Janice sat wondering what would happen next.
The boyfriend spun his head, looking towards the linen cupboard. Janice whimpered in surprise. His arms were flailing and thrashing. His lips were peeled back and his mouth and eyes were opened wide as he tried to scream. Still, under the double’s power, nothing came out.
“Dah’s how I does feel,” she whispered as fear gave way to satisfaction. It was difficult to see what was going on, but Janice could see the boyfriend struggling, as if trying to get away from the sofa, but being restrained, pulled back. Janice saw what looked like a very long tongue slide from under the boyfriend, who was now on his belly, still trying to get off the sofa. The tongue licked his face, and his mouth opened wider, tears running down his cheeks, but still with no sound coming out. Janice stopped looking, remembering the old woman’s words.
“De baku gine consume yuh troubles,” she had said. “When it done, just come out and look at it. It gine see dah it is you it imposturing. And den it gine leff. But it ain’t gine leff you till it consume all yuh troubles.”
When Janice opened her eyes, she could see the double in the same position she was in before the boyfriend walked in. The boyfriend was gone. Janice could see just his boxer shorts on the floor and she knew that he was gone forever. If only her mother had believed her, none of this would have happened.
Janice started to open the cupboard door, but fear still gripped her. She reminded herself that she could trust the old woman. Then she remembered that she still had one more problem and she tucked herself further into the linen cupboard, to make herself more comfortable. It would be a long wait in this cubbyhole till her mother got home.
Elizabeth J. Jones
The Ceremony
Bermuda
Maggie hated her daughter on sight. The moment the nurse placed the tiny, dark haired baby in her arms, she took one look at it and turned her head away. The delivery hadn’t been that painful–far easier than the one she had experienced with her first, her son, Frederick, as her husband Thomas pointed out. But Frederick’s birth had been such a, such a relief. Because he wasn’t a girl. His eyes had been different–they had looked into hers with a blind trust. This newborn’s eyes pierced into Maggie’s psyche as if to say: “It’s not about you, you know–it’s about me. And it always will be.”
Maggie couldn’t tell Thomas what she saw in the babe’s eyes–but she couldn’t hold the child either.
“Your pregnancy this time round was harder,” Thomas had said sympathetically at her bedside, holding the infant against his chest and looking absolutely besotted. “You were so sick for so long and so tired. No wonder you’re too exhausted to hold her. Now, what are we going to call her?”
“Don’t be a damn fool, Thomas! What choice do we have in the matter? We can’t call it after your mother, can we? It has to be Christabel, Christabel, Christabel.”
He hadn’t argued then, in deference to what he saw as her exhaustion. But later he tried while they were waiting for her mother in the drawing room of the main house.
“She doesn’t have to be named after your mother, you know. She doesn’t have to be Christabel. Not if you give up the estate. It’s not as if I don’t have any money or property. My apartment is bigger than the whole of this, let alone the “Daughter’s Domain”, and it’s in much better condition.”
“I can’t give up the estate, Thomas, you know that. It has been in my family for centuries and as the oldest daughter, it’s my responsibility . . .”
“More like a burden. A crumbling ruin.”
“It’s the land, Thomas. Who else in Bermuda has fifty acres of unspoiled land? If I give it up, it goes to the Government. That’s the rule of the entailment.”
Thomas shrugged. “Why not let the Government have it? They could turn it into a park. It would be fairer on Frederick. It would be fairer on the whole of Bermuda. Let’s face it, this is the last bastion of white privilege. It’s not everybody who gets to enjoy this land. If it were a park, everybody would get to enjoy it.”
Maggie looked through the double windows Grandmama Catherine had quaintly called French, though she had never been to France in her life, and took in the long familiar view, the rows of sago palms each side of the many steps leading down to the orange groves, the jacaranda trees, the fragrant frangipani, and eventually the long strip of beach. In the distance she could just see her family’s constant enemies–the topless towers of Ilium as Catherine had called them after some quote in a weird old play–the gigantic sterile skyscrapers that made up the rest of Bermuda, circling, menacing her estate.
She shook her head violently. “No, no. I can’t do that. The Government is dying to get its hands on it. Think of all the skyscrapers they could put up, the money involved. They’d never turn it into a park. And Grandmama Catherine would turn in her grave.”
We can’t let those monstrosities win, darling, Grandmama had said to her when she had been just a bitty little thing, running alone over the property, carefree and mindless of the concrete towers invading nearer and nearer. Even if we have to make an enormous sacrifice. Remember that, dearest, whatever you do, because one day you will inherit, you will be the chatelaine.
“If that’s what you want,” Thomas said.
“It’s not what I want,” she said, “but it’s what I have to do.”
So they named the child Christabel as the rules of inheritance required, but called her Bella to distinguish her from her beautiful grandmother who, with her violet eyes and cascading black hair, at sixty-seven didn’t even look forty-seven. Maggie tried to put her first reaction to Bella’s birth down to a bout of postpartum blues, although she knew that was not the case. Bella was by no means an ugly baby and yet she filled Maggie with revulsion. Ashamed, she made herself pick Bella up, cuddle her, carry out all the nurturing acts of love and kindnesses any natural mother would want to do, and that in the end might just be the saving of them both. But it was so difficult, although nobody, not even Thomas once the naming issue was decided, seemed to notice the enormous struggle it cost her. Nobody, that is, other than Bella, whose expression as she grew older became so sly and insolent whenever she set eyes on her mother, it took every ounce of Maggie’s self-restraint not to smack her face. Is she as bad as I think, Maggie agonised, or is she just this way with me, reacting to my deepest fears?
By the time Bella was five, she was mistress of divide and rule. To Thomas, with her shining hair and her sweetest smile, she was a beloved and beautiful princess, incapable of an unkind thought. To Christabel, she was a joy, the shining light of the family’s future. Grandma Christabel and Bella became so close scarcely a day went by without them seeing each other. But to Maggie, while they were alone together, she was quite simply obnoxious. When Maggie’s friends told her about the sweetness of their daughters, the closeness they enjoyed with them, her heart felt heavy with terror and dread, because deep down she knew her daughter was cursed, just as she Maggie was cursed. In the future, there could be just one way out.
In contrast, Frederick, five years older, was a joyous child–he had the sweetness of his father, the same carefree, light-hearted nature. Maggie wasn’t sure about his relationship with his sister, although he was always boisterously affectionate towards her, until one day, when he was ten, she overheard Bella’s confident voice talking to him in one of the walled gardens, fringed with palmetto and mother-in-law’s tongue. “This will be my garden, you know, and then you’ll only be able to play in it if you do what I tell you!”
Maggie strode into the garden, ready to grab Bella. Then she stopped herself. I mustn’t show my anger, she told herself. It will only give her more power.
“You okay, guys?” Her voice sounded forcedly cheerful to her own ears, but Frederick didn’t seem to notice. He grinned at her, seemingly untouched by Bella’s revelation.
“I’m fine. Can I go now? Dad says I can help with the bonfire.”
And he was off, with Bella about to follow him.
/> “I need to talk to you, Bella. Please wait a minute.”
Bella turned to her mother. “Yes?” She was never disobedient. It would be easier if she were–more normal somehow. She’s so, so condescending.
“Bella,” she said calmly, though her brain was seething, “who told you the garden will be yours one day?”
Bella smiled that sweet, sweet smile. “Grandma Christabel, she told me.”
“Then she will have told you that before the land comes to you, it comes to me.”
Bella smiled again, her green eyes so sly, so knowing. “Oh yes, she told me.”
“So it’s likely it won’t come to you for a very, very, very long time. And that means Frederick can be in the gardens whenever he wants, do you understand me?”
Bella said nothing.
“Do you, Bella?”
“Grandma Christabel says it might not be a very, very long time.”
“Oh really?”
Bella lowered her eyelids until her eyes were like slits. “Because of the ceremony,” she said.
Maggie froze in shock. “What ceremony?”
“Grandma Christabel says you know all about it. But maybe you need to be reminded. That’s what she says. Can I go now?”
* * *
“Well, maybe you do need to be reminded,” said Christabel when Maggie remonstrated. “You were there, weren’t you? When I came to the main house to claim my inheritance. You were there?”
* * *
Christabel had forbidden Maggie to be anywhere in Grandmama’s garden that day, so of course Maggie’s thirteen-year old just-say-anything-to-me-and-I’ll-do-the-opposite psyche kicked in and she’d hidden behind one of the bushier sago palms.
Mama came so close walking past her, Maggie could have touched her long, tiered gypsy skirt grazing the steps as she approached the front door. She was still beautiful, gleaming black hair down her back, her eyes almost triangular, disturbingly violet. But Maggie, her eyes as usual cutting Christabel to pieces this way and that, to see if she could possibly compare, was glad to see the lines starting around her eyes, around her mouth. For once, Maggie felt she had an advantage. Awkward, clumsy she might be, but at least she wasn’t old.
Then she heard the gravel crunch at the bottom of the steps and the alarm that announced the arrival of a vehicle. As Mama continued up the steps, Grandmama Catherine opened the door.
“Good morning, Christabel,” she said.
The tone of her voice sounded odd to Maggie, who was holding herself behind the palm as tightly as she could. Was it fear?
“Good morning, Mama. I believe I heard Nathaniel arrive in his car.”
Nathaniel Hayward? The family lawyer? What do they want him for, Maggie wondered. The only time she ever saw him was when he was a thin, tight-lipped presence at family cocktail parties. A pompous bore, mama had called him. “That man was born old, I swear,” she said. But she always invited him to the family gatherings.
Christabel turned to greet Mr. Hayward as he climbed the steps. Maggie started to giggle. Her eyes took in a morning coat she had once seen in a family wedding photograph taken centuries ago. He’s wearing fancy dress! Why he’s even wearing a top hat! But then, as he passed inches by her, she could see the waxen pallor of his face and his expression was so funereal, she felt chilled to the bone, even though the air was dripping heat. She could see he was carrying a small wooden chest with a handle. What was he doing here?
The three figures went through the door and shut it behind them. Maggie leapt up the steps and tried to open the door, forgetting her image would be imprinted on the security system. That was the rule–if the door was open, she could come in whenever she wanted to but if it was closed, then Grandmama must not be disturbed. “If you try the door,” Christabel had told her, “you will be seen and Grandmama will be cross.”
But that day Maggie would not be put off. She skirted the outside of the house, scratching her legs against the bougainvillea and plumbago bushes. Against the screech of the kiskadees, she could just hear Mr. Hayward’s monotone coming from the window of the little Green Parlour on the ground floor that was never, never used.
She crouched under the stone lintel of the window so that she could peer in, hoping no one could see her. The walls of the parlour were an unusual pale avocado green, unusual because Grandmama’s other rooms were all painted white. An old, old table of shining wood rested against the wall with nothing on it but a silver tray on which were placed two crystal glasses and two crystal decanters, one filled with a clear fluid, the other with a deep green liquid. The table reminded Maggie of an altar in a quaint old church. Mr Hayward, his top hat gone, stood by the table. Maggie watched him pour the clear liquid into one glass, the green into the other. He started to speak a strange language she’d never heard before. It’s not Portuguese, she thought. Maybe it’s that dead language Grandmama said she had to learn when she was little. Latin or something. Her eyes swivelled to Grandmama sitting taut and upright in one green velvet armchair, Mama smiling opposite her in the matching seat.
Mr. Hayward’s voice suddenly grew louder. He switched to English. “Catherine Maria Waring, as it is set down by Henry Waring, your father, in his last will and testament, for the sake of your estate’s longevity and safekeeping, do you promise to bestow twenty years . . .” His voice trailed off and she could not hear the rest of it.
Her mama’s voice clear as a bell said sharply: “Mama?”
And then Maggie heard Grandmama Catherine’s faltering tone, “I do.”
He handed Grandmama the clear glass, Mama the green. Mama drank deeply, smiling all the while. Grandmama took a long breath.
“However difficult this is for you, Catherine,” Mr Hayward was saying, “I’m sure you’ll agree that it is in the best interests of the estate.”
Grandmama nodded briefly, then slowly drained the glass.
It must be some kind of medicine, Maggie thought. It must taste disgusting. That’s why poor Grandmama looks so fearful. But why is Mr. Hayward giving it to her? Why not the doctor and what is it for?
Mr. Hayward gravely returned to the table. He picked up the decanters and put them in the chest he had carried to the house. “I will be in touch, Christabel,” he said softly. Then he left the room without saying anything to Grandmama. He didn’t even glance at her.
Maggie heard the click of the parlour door. She dashed back to her hiding place behind the sago palm in time to see him come out of the front door, the chest hanging from his hand, and make his way down the steps. She wasn’t sure what to do next. Go home and see if Mama would say anything? Wait and see if Grandmama would leave the door open so that she could visit? Just as she was pondering her options, Christabel appeared and skipped down the steps. She looks different, Maggie thought. Lighter somehow. Then Christabel stared directly at the hedge. Maggie gasped. There wasn’t a line on her mama’s face! Not one. She looked twenty years younger. And she knew, she knew Maggie had disobeyed her. Christabel paused deliberately for a full moment, flaunting herself in front of Maggie, and then continued down the steps. The words echoed in Maggie’s head: . . . for the sake of your estate’s longevity and safekeeping do you promise to bestow twenty years . . . ?
Her heart thudded with fear for her grandmama. What had she drunk from that glass?
Maggie turned back to the house. The door was open. She raced up to it, calling out to her grandmother. No answer. She ran inside, along the hallway to the Green Parlour, and flung open the door. Her face hidden, Grandmama Catherine was hunched in the green velvet armchair. What has happened to Grandmama, she looks so tiny, and her arms and legs are so thin her dress could fall off!
“Grandmama?”
Slowly, Grandmama raised her head. “Maggie?”
Maggie took one look and screamed.
“It’s all right, Maggie, dearest, it’s all right, I promise you.”
Maggie’s breathing was so fast she could hardly get the words out.
“You l
ook so, so old. What’s happened to you? Are you going to die, Grandmama?”
“Not yet, my darling. I’m going to teach you a little Latin first, dearest. When you are desperate, it could be the saving of you.”
* * *
“You were there,” Christabel said again as they sat at the old- fashioned round teak table in the little garden underneath The Green Parlour, inhaling the scent of the white Easter lilies, “weren’t you?”
“You know damned well I was there. You wanted me to see it. And that was a terrible thing for a mother to do to her daughter.”
Christabel smiled, the resemblance between her and Bella startling for all the difference in their eye colouring. “You had to know some time, Maggie.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“It wasn’t my place to tell you. After all, it was never expected of me, just as it won’t be expected of Bella. But it is your sacred duty, as it was my mama’s all those years ago.”
“Supposing I don’t do it? Supposing I don’t give a damn about the land?”
“But you do give a damn about the land. Your grandmother made sure of that.”
“Don’t be too sure, Mama.”
“I wasn’t sure for a time. You seemed so happy with Frederick. But you went ahead and had a daughter, didn’t you? And you called her Christabel.”
“I did,” Maggie said, willing her voice to sound even. “But that doesn’t mean I’ll agree to give her . . .”
“Oh, Maggie. It’s far too soon for you to think about it now. When you’re in your sixties, you’ll feel differently about it.”
“Technically, you are in your sixties now. How would you feel if I asked you . . . ?”
Christabel shrugged comfortably. “That’s not the point, Maggie, is it? That’s not the way the entailment goes.”
“But shouldn’t it be the point, Mama? What kind of daughter were you to ask Grandmother for such a sacrifice? And what kind of mother are you to expect it of me?”
New Worlds, Old Ways Page 8