Marriage and babies.

“Gyal, hoo much pickney you got?” Girl, how many chil’ren you have?

A hand, soft but very firm, grab me wrist as I been walking by. The voice sound like a’ ole lady voice, with a quake and a quiver that age bring, but not even time coulda wear down the iron in it. It demand a’ answer Now.

Glance around me, then down. A very ole lady been sitting in, filling up, a big, white plastic chair. Next to she is my mother forty-something year old cousin who nickname is Babbie.

Babbie don’t disturb equilibrium, don’t like raising dust. When she enter a yard you don’t notice she until you suddenly find she sitting near you, asking soft, soft with a smile, how you do. I meet she for the first time a month or two ago, at a family gathering like this one. Out of the corner o’ me eye I notice Babbie half-smiling, eyes wide, wondering how I gon deal with this. She know I ain’t married or have chil’ren. What she ain’t know is that, depending on who ask me, it used to affect me mood.

When a stranger ask, I used to think, what the hell that is to you? If relatives who don’t know me well enough ask…but if them is relatives I cotton on to and like…I tell them I ain’t ready. Then I change the subject by starting a discussion about them wutliss…no good…choices knocking around the place. Family who know what I want outta life, they don’t ask. Caribbean friends don’t give a hoot. Guyanese gal-pals on the other hand does try to tell me where I should be. The caustic remark on the tip of me tongue does give me a fight while I try to hold it back.

It is a shock to some people system, nice, nice gyal like you ain’t married yet? A gyal should not walk around unfettered by man. Wha’ you mean, you nah married? Find wan bai and married am. What you mean, you ain’t married? Find a boy and marry he. What you waitin’ for? You want to get ole, ole and nah gat nobaddy? You want to grow ole, ole without anybody?

No point explaining to some people. That ain’t cutting the ice with them even in this sweltering, global warming heat. Girls must marry and make babies. That is the sum total of we worth.

That is what Naz, a stranger at a countryside function five years ago, try to tell me. First thing she ask, “You married?”

“No,” I reply, knowing what coming next.

Bang on cue, Naz had the audacity to be scandalised. She lecture and she lecture, you should marry. She pompous tone did make me want to ask, “Why? Misery loves company?” But polite as usual, I didn’t say it. I shoulda. It was close to the truth and I didn’t even know it then. A couple o’ years later Naz leave she husband for the glamour of Canada after he had a stroke.

Weeks after Naz, I rehearse cutting comments that I coulda, shoulda make. Then a’ older woman, acquaintance more than family friend, phone my mother. She know a man in America who wife die; he need a new wife; he got two or three chil’ren.

“No,” my mother say.

“Damn man looking for a free house-keeper, child minder,” I say.

“Just that,” my mother agree.

“Why these people always think that everybody want to live in America or Canada or England so bad they gon marry just for that?” I suck me teeth.

“I don’t know,” my mother say.

It wasn’t the match-making that did annoy me though because, truth to tell, I believe everybody got a right to try to find a mate; I believe in loving marriages and romance and being with a wonderful man and growing old together. It was the woman persistence on the phone, she refusal to back off, that irritate me. Fortunately, my mother cut the call short. “Islam says you must never force your daughters to marry.”

Inevitably in this small community, I meet the woman at a religious function. She sit near me and start up she chant without melody, why aren’t you getting married?

Why you don’t fix up the man in America with your daughter who husband cheat on she and leave she for the girl who work in your office? I thought. But didn’t ask.

Suddenly, the imp inside me pinch. You really should just learn to have fun with them presumptuous people.

“Y’know, I hhhhhhhate men,” I blurt out. Everybody know this ain’t true.

Not this woman though. She face grow stiff with shock. She try to shock me back. “Why? Are you a lesbian?”

“Nahhh! I imagine waking up next to a greasy, stubbly face with stinky morning breath…ewwww. Oh, tell me, what is it about married women who try to get other women to marry? They know they’re miserable...why do they want other women to be miserable too?”

Mumble, mumble, the woman say, not all marriages are miserable. Then she grow quiet.

This Sunday afternoon gone, as I stare at the ole lady with the firm hand, stare into them fierce, observant eyes ringed with grey, it did feel like the crowd of relatives and visitors did vanish from the yard under the blue tent, only me and she leave, fighting it out.

The thing that amuse me about she question was how different it been. It assume that I been married therefore have chil’ren. What to tell she? I ain’t married? Eh? As if I want to bring hell down on me that good Sunday.

Hoo much pickney you got? How many chil’ren you have?

When people ask you very personal things, make up big, big story, me first brother, the master-exaggerator, did tell me. After we father die a woman relative been trying to nose out how much money he leave for we. Me brother give she a glorious, sumptuously over-bloated figure.

“I have forty chil’ren,” I announce to the ole lady.

She grip me hand mo’ tight. Out of the corner of me eye, I see Babbie shaking up, breaking up with laughs. I start to laugh too, can’t stop grinning.

Humour is a funny thing.

According to my mother who know the ole lady from she childhood village, the ole lady response was laced with irony.

As I turn to walk away, to talk to somebody else, the ole lady move she head like she been in a daze. “Gyal, me proper like how you look so good with so much pickney,” she say.