Paid Servant (28 page)

Do come to see us soon. It's really nice out here, and I'm sure you'll like it. I'll tell Jim when he comes in from work tonight. Do you think he'll be pleased? What about the little boy you spoke of? Hope everything is going fine for him. If you can come soon, send us a card.

Yours very truly,

Marva Bentham

So Mr James Bentham had had the last laugh after all. Mr Man had done his job most manfully. Perhaps, once started, there'd be no stopping him.

About four months later I was in the vicinity where the Tamerlanes lived, and called in. It was about half past three in the afternoon and Ella answered the door, all dressed to go out, but she made me go in for a few minutes' chat. She was on her way to the local Infants' school to fetch Roddy; his school session ended half an hour earlier than the girls, although the Infant and Junior schools were in the same building.

“I go to meet him, then we walk around a bit until the girls come out. That way he can tell me all about what he has been doing; we do have some real nice chats. If you like we can walk down there together.”

The children were just coming out of school when we arrived. Roddy caught sight of Ella and came running to meet her. I was amazed at how much he had grown in those few months. As he reached her she stooped to hug him. Released, he looked shyly at me.

“Don't you remember Uncle Ricky?” Ella asked him.

He offered me a hesitant, pudgy hand, but made no effort to kiss me as he used to. I felt a fleeting hurt at this.

“Hello, Roddy,” I said.

“Hello.”

From the warmth and security of his new world, I was a stranger. One word, and then he turned to Ella and was soon lost in the excitement of recounting the things which, added together, make each day of a child in school a recurrent adventure into discovery.

We strolled around the periphery of the school playground, myself the outsider. “And Mummy … ”, “and Mummy … ” Everything breathlessly told as he tried to shape the words he knew into living, breathing pictures. Soon after four o'clock the girls appeared. This time it was different; they were evidently delighted to see me, and chided me on my long absence. I promised to make it up by coming for tea, soon. Promise. Then I said ‘goodbye' to them.

Looking back, I saw them going in the opposite direction; Ella and Jackie sedately in step, arms linked; June and Roddy holding hands and skipping along beside them. A family. Each one belonging.

E. R. Braithwaite was born in British Guiana (now Guyana) in 1912. Educated at the City College of New York and the University of Cambridge, he served in the Royal Air Force during World War II. Braithwaite spent 1950 to 1960 in London, first as a schoolteacher and then as a welfare worker—experiences he describes in
To Sir, With Love
and
Paid Servant
, respectively. In 1966 he was appointed Guyana's ambassador and permanent representative to the United Nations. He has also held positions at the World Veterans­ Federation and UNESCO, was a professor of English at New York Univer­sity's­ Institute for Afro-American Affairs, and taught creative writing at Howard University. The author of five non­fiction books and two novels, he currently lives in Washington, DC.