There were other brown-skinned people here, people who looked like students and even one who must have been a professor. Gray hair, corduroy jacket, an air of well-being. Still, she was sure, she would have no trouble spotting Gibbs. He would be taller and darker than most. And he would recognize Covey, she was sure of it, even with her ponytail cut off, even with her curls tucked under a hat, its brim pulled low. She let herself imagine that Gibbs would sense that she was here, that he would have felt her arrival like a current breaking over a reef, that he would be walking straight toward this bench where she sat, her heart hammering under her sweater.
Covey’s arrival in England already seemed years ago, though it had only been the previous autumn. She recalled the dark ribbon of water that had separated her from the ship as she counted down the minutes to her escape from the island. She’d kept glancing over her shoulder as she followed the crowd of passengers up the ramp, but she needn’t have worried. Everyone back home thought she was dead. They would never think to look for her here, on the far side of the island, on a ship that was bound for London and Liverpool.
The British Nationality Act 1948 granted citizens of the Commonwealth free entry into Britain. Covey had just turned eighteen in the fall of 1965 and was traveling under her mother’s surname as a nanny to the children of someone who knew someone who knew Pearl. A family with the means to ensure a smooth transfer for Coventina Brown, despite the newer legislation that was now limiting migration from the islands.
In exchange for passage and forged documents, Covey had promised to work for her employer for at least one year. The family who had taken her on were not aware of the risks involved. They only thought they were helping the young relative of a friend of a friend to gain new opportunities overseas. And they were wealthy enough and light-skinned enough to be spared close questioning by the authorities. But Pearl’s contact in the capital had reminded Covey of the danger of being caught, and of her responsibility to those who had gone out of their way to help her.
“Is not a hundred percent conventional what we doing for you, you know,” Pearl’s contact had said. Covey only knew her as Miss Eunice. She never did learn her full name, only that she was a midwife with a knowledge of traditional remedies who was consulted by women from all over the island on “questions of a female nature.”
Miss Eunice reminded Covey that there were laws against forgery. There were laws against traveling under an assumed identity. There were laws against helping a murder suspect to escape. Trying to find Gibbs, trying to contact Pearl or Bunny, even socializing with the wrong people on the cruise ship, any one of these things could get her into trouble, along with anyone who had tried to help her or who had ever cared for her.
Miss Eunice’s advice was explicit: “You never know who around you could be a blabba mout, right? Don’t forget that you going to a place where the people dem not all black. You a woman from the islands and you need to behave better than dem.”
Covey was to keep her hair and shoes tidy, keep her dresses at the knee or not too far above. She was to stay away from the dance halls and the concerts. She was to stay away from the street demonstrations. There were more and more protests in Britain, these days, by colored people tired of slumlike housing, tired of being hit with police clubs, tired of receiving training and then being turned away from jobs. She should avoid the big market where islanders liked to shop. She was to reduce the chances of running into someone from back home. Be discreet, Miss Eunice said. Keep safe, stay out of trouble.
In other words, Covey thought, be lonely.
But Covey understood. She needed to stay as far away from Little Man’s family as possible. Stay out of sight, let time go by. Eventually, she might be able to resume her studies overseas. Eventually, she might be able to look for Gibbs. On the bad days, on the nights when she couldn’t sleep, Covey thought of all the plans that she and Gibbs had made together. But she couldn’t risk trying to contact him too soon; maybe one day. Maybe not.
Not being able to swim made everything more difficult to bear. Whenever she could, Covey would go out walking and the surprise of her surroundings helped to distract her. She had grown up seeing photographs and news films of London and thought she knew the city, but now she saw that she’d had no idea what it would be like. The traffic, the advertisements, the brick-walled shops. The living mannequins, young women, modeling clothing from inside a window. Office girls walking down the street in short-short skirts, even in winter. The lead-colored river slicing through the heart of it all, the smell of coal almost everywhere.