V. Naipaul - Miguel Street

Eddoes said, ‘Is the funniest sight you could see. At the Dairies in Philip Street all you seeing these days is a long line of black black men sitting at the counter and drinking quart bottles of white milk. All of them wearing sleeveless jersey to show off their big arm.’

In about three months Edward made his appearance among us in a sleeveless jersey. He had become a really big man.

Presently he began talking about the women at the base who were chasing him.

He said, ‘I don’t know what they see in me.’

Somebody had the idea of organising a Local Talent on Parade show and Edward said, ‘Don’t make me laugh. What sort of talent they think Trinidad have?’

The first show was broadcast and we all listened to it in Eddoes’ house. Edward kept on laughing all the time.

Hat said, ‘Why you don’t try singing yourself, then?’

Edward said, ‘Sing for who? Trinidad people?’

Hat said, ‘Do them a favour.’

To everybody’s surprise Edward began singing, and the time came when Hat had to say, ‘I just can’t live in the same house with Edward. I think he go have to move.’

Edward moved, but he didn’t move very far. He remained on our side of Miguel Street.

He said, ‘Is a good thing. I was getting tired of the cow smell.’

Edward went up for one of the Local Talent shows and in spite of everything we all hoped that he would win a prize of some sort. The show was sponsored by a biscuit company and I think the winner got some money.

‘They does give the others a thirty-one-cent pack of biscuits,’ Hat said.

Edward got a package of biscuits.

He didn’t bring it home, though. He threw it away.

He said, ‘Throw it away. Why I shouldn’t throw it away? You see, is just what I does tell you. Trinidad people don’t know good thing. They just born stupid. Down at the base it have Americans begging me to sing. They know what is what. The other day, working and singing at the base, the colonel come up and tell me I had a nice voice. He was begging me to go to the States.’

Hat said, ‘Why you don’t go then?’

Edward said fiercely, ‘Gimme time. Wait and see if I don’t go.’

Eddoes said, ‘What about all those woman and them who was chasing you? They catch up with you yet or they pass you?’

Edward said, ‘Listen, Joe, I don’t want to start getting tough with you. Do me a favour and shut up.’

When Edward brought any American friends to his house he pretended that he didn’t know us, and it was funny to see him walking with them, holding his arms in the American way, hanging loosely, like a gorilla’s.

Hat said, ‘All the money he making he spending it on rum and ginger, curryfavouring with them Americans.’

In a way, I suppose, we were all jealous of him.

Hat began saying, ‘It ain’t hard to get a work with the Americans. I just don’t want to have boss, that’s all. I like being my own boss.’

Edward didn’t mix much with us now.

One day he came to us with a sad face and said, ‘Hat, it look like if I have to get married.’

He spoke with his Trinidad accent.

Hat looked worried. He said, ‘Why? Why? Why you have to get married?’

‘She making baby.’

‘Is a damn funny thing to say. If everybody married because woman making baby for them it go be a hell of a thing. What happen that you want to be different now from everybody else in Trinidad? You come so American?’

Edward hitched up his tight American-style trousers and made a face like an American film actor. He said, ‘You know all the answers, don’t you? This girl is different. Sure I fall in love maybe once maybe twice before, but this kid’s different.’

Hat said, ‘She’s got what it takes? ’

Edward said, ‘Yes.’

Hat said, ‘Edward, you is a big man. It clear that you make up your mind to married this girl. Why you come round trying to make me force you to married her? You is a big man. You ain’t have to come to me to get permission to do this to do that.’

When Edward left, Hat said, ‘Whenever Edward come to me with a lie, he like a little boy. He can’t lie to me. But if he married this girl, although I ain’t see she, I feel he go live to regret it.’

Edward’s wife was a tall and thin white-skinned woman. She looked very pale and perpetually unwell. She moved as though every step cost her effort. Edward made a great fuss about her and never introduced us.

The women of the street lost no time in passing judgment.

Mrs Morgan said, ‘She is a born troublemaker, that woman. I feel sorry for Edward. He get hisself in one mess.’

Mrs Bhakcu said, ‘She is one of these modern girls. They want their husband to work all day and come home and cook and wash and clean up. All they know is to put powder and rouge on their face and walk out swinging their backside.’

And Hat said, ‘But how she making baby? I can’t see anything.’

Edward dropped out of our circle completely.

Hat said, ‘She giving him good hell.’

And one day Hat shouted across the road to Edward, ‘Joe, come across here for a moment.’

Edward looked very surly. He asked in Trinidadian, ‘What you want?’

Hat smiled and said, ‘What about the baby? When it coming? ’

Edward said, ‘What the hell you want to know for?’

Hat said, ‘I go be a funny sort of uncle if I wasn’t interested in my nephew.’

Edward said, ‘She ain’t making no more baby.’

Eddoes said, ‘So it was just a line she was shooting then?’

Hat said, ‘Edward, you lying. You make up all that in the first place. She wasn’t making no baby, and you know that. She didn’t tell you she was making baby, and you know that too. If you want to married the woman why you making all this thing about it? ’

Edward looked very sad. ‘If you want to know the truth, I don’t think she could make baby.’

And when this news filtered through to the women of the street, they all said what my mother said.

She said, ‘How you could see pink and pale people ever making baby?’

And although we had no evidence, and although Edward’s house was still noisy with Americans, we felt that all was not well with Edward and his wife.

* * *

One Friday, just as it was getting dark, Edward ran up to me and said, ‘Put down that stupidness you reading and go and get a policeman.’

I said, ‘Policeman? But how I go go and get policeman just like that.’

Edward said, ‘You could ride?’

I said, ‘Yes.’

Edward said, ‘You have a bicycle lamp?’

I said, ‘No.’

Edward said, ‘Take the bike and ride without lamp. You bound to get policeman.’

I said, ‘And when I get this policeman, what I go tell him?’

Edward said, ‘She try to kill sheself again.’

Before I had cycled to Ariapita Avenue I had met not one but two policemen. One of them was a sergeant. He said, ‘You thinking of going far, eh?’

I said, ‘Is you I was coming to find.’

The other policeman laughed.

The sergeant said to him, ‘He smart, eh? I feel the magistrate go like that excuse. Is a new one and even me like it.’

I said, ‘Come quick, Edward wife try to kill sheself again.’

The sergeant said, ‘Oh, Edward wife always killing she-self, eh?’ And he laughed. He added, ‘And where this Edward wife try to kill sheself again, eh?’

I said, ‘Just a little bit down Miguel Street.’

The constable said, ‘He really smart, you know.’

The sergeant said, ‘Yes. We leave him here and go and find somebody who try to kill sheself. Cut out this nonsense, boy. Where your bicycle licence?’

I said, ‘Is true what I telling you. I go come back with you and show you the house.’