Gladys was leaning up against the front entrance, toffee-brown face flushed maroon from the heat and the exertion of forging iron.
Tan-Tan had always wondered what Michael saw in Gladys’s fat, round body, sturdy as a mother hen. How did Gladys even see over her own chest and belly to work on the anvil?
Gladys pulled off the scarf from her hair and used it to wipe her face. “I sure plenty of man already been teaching she how knife could jook.” She smirked at Tan-Tan. “How do, sweetheart?”
Bad Tan-Tan was snarling silently. None of Gladys’s blasted business. Tan-Tan skinned her teeth in a fine-fine smile. “Doing good, thank you, Gladys.”
“And your father? How things with the ex-mayor?” Gladys was from Cockpit County. She had been right there in the fight yard when Antonio had poisoned Quashee. She never had a good word for Antonio. Is jealousy fuelled by hard liquor that had brought Gladys to New Half-Way Tree. She’d broken a next woman’s back in a fight over Michael. She and Antonio were alike in that, oui. Maybe that’s why she hated him so. Gladys still had a taste for the bottle. Sometimes when she went on a drunk, Michael had to lock her in the shed and make her sleep off her rage.
“Daddy all right. Arthritis bothering he a little.”
“Too bad,” Gladys replied, looking as regretful as the mongoose that eat the last guinea fowl in the pen. “Anyhow, don’t make we keep you, Tan-Tan. I sure you have plenty to do to get ready for your birthday. Michael, time for we to take a break. My foot-them dusty. I want you to wash them for me. You know only you could do it nice the way I does like it.” She turned and walked into the bungalow that she and Michael had beside the iron shop.
“Yes, doux-doux.” Quick like fowl when it see corn athrow, Michael followed Gladys into the house. As the door closed behind them, Tan-Tan heard Gladys’s rich, throaty laugh, heavy with hard living and hard loving. Tan-Tan cut her eyes at the closed door. Then she crept to the door of the iron shop and quietly tried it. Still locked.
The sheath could be tied round her waist. She knotted it securely, tucked the chamois into her bodice and headed for home. At the turnoff that led to their house she spied their neighbour Cudjoe, the bad carpenter, hoeing up dasheen in his front yard. He was clumsy with the hoe, still accustoming his body to the linear tasks that ate up every waking hour on New Half-Way Tree. He was cursing and working with equal determination. He’d taken off his shirt, leaving only a pair of work pants covering him. Sweat had put a sheen on his black skin. Muscles in his back flexed with each turn of the hoe. Like even bad carpenter can get good body, oui?
Cudjoe saw her. He waved. Tan-Tan waved back; looked down at her feet as though from shyness; looked back at him again, smiling sweetly. Worked smooth like cool breeze. Cudjoe let the hoe fall and came over. He’d failed the first test.
Tan-Tan made shift to toy with a curl of her hair. She was proud of her waist-long plaits. Every morning she undid them and washed her hair good with a soapy piece of cactus plant. Then she oiled it with some shine oil from Chichibud’s cart and plaited it up again.
“Good afternoon, Cudjoe. Like you working hard?”
“Yes, Tan-Tan, but then I see your beautiful self out catching the sun, and I come was to tell you that when I could see such a sight, all hard work get easy.”
An edgy excitement warmed her, shot through with pique. Easy fish. Rise to the hook. “Not all hard work, I hope, Cudjoe.”
Cudjoe quirked his lips into a small smile, stared provocatively into her eyes. “So,” he said, “I hear allyou having big fête and thing tomorrow.”
“Yes, my sixteenth birthday party. You coming?”
“I bet your boyfriend go bring you something real pretty.”
Tan-Tan giggled and gave Cudjoe a delicate tap on his shoulder; a slap light like a kiss. “Get away! You too fast! Where you hear I have any boyfriend?”
“What, nobody to dance with you on your sixteenth birthday? Now, that is a crying shame.”
He kept looking deep into her eyes. She met his glance full on and said, “You go come and dance with me then, Cudjoe?”
“What you going give me for a dance?” he asked playfully.
“Let we go for a short walk round the back and I give you little taste.” She took his hand, led him to the back of his hut where passers-by couldn’t see them. He hesitated, waiting to see what she would do. She put the front of her body up against his, put an arm round his waist. She could smell the man-sweat off him, the complicated scent that she loved and hated at the same time. “Kiss me then, nuh?” He put his mouth to hers. She sucked on his tongue. The silent, wicked Tan-Tan urged her on.
She heard Janisette shouting before she even self reached the house.
“You blasted motherass piece of shit! Get out here right now and face me, Antonio! Is where the dry fruits I been soaking in liquor for Tan-Tan cake? Eh? You mookoomslav! Don’t tell me booze have you so bassourdie, you drink it out from the soaking fruits and all? Get out here, I say!”
Antonio raged back, “Woman, don’t bother my ass with your stupidness. I been here sick in my bed all day. I ain’t see no fruits in liquor.”
“You liard son of a bitch!”
Tan-Tan ran inside the house, slamming the door as she entered. Sometimes if she did that, Janisette and Antonio would stop fighting and yell at her instead. It didn’t work this time, though. Tan-Tan heard the sharp wap! of a wooden pot spoon connecting with somebody’s flesh. She knew that sound too well. Is who throw the first blow this time? She flew inside the kitchen and grabbed the pot spoon out of Janisette’s hand, just as her stepmother was about to slap it against Antonio’s shoulder again.
“Janisette, stop! Daddy say he sick!”
Janisette turned and shoved Tan-Tan in her chest. Tan-Tan stumbled back against the kitchen wall. “Is only alcohol sick he! Why the rass you fasting yourself in my business? Is your birthday cake I trying to make, you know!”
Antonio flew at Janisette and threw his open hand across her face, crack!
“What you think this is, Janisette, laying a hand on my daughter? Eh?” He cuffed her in the belly. Janisette dropped to the ground, retching. Then she leapt to her feet again and flew at Antonio, screaming and kicking. He tried to trap her hands in his fists, shouted bitch and leggobeast at her.
“Daddy! Janisette!” They ignored her. “Oonuh have to stop, or somebody go send for the sheriff!”
Now Antonio had Janisette’s hair. Her head was twisted at an uncomfortable angle. She was clawing at his crotch. Tan-Tan forced herself in between them. She could smell the heavy sweet staleness on Antonio’s breath. “The sheriff coming!” she hissed desperately.
Antonio let Janisette go and stumbled back towards the bedroom. Janisette crumpled to the ground and lay there, gasping and holding her belly. Tan-Tan crouched down beside her.
“You all right, Janisette?”
She never saw the lash that creased her face.
“Facety girl-child!” Janisette hissed. “How you mean, ‘You all right?’” After you just done take your daddy side against me, like always? You two-face, force-ripe bitch, you no better than he, with your sluttish self! I bet you if I make One-Eye know how you does carry on with half the men in Junjuh, him would have plenty to say about that!”
Tan-Tan’s cheeks burned, from the slap, from shame. You no better than your daddy. She stood and looked down at Janisette. She fingered her mother’s wedding ring hanging from the chain round her neck, the one Antonio had given her for her ninth birthday. She had earned that ring. The words burned her lips. She spat them at her stepmother: “Talk all you like, Janisette. Both of we know is which one Antonio really love.”