Mary Jones.

                                                                                                        Cayon Street,

                                                                                                        Greenlands,

                                                                                                        Basseterre,

                                                                                                        St.Kitts.

                                                                                                        West Indies.

                                                                                                        Tuesday 10th, June 1980.

 

Dear Mary,

 

I hope you are well and settling in back home. I am sorry for how things turned out between us. But none of us know what path life will lead us on. All we can do is be grateful for the blessings we have.

 

The West Indian cricket team are in England right now. The First Test is at Trent Bridge and I am here in Nottingham taking some holiday to follow them. I know cricket and you isn’t best of friends. Which set my mind to thinking of you and how I would have love our son to have been here to see the game with me. Is times like this I miss Joseph so.   The Windies look like they got the game in the bag, so I take time to look around the Nottingham, cause you know I don’t really know places in the north of the country. I find myself in the castle museum, is really old. You can feel the history of England all around you. Remember Robin Hood from school? I think it was in that self same castle some of them story come from. This one painting in the gallery catch me called The Zulu and is a picture of a man with all the same features of Mack from home. I don’t know why, but I find myself thinking about he and Joseph and all of we and how we come from Africa. Is the first time I ever see myself like an African man. Since I born is always West Indian I see myself as. 

 

The world going crazy just now with the Americans boycotting the Olympics, riots been happening in Bristol St Pauls, National Front marching in Lewisham, SAS storming Iranian Embassy. Does news of these things reach you in St Kitts? How glad am I to be out of London just now, standing there looking at the painting that could have been our son, an African boy. A Zulu. Thinking about how Rhodesia changing to Zimbabwe and all the colonies going their separate ways. I hear even little St. Kitts-Nevis talking about independence!   The world I fought for is coming apart and I’m feeling lost without you and the boy. I would like it if you could write him and tell him to write me or visit me sometime. I feel ashamed just now, I don’t even know where in the world my child is. Help me please Mary.

 

Yours with deepest sorrow,

 

Maxwell.

 

                                                                                                        9 Electric Mansions,

                                                                                                        Electric Avenue,

                                                                                                        Brixton,

                                                                                                        London SW9.