Read Online A Cupboard Full of Coats by Yvvette Edwards - Free Book Online Page A

you had first to learn how to tell the time.
    When the contents of the bowl had been polished off, I offered up the three words that best expressed my feelings.
    ‘I want more,’ I said.
    He looked at me and smiled. It was the first time he had smiled since his arrival. I had forgotten how charming it was, how attractive it made him. He had one of those smiles that engaged every feature on his face, his wide mouth, his lean cheeks, his eyes, the creased skin at their corners. When he smiled at you it was as if you had his fullest attention; no one else existed for him anywhere. It was irresistible. I felt myself smiling back as he rose and left to bring me seconds.
    I felt different. In the centre of my feelings, like the eye of a tornado, the anger held its ground, but around the edges I could feel it giving way to something softer that made me feel uncomfortable. Vulnerable. I wished I had the capacity to just enjoy the moment, to embrace the pleasure of having things done for me, but it was not in me. Instead, I found myself wondering what was in it for him, why he was doing this, and just how bad the sting would be that brought me back down to earth.
    When he returned I was happy to see the bowl was almost as full as it had been last time. Carefully he settled on the floor beside the settee, moving slowly, careful not to spill a drop. I reached out and took the bowl from him, turning to lie on my side so I could feed myself.
    ‘You sure you can manage?’ he asked.
    ‘Yes. Why are you doing this?’
    ‘Got nothing else to do.’
    ‘That’s not a good enough answer.’
    ‘It’s the best answer you gonna get.’
    ‘I don’t want the “best answer”, I want the truth.’ I waited, but he didn’t reply. ‘You visited him, didn’t you, in prison? That’s why he came to see you.’
    He shook his head. ‘Me and Berris go back a ways. We had unfinished business, things that needed to be said.’
    ‘About my mother?’
    He shrugged. ‘And other things.’
    ‘Like?’
    ‘You asking me to number and reel them off? Most stories are like that bowl of soup you eating now, a whole heap of ingredients put together at the proper time. You can’t pick up one thing on its own, piece of dasheen say, and study it then walk and tell people you gotta understanding of soup. You have to start with the things that need to go in the pot first. You want the truth, I gotta start at the beginning.’
    ‘So start at the beginning then,’ I said, wondering where the beginning of my own confession lay. Not the night of the engagement party, ting ting ting . By then things were already in full swing. The beginning was back further. Months back.
    ‘Now?’ he asked.
    ‘Yes now.’
    ‘I need a drink.’
    ‘So? Get one.’
    He was slow to stand, unsure but going along with it. He rubbed his hands together, psyching himself up.
    ‘You want one as well?’
    ‘Sure,’ I answered. ‘Why not?’
    *
    ‘We growed up together, me and Berris both. In Cudjoe Head. North Montserrat. People say his father never want to know him from when he born. Don’t know if it’s true but it don’t matter anyhow, ’cos Berris believe it to be so.
    ‘His mother put him to board with Mistress Jolly when she went to Curaçao. Visited a few times but never come back to get him or send ticket for him to come. Wasn’t no work in Montserrat then. Yeah, there was the odd cleaning job in one of the hotel or rich people house, but you couldn’t live off what you earn there. Folks had to go to the other islands. At that time was mostly Curaçao they went. Had sugar and coffee and oil there. Was work to be had, and money.
    ‘They went off. Send back whatever they could to keep the kids. Pretty sure his mum done that, same as everybody else, but Berris say if she did, he never see a cent. Mistress Jolly tell him his mother never send a bean. Type of person she was, can’t see she woulda keep him for nothing. But that’s what she say and that’s what