say to my old friend – but that I hope the days of both of us would soon be rather brighter? I said goodbye to him, and still Hamilton would not let me tell his home address to the people in the hospital.
So I leave that sad place behind me, and walked out in the dark winter East End afternoon: no use to go back now to my labouring job, whose foreman would not give me time off to visit Hamilton, and now would certainly dismiss me for my absence. I thought of Mahomed and his café, and how a free meal of rice would give me strength, and there, playing dominoes, I meet the former weed-peddler, Peter Pay Paul.
‘Mr Ruby,’ he tell me, ‘ask why you come for no more business.’
‘I cut out that hustle too, man. I cut right out of peddling like you say is best to, when the months go by. And you, what do you do now, Peter?’
‘Good times have come to me, Johnny. I doorman now at the Tobagonian Free Occupation club, and this is a profitable business.’
‘Tell me now, Peter. I have no room at present. May I sleep in your cloakroom for this evening?’
‘What will you pay me, man?’
‘Skinned now, Peter Pay Paul. You do this for your friend.’
‘Just this one night, then, Johnny. Do not please ask me the next evening, or word will reach the ear of this Tobagonian owner and I lose my good job.’
Peter supplied me with one coffee. ‘Arthur is down East End,’ he said. ‘He asks for you from several people.’
‘I do not wish to see that relative of mine ever again.’
A great pleasure came to me now, which was the arrival in Mahomed’s of the seaman Laddy Boy, he who had brought the letter from my sister Peach. His ship had been sailing to the German ports, and he told us of the friendly action of the chicks he’d met in dockside streets of Hamburg.
‘I see some Lagos boy there, Johnny,’ he told me now. ‘In a ship coming out of Africa. He tell me some news about your family that you should hear.’
Almost I guessed what Laddy Boy would tell me. ‘Your sister Peach,’ he said, ‘has sailed to England now to train as nurse.’
‘This news is certain of her coming? I wish it was some other time she choose.’
Laddy Boy said to me: ‘Tomorrow, come meet my quartermaster, Johnny. Speak to him and see if you can sign on our ship, to have some serious occupation for when your sister reaches England.’
‘I have no knowledge of a sailor – will he take me?’
‘We speak to him together, man. I know some secrets of his smuggling that have helped him raise his income to his benefit.’
When the half-past-five time came at last, Laddy Boy took me for some Baby Salt at the Apollo tavern. We sit there drinking quietly, I thinking of home and Lagos, and of Peach and Christmas and my mum and dad.
But what spoils these thoughts is Dorothy, when she come in the saloon bar with a tall GI. She send this man over and he say to me politely, ‘Your sister-in-law ask me, man, to ask if you will speak with her a minute.’
‘No, man, no. Tell her I busy with my friend.’
He went back to Dorothy, but come to me once more. ‘She says is important to you, what she have to tell.’
I went with Dorothy in one corner of the bar. ‘Now, Dorothy,’ I said. ‘Please understand I do not wish to mix my life with yours. Do not pester me, please, with your company, or I turn bad on you, and we regret it.’
She was high with her drink, I saw, but quieter and more ladylike than I know her ever before.
‘Look, man,’ she said. ‘I know the deal I offered you means nothing to you, but can’t we still be friends?’
‘I do not wish to be your enemy or your friend.’
‘Why are you so mean to me always, Johnny? You know how gone on you I am.’
‘Keep away from me, Dorothy, is all I ask you.’
I got up, but she called, ‘Just one thing more I want to say to you.’ She got that far, then stopped, and when I waited, said, ‘Get me another drink.’
‘Is that it? More drink?’
I moved finally to leave her, making from now a rule that never would I answer her again. She grabbed my arm suddenly and pulled me down