Authors: Jackie Kay
We come out of the Playhouse full of the night. Joss takes me home and walks off again, hands in pocket. I watch him turn the corner of Rose Street into Sauchiehall Street before going in. He never looks back. Never waves. I begin to think that there is something wrong. Either Joss is terribly proper and old-fashioned or there is something wrong. He never tries to touch me. He holds my hand or we walk with our arms round each other. We kiss, short soft kisses. Three months of kisses on my left cheek, soft timeless kisses that grow into buds and wait. Each night I go home madly in love with Joss and terribly frustrated. I am twenty and he is thirty; perhaps the age difference is making him shy. Still, I am not a schoolgirl any more.
At night, I watch Joss walk up the street, hands in his pockets. He has a slow deliberate walk, like he’s practised it. I go into my small bedroom. I have a single bed in the room, a dresser and a small wardrobe. I stare at myself in the mirror. Rub night cream into my cheeks for a long time. Imagine Joss standing behind me. Undress. Drape my bathrobe over my shoulders. Rub more cream into my cheeks. Use a powder puff under my breasts. Joss, behind
me. I sigh, put my white nightdress on and climb heavily into my bed. I can hear Helen, my flatmate, up and about. I listen to her noises and fall off asleep where I’ll dream of Joss again and again and wake myself up in the middle of the night.
I know I am waiting for something to happen.
It is Friday. I am going to see Joss tonight. We are going to listen to some saxophone player, I forget his name. Joss knows it. I like the world of these jazz places he has been taking me to. I like the smoke, the drink, the belief. It is an ‘in’ world. I always feel like I’ve been taken somewhere out of myself. I have to finish filing for the doctor and then it will be time to go home. I’m thinking, what should I wear? All the time I’m thinking, Tonight is the night. I sing to myself. I look at the clock in the reception. It is a tease. It barely moves.
Joss is late to get me. Joss is always late. When he finally arrives, he is wearing a blue serge suit and white shirt and striped tie. I am stabbed by his good looks; his thick dark hair, his intense eyes. Tonight he is all worked up. He admires this saxophonist. We have to rush. Out in the streets people stare at us, particularly at Joss. He knows quite a few of the guys in this club. Some strangers know him. He is already building up a reputation for himself, playing a few jazz bars and pubs and clubs. It is early days, he says, full of excitement. Early days for jazz and early days for him, for his new life. During the day he works in the fishing-tackle shop in Renfield Street. He says that’s his other interest. I say you’re an unusual man: fish and jazz. ‘Better than fish and chips any day,’ he says.
Already there is a buzz around him, a magnetic force that draws other people towards him. He looks the part. He is tall, coloured. His father was African, his mother Scottish. He doesn’t know the exact country, just the continent, he laughs gamely. ‘It’s a big fucking continent, so it is.’ His mother never remembered and she’s dead now he says. When I ask him what his mother died of, he hesitates, then seems to pluck ‘heart attack’ out of the thin air. I can’t read his expression. ‘Did you not get on with her?’ I ask him. ‘Not exactly,’ he says.
When the sax starts Joss closes his eyes and keeps them closed for the longest time. I find this a bit embarrassing. I feel as if I’ve lost him, that he belongs to the music and not to me. Other people shout out, little words of intense pleasure – ‘Yeah!’ Clap their hands. Stomp their feet. Listen to the music as if they themselves were creating it, with a strange filmic pride on their faces. They shake their heads from side to side in perfect rhythm to the music. Some of their faces point downwards, chin resting on their chest; others have their heads tilted back. All heads shake and shudder from side to side. Some people simply move their chin out and in, jerky movements, eyes shut. But every single face in this place is prepared to go the distance. All attention rapt, euphoric, dedicated. They will follow the sax down to the deep dark place, wherever it leads them, disciples to the cool blue. It is almost holy. I feel like I am in a church and I am the only one who has got her eyes open whilst she prays. The man next to me moves his right hand to the music, small snappy movements, his private conducting. I wonder
whether I will ever let myself go enough to put on that serious jazz face, pouting my lips and shaking my head in tight syncopated movements.
The music changes. The sax is all slow and sad, like it is trying to remember something lost. I try tapping my foot in time to the soft shoe shuffle of the drum. At first I feel self-conscious. I’m not sure that my foot tapping looks like the other tapping feet. I’m not sure I’ve got it right. I know I can’t risk shaking my head, twitching my face or conducting with my hand. But this quiet tapping feels fine. After a while I don’t even notice myself doing it. I have gone inside the music. It’s a strange feeling, but there it is waiting for me. I am sitting in the middle of the long slow moan of the sax, right inside it. I feel something in me go soft, give in. I look over at Joss and find him staring at me. He’s seen it all happening. He looks right through me.
It is dark now outside. The streetlamps cast their yellow light on the streets. A lot of us leave The Wee Jazz Bar at the same time. We look like people that have just been created out of the night, people who have just landed on the planet all at once together with the same pioneering, fierce look on our faces. We move along in our long coats with the collars turned up. It is windy. The wind blows a can along the street. Tonight is
the night
. Joss holds my hand tight as if he’s protecting me from something.
He walks me right to my door. He goes to kiss me on the cheek, but changes his mind and kisses me full on the mouth. He grabs me up in his arms, sweeping my face
towards his. He pulls me closer against him till my feet almost rise from the ground. His breathing is fast, excited. I open my eyes and stare at him whilst he is kissing me. His eyes are tight shut. He says my name as he kisses me, over and over again. I feel like I am dying. I take his hand and lead him up the stairs to my small flat. I hope Helen is sound asleep, tucked up in her little bed.
But when we get up the stairs, everything changes. Joss doesn’t throw me on my bed like I am expecting. He paces the room. ‘Sit down,’ I say. ‘Make yourself at home.’ I’ve gone all shy. The intimacy of my own bedroom has made strangers of both of us. He sits down on the edge of my bed looking terrible, troubled. ‘What is it, Joss, what’s the matter?’ There is something he has to tell me. Something he should have told me ages ago, months ago, but couldn’t. He was afraid that if I knew I would stop seeing him. I feel sick. ‘Knew what?’ My mind is racing. Maybe he’s married; maybe he’s got one of those men’s diseases; maybe he’s committed a crime. I don’t know what it can be. I catch myself in the mirror. My hair is all out of place; my eyes look as wild as his. I can tell it is something serious, but I try to laugh it off. I ruffle my hands through his hair and kiss his cheek. ‘It can’t be that bad,’ I say. ‘Nothing is when you are in love.’ It is the first time I have ever told him this. It makes him more unhappy. He actually looks like he is going to cry. He tells me he can’t see me any more, just like that. I don’t believe this is happening. The moon is full outside the window, gaping in. The night is a lie. I want to go to sleep. I want to stop him talking and climb into my bed
with him and fall asleep in his arms. I don’t care what he has done. I don’t want to know what he has done. He is saying he is sorry. The big moon gawps at me. It is strangely excited. I feel as if my world is turning mad.
I knock my night cream off my dresser. Something in me just blows. ‘You can’t do that,’ I tell him and I find myself hitting him on the chest, crying. He gets angry with himself. I can hear him swearing under his breath. Then I hear him saying, ‘Forgive me.’ And he gets up to go. But I can’t have that. I grab him and pull him back. He is taller than me. I can’t shake him with my full force. So I shout instead. I don’t care about waking anybody up. I scream at him, ‘An explanation, you owe me an explanation. What’s the matter with you? Are you sick? Have you killed somebody?’ The strange thing is he already feels like he belongs to me. My anger makes him mine. ‘You really want to know, don’t you,’ he says in a voice I can’t quite recognize. ‘You really want to know. I’ll show you then,’ he says. ‘I’ll show you what is the matter.’ He has a strange expression on his face, as if for a moment he is suspended, not quite himself.
He takes off his blue jacket and throws it on my floor. He takes off his tie and throws that down too. His hands are trembling. I am trembling. I think maybe he’s changed his mind and he wants to make love. I think, shouldn’t he undress me first? I’m not sure. I try to remember what the couple of other boyfriends I’ve had have done. My mind goes blank. He is undoing the buttons of his shirt. He slows down now. Each button is
undone so terribly slowly. Underneath the shirt is a T-shirt. He takes that off slowly too, lifting his arms up and pulling it from his waist over his head. He discards it. His eyes are determined. He looks at me the whole time. An odd look, challenging, almost aggressive – as if he is saying, ‘I told you so. I told you so.’ He pulls the next T-shirt over his head and throws that away too. He has another layer on underneath, a vest. His clothes are spreadeagled on my floor like the outline of a corpse in a movie. The vest is stripped off as well. He looks a lot thinner now with all that off him. I’m excited watching this man undress for me. Underneath his vest are lots of bandages wrapped round and round his chest. He starts to undo them. I feel a wave of relief: to think all he is worried about is some scar he has. He should know my love goes deeper than a wound. ‘You don’t have to show me,’ I say. I feel suddenly full of compassion. ‘Did you have an accident? I don’t care about superficial things like that.’ I go towards him to embrace him. ‘I’m not finished,’ he says. He keeps unwrapping endless rolls of bandage. I am still holding out my hands when the first of his breasts reveals itself to me. Small, firm.
It is light outside now, a frail beginning light. I can see it from my window, tap dancing on the sea, on the rough scrubby hills. The sea is calmer today, shamed by last night’s excesses. It is lying low, all blue and growling innocence. I am safe. I will go down to the shops. I have
an appetite for the first time in days. I will go and buy a fresh loaf, some mature cheddar, some ripe tomatoes, some ham off the bone. I won’t buy a newspaper.
Why go back now, ever? The people are kinder here and, strangely enough, more real. The people up here are more real. I could move up those belongings I want and throw the rest away. Our friends in London have turned sour or too curious. I don’t want to see anyone. Except Colman. I wish I could see Colman. What could I tell him – that his father and I were in love, that it didn’t matter to us, that we didn’t even think about it after a while? I didn’t think about it so how could I have kept it from him if it wasn’t in my mind to keep?
I wash my face with cold water. I am so tired I have become a different person. The way I think is different. I know this; I can remember that I used to have more space inside my head. Now it is crammed full with worries. I flit about from one to the other like a nervous bird. I tell myself not to. If I was going to worry, I should have worried years ago. Perhaps it is me getting older. My grandmother used to worry that she was going to forget what she wanted to say. She’d write down notes and then forget where she put the notes. Sometimes, she’d seize upon the wrong note and end up telling you something that was out of date. I put on a pair of trousers, my cashmere jumper. A cameo brooch. I can at least look presentable to the world. I cannot have it said that Joss Moody’s widow has gone to the dogs. Joss liked to ‘keep me nice’. I put my coat on and go out. I don’t lock the door. I’ve never locked the door here and I’m not starting
now. I will walk for a while until the shops open, along the coast. ‘You’ll take the high road and I’ll take the low road,’ I sing to Joss. He always liked me singing to him even although I can’t sing worth a damn. Already the day is different than it appeared from the window. The wind is bitter and howling. Weather here in this part of the world is just as moody, just as subjective and disloyal, as people.
So strong, the smell of the sea if you haven’t been close to it for a while. I can taste the seaweed and the fish in my mouth. The salt in my hair, on my cheeks. The wind blows behind me, making a balloon of my coat, rushing me along faster than I want to go. The sea isn’t so calm, close up. I can stare right into its heart. The waves leap over each other in a frenzy. Above the waves themselves are the shadows of ghost waves trying to speak. I can see them chasing the real waves, wanting their life back. I have hardly walked along this road alone for years. We always came out for our walks together here. It feels odd walking on my own. The wind could pick me up and carry me out to sea. There is nothing holding me down. I could float. I could fly.
The harbour has stayed the same since I was a girl and came up from England on holidays here with my family. The chippie is the same chippie. The photography shop here that was established in 1886 is still standing – F. Futcher and Son. The Family Butcher, B. Savage, has been here since I was a girl. His son runs the shop now. He’s also called Bruce, like his father. They both have butcher’s red cheeks and hands. There’s a little Italian café
run by the Dalsassos that does the best ice-cream for miles around and sells sweets in those big plastic jars. Sweets that so inhabited my childhood holidays here, it makes me laugh to see that they are still in existence. Soor plooms. Tablet. Sherbet Fountains. Cinnamon balls. Aniseed balls. Lemon bon bons. Coconut mushrooms. Peppermint creams. The Italian café does a good breakfast too. On impulse I go in and sit down. Mrs Dalsasso is pleased to see me. ‘The usual?’ she asks. Scrambled eggs on toast. ‘Where’s Mr Moody this morning?’ she asks. I say, ‘Mr Moody died a few weeks ago.’