Summary
The party continues on into the night. Tanty dances with Harris, practically pulling him across the floor. After being encouraged by Moses, Five goes up to the woman who was dancing with Harris before Tanty. He says something to her and suddenly they are dancing close together, much to everyone's astonishment. The song ends and Harris tells everyone that his next party will be invite-only, as they have humiliated him. They continue to mock him.
Big City, who is also in attendance, goes and asks a woman for a dance and they go to the floor together. Eventually the party really gets going and everyone is dancing except for Galahad and Moses. Moses tells Galahad that Cap left with two women earlier in the night. Galahad says that Bart looks very drunk. Moses says he's still looking to see if any of the women in attendance are Beatrice. He also notes that Daniel has been buying lots of women drinks. Later in the night, someone breaks a Coke bottle on Five's head for dancing too close to his girlfriend. Big City leaps up on stage and starts playing the calypso band. Tanty tells Tolroy she wants to go home and Lewis talks about wanting a divorce from Agnes.
Galahad asks Moses how he knows so much about everyone. Moses says that he has just been in London for a long time and seen a lot of things. He tells Galahad about parties even more wild than the one they are at. He also describes the experience of smoking marijuana, saying it makes people feel like everything is funny and nothing is very serious. Big City, Five, and Harris come over to talk to Galahad and Moses. Five said his head is relatively uninjured. Harris complains again about everyone being too rowdy, saying that when the band plays "God Save the Queen," everyone has to stand still and stop dancing.
Summer turns to winter and suddenly everyone starts losing their jobs. Galahad becomes unemployed and worries about where he will find income. Feeling acutely hungry, he takes notice of some pigeons in Hyde Park. He decides that he will start hunting these pigeons. Galahad catches and kills a pigeon. An elderly woman sees him do this and says she will report him. He rushes home and prepares to cook the pigeon. He tells Moses what he did and Moses says he needs to be more careful in the future, as people in London are likely to get him arrested.
He cooks the pigeon and makes a meal for Moses and himself. They sit and reminisce about Trinidad. They share funny stories about a man named Brackley who was always getting mixed up in misadventures. They laugh for a long time and Moses suddenly becomes somber, as he worries about Galahad making it through this period of unemployment. Moses tells Galahad he feels like he has made some progress in London. He recalls that he was ready to leave London after his first two years, but decided to stick it out. He is unsure if that was the right decision.
Moses adds that he's had fun, but that every year largely brings the same things. He says that he has little to show for the passage of time, with no extra money in the bank or nicer apartment. He goes on to say that white people in London will tolerate Black immigrants, but they won't really accept them in any meaningful way. They live in entirely different social worlds and the white people, he says, want to keep it that way. Moses continues on in this way, talking about the difficulty of establishing a family or finding a good, well-paying job. They then talk about politics and their preference for the Labour Party.
In a brief aside, the narrator describes how Cap also hunted pigeons that lived on his roof. The book ends in summertime, with Moses hosting a gathering at his house and reflecting on how much he cares about everyone and how he takes on their struggles like they were his own. Later, he sits by the Thames and talks with Daniel. Daniel says that a lot of people have been writing novels lately, including working-class individuals like street sweeps and cab drivers. Moses wonders if he could write a book someday. He looks out on the water and enjoys the summer evening.
Analysis
Community is a central thread in the book's conclusion. Galahad asks Moses how he knows so much about everyone at Harris's party. Moses offhandedly remarks that he's been around for a long time and he's seen a great number of things. Later, at a Sunday gathering at Moses's home, he looks around at everyone's faces and reflects on how much he cares for all of them, even if some of them are not reliable or honest. He feels their struggles as his own and knows their stories inside and out. In these moments, Moses shows the true importance of community, emphasizing his role as the center of this social circle. He has done so much for all of these people. He has supported them with money and words of wisdom and created a place for them to get to know one another. His compassion has allowed them to weather the various trials that London throws their way. The community he creates may not solve all of their problems, but it does provide comfort in hard times which, the book posits, is no small feat.
City life is also an important theme in these final pages. The book portrays another winter in London that is made particularly tough by a wave of unemployment. Galahad ends up being caught in this series of layoffs and struggles in the wake of this income loss. He turns to hunting pigeons when food options begin to dwindle. A woman sees him catch a pigeon and threatens to report him for it. The narrator notes that in London, people are more concerned with the welfare of animals than with that of Black immigrants. This section, in sharp contrast to the joyful summer scenes that precede it, deals with the harsh realities of London and how quickly it can turn into a challenging and unsympathetic place for immigrants after one or two setbacks. Selvon adds this to the portrait as a way of adding yet another layer to London's character, highlighting how quickly it can become hard to survive without money.
Racism is also an important theme here. Moses makes a long speech to Galahad about how white people will tolerate Black people in London but never actually accept them. He says that they will not invite a Black person into their home or hold a conversation with them. He means that they will never attain real social acceptance. He adds that mixed-race families face this same struggle, mentioning a friend of his named Joseph who always has trouble finding a flat and whose children are taunted at school for the color of their skin. He is extremely angry about the everyday prejudice they face as he doesn't see any promising signs of social advancement for Black immigrants. In his fairly bleak assessment, Black people can live next to white people, but their lives will not intersect in any meaningful way.
Home is one of the book's final themes. Moses says to Galahad that he considered returning to Trinidad after his first two years in London but ultimately decided not to. He is unsure if this was the right decision, as he feels he has little to show for the past few years, but also cannot imagine returning to his home country. He feels that he has to stay in London, even if he misses a number of things about Trinidad. Selvon captures Moses's internal struggle over where his home truly is. Trinidad informs so much about who Moses is and the culture he identifies with but London has become his physical home, a place he no longer has the desire to leave. In this way, Moses seems to hold both places as home, belonging in two places at once, remaining in one and remembering another.
At the book's conclusion, Moses talks with his friend Daniel by the Thames River. Daniel tells him a lot of people are writing books, which makes Moses wonder about the sort of book he might write. The book's end is an optimistic one, as Moses suddenly reads like a stand-in for Selvon. Selvon did manage to write a book, and he captured the lives of a whole community of people, compassionately portraying their struggles and successes. It is as if Moses found a way to take all of his knowledge and sympathy for the people around him and translate it into prose. Selvon seems to make the case that more books should be written by people like Moses, as they manage to capture an entirely different slice of life in London.
