32.8 C
Belize City
Thursday, March 28, 2024

World Down Syndrome Day

Photo: Students and staff of Stella Maris...

BPD awards 3 officers with Women Police of the Year

Photo: (l-r) Myrna Pena, Carmella Cacho, and...

Suicide on the rise!

Photo: Iveth Quintanilla, Mental Health Coordinator by Charles...

Gertrude Atkins’ incredible intrigues, and an Atkins clan reconciliation …

FeaturesGertrude Atkins’ incredible intrigues, and an Atkins clan reconciliation …

Chapter 58
Here in the capital, some strange developments were taking place with Gertrude even as her cousin Virgil’s life was reaching one of its high points with his marriage to Jewel’s sister. An incredible rumour had started circulating around the hospital that she was pregnant with Karl Sanchez’ child, causing disturbance, agitation and disquiet among most members of staff.

Because it had been a strategy of hers in the past to compete for centre stage by attracting attention from others to herself by any possible means, I had dismissed the idea on the grounds of Gertrude’s stated and open dislike of the Sanchez girl friend. In the saga of the relationship, there had been boasts, criticisms and accusations mostly emanating from the girl friend’s camp, involving particularly vicious remarks about Gertrude’s physical characteristics as compared to hers, and even questioning what his family would want with a daughter-in-law of her complexion and hair texture?

The whole affair was very distasteful, and I had dismissed the idea of a pregnancy from my mind as a concoction of the jealous girl friend, sympathizing with my young colleague whose self-esteem it was obviously designed to undermine.

It came as a shock, therefore, when Gertrude had calmly made a remark in the Nurses’ lounge to the effect that the Ayala woman and her gentleman would have big worries now over what was soon going to happen. On being asked what she meant by the remark, she had exposed her plot to get back at both Karl Sanchez and his girl friend, and killing three birds with one stone. She was carrying a child he would never be allowed to see, the girl friend would learn of his involvement with and rejection by her, and she would triumph by being set up in style by Clifton Pemberton in her own house, from which she would be able to design, produce and market her brand of clothes, just like people in the outside world!

I was left speechless as questions poured in from colleagues surrounding her, to which she gave answers like a celebrity being interviewed.

“What would this patron think of the idea of her having someone else’s child?” “What kind of man was he anyway, supporting the mother of another man’s baby?” “Didn’t he want children by her?”

The answers had come in sharp and audacious tones: Pretty woman, ugly woman, rich woman, poor woman, working woman, all kinda woman having children as a comfort for their old age: why shouldn’t she? Wasn’t she as deserving as any of them, being perfectly normal? Besides, that wasn’t the kind of man she wanted. She was looking for security, not romance. Couldn’t they see that the man was white? What would she be doing with a white man’s “pickni” to complicate her life?

She had an answer for every question, yet looked so alone and pathetic! Observing that I had had nothing to say, she finally turned to me and asked: “You don’t agree with me, Sister? When you don’t have anybody to look after you, you have to take care of yourself!”
“True,” I had observed quietly, adding: “but you also have to look after anyone you bring into this world.”

Her reply had come quickly: “That’s why I’m choosing security!”

“For yourself,” I had answered, “but how about for the child? In advance, denying it its father?”

“You don’t understand, Sister. That man doesn’t know what he wants. Three sons, and he’s still fooling around!”

“Is that what you’re doing? Helping him to make up his mind? You should have a better reason than that for having a child,” had been my rebuttal.

“Society will always blame the woman for anything that goes wrong, no matter what,” she had lamely gone off on a tangent.

“I don’t know about society, but I will say this: any woman who chooses to become pregnant out of spite deserves blame,” had been my parting shot.

Mumbling something about my being entitled to my opinion, my young friend, as was her practice when confronted with unpleasant considerations, hastily quit the scene.

oo0oo

In thinking over the matter later, I considered how the impulsive and irresponsible acts of some people could have such far-reaching effects, as the Scriptures say, even “unto the third and fourth generations.”

Gertrude’s father had fallen victim both to her mother’s wiles and to rivalry against his older brother, resulting in a breakdown of the wonderful family life they had all enjoyed before.

In shame, he had cut himself off from his family and left home to find a new life in the capital with his accomplice, while his brother had taken refuge abroad with his uncle, teaming up with him to build an extension to the family’s enterprises.

A self-imposed exile, Clive had floundered while his partner had indulged in trivial pursuits, together producing child after child to a total of four, of whom Gertrude was the youngest.
Neither parent, absorbed in their own problems, had acquired any parenting skills, so that the children had been forced to fend for themselves without any guidance; except that when Nurse Pauline was working in the capital she had been able to influence the youngest to follow in her footsteps in the nursing profession.

Gertrude seemed to have inherited the family genes both for nursing and sewing, but, unfortunately, not the facility of its women for sweetness and kindness to their fellowmen.

oo0oo

Clifton Pemberton was a bachelor who was generous with his resources and never without female companionship, and appears to have made promises to Gertrude to invest in her clothes production enterprise, on the basis of which she had decided that it was time to settle old scores with Karl Sanchez and his woman, who, all through the years, while colleagues like Sonia and Jewel were making progress in their lives, had constantly harassed and put her down at every opportunity.

Impulsively, she had lured the boastful Karl, who had an exaggerated opinion of his appeal, into a relationship, with the cold-blooded intention of letting him down at the right moment; and, as cruel as that may sound, on trying to put one’s self in her shoes one had to recognize that the male attitude and treatment towards women played a large part in their sometimes seeing the need to develop extreme strategies for defending their interests.

Such women had no faith in the element of love in the male/female relationship, probably because there were no personal experiences of seeing it in action. When Jerome had started to shower so much wearing apparel on Jewel early in their marriage that she had asked him to slow down, Gertrude’s comment had been that if a man lost his place and provided for her so generously she would sell the excess and ask him to send more, just to give you an idea of her way of thinking.

oo0oo

Contrary to all her expectations, Clifton Pemberton, who had never come across anyone quite like Gertrude in his experience, had baulked at the idea of supporting her in the revengeful scheme she had set in motion, and threatened to end the relationship if she continued in its pursuit.

She had been forced to back down and change her plan and inform Karl of the pregnancy, at which he had confessed his inability to support another child at that time, and had expressed disappointment that someone of her experience had not protected herself from such a mistake.

At being left in the awkward position of falling between two stools, Gertrude had found herself in the situation of losing face or making a dramatic recovery from her very real dilemma. In trying to render assistance I suggested she turn to her Aunt Pauline for help, which she had resisted at first on the grounds that “those people don’t care about me.” I pointed out, however, that her aunts willingly helped perfect strangers who called on them, so why wouldn’t they help their own? And, as I had expected, both of them had rallied to their niece’s aid.

Having control of her father’s estate, Nurse Pauline had generously granted a share of the liquid assets to her errant brother Clive, subdividing it further into five shares, one for himself and one each for his four children. On receipt of this relief the grateful Gertrude had accepted the guidance of her knowledgeable gentleman friend in managing it wisely, which had led to a return to their former relationship and renewal of his offer of support.

Clifton Pemberton, who had received half his father’s estate on his passing, his sister the other half, had managed both shares and, being a skilful entrepreneur, had increased the capital several times over since then; and, being very generous to his lady friend, she had had no need to spend her own money in her ambitious business venture.

She did not retire from the nursing profession at first, but occupied a building rented for her by her patron, and hired her older sister Louise to run the everyday affairs of the enterprise when she was at work during its early years.

With her needs satisfactorily provided for one would have supposed that Gertrude would feel secure enough to relax somewhat, but this was not so, as she continued to keep a watchful eye on Jewel and Sonia for fear of their moving ahead of her, in her efforts to better all perceived rivals in the race of life.

When she gave birth to a baby daughter with only a slight resemblance to Karl Sanchez, everyone was relieved, believing that the rivalry between she and the mother of his three sons would now come to an end; but, instead, it turned out that there was new reason for competition from that quarter as the lady now aspired to become pregnant again and produce a daughter next time!

Gertrude decided to ask Jewel and Sonia to be her daughter’s godmothers and Jerome to be her godfather, with an eye to making a big splash to incur the envy of her peers, as well as her ex-boyfriend and his mate; but met with a problem when Jewel was reluctant to leave her young child behind to come to the capital for that purpose, having been turned off by the difficulties experienced with having come here for the Independence celebrations.

As a solution, Nurse Pauline had made the suggestion that Gertrude introduce the baby to the family by holding the christening in the hometown of her grandfather and, incidentally, that of two of the godparents; and this had resulted in a very large splash indeed when the whole Atkins clan had travelled to the town for the occasion, setting the stage for an eventual family reconciliation no one had ever dreamed possible.

Naturally the baby took her mother’s surname, which she had combined with the original Mrs. Atkins’ other names, Cynthia Elaine, thus making a second generation to carry that combination. History later repeated itself in other ways too, that had marked the beginning of another success story.

One significant aside had been the absence from the festivities of Gertrude’s patron, who, I learnt through her, was uncomfortable attending because of a little unpleasantness between himself and Jerome which had occurred when he had visited his sister the year Jewel had spent time with us at Caye.

They had all been holidaying at the posh resort in the north together and, at that time, he had been accompanied by a young woman who had made the mistake of asking Jerome when he had rejoined the group on that Easter Monday if he had returned from “slumming.” His response had been to advise that she never ask that question of a person from the Third World unless she wanted to give offence, which he felt sure was not the case. Clifton Pemberton had been displeased at Jerome’s reaction to what he had considered an innocent remark and become alienated on that account.

oo0oo

(Chapter 59 in Tuesday’s issue of the Amandala)

Check out our other content

World Down Syndrome Day

Suicide on the rise!

Check out other tags:

International