We did not bring the goat. Mabel declined. She was last seen eating the corner of Steven's notebook, with an expression of serene indifference, and when Steven tried to retrieve it she gave him a look so full of ancient disdain that he handed over the rest.
But everything else, I am glad to say, went exactly as I had asked.
It was my uncle's idea to do it at Seller's.
"She owes him an apology," he said, in the dining hall, as the lamps burned low. "And I think the entire road owes him a supper. Is there a place that can seat forty?"
"Seller has benches for sixty," said Jesse, who knows these things.
"And is she a person who might, in the right circumstances, be persuaded to cook through the night?"
"She's a person," said Danny, from the floor, "who would cook through an earthquake if there was money in it."
"Then it is settled."
It was not settled at all. It took three hours, a great deal of telephoning, and two trips by Steven in a hired van. But at nine o'clock that night, in the cool, windy dark, under a blue tarpaulin hung with lanterns, I sat down at the head of a long wooden table and looked along it, and I thought, with a kind of dazed disbelief:
I think I have a party.
* * *
You should have seen it.
There were so many people. My family was there, all five of us, with Steven squeezed in beside Derrick and looking much happier than before. Danny's parents had come, and his two grandmothers, and his small cousin with the football, who turned out to be named Kwame and eat like a soldier. Mrs. Johnson had come, in a good blue dress, with her spectacles on their chain. Mr. Attah had come, in his tie, carrying a tiny parcel of ginger biscuits as a present. Even Mrs. Anani had come, in a hat, and had been given a seat of honour, and was quietly working through a bowl of pepper soup like a woman rediscovering joy.
And in the middle of it all, in a clean apron, her hair tied up in a bright cloth, stood Seller.
I will not pretend I was not curious about her. I watched her carefully as she carried the first pot to the table. She moved the way she always did, quickly, with that large, quick, firm stride. But her face was different. It was pale. Her mouth was pressed tight.
She set the pot down in front of me.
She did not say anything. She only stood there, very straight, with her hands clasped in front of her apron.
"Seller?" I said.
"JJ." Her voice was low. "Might I speak to you? In front of everyone?"
The talk along the table died away.
I put down my spoon. I nodded.
"I have been running this stall for twenty years," said Seller. She did not raise her voice. She did not need to. The whole table was listening. "In that time I've fed policemen, and priests, and one very rude bishop. I have fed people who could pay, and people who couldn't. I have learned a great deal. And I have learned, from long experience, that you do not turn away a hungry person because you are busy."
She took a breath.
"Yesterday I did a thing I'm ashamed of. A boy washed my dishes for two years. He did it well. He never asked for more than a plate. He was the best worker I ever had, and I never once said thank you. And when he came to me yesterday for what I owed him, I told him to go and find his supper somewhere else." Her voice cracked. "In front of thirty people. I will think about that until I die."
I did not know what to say.
"I'm sorry, JJ," said Seller. "I'm sorry I made you small. I'm sorry nobody gave you a plate. It should have been me."
She did not weep. She was not the type. But I saw her chin shake, very slightly, and her hands twist together, and a single bright tear slide down one cheek and fall onto the apron.
I stood up.
"Seller," I said. "May I tell you something?"
"Anything."
"The dishes were the best part of my day."
She stared.
"I mean it. It was the only place I could go where nobody called me names. And you let me stay. You gave me the plate, when you had it. I always thought, at least she lets me in." I took a breath. "You didn't have to. A lot of people didn't."
"JJ—"
"So I'm not angry," I said. "I was, for about an hour. But I've thought about it, and I'm not. I think we're even."
For a moment she did not move. Then she made a small, strangled noise, and she threw both arms round me, and picked me up off the ground, and swung me round like a sack of rice.
"You terrible boy!" she said, sobbing into my shoulder. "You're too nice! It isn't natural!"
"Put me down, Seller, I'm going to be sick."
"You're coming to work for me properly," she said, setting me back on my feet and wiping her face with the corner of her apron. "Every Saturday. Paid. Fifty dollars a week. And a plate. A full plate. And a stool, and a raise every year."
"That's too much."
"It's not enough. Don't argue."
"I think it's too much," I said, "but I'll take the plate."
"The plate," said Seller. "Of course. The plate!" She laughed, wetly, and pushed the pot toward me. "Eat."
* * *
I ate.
I ate rice, and stew, and fried plantain, and a whole piece of fish with the bones still in. I ate chicken so tender it fell off the bone. I ate something that Danny called jollof and something that Seller called her mother's secret, and I did not ask what either was, because I did not want to wreck the spell.
And as I ate, I watched.
I watched Mrs. Anani and Mr. Attah arguing happily over the definition of punctual. I watched Jesse, in a corner, explaining something very seriously to Steven with a notebook, while he nodded like a man being interrogated by a small, charming judge. I watched my mother laugh with Danny's grandmothers, a real laugh, wide open, with her head tipped back, the kind I had not heard for years.
And I watched the road.
They had come. All of them. They stood at the edge of the lanterns, in twos and threes, shy and hesitant, the people who had pointed at me all my life. The man from the bread shop. The tall woman who sells charcoal. The old lady with the stick, who was sitting at the very end, eating fried yam with a look of grim satisfaction. They did not quite know whether they were allowed to come in. They hovered, like moths.
"Sit," said my uncle, in his calm voice. "There is room for everybody."
They sat.
* * *
It was a little after ten when she came.
I did not see her arrive. I only noticed, over the noise, a sudden hush at the far end of the table, and I turned, and there was Mammy Ansah, in her best wrapper, with her head down and her hands knotted in front of her.
Behind her, scarlet to the ears, walked James.
I put down my fork.
She stopped in front of me. For a moment she said nothing at all. It was extraordinary. I had never seen Mammy Ansah silent. It was like watching a mountain decide to be a hill.
"JJ," she said, in a thick, wooden voice. "I have come to say a thing."
"Yes, ma'am?"
"I called you a jinx. I called you a demon. I told your mother to disown you." Her jaw worked. "I said these things in front of the whole road, and I believed them, and I was wrong. And in the end it was my own son who…"
She could not finish.
"I'm sorry," said Mammy Ansah. The words seemed to cost her something enormous. "I am very, very sorry. I do not expect you to forgive me. But I wanted to say it, where everybody could hear."
There was a pause.
I looked at her. I looked at the big, red, shaking face, and the knotted hands, and the way her whole body leaned forward, as if she were walking into a high wind.
She's brave, I thought, with surprise. It's the bravest thing she's ever done.
"Thank you, Mammy Ansah," I said. "I accept."
She let out a breath like a deflating drum.
"And," said James, in a very small voice, behind her. "I—I wanted to say—"
"Go on," said his mother.
He stepped forward. He looked at his shoes. His whole big body was trembling.
"I took the tin," said James, "because everybody at school laughs about the fees. And I thought if I paid it back, nobody would know. And then Mother found out, and I panicked. And I blamed you, because—because it was easy. Because everybody always did." His voice cracked. "I'm so sorry. I've been horrible to you my whole life. I don't even know why. I think I was just afraid of being the one at the bottom."
"James," I said.
"Yes?"
"Do you know how to wash dishes?"
He blinked. "I—what?"
"Seller needs help on Saturdays. There are a lot of plates." I looked at him very levelly. "I think you'd be good at it. And I think it would be good for you."
There was a rippling silence. Seller, across the table, folded her arms and gave me an enormous, slow wink.
"Is that a punishment?" said James.
"It's a job," I said. "It comes with a plate. And a stool."
He stared.
Then, slowly, he began to smile. It was a small, crooked, damp smile, quite unlike the one I knew, and it changed his face. "I'd like that," he said.
"Good. You start Saturday. I'll teach you the sand trick for spoons."
* * *
It was almost midnight when the party began to break up.
The lanterns were burning low. Most of the guests had drifted away, in twos and threes, carrying leftovers in cloths and calling goodnight across the dark. Danny had fallen asleep on a bench with his head on his grandmother's lap. Derrick and Jesse were counting plates. My mother was talking to Mrs. Johnson in low voices, with one hand on her arm.
I sat at the end of the table, alone.
I had not planned it. I only needed a quiet minute. I was holding a very small cup of something warm and sweet, and looking up at the sky, which was huge and clear and full of stars.
A shadow fell across the bench.
"May I?" said my uncle.
I nodded.
He sat. He did not speak at first. He only looked up with me, at the stars, in a large, companionable silence, and the lanterns made soft gold shapes on the side of his face.
"You did well tonight," he said.
"I only asked for a meal."
"You asked for a great deal more than that." He turned his head. "JJ. I have something to show you."
He took a small photograph out of his shirt pocket. It was old and soft and creased from handling. He held it out.
I took it.
It showed two boys on a beach. The bigger one was about fourteen, tall and thin, with a long, serious face. The smaller one was about nine, round-cheeked, grinning, with a tangled mess of dark hair and a very dirty knee. They were standing in front of a sandcastle, a large and ridiculously elaborate one, with towers and a drawbridge and a moat. The smaller boy was holding a stick, like a king with a sceptre.
"Is that—" I said.
"Don. And me."
"He's dirty."
"He was always dirty," said my uncle. "He could not walk past a puddle."
I looked at the small grinning face. I looked at the sandcastle. At the long, balanced, impossible drawbridge, strung from shells and string, which was exactly, exactly, the sort of thing I would have made.
"He built that?" I whispered.
"He built everything."
"I didn't know."
"He forgot, I think," said my uncle. "Somewhere. In the dark." He took the photograph back, very gently, and put it away. "Tomorrow, JJ, if you will allow me, I'd like to take you somewhere."
"County V."
"County V."
"To meet my grandmother."
"She has been waiting for you," said my uncle, "for twelve years."