Dada 54

‘‘It has nothing to do with revenge, ‘ the Dada said. ’ it’s just one of those places life brings you to.’

I could hear his laughter bounce from wall to wall with his stories, more as he became weaker as if he was telling tales against himself and maybe what he should have done.

’ We come out of the Malaya club in Liverpool. We’re going to town for a drink. We’re making jokes, laughing. We we’re going to see our mates in great nelson street. The Chinese bar is there and they play Majong in the upstairs rooms of the restaurants but they don’t mind their darker skinned cousins. They were not in the engine room now.  You could hear them banging down the numbers, drinking and swearing any sunny afternoon in that city. They loved the white girls, especially the Irish. The pub was like the shipping office for the Blue funnel. Two white guys came up.

‘Hey hey  Chinky’  they say to us. We’re smiling, bowing, backing off.

‘They acted with purpose. One hit my friend full on his face. I detained the other. We went into our routine ducking the punches, to dance and feint like we had been taught. I hoped the damage was not extensive. The dusk was seeping up Princes Avenue and seemed a long way from the river. We went back to the club, got cleaned up and went down to see our shipmates. We did not want to draw our knives. They had not hurt us too badly but if we cut them, the police would come and we would be in the jail by the morning. To miss a ship was a serious business back then. We returned to Granby Street. It was like sixth and tenth in San Francisco or Saint Catherine Street in Monteal; they knew us there. Those times stood with me when we addressed  the seamen, all of the seamen of Borneo  but I should have done more’

My letter told the Kalimantan girl to come and see Iskra if she had any feelings for him. The night was pulling away and I saw the moon above the harbour. The sky was clear, a good spell for the fishing. There were no trawlers in the river. They would all be at the quayside by morning; hard work for me at the market tomorrow after the slow greying dawn and Mo’s  wait for me behind the closed shutters.