘But, nurse, you mean you couldn’t get away even once? We all was so longin’ to see you.’ This from the dining-room.

  Mrs. Rouse rebuked her, but without severity. Philomen only laughed louder. Maisie and Sonny kept running backwards and forwards from the kitchen to the front, begging for prunes and cakes. Maisie had to be reprimanded once for interfering with the cherry brandy.

  Gradually the household settled down. They all went in and closed the back door, after a perfect chorus of good nights.

  Haynes was bored and yet when they left missed them. For want of something better to do he went to bed, but slept fitfully, and at five o’clock was awake. Tired from lack of sleep he lay in a drowsy condition, annoyed with himself and a determination to move from No. 2 steadily taking shape in his mind.

  He would have to stay a month at least. Leaving so quickly would undoubtedly upset Mrs. Rouse, who was very nice. He would leave it to Ella. Ella knew how he felt. She would find new lodgings and he would leave this blasted place with its eternal smell of cakes. He heard voices in the yard. In the stillness of the early morning, they were very clear. One voice was deep. Benoit’s, but talking in a low tone. Through the thin wood of which the house was built sounds from outside came through distinctly. Haynes’s eyes, looking idly at his toes, were caught by a wide crack of light between two of the boards. It had been pasted over with paper, but the paper had burst or been punctured long ago. He threw the pillow to the bottom of the bed, put his elbows on it and peeped through.

  Benoit stood by the kitchen door and Wilhelmina, the servant girl, stood washing at the sink.

  ‘Come here,’ said Benoit.

  ‘Wait till I wash my face. This cold morning you so hot!’

  ‘Me, I am always hot,’ said Benoit.

  Wilhelmina wiped her hands on her dress and came up to Benoit.

  ‘Well! What you want?’

  ‘What I want?’ He held her and placed her against the kitchen door. Then he leant himself against her.

  ‘This is what I want,’ he kissed her savagely. ‘And this,’ he kissed her again. ‘And this, too, and this.’

  She pulled herself away.

  ‘You are hurting me,’ she said.

  He made to hold her again.

  ‘No,’ she objected, and shook her head, ‘you said you was comin’ last night and you didn’t come. This is the second time.’

  They went into the kitchen.

  Haynes fell back on his bed, his eyes hurting him from the strain. He was suddenly no longer sleepy. Instead, he was very much alive. In fact, he behaved quite idiotically. He balanced himself on the small of his back and kicked his feet up in the air.

  To read of these things in books was one thing, to hear and see them was another. And Haynes, though passionately interested in women and always reading about them, had never since he was grown up kissed or been kissed by a woman who was not related to him. He had at sixteen, after much cogitation, but without preliminary, put his arm round a girl’s waist and been soundly slapped. Since then he had never repeated the experiment, and often experienced difficulty in looking young women fully in the face. And here now he had been pitch-forked into the heart of the eternal triangle.

  He lay on his stomach and peered through the crack again. He had heard the nurse’s high-pitched, rather refined voice:

  ‘Go quickly and don’t stay, Wilhelmina. The Madam and Maisie gone to early Mass and nobody is here.’

  Haynes continued to peep, saw nothing, lay down again for five minutes and then, hearing nothing, thought he might as well have another peep. His eyes almost fell through the crease.

  Just inside the kitchen door he could see the nurse, her arms raised, probably round Benoit’s neck, for his left arm was around her waist and his black fingers stood out against the base of her neck into which they pressed. The two remained almost unmoving for about a minute. Then they broke apart.

  Benoit came outside, but the nurse did not come at once.

  ‘Quickly, nurse,’ he said, bending his head towards the kitchen. ‘Mass will be over soon.’

  The nurse came out with a hairpin in her mouth and shaking her long fair hair which had fallen loose. She and Benoit went towards the house.

  Haynes could stay in bed no longer. He began to walk up and down the room. He began to dress intending, vaguely, to go for a walk. But he didn’t go for any walk. Instead he opened his door and sat waiting to see the household set about its daily tasks. The stage, he felt, was set for a terrific human drama.

  Ella came, made tea, and when Haynes had eaten and lighted a cigarette she closed the door.

  ‘I asked a friend of mine to look for another place, sir. I see you don’t like it here.’

  ‘Ella, don’t worry,’ said Haynes. ‘I like here well enough. I was a little tired yesterday, that was all.’

  ‘You want to stay, sir?’

  ‘Yes, we’ll see how things turn out. Can’t come one month and leave the next.’

  ‘It wouldn’t be any trouble for me to get another place, sir.’

  ‘Don’t you worry, Ella,’ said Haynes. ‘We’ll have to make the best of this for the time being. Don’t you worry.’ He smiled benignly. ‘I’ll stay and I think I shall get to like it very well.’

  Chapter Five

  The nurse dominated the house. When she was not there the others talked about her. For a time, but not for long, she fascinated even Ella, who never let Haynes go long without telling him all she knew or thought. For seventy-two hours after her return the nurse slept almost continuously, only getting up to eat and to talk a little. She usually worked for the white people who could afford one nurse for the day and another for the night. But the nurse was greedy (Ella’s phrase) and always worked day and night. She could do this for weeks. When she came home she slept for two or three days and then emerged as fit as when she left. She did no work in the kitchen, but she took charge of the house. She had it scrubbed and cobwebbed. She shifted the pictures, she sat on the top step while Maisie, for hours, and Philomen, Aucher and Wilhelmina, at odd tim
es, cleaned and varnished the furniture. She bought new curtains. She made Benoit and Aucher clip the hedge. Supper was more often eaten in the dining-room than in the kitchen, but even when they ate in the kitchen there was always a cloth spread. One day she bought a large fish when the hawker came into the yard, and made a fish soup; it was an occasion. She mixed multi-coloured cocktails. She made jokes all through the day, particularly at supper, which was punctured with choruses of laughter. Philomen often had to beg her to stop. Sometimes Mrs. Rouse protested against these jokes, but feebly, she herself was laughing so much. Some of the best Ella, who was not squeamish, refused to repeat to Haynes.

  On a very hot day she would have a bath at midday, just before lunch, and after lunch with her hair drying on her shoulders she sat in the yard under the mango tree on one chair, with her feet on another, smoking cigars and drinking tumblers of brandy and soda from which she gave Maisie sips. She grew very red in the face and a little more talkative, but that was all. Once she knocked at Miss Atwell’s room, insisted on going in and had a talk with that invisible person. On Philomen’s birthday the postman brought two cards, one from her lover and one from No. 2, Minty Alley. The nurse had sent it. Everyone was happy that morning. Philomen was almost as pleased over the one as over the other. But though the eager Haynes looked with all his might he could see nothing in the behaviour of Benoit or of the nurse to confirm what he had seen through the crack in the wall. Benoit usually went to town after lunch, returning in time for supper to check Philomen’s accounts. On rare occasions he stayed and drank brandy and soda with the nurse, but very openly. He called her nurse. She called him Mr. B. Mrs. Rouse also called Benoit Mr. B. She and Mrs. Rouse were affectionate, often tender, with each other. After work they sat talking in the kitchen. When Benoit was at home the three of them talked. Haynes sat in his room on edge expecting at any minute to hear the murmur of voices burst into dramatic explosion. But nothing ever happened. Round about eleven he would hear them get ready to go in. They would come out leisurely and Mrs. Rouse would close and lock the kitchen door. They would go up the dining-room steps together and the dining-room door would close behind them. Mrs. Rouse did not know, obviously. So tranquil was everything that Haynes at times felt that he had not seen what he had seen, but had dreamt it. He was almost persuaded to speak to Ella. If she knew anything, she would tell. But Haynes for once preferred to say nothing to her and kept his secret.

  The nurse rather ignored Haynes. They gave each other the time of day and that was all, until one morning, Sonny, her son, was the cause of sudden and violent contact.

  The nurse idolized Sonny. She paid two dollars a month for him at an exclusive private school, she dressed him expensively, she gave him frequent pocket change. The school was not near and she paid someone not far from it to give Sonny a good hot lunch. On mornings before he set out and on afternoons when he returned she embraced him and kissed him in an almost sensual manner, with a string of mammy’s darlings, sonny boys, honeys and the like. Once, Haynes caught Benoit looking rather savagely at the nurse indulging in one of these rhapsodies over her son. It was the only time he ever saw anything indicating the special relationship between the two.

  One morning the nurse went away early. Haynes remained at home that day, nursing an injured foot. A case of books had fallen on his shin and bruised him severely. He had struggled on with his work, but his limp was so obvious that old Carritt had told him to go home and stay there until he was better. Haynes went gladly, his first holiday for two years. He could sit in an armchair and read as in the good old days, and not feel any twinge of nervousness about his job. After all, Carritt himself had said to go home and not come back until he could walk properly. And he could not only read but could always turn from his books and watch No. 2 at work and at play.

  After morning tea, Maisie and Sonny played together under the window. It was a game with marbles and the loser of each set had to pay a forfeit. Haynes lost track of their talk until Maisie’s voice drew his attention.

  ‘But, Ma Rouse, this little boy Sonny getting very fresh. He win and you know what he ask for?’

  ‘What?’ said Benoit.

  ‘He asked me for a kiss.’

  ‘You little whelp,’ said Benoit. ‘You looking for a wife already?’

  He unloosed his belt from round his waist and gave Sonny two or three whacking blows. Sonny screamed.

  ‘Don’t beat the woman’s child, McCarthy,’ said Mrs. Rouse.

  Sonny ran to the far end of the yard yelling.

  ‘You have no right to beat me,’ he stammered, ‘you are not my father.’

  ‘None of your cheek out there or you’ll get some more,’ said Benoit, but Mrs. Rouse intervened.

  As soon as the nurse came in for lunch Benoit met her with the tale.

  ‘And when I give him one with the belt, he tell me I am not his father.’

  ‘I see,’ said the nurse. ‘Young man, come here. So Mr. Benoit is not your father. You know where your father is? You ever saw him? So you looking for woman already? Into the bedroom, take off all your clothes and prepare yourself.’

  ‘What is she going to do?’ whispered Haynes to Ella.

  ‘I hear she does beat him terrible, sir. All morning Mrs. Rouse begging the man not to tell the nurse.’

  The nurse had her bath, lunch, a cigarette on the bench with her hair on her shoulders. Then she went in and soon came the sound of blows and Sonny’s screams, with the nurse telling him, ‘Hush, I say. You wouldn’t? Well, go on. We’ll see who will stop first.’

  But Sonny either could not or would not hush. He got away from her and ran into the yard, then into the kitchen. The nurse followed him and, desperate, he ran up the steps into Haynes’s room.

  ‘Mr. Haynes, Mr. Haynes, save me.’

  He dropped on his knees, his hands resting on the floor, his face turned upwards in supplication. He was stark naked and his whole body heaved. All over his skin the cane had raised red weals of flesh, one almost continuous from the left shoulder across the chest almost down to the navel.

  Haynes sickened at the sight.

  ‘Come, get up, don’t kneel down.’

  He helped the weeping, quivering boy to his feet and sat on the bed holding his hand expecting the nurse to come. But the nurse did not come. Outside was very still and he understood that they were waiting to see what he would do. He waited a little longer. Nothing. He could not wait for ever, so he went to the door.

  The nurse sat composedly on the little bench, Mrs. Rouse stood at one door of the kitchen, apprehension and uncertainty on her gravely handsome face. Maisie was next to her, grinning. At the other door was Philomen. Benoit and Wilhelmina he could glimpse behind her, Benoit apparently keeping himself in the background. All looked at Haynes and Haynes looked at the nurse. Ordinarily pale, she was a little red in the face, but otherwise showed no passion. She held the cane across her knees, a hand gripping each end. So unperturbed and ready she was, she frightened him.

  ‘Nurse,’ he began falteringly.

  ‘Don’t waste your breath, Mr. Haynes,’ she said gently but without a smile. ‘I am not going to let him off one. I am sitting here waiting. And the longer he stays the worse for him.’

  Her tone and her manner, so controlled and so falsely cool, froze Haynes. Sonny in the corner of the room could not see her, but he felt the menace of the woman and he started to wail again.

  ‘O God, nurse, spare him,’ said Philomen, and the apron went to her eyes.

  Mrs. Rouse spoke to Haynes.

  ‘Mr. Haynes, i’s no use. I know the nurse better than you. The best you can do is to bring Sonny out. Sonny, come on to your mother. I’s your mother. You must obey. And you have no right in Mr. Haynes room.’

  But Sonny began to cry in quick short jerks which made Haynes fear that he would go into hysterics.

  ‘Let him come, Mr. Haynes,’ continued Mrs. Rouse. ‘I’s better for him. Maisie, inside, you wretch. Wilhelmina, go on with your wor
k. Philomen, child, go on to town with your basket.’

  The group broke up. Mrs. Rouse disappeared in the kitchen. Benoit could not be seen. It was left for Haynes to do something, if something was to be done.

  ‘Come along, Sonny,’ he said. ‘I’ll go with you, come on.’

  But Sonny threw himself on the floor again. He was almost foaming now. If Haynes could have taken the blows for him he would have done so. (Never had Haynes’s mother even hinted at the possibility of his being beaten.)

  ‘Come,’ he said, bending down and trying to raise the boy. ‘Come.’

  ‘You will hurt your foot, Mr. Haynes,’ said the nurse, ‘and it’s no use your bringing him. He has to come to me by himself. And he knows it.’

  ‘Mammy, Mammy, I beg your pardon, I beg your pardon. Mr. Haynes, beg Mammy’s pardon for me.’

  ‘Mammy! Mammy! Beg pardon!’ sneered the nurse, and she showed her teeth in a smile for the first time. She shook the cane playfully at him.

  ‘Doggie! Doggie! Look bone,’ she said.

  Mrs. Rouse came resolutely out.

  ‘Nurse,’ she said, ‘he’s your child to do as you like with. But don’t tell him that doggie, doggie, look bone. I can’t bear to hear you say that thing.’

  ‘It isn’t what I tell him, Ma Rouse, it is what I am going to do to him. Doggie! Doggie! Coming for bone? Longer doggie stay, sweeter the bone.’

  Mrs. Rouse came to Haynes’s door.

  ‘I am sorry for all this, Mr. Haynes, but you see how it is? And the longer he stop the worse for him. Come on, Sonny. Perhaps your mother will spare you if you come at once. Come on, you remember the last time.’

  At last, Sonny, with a despairing look at Haynes, walked slowly down the steps. His naked little body, all white with red weals, grovelling on its hands and knees, crawled inch by inch towards his mother. She sat watching him come, each hand still gripping an end of the cane, as still and as cold as a marble statue.

  ‘Doggie coming at last, eh? Bone sweet. Come on, doggie.’