A Short Story
Dolly (Part Two)
By Kwadjo Attakora Baah
I was on the doorstep of 23 Craven Park Road barely an hour after this discovery.
"The bell is to be pressed just once please," thundered the man who answered my call. He was over 7 feet tall. I pressed the bell for a second time when there appeared to be no life in the house when I first did that.
"I'm sorry sir, for inconveniencing you," I said ruefully.
"What do you want?" he asked me with his nose turned up. His tone startled me.
That was a reaction I never expected from a white man.
"Dolly," I stuttered.
"Dolly?"
"Yes please," I answered sheepishly.
"What do you want her for? Who are you? What is your name? Where do you come from?" came the quick succession of questions from the man who towered over my smallish masculine figure.
The man was in fact not interested in my answers. He banged the door and left even before I finished my first sentence. I stood there dumbfounded contemplating on what to do next. I heard shrieks of laughter in the house. A voice from upstairs sounded like that of Dolly's.
"Will you leave the house, man?" said a man gruffly from a window upstairs. That was the 7-foot man, now wearing a very furious look and a pitch-black shirt. The laughter in the house grew louder, discomforting me the more.
I had no option but to leave. A heavy downpour of shame, grief and disappointment mercilessly descended on my entire being. It took some days before getting over that shock completely.
The winter that year was very cold with day temperatures getting below zero degrees centigrade. I defied the danger of walking on the solid field of snow carpeting the pavements and went parading Craven Park Road every day after the incident, with the hope of being blessed with the sight of Dolly.
The idea of going back to 23 Craven Park Road floated into my mind. "This will be sheer foolhardiness,' I thought, dismissing that notion.
I found myself drifting towards that house. I raised my hand to press the door bell but stopped when I discovered that the door was left opened. I therefore hesitantly though, pushed the door open and was greeted by a huge, ugly and fearful-looking guard dog with a deep doom-laden growl.
My heart leaped straight into my mouth.
I instinctively jumped backwards, tumbled over a full dustbin and landed on my back. The all-merciful dog stood by watching and from the house came roars of laughter. It was a planned welcome. They must have seen me from a distance and knew where I was heading to and decided to set that trap. The scars of that mighty fall remained, I would recount the story later.
I hated the queues at Sainsburys on Friday evenings. I therefore did my shopping on Thursdays. I had just stepped out of the shop on one such Thursday evening when I saw Dolly.
"Are my myopic eyes deceiving me?" I soliloquized. No, they weren't. I felt like jumping to the skies. I moved closer. She made me out and smiled. I reciprocated with a broader smile. I nearly shouted "Dolly" but there appeared before me a strutting 7-foot man. He was apparently with Dolly when he popped into a shop for a drink. I honourably turned towards the other direction and continued my trip to nowhere.
The long hated winter had reluctantly otherwise. given way to the much more welcomed Spring and Autumn. It had in fact, infiltrated these with its characteristic cold biting winds. Summer that year had also not been spared that damaging influence.
On that cold summer evening, I went strolling along the High Road near Stamford Hill as usual, with the hope of meeting Dolly. Miracles have since the biblical days ceased to happen but on that Monday evening in these sinful days it did happen. A few metres before me was Dolly. She was walking briskly towards her home alone.
"Is that you Dolly?"
"Why do you ask that?" she asked in a not too cheerful mood.
"I've been hunting for you, Dolly."
"Hunting for me? What do you mean?" she retorted.
"Sorry if I've upset you," I said regrettably.
She turned and walked off. It was then I felt that it was cold that evening. I chased her up but she would not even look at me. I gave up when she neared her home.
"Why should this happen to me on a Monday?" I asked myself.
She was in a better mood when I met her the following day at the same place. I had the privilege of walking with her till we got to where she would branch to her home. Her smiles that day were however not with expected radiance.
"I'm a student of Tottenham College on summer holidays," she had told me. She was working at Tip Top fashions for the holidays.
I was for two weeks always going to meet here at 6.00pm when she closed from work and I walked some distance with her. I felt my whole being elevated and decorated during such times.
We got closer but I never made any amorous approaches. My heart had always started it but my lips had on each occasion failed me miserably.
I woke one morning and found myself on a bed in a large room with half a dozen other beds and with a bandaged arm and a plastered forehead.
Next to my bed on the right was a groaning old man fighting for his life. On my immediate left was a completely covered figure on a bed with a nurse keeping watch. That was a man who had just passed away. A doctor had been called. He had to order the removal of the body to the mortuary. I was frightened right to the marrow. I was in fact on a hospital bed, the first time in my life.
What came to my mind was to jump out of the window and escape but the pain on my forehead was so intense I had to think.
"How do you feel, my friend?" asked Dr Smith.
"I'm frightened, Doc. Why am I here?" He only smiled and went on with his work. He had a thorough examination of my wounds and scribbled something on a card chained to my bed..
"Sister Sharon will be with you in a minute," he said and left me to attend to other patients.
A short smallish white-dressed Indian woman with a cheerful disposition was with me some minutes later.
"I'm Sharon. Can I help you?" she asked, leaning herself against a locker beside my bed.
"Yes please. I'm at a loss. What happened to me and who brought me into the midst of these dying people?"
"Dying people? Not really," she answered with a serene smile.
"Your people just carried a corpse from this bed and on that one a man is ready to die." The Sister's reaction was a roaring laughter but I was serious.
"You'll be all right, my friend," she said, smothering the laughter. She enlightened me on what happened necessitation my being rushed to the hospital in an ambulance. "You were brought down here two days back."
"Two days back?"
"Yes, and in an unconscious state. You would have been a dead man by now if a good Samaritan had not seen you lying in a pool of blood and had not called an ambulance."
"A dead man, do you mean it?" My response was again a source of entertainment to Sister Sharon. She couldn't keep back the snort of laughter.
"I'm serious Sister," I said with a firm face.
The police were informed and investi- gations revealed my being beaten up and knived by a mob of young white men on that warm summer night when I went strolling on Craven Park Road. The culprits were never caught. I was surprised at the ignorance of the ubiquitous, iron-faced and deceptively gentle British policeman on so serious a case of assault on a popular London street.
Dolly was now on very good terms with me. I was too glad to grant any request from her. She had responded favourably to her visiting me.
"Is my secret wish to marry a white lady materialising?" I asked myself delightedly.
"Dolly is just the right woman for me. Tall, slim and cheerful." I said again to myself and then burst into a loud laughter.
The visit was to be at 7.00pm on Saturday 24th August. My large £30 a week bedsit needed a complete face-lift for the great day, all books and papers were arranged neatly on the shelf. I bought a new bedspread, hid my rickety old radio and replaced it with a borrowed £750 compact and complex JVC radio cassette player. The room had to be decorated with a video. I borrowed that too.
I was all smiles all day on that great day. All the decorations were over by 4.00pm. I took my bath and got dressed in my new shirt specially bought for that day. Like an idle cat, I got to the window by the street and perched there patiently and noiselessly with my eyes surveying all the goings-on outside and my ears firmly hinged to the door.
At exactly 7.00pm, the door bell rang and as if I had been stung by a scorpion, I sprang to my feet with a start and like a dog un- certain of whether it heard someone mention bones, I jerked my ears to the front door to find out who that angelic female voice belonged to. That was the voice of a girlfriend of John, a co-tenant.
Dolly never turned up. "What must have happened to her," I mused. My disappoint- ment that night was grave. I just couldn't imagine how I was going to live through the rest of the night. I gave up all possibilities of her coming when it was 11 o'clock.
I got out into the cold night and strolled slowly and thoughtfully but to nowhere. I broke the smooth calculated strides with occasional halts right in the middle of the road and gazed at the empty heavens.
My heart had been dampened and darkened like the dark skies. That I was wrong. The skies hadn't much in common with me for it was at least gemmed with bright stars.
I saw passers-by, men, women and children alike, halt in order to decide whether or not it was safe to come nearer me.
"It has just started," came a comment from one of the fear-gripped passers-by. "That's what hashish can do," said another.
The following day was a Friday and I couldn't afford not to meet her on her way back from work for that would mean my having to wait till Monday. It was then I remembered her having told me she would be going back to college on that Monday.
I ran faster than I had ever done when I discovered it was 5.45pm and I was nowhere near the rendezvous.
Across the street came a voice. "Hey you, black monkey, leave her alone or next time you'll be picked up straight to your grave and not to the hospital, right."
I stopped briefly and then continued the race. I had to win Dolly completely over even at the expense of my life. She had branched to her home when I saw her.
"Dolly, Dolly..." I shouted at the top of my voice. All around turned to see who that bush black man was. It was impossible to see her that evening.
I was on my cold bed that night when the meaning of those words became clear to me and the day rang clearly in my mind.
I asked Betty, a Ghanaian girl born in London and with the British accent to ring Dolly up while I stood by. I had done so earlier but the receiver had been banged down soon after my heavy African accent had betrayed me.
"Dolly left for Delhi yesterday with her fiance," said the male voice that answered the call.
"When is she coming back?" she inquired.
"She is gone for good. Dolly is getting married to this man in India and they will settle there."
These words hit me so hard I felt I was being punched with strong physical blows.
The voice was that of the 7-foot man, who I learnt was Dolly's brother.
"For good?" I shouted into the receiver, but he was gone.
