My eyes followed her as she paced about the room in a silent shock. When she had finished her harsh inspection, she turned her gaze on me. Her chin was high, her nose was in the air as her lips slowly parted and her breath sighed. ‘Just this?’

There, she had said it as I knew she would. The same discouraged tone as when she first stepped into the room I worked so hard to find in Earls Court. Just this? Soon she would lament, her eyes downcast, ‘Is this the way the English live?’ as she saw before her the gutter I was determined to drag her into. It was one deep breath I took to calm myself.

‘How you mean?’ I said. Cha, this irritating woman began tapping her knuckle on the wall listening to the sound with a sharp ear.

‘I mean,’ she said, ‘is it just this?’

‘Just what exactly?’ I asked. She looked on me puzzled, or was it the sound from the wall causing her concern?

‘Just this?’ She threw out her arms wide. Come, this was an enormous room she needed to throw them wide. It was cold but my forehead trickled with sweat. ‘Just this?’ she said again. I was ready. I was vex. Then she slowly asked me, ‘Just this one room we are to have or are there any other rooms?’

‘How you mean?’ I said.

‘Gilbert, what is wrong with you? This is a simple question. This is a good room but is it the only room we are to have?’

‘Wait, you like the room?’

‘Yes, it is a good room.’

‘It is very run-down,’ I said.

‘We can fix it up.’

‘But look,’ I told her, ‘you no see the paint peeling from the walls? And those windows? Every one is cracked.’

‘These things can be fix up.’

‘It will be a lot of work.’

‘Gilbert, come, you no scared of a little hard work. I can help you.’ She spun round in the room. ‘With a little paint and some carpet.’ She moved to the corner leaning over to spread out her arms and say ‘And a table and chair here,’ before rushing to the fireplace with the suggestion, ‘and two armchairs here in front of an open English fire. You will see – we will make it nice.’

All words froze on my tongue. For before me I suddenly saw quite the most wonderful woman. Proud, haughty – come, let us face it, even insufferable. But still, all I wanted to do was kiss her. Press her to me, right there in the middle of this ramshackle room. Feel her breath, then her lips soft against mine.

‘But what I need to know, Gilbert,’ she was asking, ‘is, is it just this one room or are there any more?’

This beautiful woman commanded nothing but the best. Never again would I think to oblige her to settle for just this. Pretty in her hat and white gloves I would make this life around her good enough to fit that fine apparel. Lift her up so high until that one room in Earls Court became as distant a memory as if glimpsed in a dream. It was with love that I smiled at her. ‘Oh, no, Miss Mucky Foot,’ I said. ‘There are many, many more rooms than just this one. Come, if you take my hand I will show you them all.’

I had got used to folding myself up on to the armchair to go to bed. My limbs had become collapsible. There was no winged creature that could tuck and bend itself away as neatly as I. I might have been crumpled as a moth from its cocoon every morning, but with the light, blood soon pumped through me to make me a man again. And under my big blanket I was snug as a bug. Like every night before, I turned out the light and wished Hortense pleasant dreams. But on this night, when all was dark and quiet, I heard her softly spoken voice say, ‘Gilbert.’

Cha! What was it now? I thought. The mice, the tap dripping, the smell of gas? ‘I tired, Hortense – let it wait till morning, nah?’

‘Gilbert.’

I made the noises of sleep with the hint of a feigned snore.

‘Gilbert, you wan’ come into this bed?’

I did not answer. Why? Come, I believed that I had gone to sleep and was now dreaming those words. I was convinced if I were to speak she would awake and chastise me for disturbing her with my talk.

‘Gilbert,’ she say again, louder this time.

It was with great trepidation that I timid say, ‘Yes, Hortense?’

‘You no hear me, nah?’ she ask. And I knew I was awake. Come, never before had every part of me been so alert.

‘I not sure,’ I say.

‘What you think I say?’

‘I not sure.’

‘I say, do you want to sleep in the bed with me? Plenty room.’

She moved the covers. I felt the breeze from them as she opened up the bed to me. I moved on the chair – not to get up, mark you, but to make a noise to see if she toying with me. Would she tell me she changed her mind? Or laugh to say it was a joke – a good joke that made her laugh, ha ha? I stuck out a leg ready to catch it back if my dignity required it. But she say, ‘You coming because I am getting cold?’

Now, there was not a man in the world would refuse. And if there was, let me tell you, he was not a Jamaican. I flew from that chair. Not once did my feet meet with the cold floor before they were squeezing down between the two sheets. The rest of my grateful body soon followed, settling itself down into the warmest place on this earth. At that moment if the Caribbean sun had been shining on me, while naked girls fanned me with banana leaves, it could not have felt any more pleasant. For all around me I was caressed by the smell of Hortense. Her soap, her perfume, cha, even her not so sweet sweat. But that startling headiness was not going to make a fool of me. I kept myself turned from her, lying rigid as a stick. Scared if any part of me, rude or innocent, were to touch her she would start to scream. She closed the blanket over me, efficient as a mother. And I felt her foot press lightly against my leg. I moved my leg away. But soon the little cold foot followed.

‘You comfortable?’ she ask. There was no sensible breath left in me to speak. If I were to open my mouth she would hear me panting like a dog. She brought her face up close to the back of my neck. With her breath fluttering over my ear light as a kiss, she say, ‘Tell me, Gilbert, will there be a bell at the door of our new house? And will the bell go ding-a-ling, ding-a-ling?’While her foot – the mucky one – began gently to stroke up and down my leg.

Fifty-seven

Bernard

Queenie kept him in a drawer. Odd way to start a life. The bottom drawer. Largest one of a chest that belonged to Ma (she’d kept laundered linen in it). She’d secreted away baby clothes. I saw her struggling with a chair to fetch them from a suitcase on top of the wardrobe. Everything knitted. Funny thing, I recognised the wool. Watched her knitting it up several times before the war. It had been a cardigan and a jumper before it was booties and a bonnet. She’d even hoarded nappies in preparation. Pulled a pile of them from a trunk under the bed. The big pins had been on the sideboard for all to view. Never crossed my mind to regard them as a clue.

I idled away in Pa’s room. Pleased for the comfort those familiar four walls could bring. Everything about this dreadful homecoming was awry. Nothing of the life that played before me was recognisable. I felt I’d stumbled into someone else’s existence by mistake and was now busy trying to find my part. But how long can a man gape at his own circumstance? Senselessly bat his eyes against the glare from the unusual? Silly thing I know, but I envied Pa. Shock just sent him under. Rendered him speechless and useless. I longed to wake up unable to struggle through, with no choice but to surrender to it. Sit in a chair dribbling with Queenie feeding me, cleaning up the mess. But unfortunately this shell-shock – my shock – was proving to be quite bearable.

I moved around only when I thought she was at rest. Nocturnal, almost. Silly, I know, but I feared the chance meeting. Crossing in the kitchen, passing in the parlour. Not the dismay of seeing her suckling an impostor child. Or the fear that rage would overcome me. Or pity have me weep inappropriately. It was her expectation. Glimpsed in an inquisitive look, a backward glance. She wanted me to replace silence with words. But the truth of it was I was numb. I longed for something to stir me once more to opinion. Anger, hurt, disapproval. It was pitiful. I was blank as a sheet of white paper. No idea what to feel.