– they’ll be treated better soon. That race crap’s changing fast, believe me, Johnny.’
‘Not fast enough for me, Mister Alfy Bongo. How long you think this rubbish will go on? This big, big problem that they think up out of nothing, and is nothing?’
‘Not long now, man. In ten years’ time, or so, they’ll wonder what it was all about.’
I got up to leave him. ‘Roll on that day,’ I said to him. ‘But I tell you this, man, and remember it. Let them kill every Spade that’s in the world, and leave but just two, man and woman, and we’ll fill up the whole globe once more and win our triumph!’
He asked me to come round and see him in his room in Kensington West one day, but I tell him my life is occupied, and left him and went out and caught my bus. To sleep now would be best, I thought, and I came home to where I am staying with Montgomery. When I turn round the corner to his house, I see standing by the door an African girl, and from this distance I know it is my sister Peach.
I stopped, and think quickly. I want to see Peach, but I do not want to see Peach, so I turned and run. But she see me, come running after, and hold on my coat like she tear it off my body, and there in the street hugged on to me so tight I cannot breathe, and she say nothing.
3
Disputed child of an uncertain future
From Johnny’s vagueness, even rudeness, I could guess something had happened, but couldn’t persuade him to tell me what. There were surreptitious telephone calls, and abrupt goings and comings, and a heightened air of inwardness, of ‘African-ness’ about him. One evening, when I saw him eyeing me steadily in a critical, almost hostile way, I said, ‘Look, Johnny. You’d better tell me what’s on your mind.’
He nodded and said, ‘My sister Peach is here.’
‘In London?’
‘As training nurse. She live now at the hostel there beside her hospital.’
‘Well, I’m delighted, Johnny. When am I going to meet her?’
‘I do not wish you meet with her, Montgomery.’
‘Why not? Oh, all right, then, if you prefer me not to. But why?’
‘Because I fear you tell some things she should not hear.’
‘Well – thank you! You’re a nice trusting soul.’
‘You blow your top too much, Montgomery. You know you do.’
‘Oh, fine. Don’t introduce me, then.’
‘She wish to speak with you, all the same.’
‘Well, make up your mind!’
‘I tell her of this child of mine that Muriel has got. Peach wish to speak to you about it.’
‘Why?’
‘She tell you.’
‘All right. When do we meet?’
‘I ask her to come round this afternoon. While she is here, I stay downstairs in Theodora’s place.’
‘To keep an eye on me, is that it?’
‘Yes. She is my sister.’
‘Look, Johnny. I’m beginning to think it’s time you and I should part company. If you like, I’ll move out with friends, and you can stay on here by yourself until the landlords serve the summons.’
‘You should not make argument, Montgomery.’
‘Oh, no! What I should do is exactly what suits you.’
‘What you should do, please, is see my sister Peach this afternoon because she wish to speak with you.’
We left it at that, and when the bell rang Johnny went down and let her in, but did not come up with her beyond Theodora’s floor. I greeted Peach on the stairs, and ushered her into the flat. ‘A cup of tea, Miss Fortune?’ I said to her. ‘Or I have coffee …’
‘No, thank you.’
How could a girl so beautiful wear such really appalling clothes? Peach had everything, and more, of Johnny’s sumptuous good looks – as feminine a version as his was masculine, but with a greater air of gravity and depth. So that if one ignored (but how could one?) the rainbow shades of royal blue, and green, and crimson that she wore, she seemed one of the loveliest creatures in creation – the more so as she had such grace of easy gesture, and such self-confident, unaffected pride.
‘You are my brother’s friend,’ she said. ‘He tell me of you, and how you are his friend.’
Her English was not as eccentrically voluble as her brother’s – she seemed to speak it with some difficulty. I insisted on tea, and bustled about with host-like charm which, to my mortification, made no impression on her whatever.
‘I come to speak to you of Johnny’s baby,’ she said.