Miguel Street by V. S. Naipaul Page B

Eddoes ten cents.
    And if Eddoes had something that nobody wanted to buy, he always went to my uncle Bhakcu, who was ready to buy anything.
    He used to say, ‘You never know when these things could come in handy.’
    Hat began saying, ‘I think all this materials getting on Eddoes mind, you know. It have some men like that.’
    I wasn’t worried until Eddoes came to me one day and said, ‘You ever think of collecting old bus ticket?’
    The idea had never crossed my mind.
    Eddoes said, ‘Look, there’s something for a little boy like you to start with. For every thousand you collect I go give you a penny.’
    I said, ‘Why you want bus ticket?’ He laughed as though I were a fool.
    I didn’t collect any bus tickets, but I noticed a lot of other boys doing so. Eddoes had told them that for every hundred they collected they got a free ride.
    Hat said, ‘Is to start getting worried when he begin collecting pins.’
    But something happened that made Eddoes sober as a judge again.
    He said one day, ‘I in trouble!’
    Hat said, ‘Don’t tell us that is thief you been thiefing all this materials and them?’
    Eddoes shook his head.
    He said, ‘A girl making baby for me.’
    Hat said, ‘You sure is for you?’
    Eddoes said, ‘She say so.’
    It was hard to see why this should get Eddoes so worried.
    Hat said, ‘But don’t be stupid, man. Is the sort of thing that does happen to anybody.’
    But Eddoes refused to be consoled.
    He collected junk in a listless way.
    Then he stopped altogether.
    Hat said, ‘Eddoes behaving as though he invent the idea of making baby.’
    Hat asked again, ‘You sure this baby is for you, and not for nobody else? It have some woman making a living this way, you know.’
    Eddoes said, ‘Is true she have other baby, but I in trouble.’
    Hat said, ‘She is like Laura? ’
    Eddoes said, ‘Nah, Laura does only have one baby for one man. This girl does have two three.’
    Hat said, ‘Look, you mustn’t worry. You don’t know is your baby. Wait and see. Wait and see.’
    Eddoes said sadly, ‘She say if I don’t take the baby she go make me lose my job.’
    We gasped.
    Eddoes said, ‘She know lots of people. She say she go make them take me away from St Clair and put me in Dry River, where the people so damn poor they don’t throw away nothing.’
    I said, ‘You mean you not going to find any materials there?’
    Eddoes nodded, and we understood.
    Hat said, ‘The calypsonian was right, you hear.
Man centipede bad.
Woman centipede more than bad.
    I know the sort of woman. She have a lot of baby, take the baby by the fathers, and get the fathers to pay money. By the time she thirty thirty-five, she getting so much money from so much man, and she ain’t got no baby to look after and no responsibility. I know the thing.’
    Boyee said, ‘Don’t worry, Eddoes. Wait and see if it is your baby. Wait and see.’
    Hat said, ‘Boyee, ain’t you too damn small to be meddling with talk like this?’
    The months dragged by.
    One day Eddoes announced, ‘She drop the baby yesterday.’
    Hat said, ‘Boy or girl?’
    ‘Girl.’
    We felt very sorry for Eddoes.
    Hat asked, ‘You think is yours? ’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘You bringing it home?’
    ‘In about a year or so.’
    ‘Then you ain’t got nothing now to worry about. If is your child, bring she home, man. And you still going round St Clair, getting your materials.’
    Eddoes agreed, but he didn’t look any happier.
    Hat gave the baby a nickname long before she arrived in Miguel Street. He called her Pleasure, and that was how she was called until she became a big girl.
    The baby’s mother brought Pleasure one night, but she didn’t stay long. And Eddoes’s stock rose when we saw how beautiful the mother was. She was a wild, Spanish-looking woman.
    But one glance at Pleasure made us know that she couldn’t be Eddoes’s baby.
    Boyee began whistling the calypso:
‘Chinese children calling me Daddy!
I black like jet,
My wife like