Kerry Young - Pao

And when I was busy telling all of this to Michael him just look at me and say, ‘I have the address, Pao.’

I can’t believe my ears. After all this upset with Daphne and planning with Morrison, Michael sit down there as calm as you please and just say, ‘I have the address.’

‘Yu have the address? Stanley address?’

‘Yes.’

‘Where yu get it from?’

‘Fay wrote to me.’

‘Fay wrote to yu?’ I talking so loud everybody in the fry-fish and bammy shack turn ’round and looking at me like maybe they think I going start a brawl. So I calm myself down and I say to him, ‘Michael, how long you have the address? Yu nuh know I desperate to find where the children at?’

‘It was a personal letter to me, Pao, about how she was finding life in England. It was the sort of letter one would write to one’s priest.’

‘Come on, Michael, we gone past that now. We both know that any letter Fay write to you wasn’t no letter that one would write to one’s priest.’ And I sorta mimic him because I was getting vex.

‘Well I assure you that my reply was entirely the sort of response one might expect to receive from one’s priest.’

And that much I believe is true. Michael already punish himself enough over Fay to go get catch up in a whole load of letter writing that going mash up him chances of making archbishop, because as well as everything else that Michael Kealey is, I discover over the years that him also ambitious. He know he get away with the Fay thing one time already and he not going chance it another time ’round.

‘I received a letter from Mui as well.’

‘And yu no say nothing to me? Jesus Christ, Michael, I can’t believe yu. Honest to god. As if the secret catechism classes not enough, now yu have to go do this. Why yu nuh say nothing to me?’

‘Pao.’

‘Yes, I know. I sorry ’bout the blaspheming, but honestly, Michael.’ And I calm down and I lower my voice and I see the rest of the customers resting a bit easier because after all Michael sitting there still wearing the little dog-collar thing.

‘It only arrived yesterday and I knew I was seeing you today so I brought it with me.’ And he take the envelope outta his pocket and hand it to me. When I turn it over I see it say ‘Sealed and not to be opened by anyone except Father Michael’. I take out the piece of paper and start read.

Dear Father Michael,

I hope you are well. I am sorry not to have written to you before but I have been very busy settling into my new school, and I also know that Mama has been keeping you up to date with our news.

The lessons at school are the same – reading, writing and arithmetic – but not as much fun. The other children do not seem so friendly.

Uncle Stanley’s house is small but he has made us welcome and Mama says we should be grateful, which I am because otherwise we would not have anywhere else to live in England where it seems I must stay for the time being anyway.

I was not so happy about it at first which is partly why I did not write to you because Mama said you knew all about us coming to England so I was cross with you, and I only wrote to my papa instead. But I am not cross any more. England is not too bad. It seems OK. And since I miss you I thought I would write. Our parish priest is not like you. He is a very serious old man who I don’t think likes children very much.

I have a favour to ask. Could you please ask my papa why he has not written back to me? Maybe he did not get my letter because I just wrote Yang Pao, Matthews Lane, Kingston, Jamaica because I did not know the post office box number.

I would be grateful if you could tell me his answer when you write back with all your news.

Love

Mui

I fold the letter and put it back in the envelope.

‘I didn’t know about her taking the children. Honestly, Pao. She asked me to go with her but there was no mention of the children and I never dreamed that she would do as she did. It was not in my reckoning. If Fay had mentioned it to me I would have counselled her to think again about the whole enterprise. You must believe me.’

‘Is alright. I believe you, Michael. I know Fay taking the children hurt you almost as much as it hurt me. Maybe just as much, I don’t know. Thank you for sharing this with me though.’ And I hand the letter back to him. ‘It means a lot to me to think that Mui write to me even if I never get the letter. But how come Fay let her write all of that to yu?’

‘The envelope was sealed in the way you see and Fay simply enclosed it in her own letter to me.’

I think to myself so he get one letter from her and he reply and now he get another letter and god knows how many others in between. I take a deep breath but I don’t say nothing ’bout it.

‘So yu going give me Stanley’s address so Morrison can go see what he can see?’

‘I will, Pao, under two conditions. Firstly, that George Morrison does not make contact with anyone in Stanley’s household including, obviously, Fay and the children. I do not want it exposed that I have given the address to you. Secondly, that you do not write to Mui at that address until we have worked out the best, most discreet way for you to communicate with them. I don’t think that you writing to Stanley’s address would be advisable.’

‘So what return address yu think Mui give in the letter she send to me if it not Stanley’s address?’

‘I do not know, but neither do I understand why you have not received her letter. I would have thought that most postal workers in Kingston would have found the way she addressed it sufficient without need for a post office box number.’

I nuh understand what Michael is saying to me. And then I get it. He think the letter never get mailed. And when I think ’bout how angry Fay was with me and how she nuh want me to have nothing to do with the children I reckon maybe Michael got a point. Maybe Fay never send the letter. So I agree to him two conditions and him give me the address he already write on a piece of thin card him take outta him pocket.

Three weeks later Michael tell me that he been in touch with Fay and she agree for me to write to the children but she have a condition. She say I can write as many letters as I want but I must not say anything that criticise or undermine her. That I must not interfere with anything that she doing in England, especially if it involve the children, and I must not make any plan to take the children back to Jamaica. She bring the children to England for their safety and she don’t want them taken back to no war zone like the way Jamaica is. And if she suspect that I doing any of them things, even if she get the slightest whiff, she going move house and I never hear from any of them again.

‘That is some strong threat she making there,’ I say to Michael. But him just sit there. Well, I negotiate enough deals to know that take-it-or-leave-it look on a man face. And the truth is I can’t do nothing ’bout what Fay doing in England anyway, even though I reckon she must have do it illegally because I can’t understand how she can take the children outta the country like that when she not got no divorce. Still, I reckon she doing what she think best for them so why would I want to criticise her for that? Jamaica is a war zone. The children safer in England, that is true. And as far as her threat ’bout moving house and disappearing go, the children getting older all the time so she can’t enforce that even if she want to. Mui eleven now and Fay can’t stop her. So the situation what it is. Like Miss Cicely say, ‘What is done is done,’ and the best thing I can do is try to take a positive view for the children sake.

So I say alright to Michael. I think the whole thing help Michael feel better ’bout himself that he able to fix something after all the guilt he have over Xiuquan and the telephone call and him too stupid not to ever think that Fay would take the children with her. I think he feel that he make amends now, and I think I feel it too.