‘Oh!’ Kenneth say. ‘I must be gone. And don’t forget what I tell you, Gilbert. Winston know where to find me.’

As he left the room Hortense turned to me to sneer, ‘He your friend?’

I shut the door. Now, to get back into the room, I have to step over the damn trunk.

‘What you doing?’ she say.

‘The thing in me way.’

‘That is a valuable trunk.’

‘What – you wan’ me sleep in the hallway? You no see I caan step round it. Your mummy never tell you what caan be step round must be step over?’

She rub the case like I bruise it.

‘Cha, it come across an ocean. You tell me this one skinny Jamaican man gon’ mash it up. What you have in there anyway?’

She sat her slender backside down on the trunk averting her eye from mine, lifting her chin as if something in the cracked ceiling was interesting to her. Stony and silent as a statue from Trafalgar Square. I began to crave the noise of her ‘English live like this?’ questions again.

‘You wan’ take off your coat?’ I say, while she look on me like she had forgotten I was there. ‘You don’t need on that big coat – the fire is on.’

Cha! Would you believe the gas choose that moment to run out? I know I have a shilling somewhere, but where? Searching my pocket I say, ‘Oh, I just have to find the money for the gas meter.’ It then I notice my shirt was not buttoned properly. I had not done up a garment so feeble since I was a small boy – me shirt hanging out like a vagabond’s. And now she is watching me, her wide brown eyes alert as a cobra’s. If I change the button on the shirt I will look like I am undressing. And this, experience tell me, would alarm her. So I just tuck the shirt in me pants like this mishap is a new London fashion.

Let me tell the truth, I had been asleep before she come. But I had gone to the dock. You see, she tell me she coming at seven and I know she is sailing with bananas, because she coming on the Producers boat, to Jamaica dock. Everything work out fine – I am on the late shift at the sorting office, and when I finish around six in the morning I go to the dock. The sun is rising pretty as an artist’s picture, with ships sailing through a morning mist slow up the river. Romantic, my mind is conjuring her waving majestic to me, my shoulders, manly silhouetting against the morning sun, poised to receive her comely curves as she runs into my arms. Only they tell me, no. She and her bananas are coming seven at night. Am I to wait there all day? I get a little something to eat, I go home and I even tidy up a little. Then I lie on the bed intending to doze – just doze. But I have been working twelve hours, I have been to the dock – man, I have even tidy! Is it a sin that I fall asleep?

The shilling must have drop out the pocket of me pants into the bed. So now, she is watching me having to look under the bedclothes for the money. ‘You keep your money in the bed?’

Cha, I knew she would say that. I just knew it! ‘No, it’s just when I was sleeping . . .’

‘Oh, you were sleeping, then.’

‘I just lie for a minute and I must have—’

‘So, that why you no there to meet me?’

‘No, I come but—’

‘I know, you tell me, you tidying the place.’ And she look around her and say, ‘See how tidy it is?’

I was not foolish enough to say, ‘Shut up, woman,’ but I was vex enough to think it. But instead I show her the shilling and tell her, ‘I will put this in the meter.’ She is looking on me, sort of straining her neck to see where I was moving, so I say, ‘Come, let me show you how to put the money in the meter.’ And you know what she say?

‘You think I don’t know how to put money in a meter?’ and she turn back to that fascinating crack in the ceiling, patting at the tight black curls of her hair in case any should dare to be out of place.

But this is a tricky meter. Sometime it smooth as a piggy-bank and sometime it jam. Today it jam. I have to stand back to give it a kick so the coin will drop. But, oh, no, one kick did not do it. I hear her demurely sucking on her teeth at my second blow. How everything I do look so rough?

When I light the gas fire again I say, ‘Take off your coat, nah?’ And victory so sweet, she finally do something I say. Mark you, she leave on her little hat and the blessed white gloves. I had no hanger for the coat. ‘You wan’ a cup of tea?’ I say. I had been meaning to get another hanger – the only one I have has my suit on it. ‘I’ll just fill the kettle,’ I say. I go to throw the coat on the bed but, I am no fool, just in time I hang it over me suit instead.

Now she is walking about the room. Looking on the meter. Perusing the table, wobbling the back of the chair. As I am filling the kettle she is running her hand along the mantelpiece. She then look at her hand. And, man, even I get a shock: her white glove is black.

‘Everything filthy,’ she tell me.

‘Then stop touching up everything with white glove.’

‘You ever clean this place?’

‘Yes – I clean it.’

‘Then why everything so dirty?’

‘Is your white glove. You touch an angel with white glove it come up black.’

Everywhere she feel now – the wall, the door-handle, the window-sill, the curtain. I tell her, ‘Now you are just putting dirt on everything – those gloves are too mucky.’ A smile dared on to my face but she stern chased it away again. ‘Come,’ I say patting the armchair, moving it nearer the fire, ‘sit down, I make you a nice English cup of tea.’

Oh, why the little bit of milk I have gone bad, the cups both dirty and the kettle take so long to boil on the ring? I am wondering what I can say next by way of chit-chat, but then she say, ‘Who is that woman downstairs?’ Let me tell you I was relieve for the conversation.

‘Oh, Queenie – she own the house.’

‘You know her?’

‘Of course, she own the house. She is the landlady.’

‘She married?’

‘Her husband lost in the war.’

‘She on her own?’

‘Yes.’

‘You friendly with her?’

Wow! Friendly. Every Jamaican man know that word breathed by a Jamaican woman is a trap that can snap around you. Tread careful, boy, or she will think this woman hiding three children for you.

‘I knew her during the war,’ I say. ‘She was kind to me and now she me landlady. And lucky I know her – places hard to come by, especially for coloured boys.’

‘She seem to know all your business.’

‘No,’ I say.

Now, why Queenie choose that time to knock on the door calling out, ‘Everything all right in there, Gilbert?’ Of course I trip over the damn trunk getting to the door. I open it just a crack. ‘I can smell gas,’ Queenie say.

‘It just go out, but I see to it. You want something?’

‘Just checking everything was all right.’

‘Yes, thank you,’ I say, and shut the door.

When I turn back the rising steam from the kettle has Hortense fading away. A lady in the mist, she just sitting there swallowed up in vapour. I trip over the damn trunk again.

‘You no see the kettle boiling?’

‘So, she no wan’ know your business?’

I so vex I forget to use a cloth to pick the wretched kettle off the ring. ‘Ras,’ I drop it quick it scald me so. ‘The thing hot,’ I tell her.

‘Then why you no use a cloth?’ she say.

Reason tells me if I am not to kill this woman I must take a deep breath. ‘Please forgive my language,’ I say, while she is looking on me like I am the devil’s favoured friend. ‘Come,’ I tell her, ‘I will show you how to use this gas-ring.’

‘Why?’

‘You will need to know so you can cook on it.’

‘I will cook in the kitchen.’

‘This is the kitchen.’

‘Where?’

‘You see this ring and that sink, that is the kitchen. The dining room is over there where you see the table and two chairs.’

‘You tell me you cook on just this?’

‘Yes, that is what I am telling you.’

‘Just this one little ring?’

‘Yes, so let me show you how it work.’