A House for Mr. Biswas - V.S. Naipaul [262]
It was a title-tracer who said, ‘If Billy was still here I woulda tell you to go and see Billy. All-you remember Billy?
‘Billy used to promise them that he wasn’t only going to get them a house, but that he was going to move them free into the bargain. Everybody rushing to get this free move – you know black people – and paying Billy deposit. When he pick up a good few deposit Billy decide it was time to put a end to this stupidness and to make tracks for the States.
‘But listen. The day before he leave, Billy plan leak out. But Billy get to know that the plan leak out. So the next day, Billy ship waiting in the harbour, Billy hire a lorry, put on his khaki working-clothes and went around to all the people he take money from. Everybody so surprise they forgetting they vex. All of them telling Billy how they call police and they saying, “But, Billy, we hear that you was leaving today.” And Billy saying, “I don’t know where you get the niggergram from. I not leaving. You leaving. I come to move you. You got everything pack?” None of them had anything pack, and Billy start getting into one big temper, saying how they make him waste his time, and he was mad not to move them at all. And they calm him down by saying if he pass back in the afternoon they would have everything pack and ready to move. So Billy leave and the people pack and wait for Billy. They still waiting.’
The laughter broke, but Mr Biswas could take no part in it. Outside it had grown dark. There was a blue instant of lightning, a crack and roll of thunder. The thought of driving to his area with the windows closed was not appealing. He had drunk many lagers and they had steadily reduced him to silence and stillness. He did not want to go to the country; he did not want to stay in the café. But the rain, which had begun to fall in heavy drops that blotted on the pavement and presently had it wet and running, encouraged him to stay, silent and unlistening on a tall stool, drinking lager, staring at the crude bright murals, surrendering to the gloom.
He felt a hand on his shoulder and turned to see a very tall, thin coloured man. He had occasionally seen this man about St Vincent Street and knew him to be a solicitor’s clerk. In the past year or two they had been nodding to one another but they had never spoken.
‘Is true?’ the man asked.
Mr Biswas noted the man’s size, the concern in his voice and in his young-old face. ‘Yes, man.’
‘You really got notice?’
Mr Biswas responded to this sympathy by pursing his lips, looking down at his glass and nodding.
‘Hell of a thing. How long?’
‘Notice. A month, I suppose.’
‘Hell of a thing. Married? Children?’
‘Four.’
‘God! You try the government? You in the Service now, not so? And ain’t they have some sort of housing loans scheme?’
‘Only for established people.’
‘You can’t get a good place to rent for all the tea in China,’ the man said. He edged his way around Mr Biswas, cutting him off from the talkers, some of whom were beginning to eat, at the bar, at tables. ‘Much easier to buy a house really. In the long run. What you drinking? Lager? Two lagers, miss. A hell of a thing, man.’
The lagers came.
‘I know,’ the man said. ‘I was in the same position not so long ago. I only had my mother. But even that was hell, I could tell you. Is like being sick.’
‘Sick?’
‘When you sick you forget what it is to be well. And when you well you don’t really know what it is to be sick. Is the same with not having a place to go back to every afternoon.’
Lights were turned on in the café. People stood silently in every doorway, looking out at the rain. From the dark street came the hiss of wet tyres and the beat of the rain,