City of Spades Read Free Page B

Arthur, then?’ I said, trying to act as if I felt delighted. ‘Well! Can’t I meet him?’
    ‘No!’
    ‘Oh, no!’
    ‘No! You certainly can not.’
    At this very moment, there glided up beside her a little Jumble girl, quite pretty, seventeen or so I’d say, who I noticed had a glove on one hand only.
    ‘Don’t shout, Mother,’ she said. ‘You’d better ask him in.’
    ‘Oh, very well,’ this Mrs Macpherson said, coming over all weary and looking even ten years older.
    Their room was quite tidy, with assorted furniture, but poor. I do hate poor rooms.
    ‘I suppose I’d better go and make some tea,’ the old lady told us both.
    (These Jumbles and their tea in every crisis!)
    The little girl held out her hand – the hand that didn’t wear the glove. ‘I’m Muriel,’ she said. ‘I’m Arthur’s sister, and Mum’s second daughter.’
    ‘But Miss Muriel,’ I said to her, ‘I can guess by your skin’s complexion that you’re not Arthur’s true sister.’
    ‘I’m his half-sister, Mr Fortune. Me and my sister Dorothy are Macphersons, Mum’s proper children after she got married.’
    ‘And your father?’
    ‘Dad’s dead. They caught him in the war.’
    ‘I’m sorry …’
    ‘Arthur, you see …’ (she looked modest as she spoke, though I wasn’t sure if it was felt or acted) ‘… Arthur was Mum’s mistake before she met our dad.’
    ‘And Arthur: where is he?’
    ‘In jail.’
    ‘Ah!’
    ‘He’s always in and out of jail.’
    ‘Oh. For what?’
    ‘Thieving and suchlike.’
    She stood and fiddled with the table-cloth frillings, then said to me: ‘And didn’t your father know about Arthur, and all the trouble Mum’s had with him for more than twenty years?’
    ‘I’m sure he didn’t.’
    But I began to wonder.
    After a polite and careful pause, I said, ‘Then Muriel, you and me are almost relatives, I’d say. We’re half-half-brother and sister, or something of that kind.’
    She laughed at this. ‘We’re not real relations, Johnny. But Arthur is a link between us, I suppose …’ Then she looked up at me and said, ‘But do be careful what you say to Mother. She hates all coloured people now.’
    ‘On account of my dad and Arthur?’
    ‘Not only that. There’s Dorothy – my elder sister, Dorothy.’
    ‘Yes?’
    ‘She lives with a coloured boy. He’s taken her away.’
    ‘To marry?’
    ‘No … He’s a Gambian.’
    ‘Oh, those Gambians! Nigerians, of course, are friendly folks, and Gold Coast boys respectable often, too. But Gambians! Don’t judge us, please, by them …’
    ‘This one’s a devil, anyway,’ she told me. ‘Billy Whispers is his name, and he’s bad, bad, a thoroughly bad man.’
    And now the old lady she came shuffling back. It was clear that she’d been thinking, and maybe refreshing herself a bit as well.
    ‘Is your dad rich?’ she said at once.
    ‘He’s reasonably loaded.’
    ‘In business now?’
    ‘Export and import – he has his ups and downs.’
    She stood right in front of me, nose to chest.
    ‘Well, in return for his greetings , will you ask him please to make me some small return for his running away and leaving me to rear his son?’
    ‘I could write to him, Mrs Macpherson …’
    ‘Can you imagine what it was to rear a coloured childin London twenty years ago? Can you imagine what it’s like for an English girl to marry when she’s got’ (I saw it coming) ‘a bastard nigger child?’
    I made no reply whatever.
    ‘Mother!’ cried Muriel. ‘That’s no way to talk.’
    ‘He’d best know what I think! I could have done better than your father, Muriel, if it hadn’t been for that.’
    ‘Mother!’
    ‘And your sister Dorothy’s going the same way.’
    ‘Oh, Mother!’
    ‘I was a pretty girl when I was young … I could have been rich and happy …’
    And here – as I could see must happen – the lady broke down into her tears. I understood the way she felt, indeed I did, yet why do these women always blame