Seemingly startled, she responded, “Leonie? She’s not allowed to come here. You can only ask me about Mavis Jones today.”
What I thought was my first encounter with the venerable Leonie Forbes took place during the rehearsals for her latest play, ‘Not My Child’ at the Green Gables Theatre on Cargill Avenue.
“Give me a call after midday tomorrow,” she said. “I can tell you about Leonie then.”
Puzzled, I sat in the theatre and watched in astonishment as the spry 79-year-old effortlessly fell back in sync with her on-stage family. Mavis Jones sprang to life before my eyes.
Having lost her job as a long-time housekeeper for the Jameses of Andrew’s Lane, the elderly Mavis Jones reluctantly conceded to teaching her precocious 14-year-old granddaughter, Deandra, ‘the ropes’ of being street-smart. But Deandra’s profitable romance with Mavis’ previous employer went too far too fast, and the youngster met an untimely demise.
I hadn’t realised that tears were streaming down my face until I heard an un-ladylike sniff echoing in the near-empty theatre. Someone handed me a tissue which I absent-mindedly took to blow my nose, but my eyes stayed glued to the stage.
I was in rapture. In theory, I knew I was watching a play, but if Mavis Jones were any more real, she would have a birth certificate. Maybe I didn’t meet Leonie Forbes that night, but I certainly felt everything she wanted me to.
I ran into a walking contradiction when I eventually met the real Leonie.
Sharp as a tack, she offered dry humour and straight-to-the-core Jamaican feistiness that would have a less brave soul scurrying for the hills. Right off the bat, I thought she would have been ice-cold, but after speaking for a while, I found a heart-warming soul.
Don’t get me wrong now, Leonie Forbes is no cookie-baking, apron-wearing, bingo-playing ‘old-foot’. Though often branded with the romantic title of a ‘country-girl’, Leonie is a born-and-bred downtown ‘Kingstonian’.
To continue reading, purchase Vol.8 #5, 2016 Issue.