No Woman No Cry Page 11

  And there was something about that night that I found so exciting! The children soon fell asleep, but I couldn’t go to bed. I realized I was too happy! I kept walking around, out to the yard and then back inside, saying to myself, I have a house! A house!

  I don’t remember how late it was when I blew out the last candle still burning and stood in the doorway one more time. Everything I’d gone through that day—with Aunty, Bob, Esther Anderson—it all seemed to have happened not to me but to another person. In the silence I could hear the children breathing behind me and, faintly in the distance, the waves on the shore. All I could think of was that we were finally out of Trench Town, and that I was standing, almost unbelievably, in the doorway of a house of my own. I couldn’t decide which of those two things pleased me the most.

  Next morning Aunty was there by eight. She had taken the three buses! Poor Aunty. She said, “I couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t sleep. How could I sleep without the children? Without you? Look at them! Did you bathe them last night?”

  I said, “Yes Aunty, they bathed, don’t worry.” Of course we hadn’t bathed; by the time we’d arrived and unpacked it was full dark. But after Aunty came that day we went to the beach and bathed there, and the kids were ecstatic. And soon a friend brought barrels of water for us regularly, while my application to the minister for utilities went through. We were the first in the community to have electricity, and it pleased me that we weren’t the last, that our presence there meant that neighbors had it too, because soon the area was full of people moving into the new government houses.

  Eventually everyone got used to the idea of our being there, especially after I began to decorate the house, painting it red, green, and gold, and planting a garden. I was more content than I had been in so long, because I was helping myself, doing what I wanted to do. And, most important of all, I was independent, if not financially, then at least in terms of being on my own.

  For a while I took life easy, going to the beach, jogging every morning, getting fresh fish to eat. I assumed, finally, some of the responsibilities Aunty had always held on to. I focused on the kids, on their schooling and all the other needs of growing children. I felt strong and proud of myself. And I started making demands on Bob. Instead of feeling sorry for him now, I was saying, “I need your help. I’m not doing housework in Jamaica. For anybody! I’m only going to do certain things here in Jamaica. You’re taking the steps you have always wanted to, so remember we are here.”

  But as I’ve said, Bob was very giving, there was never a mean time. I never said “We need” or “I want” and didn’t get. That’s Bob, that’s the way he always was. And then, if we’d had a quarrel, he would come and bring me flowers, fruit, or the chocolate I love. And I would be … “No no, man.” Until things would start to get nice, and you nice, and … then I’d give in, and we’d make love, and then would come the promises.

  Though Bob and I remained married for the rest of his life, Esther Anderson wasn’t the first and wouldn’t be the last woman he was involved with. I guess the way I saw it was that he was not the man for their lives, but their man for a time. I never made friends with any of them; I didn’t have to. Their relationships with Bob were “off the record,” and he kept them away from me for the most part, or I was careful, usually, not to go anywhere I’d meet them. I didn’t see myself chasing after him. I tried to train myself to think of Bob as a good loving brother more so than a real husband, and made my peace with the situation. I asked God for help with the things I couldn’t change. Maybe because there were so many women they grew less and less threatening, even though some had children—the boys born while I was in Delaware were not the last born outside our marriage, and I ended up taking care of many of them.

  The early seventies was a very different time, too. It all had to be for a reason, I thought. Bob remained a loving father and friend. I still respect that, still give him respect on that. Sometimes it hurt—ah, I can’t deny it. But then I’d tell myself, uh-uh, that’s not the eye for you to look through. Look through another eye. Rastafari.

  chapter eight

  I KNOW A PLACE

  BEFORE THE GOVERNMENT stepped in to build the housing scheme at Bull Bay, it had been a very bad gang area. People were afraid to pass there, afraid they’d be blown away. At the end of 1972, when we arrived, the neighborhood was peaceful but the look of the place was just beginning to change. Like Trench Town, most of its houses had been built from anything available on any land that seemed available, and you didn’t see too many concrete government houses like mine. All around was bush—just bush, a few farms, the beautiful blue water, and the beach (which I love).

  As soon as we got settled, I enrolled Sharon, Cedella, and Ziggy at Bull Bay All Age Elementary. Stephen was still a toddler. After school they had the Windsor Lodge Community Center, with a park where they could play football with the other children in the neighborhood. Every once in a while, walking them to school in the morning, I felt as if I were dreaming. And although I had sad moments as well as happy ones, I still feel that this is where my life, my own independent life, started.

  But I realized I couldn’t be fully independent until I learned to drive. I had been trying—maybe I should say I’d been dreaming of driving, but it wasn’t until I got to Bull Bay that driving became a real necessity. I wasn’t going to pay three bus fares to get to and from Kingston! Time you have to wait on the bus to get home, which took two hours, and then to cook dinner for the kids, oh … no way. So I got busy on that immediately.

  Back when we were still in Trench Town, we’d had one of those big sixties station wagons that Bob got for very cheap. I was eager to learn to drive but, like many husbands I hear about, he wasn’t patient enough to teach me, so I took driving lessons when we could afford them, which wasn’t often. One day Bob parked the station wagon at the gate and I decided that I was going to show him that I could drive. I got in, put the emergency down, got the car into gear, and drove down to the bottom of the road. When it was time to turn around, though, I wasn’t able to find reverse. People gathered around, watching me fight with the gear stick and making suggestions. I sent someone to call Bob, and he sent someone to say he wasn’t coming, I should find a way to come back. Eventually a guy we knew named Reggie, a guitarist with the Upsetters, arrived and said he’d find reverse for me, which he did, and then drove me back up to the house. I decided after that episode that I wasn’t going to be embarrassed again.

  When we moved to Bull Bay, Reggie began coming out to give me lessons. Afterward, he’d take me into Kingston to do my errands or up to Hope Road. One day he was driving me, in the little Morris Minor we had then, and he wasn’t paying attention to the road and almost hit someone. I got angry, and said, “Why don’t you drive properly? Look where you’re going, man!!!”

  I suppose he didn’t like my attitude, because he said, “Why don’t you drive yourself?!!!”

  I said, “One day I will! You’ll see!”

  We could have left it at that, but I guess he wanted a fight, because he said, “If you don’t like my driving, why don’t you let Bob drive you?”

  “Don’t call my husband’s name into this!!” I shouted.

  But Reggie wouldn’t quit. “Why don’t you let Bob teach you to drive?” he said.

  That was it for me! I said, “Get out of my car!” And I boxed him, bow!

  He jumped out of the car, and I imagine he was thinking, oh yes, let’s see how far she thinks she can drive.

  But I got behind that steering wheel and left him standing in the road and drove myself slowly into Kingston. And it was funny to see the look on Bob’s face as he watched me navigate the circular driveway at Hope Road. He seemed happy but was so surprised all he could say was, “Hey, you’re driving!” Then he realized who was missing and said, “But what did you do with Reggie?”

  After that I got a license, everything that was necessary. And oh, I felt as if I’d taken another step forward. Still, I hardly ever felt
like going anywhere far. I rarely went out, except to shop or to show up at Hope Road or take the kids for a drive. Then one day I discovered lice in Ziggy’s hair—he’d caught them from someone in the local school. So I took all the kids out of there and enrolled them elsewhere, which meant I had to drive them to school every morning.

  For me this was a learning time. Bob was still coming and going when he felt like, which was cool with me. I was learning to live not only by myself with the kids, but without a full-time man—and not so much physically as emotionally. I even realized that, ah, well, I might even have to take up a divorce one day soon, considering how we were now living. It felt so strange to me, sometimes I found myself wondering, “What kind of arrangement is this?” I had to keep reminding myself that I’d been told that part of the situation came with success, and that this success had provided our house and other advantages—the food we ate, for one very important thing (I never forgot to give thanks that we’d stopped being hungry). And then there were the rooms I was planning to add to the main structure, and the garden … I had to be more patient, I decided, and better able to cope in order to maintain my mentality, so that whatever else was happening wouldn’t drive me crazy. I couldn’t do that, I had to keep a cool head so that I could raise my family. They were my focus now. And on good days, thinking about Bob, I’d say to myself, oh, let all those women turn him on, I’m just gonna love my children, love myself, and see what comes out of it.

  And—I guess this is most important—I still felt like Rita. I never gave up on me fully, never forgot me and absorbed everything. I was always able to reserve Rita, because this is how I’d started out, being called “blackie tootus” and being forced to say I’m gonna be somebody. So I was not giving anyone the privilege to totally destroy Rita. Rita meant something, Rita came for a purpose. Rita had a life to live.

  There was a period soon after I moved to Bull Bay when Bob stayed away for almost two full months and we didn’t know where he was. I heard he was in England, I heard he was in Negril. During that time Esther Anderson was touring with the Wailers, but that may have been the end of their relationship. (A couple of years ago she came to Jamaica to say she and Bob had built a house in Negril. With her money, she said. I don’t know if she thought I was going to claim it now, but I want nothing to do with it!) But back then she was with Bob for a while, and we couldn’t find him, until one day he turned up at the house in Bull Bay.

  I was surprised and definitely unprepared when I heard his car coming up the road. I went out to the yard and there he was. I couldn’t even think of anything to say so I just said, “Where were you?”

  And he said, “I don’t know!”

  I’d been alone with the kids much of the time when Bob went off into his “I don’t know” program. There were many lonely days and nights. Of course, Aunty came regularly if I needed to go somewhere and couldn’t take Stephen, and sometimes she’d stay overnight if it got late. Friends helped out with the heavy stuff, like bringing water from the main community pipe. I needed a lot of water, because I was determined to plant a garden. The soil in the yard was poor, largely sandy soil from the seabed. People told me, “Ah you’re crazy, you can’t plant there.” But I said, “Wait, I’m gonna show you.” And the expression on their faces when they saw my collards, my spinach, my papayas!

  In later years, when I was touring, I’d bring all kinds of things home. Each time I’d go somewhere I couldn’t wait to return because I’d be carrying this or that to my home to do this, do that. It had room for improvement! I built a veranda, and a wall around the property, and planted a lawn for the kids, where they’d play gunfight, or dollhouse, or school (with Sharon as teacher), or something that involved tree climbing—it seemed as if they were always doing something. And Aunty would teach them songs just as she had taught me. Just to see them thriving in the clear air and space—at last out of that one little room in Trench Town—was enough to convince me that coming to Bull Bay had been the right move. I still give thanks to Gabby for it.

  Windsor Lodge was real homey, and I think of it that way even now, I guess because it was my first home and has a lot of sentiment to it. Which is why I can’t give it up—recently I called my lawyer to ask, “Where is the title to Windsor Lodge?” He called me back and said, “It’s here, Mrs. Marley, you have the title, you still own that property.” It’s such a nice place and sometimes I think I should refurbish it—even the mango tree is still there and bearing. In any case, I can’t let it go. My kids are fond of it too; it holds a lot of memories for all of us. After they grew up and started to earn money, Ziggy and Steve built an adjoining place on the property where they still come to relax. “Oh Mommy,” they tell me, “out there it’s so nice, that’s where we go when we want to meditate on something.” So when people say to me, why don’t you just sell it, get rid of it, you don’t need it, I say no, no, no. This was my beginning—how could you want to sell your beginning?

  When Bob wasn’t on the road he’d come out to Bull Bay to see the kids, even though our own relationship was almost at the point where I’d become just “Rita the friend” or “Rita the sister.” Sometimes he’d bring other women, like the American Yvette Anderson, whom he wanted me to help with some publishing thing. A lot of our friends shrugged off his behavior, saying “This is what happens.” Others just couldn’t understand why it was happening and really disapproved. But the fact that other people sympathized with me didn’t change how I decided to deal with it—which was that I saw it and wasn’t going to fight it. Because, despite everything—all the rumors as well as what I could see with my own eyes—most of the women still came with an explanation: “This one is happening because she does my pictures,” or “Island sent her to do this or that,” or “Yvette Anderson is here because she’s an American, she can have my publishing work done properly.” So there was always a reason for each of them—especially when they came to Jamaica to stay with him at Hope Road while the children and I were living in Bull Bay, in what we spoke of as “the family house.”

  After the two-month Esther Anderson program, he never stayed away too long. Sometimes, especially when he’d come back from a tour, he’d come alone, or he would bring some of his friends, telling them, “Come let me show you my house!” Because that was still “coming home” for him. Often his line was that nothing was happening at Hope Road, “them just living and having fun, plenty rehearsal and music business so/so,” but “nobody thinking about planting,” and “oh, you come to this garden, man, you don’t want to leave!”

  And because there were times that he really didn’t want to leave, I had a basement room dug behind the kitchen, which we used as a studio. We put in a little tape recorder, and when it got hot he would come and sit down there. Because to us it would not be a life without music. At night after the kids had gone to bed and we’d finished cleaning up the kitchen, after all was quiet, we’d go down there—sometimes to make out, of course, because that was our little nest—but more often just to rehearse and compose. And it was a daytime thing too—we spent pretty nice Sundays right there with the kids. The house was always full, because I usually had other children coming for care and attention. Neighborhood kids would drop by—“Mrs. Marley home?”—as well as Bob’s friends. But this was our domain. In some small way having it kept me more involved in the music, in what I loved.

  Bob had a little Capri then, and if the kids were out in the yard playing and heard the car coming and recognized its distinctive sound, they’d start yelling, “Daddy’s coming, Daddy’s coming!” Because whatever was going on between the two of us, he always loved his kids and paid as much attention to them as he could—running around the house in a Frankenstein mask and trying to scare everyone, Cedella remembers. Even today she says he was the softy and I was the disciplinarian—that when he saw any of the children upset, “we knew we were going to the ice-cream parlor!” And he was very ambitious for all of them, always willing to provide school fees or uniform money and
advising them to continue their education. Occasionally he took them to school himself, which was a big deal for them—“That’s my Daddy!”

  But music was our food. It had always been our entertainment, our pleasure. And when you find out early enough that your kids are extraordinarily talented and are following in your footsteps, there is certainly no way you’re not going to encourage them. So we had our little “events” in the cellar. We’d say, “Okay, this is the Marley Show! Audition time now! Come do what you can!” We trained them, not professionally or purposely, but because this is how I remembered learning how to sing, the way Dream and I had always amused ourselves, learning songs and harmony from Papa and Aunty and Uncle Cleveland back in Trench Town. And now we had our little audition area—where “Tomorrow we’re going to have concert now! Showtime!” Everybody would start getting their little thing together, their act—“And this is what I’m gonna do for Mommy, and this is what I’m gonna do for Daddy!” It was fun, fun, fun!

  With Bob so often absent, daily life was more difficult, although I didn’t lack friends who would check on us. Besides Gabby, who had been so helpful in finding the house for me and was now my neighbor in Bull Bay, I had another good friend, Owen Stewart, a Jamaican soccer star known familiarly as Tacky.

  Because he knew I was married, Tacky wasn’t into our friendship for sex or having a girlfriend (although eventually we did develop a relationship). But he was one of those who felt sympathetic toward me because of the way Bob was treating me. In fact, he had occasion to witness the different women Bob sometimes brought to the house, and he was there to ask why. As for Bob, even before Tacky and I became involved, when he just thought we had a relationship, he became irrationally possessive.

  Once he saw Tacky with me and wanted to fight! He had just come back from one of his tours, and I guess his friends told him that Rita could be very close with Tacky. He came by the house one morning and the kids told him that Tacky and I had gone to the river for water—the government took its time about laying the pipes. When Bob showed up there (as usual with a girl in the car), he left the girl and came down to the riverbank, yelling, “Hey, Tacky, you’re seeing my woman! And blah blah blah …” And carried on like a wild man!