Chapter 5
News from England
The letter came on a Thursday. Diane came home from the factory to find it propped against the salt shaker on the table, placed there by Mama Vie who had collected the mail that day. The envelope had a United Kingdom stamp and handwriting Marcus recognized as his Auntie Beverley's his mother's sister, who had gone to England ten years ago and who existed for Marcus mainly as a photograph on the shelf and a voice on the telephone at Christmas.
Diane read the letter standing at the table. Marcus watched from the cot, pretending to read his school book. He was good at watching without appearing to watch.
His mother's face did several things in quick succession. Something that might have been surprise. Something that was definitely calculation, Then a long careful stillness that meant she was thinking hard.
Beverley wants you to come, she said finally.
Marcus looked up, no longer pretending.
Come where?
England Diane sat down she has a house a good school near her she says, She's been talking to people about the schools there about what it costs about She stopped Started again, She wants to help she says if you come for a few years get the education there, you can come back qualified with something real.
The word England settled in the room like a stone dropped in water, sending circles outward that Marcus could feel but not fully trace.
Without you? he said.
Diane's expression did not change, but something behind it did.
I have work here, she said I can't just leave the work and the visa it's not easy she paused but you're a child Children's visas are different, And Beverley is family she'll take care of you like her own.
Marcus looked at his mother. He looked at the shelf where Auntie Beverley's photograph stood a woman with his mother's cheekbones and a heavier coat, standing in front of a grey sky.
I don't want to go, he said.
I know, Diane said. She reached across the table and put her hand over his, But wanting and needing are different things Marcus and I need you to have more than what I can give you here.
He understood this he was nine years old and he understood it completely that was the terrible part.
The weeks between the letter and the departure were a particular kind of time that Marcus would carry forever hours that felt simultaneously ordinary and final, the everyday made unbearable by the knowledge that it was ending.
He climbed the mango tree more than ever. He memorized things without meaning to the smell of his mother's cooking, the sound of Mr Donovan's cricket commentary drifting across the yard on Saturday afternoons, the exact quality of early-morning light on the concrete.
He and Leroy spent long afternoons doing nothing particular, which was its own form of everything.
You going to forget us Leroy said one evenin they were sitting on the back wall of the yard, feet dangling.
I'm not going to forget you.
England people forget Jamaica people It's cold there the cold changes you.
I'm not going to change.
Leroy picked at the concrete of the wall my cousin went to America he came back talking different wearing shoes inside the house, He said this with the contempt it deserved.
I'll still take my shoes off, Marcus said.
Leroy laughed, then went quiet after a while he said Write me.
I'll write you.
And if they give you any trouble up there Leroy was serious now, in the way he was serious about things that mattered, You remember who you are remember where you come from.
Marcus looked at his friend at the yard below them at the rooftops stretching away toward the mountains, going blue and distant in the evening light.
"I know who I am," he said.
He believed it, He would spend the next several years finding out how complicated a thing that was to hold onto.