by Andrea Levy
No. Caroline had seen her brother so downcast that he would not get from his bed for weeks. But of late, he had begun to bless each sunrise—she was sure of it. So when Tam Dewar, with some temerity, began to say, ‘If your brother has taken his own life . . .’ she replied, ‘But he has not, Mr Dewar.’ When he persisted with, ‘But if he has . . .’ she quite sternly and finally, she believed, ended the exchange by declaring, ‘But he has not!’
For Caroline Mortimer surely knew that as it was a crime as well as a sin for her brother to take his own life, she could stand to lose everything they held upon this island. Why, her neighbour when she still lived in London, Jane Glover, had lost her home, her prospects, and every penny that she ever had to squander upon those showy silk caps of hers, when her father was found dangling from a beam in their house. Jane Glover had everything seized! It was the talk of Islington for several months. Her father’s body was even refused a burial next to his wife’s at St Mary’s churchyard. Caroline could still recall the look of anguish upon Jane Glover’s face as she was driven away in a cart to be taken in by a cousin and used as a common housemaid!
Now, reader, no matter what you may have heard Caroline Mortimer declare as the next act in this story, for she gave her own fulsome account of that day to the militia, several magistrates, lawyers, and indeed anyone who ever graced her dinner table, this that I am about to tell you, is the truth of what occurred next within that bed chamber. Do not doubt me, for remember my witness still lies beneath the bed.
When, after demanding—for what was the fifth time—that Tam Dewar bring the doctor to administer to her brother, the overseer yelled upon Caroline, ‘Dear God, woman, look at the man, he has no head!’ Upon saying that, he knelt down in an agitated state to demonstrate, once more, the lack of skull upon her brother’s person.
Now, was it July gulping to swallow or inhaling a fearful breath? Did Nimrod twitch his shoulder or waggle his stiff foot? Perhaps, with this hateful overseer, it was just the scent of niggers. Who is now to know? But something drew Tam Dewar’s eye away from the massa’s corpse to glimpse into the gloom under the bed. And there he saw two wide eyes—one staring back on him and one not.
He had the back of Nimrod’s neck grasped within his hand before Nimrod had even realised he had been discovered. ‘Out,’ Dewar cried, as he wrenched Nimrod roughly from the hide-hole.
Caroline Mortimer, seeing this negro pulled from under the bed like a wriggling whelk from out a shell, at first inhaled so startled a breath that she sounded to be gasping her last. But then, with more art than any player upon a stage, she amended her mood to cry, ‘Ah, it was he who shot him. I saw him. I saw him.’ And here her story was made.
July, still lying unseen beneath the bed, watched as the overseer struggled with Nimrod, who squirmed and writhed within his grasp. Suddenly, in an effort to still him, Dewar punched Nimrod hard within the face with the resonance of a mallet striking wood. Nimrod’s eyes rolled like a drunkard’s, as a slobber of saliva and blood spewed from his mouth. Then he wilted limp as a doll. And July listened as the missus firmed her story.
‘I saw him he . . . he . . . walked up to John who was sitting . . .’ July saw the missus right the chair, seat herself upon it, and bounce her slippered feet, excited as she carried on, ‘He crept up behind my brother and he shot him, here.’ The missus patted the back of her head several times, until the overseer said, ‘No. You’ll need to get your story straight.’ And the missus replied, ‘It is not a story, Mr Dewar, it is the truth.’
‘The truth, madam,’ the overseer began, ‘is that he shot himself. I know it and so do you.’
‘I will not have you speak to me in this way . . .’ the missus said as the overseer, not heeding her words, carried on.
‘But you can have a culprit. You can save your skin and your plantation, but only if you tell the story as I say it.’
July heard the missus gasp as the overseer insisted, ‘Now, listen here, woman. Your brother was shot from the front. This nigger shot your brother from the front. Any man who has ever held a pistol will see that in the wound.’
And she heard her missus say quietly, ‘Of course, from the front. I meant from the front.’
‘In the mouth. The nigger shot him in the mouth.’
‘Yes, in the mouth, Mr Dewar.’
And July heard the overseer say, ‘And you shot the culprit as he tried to escape.’
‘Me!’
‘Yes, you. With your silly, wee, pearly handled pistol. You, you shot him! I was nay here until after you killed this nigger.’
And the missus gasped, ‘Killed!’
July was sure that soon Nimrod would press his feet firmly to the floor to stand proud in front of these white people. He would look them both within the eye while declaring—with a cough, cough—that he had heard enough of this fanciful tale, before firmly informing them that he was not a nigger to be used with as they pleased. No. He was free man. Nimrod Freeman. Or Mr Freeman to them.
But instead, Nimrod stood shamefully silent upon the spot, trembling, shaky-shaky, as a cock-eyed buffoon. When the overseer arming his pistol shouted, ‘Run for the door, nigger,’ Nimrod let out a weeping howl and clasped himself, craven, to the overseer’s knees. Struggling to kick off this clinging negro, the overseer, with swelling temper, hit Nimrod hard about the head with the butt of his pistol. Nimrod collapsed to the floor, gashed and bloody. The overseer then placed his pistol at the back of Nimrod’s neck. But before he squeezed his finger to trip the hammer and fire the ball, he said to the missus, ‘Remember, you shot this nigger as he was making his escape.’
It was with cold panic that the missus pleaded, ‘But, but, but don’t kill him.’
‘Why not?’ asked the overseer.
And, looking about herself as if the answer floated somewhere around this island if only she could see it, the missus replied, ‘He hasn’t finished my garden yet.’
The overseer, at first staring upon the missus as if there might be some wisdom lying hidden within her statement, soon gave a scornful laugh as his eyes rolled to the heavens. He then aimed his pistol once more.
And, before thought or reason could cower July, she had bolted from under the bed, over the body of the dead massa, to charge headlong at the overseer—crashing into him with her whole being, pitching him to the floor with a fearsome force. There was a dazzling flash-bang as the shot he had prepared for Nimrod’s head blasted off into the ceiling. The missus screamed when, suddenly, the debris of wood, slate, stones and bits of living things dislodged by the pistol fire, came pelting down upon her from on-high. Cringing away from this onslaught, the missus tripped over the overseer to land heavily on top of him. Under her ample crushing, all breath belched from out the overseer like wind from sturdy bellows.
July had expected her punishment to begin without delay. But then, gaping upon this confusion, she realised that the tangle of missus and overseer she had just tied, would take a little longer to loosen. So July grabbed Nimrod about his chest, dragged him to the door, opened it, and lifted the weakling through. And after she slammed that bedroom door behind her, she crafty turned the key within the lock.
Nimrod was a weight to carry. Oh how July struggled with him upon that day, to get him as far from the great house as she could. She dragged him, she pulled him, she tugged at him, to stand upon his feet. With panting breath she pleaded, ‘Oh, Mr Nimrod, please walk. Step, Mr Nimrod, step.’ And once, maybe twice, this man placed one foot before the other in an effort to stumble. But mostly he clung about her neck, heavy as a sack of logs. Yet July hauled him across the garden, on to the path, and through a field of long grasses, until she smelt the wood smoke of the fires from the negro village and heard pickneys calling loud in a game.
Soon she was staring upon two woman field negroes who were pounding at corn within a mortar. They stopped in their work to gape upon her. July let Nimrod finally collapse to the floor as one of the woman said, ‘She be from the big house,’
while the other with a wary eye, called over her shoulder, ‘Come quick-quick! Come quick!’ A small crowd soon gathered, all staring upon July—that lordly house slave come to trick them by trespassing-in on their place with this bleeding and bust-up man.
Then an old woman small enough to peer eye-to-eye at a dog, stepped forward to ask, ‘You be Miss Kitty’s pickney?’ July’s legs buckled beneath her at the sound of her mama’s name. This woman still knew her mama, yet her mama was sold away by the missus. July landed hard upon her knees.
‘Me be Miss Rose—you know me?’ the woman asked, before turning to the crowd to tell them, ‘This be Miss Kitty’s pickney, Miss July. Me did pull her with me own hand ’pon this world. Miss Kitty’s pickney—Miss Kitty’s pickney has come home.’
CHAPTER 14
READER, WHAT POINT IN wasting toil on the pressing of petticoats? For a petticoat be a garment for none to see. A little crease upon the lace or ties will never speak of idleness in the wearer, for none will know except the wearer themselves. However, my son’s wife, Lillian, is very particular upon the matter of petticoats.
While my son and I were sitting peacefully this very morning—he eagerly perusing the story within the pages you have just read—Lillian started to make one fuss over her three daughters’ ruckled-up and wrinkled under-garments. Unless all petticoats within our household are pressed warm and flat, Lillian tosses at night within her bed unable to sleep; for judgement upon her character resides in that work for Lillian. But not for me.
I am sure, reader, that there be tasks round and about your own household which you likewise find tiresome: the dusting of china ornaments upon an open shelf, the plumping of cushions, fancy needlework upon a stocking, may be your example. But before you slap this book shut in frustration at your storyteller having strayed so far from her tale, let me bring you back so you can find reason within this old woman’s diversion. For it is at this point within my story, reader, that we must once more seek out Kitty. It is at this time that we must walk again within the company of that field slave that is our July’s mama.
Kitty had, many years before, been persuaded by Miss Rose’s tireless pestering that risking the massa’s wrath by every night taking that rutted path to climb the low stone wall and hide like a jumbie in the window of the great house was not wise. ‘Your pickney not sold away, Miss Kitty,’ Miss Rose had said. ‘She here seeing sun-up and sun-down in same sky as you and me. You wan’ be lock-up in the stock for seeing that? T’ink on it, Miss Kitty, and save your pity. You might chance you pickney any season.’
And it was true. Kitty had seen July on a few occasions during the eight or so years that had passed. Whilst pressing at the window of the great house, Kitty had first spied July tethered to a table leg by a long yellow ribbon about her wrist. Then once, from a distance, she thought she had seen July struggling a basket of wet washing into the house. More recently, upon her way to Sunday market, Kitty believed she saw July waving a long stick to chase some chickens home. But Kitty had never, since that day when she last stroked her daughter’s cheek with the soft pink petal of a flower, been close enough to touch, speak or trade a look with July.
Now, like your storyteller and the pressing of her petticoats, there were many jobs upon the sugar plantation named Amity that Kitty found grievous to perform. Come, the listing of tasks that she found agreeable would be a much, much, much shorter undertaking. But no work provoked such dread within Kitty’s heart as the pitiful task of manuring.
Canes, once planted in the regimented holes dug for their purpose, become one of the most indulged plants in the whole of the Caribbean. They must be fed like suckling babes if they are to grow tall with their cherished sweetness. For this purpose, the droppings that splutter and fall from the backside of any stock—be it cattle or mule—are hoarded and prized as steaming treasure. For months in any year, Kitty and the whole of the first gang are required to convey this dung from backside to cane piece. And there they must spread it about at the base of the growing canes, so the plants might sup upon the fetid goodness.
Some of this mess is taken from the pen to be shovelled into baskets and slung either side of a mule. The mule then, unaware of the load it carries, trots off as happy with this weight as with any other. But the wicker dung-baskets—overflowing and spilling—that Kitty carried to the cane pieces of Dover, Virgo, or even as far as Scarlett Ponds, were borne in the way of most slave burdens, upon her head. The weight was no sufferance, for Kitty could carry much heavier, much further. Come, it is true, the smell would see our white missus faint clean away with just one sniff. But the Lord, in making the nose, fashioned a shrewd organ; although so renk that upon Kitty’s first breaths the solid odour did choke her at the throat, after mighty coughing and a few strong inhalations, all the air about Kitty, be it sweet or bitter, came to smell like shit, so the offence was lost.
But for her poor tongue, there was no such accommodation. When, unwittingly, a piece would fall into her open mouth—which it did when she turned her head or a breeze blew or she struggled to catch her breath as she climbed the hill that led to Virgo—it would burn so fierce upon her tongue that she feared a hole was being bored right through it. For it was sharp as rancid lemon and did make her retch. Everything she nyam, be it food at the cane piece, or her porridge after her day’s work was done, come to taste not like a repast but like . . . well, the putrid splutterings that fall from the backside of a mule.
And if this dung did find its way into her eyes—for the brown juice from this waste matter did ooze through the weave of the basket to slip-slide all down Kitty’s face—then, oh! its sting did well up such tears as to leave her blind.
At the day’s end, Kitty would squat in the river—the water rippling over her shoulders, around her neck—and she would scrub with leaves of Bald-bush to rid this muck from her skin. But, reader, you see the dung did cling, so the stream would glide over her as if it be running across the pelt of some water rat. And so was true of the few garments she possessed; no pounding in the river seemed to rid them of their stink. At Sunday market none would come close enough to study Kitty’s sweet cassava roots or limes, excepting the flies. For they encircled her as a mist—tickling to explore up her nose, in her mouth, upon the moisture in her eyes and down her ears. Come, at manuring, Kitty did think on herself as shit walking tall.
And so it was upon this day. Kitty and her gang were returning to the village from the cane piece called Virgo in a ragged line that moved slow as lame donkeys—for Kitty had trod that two-mile route from the stock-pen to the field six times that day. As was usual, the flies did mass around her, even as she swotted the pests away with fancy flapping. The sun baking upon her back had her so drowsy that she heedless kept resting her hand upon the shoulder of Peggy, the woman who walked at her side. ‘Miss Kitty, me finish with me load this day. Me caan carry you now,’ her companion said many times before Kitty heard her plea.
On the lane that follows the boundary stones—just before Kitty entered in upon her village—a breeze of gossip reached her ears. Some negroes from the second gang, squatting within the yard of the bad houses, called out to Kitty that they had heard that Pitchy-Patchy had come from town. That this raggedy masquerade man—adrift from the Christmas Joncanoe—was in the mill yard, growling so as to fright all the pickney in the hope of mango being thrown.
Then, under the thatch roof of the head-man’s kitchen, there was a huddle of men—two coopers were there, but the head-man was not. All were chatting upon the situation. These men told Kitty that, no, it was not Pitchy-Patchy that had fallen from the long grasses, but two persons that had escaped from this fight-for-free war-war that was raging upon this island—a very little man, who was bust-up and limping, and a young girl who stood, fiercely pleading for all about to help them. The argument among this gathering of men, so Kitty understood, was whether to chase these bad-wind strangers upon their way, or take pity upon them. However, ‘Trouble, trouble, gon’ come,’ was all the m
en within this noisy quarrel could agree upon.
On the lane that leads to Kitty’s home, the fires out front of the huts had been left unattended; for all who lived there were at the mill yard. They had gone to gawp their big-eye upon the ghoulish sight of those blow-in visitors. Kitty had to shoo three hogs that had their snouts deep within their deserted pots.
Ezra, calling Kitty to chat, kept her long-long. All his talk was of the fires and the bloodshed, ‘But we is good niggers,’ he told Kitty over and over. ‘We no strike blow for free like them did tell us we mus’ do. We no sit down, Miss Kitty, we no sit down.’
By the time Kitty did reach her hut, she was too weary to worry upon all the fuss-fuss that blew about her. To squat in the river and scrub with leaves of Bald-bush was her only prayer.
But, shuffling up the lane toward her, came Miss Rose. Limping, yet still kicking nimble at the chickens within her path, Miss Rose eventually landed heavy upon the stone in front of Kitty’s fire. She then caught her breath enough to whisper loud, ‘Miss Kitty, your pickney is come. Miss July is come. The bad-news stranger girl with hurt man ’pon her shoulder be Miss July, all grow up. And she say massa be dead. Massa John be dead!’
Now, all knew that lavish words were as scarce to Kitty as beef in her dutchy pot, but upon hearing that her daughter, whom she had missed for so many years, had just fallen out from the long grasses—her hair picky-picky and nasty with thistle, skin clawed raw, dress slashed to a scrap and covered with mud and bush, eyes wild as a hounded beast, bearing up a lame man with a head cracked to crooked, who trembled within her grasp while she raved upon all who came too close, that the massa was dead—Kitty stood without breath or blink for so long that Miss Rose believed she had turned to stone. Miss Rose swore it—upon the good book if anyone doubted the witness she bore.