The Long Song

by Andrea Levy

  And, reader, you may only see before you a forlorn clearing in a wilderness where scruffy, hungry, tired and pitiful negro men, women and children laboured long, yet where not even one wall of a hut can be observed. But upon this rough, squatted land, ‘This is free,’ was cried hearty every morning by Dublin Hilton. After the conch was blown for work to commence, that old once-a-distiller-man did raise his voice to yell upon all who now lived there, ‘Wake now, all, for this be free.’

  And now we must return to the place they left and ride through the lands of Amity. Through the acres of cane pieces where the poles of cane are already being bound and choked by weeds. Some of the crop lies trampled and flat as discarded trash. Without the negroes, already much of the land has fallen to ruinate, useless ticky-ticky.

  See the trash-house door is open, while the flimsy spent cane, being blown by the wind, spills like jumble weed. The wheel is fixed by a creeping vine already, and unable to turn, even if there were still workers or beasts willing to drive its spindles. And there is a breach in the cane juice gutter. If that precious liquor ran from the mill down to the receivers in the boiling house now, it would never reach, but spill half-way into the river and feed the fish its sweetness. And the works—where once the enormous coppers steamed, foamed and bubbled loud with molten liquor turning to granulate as sugar—is quiet except for the scratching and squealing of creatures who now have their home within the bowl of those vacant teaches. And so many rats! With no small boys to trap them, see how boldly they befoul the once clean floor of that boiling house.

  Look upon the grey stone of the temper-lime kiln as we pass—it is cracked and half obscured by plants. But shield your nose from the stench, flap your hands to scatter the flies, and be sure to avert your eye as we travel alongside that petrified negro village.

  The gate that guards the path up to the great house is hanging broken from its hinge. The watch hut is empty. But as we near the stables there is the sound of laughing. Byron sits playing marbles with Joseph at the door. Both squatting upon tiny three-legged stools, those two long men have their knees up by their ears as they watch the marbles run.

  But let us quickly pass by to find Molly snoozing upon her chair in the doorway of the kitchen, her arms folded across her belly, her grey kerchief slipping to one side. There is no need of tip-toeing, for nothing would wake her as we now take those six small steps that cross that vast breach from the kitchen into the great house.

  There, in the dining room, Robert Goodwin idly examines the tarnish upon his silver knife as he sits, leaning an elbow casually upon the dining table. While at the other end of that long piece of furniture, his wife Caroline is seated as upright as her chair back demands. He is reciting to her the instructions that he found in the last letter he received from his papa concerning their arrival in England. How his father advises that they should hire a carriage and pair to take them to Chesterfield rather than taking a post or stage coach. While at the other end of the table Caroline recounts for him, with complex hand gestures and very shrill giggling, the details of the last sea voyage she undertook those many years before.

  And your storyteller must report—for it cannot be rendered upon paper in any other way—that Robert and Caroline Goodwin are both speaking to each other at one and the same time.

  Robert Goodwin is now quite recovered from his malady. After he was brought home from the cane piece, a sickness confined him to his bed. Curled up tight as a fern frond he lay there for many weeks. He would speak to no one, nor open his eyes to look about him. He took no food, nor sipped any proffered water. There was no mortal illness the doctor could find—no yellow, nor denghie fever, no malaria, nor snake bite. But the doctor warned Caroline that, if he continued to refuse water, his grave would claim him just the same.

  Yet no matter how Caroline cajoled, wagging her finger upon him to ‘drink or die’, stamping down her foot, squealing, shaking her fist at his unreasonableness, or stroking his brow to beg him, ‘Whisper, Robert, whisper to me what is wrong so it might be put right,’ he remained insensible to her. She sat vigil beside him—day and night—poking and squeezing a dampened sponge against his lips. Yet still his blue eyes sank into the shadow of their sockets as the bones of his face gradually outlined the skull beneath. She wailed upon him, she dropped to her knees to persuade him to live, she even shook him—although the flimsiness of his gaunt torso nearly had her faint.

  Then, one afternoon, a baby’s cry broke outside the window and Robert Goodwin was suddenly roused to swivel his eye towards the sound. Within the hour, Caroline had brought his baby Emily to him. She placed the naked baby upon his pillow. At first he made no movement but when that little child leaned over towards him to grab a handful of his hair within her tiny fist, he almost smiled. He raised his hand to gingerly catch the baby’s fingers in his. But she would not let go his hair. Caroline had to pick her from off the pillow. And the baby kicked and fretted so as she was raised away from him that he lifted his hand to his lips to hush her, then waved weakly to her as she was taken from the room.

  After that, he would sip water. After that, he would suck upon a mango. When he chewed the tiniest morsel of guinea fowl, Caroline became quite determined that now she could return him to health. He reminded her of the kitten she had once found in London many years before. ‘It was skinny as a pipe cleaner after being near drowned by some brute,’ she told him as she carefully spooned beef tea into his mouth. ‘Edmund had said that it would surely die. But it grew and grew under my nursing.’ However, what she did not disclose to him was that she fed the kitten so much that it died a few months later, a big round ball of fur in front of an untouched saucer of rancid cream.

  Come, Caroline would let no one go near her patient except she! Only she must feed him, only she must wash him, only she must take his weight upon her shoulder to walk him about the room. As he regained some strength, visitors came to call and Caroline waylaid them at the sickroom door to jabber her instructions upon them. One visitor may enter at a time only; do not approach him closer than the foot of the bed; resist asking too many questions of him, but do comment heartily upon how much improved he seems. And never, ever, under any circumstances, talk of negroes—for nothing must agitate him in any way.

  And fine progress he made under this mighty care—stronger and more contented every day. Until that is, George Sadler from Windsor Hall paid him a visit. Within a second of Caroline having left the room, George Sadler, flouting all instruction, pulled up a chair to sit close beside Robert Goodwin. He wished to speak within his ear, the better to apprise him of the new idea that the planters of the parish were planning—an idea which would end all of their problems with those indolent, feckless, troublesome negroes and return their plantations once more to profit. By the time George Sadler had left that room, Robert Goodwin was sitting up in bed, excitedly talking of coolies.

  ‘Of course. What a perfect idea. It’s the only answer to our problems. Immigration. We must bring in labourers to work the lands from some other country. And where better to find them than India. Indian workers have proved themselves already upon the island of Mauritius. Yes, coolies must be brought here. George Sadler has ordered one hundred to be sent from India on a seven year-indentureship. I intend to do the same,’ Robert Goodwin told Caroline, before insisting that he should soon leave his bed and go into town to arrange it all. ‘Every planter upon the island is of one mind, Caroline. Boatloads of these men are already upon their way. And George Sadler assures me that those that have already arrived work far better than any negro. They have never been slaves, you see, and have not that antipathy to white men. They come just under obligation to work. Coolies! Coolies are the answer I have been looking for. Coolies will soon have this plantation working again.’

  Caroline sent once more for the doctor. She wished to ask him whether, in view of the seriousness of her husband’s malady, his need to rest, his need for quiet so his problem did not return, that perhaps, for his own good, he sho
uld be tied down to the bed?

  The doctor told her, ‘Madam, your husband is a gentleman, not a lunatic!’ But what he did prescribe was a long visit back home to England, so he might better convalesce away from the source of his unease.

  And oh, how Caroline squealed with delight, ‘Of course, why did not I think of that? I must take him to England. I must get him far away from here. Robert, Robert, the doctor has decided that you must go to Youlgreave at once to visit with your family.’

  So there sits Caroline Goodwin, quite flush with high spirits, that this was their last evening upon the island for well . . . for well . . . for well, we will see. She longed to behold England again now her Robert was well—now he was so very much improved. And she had not yet had a chance to speak with Robert about it, but there was a man in London—an agent for a titled gentleman who lived in Bristol—that wished to talk to them about the possibility of purchasing the lands and the great house of the plantation named Amity.

  But she does not mention that as they sit at the dining table one last time before sailing to England. For she is too busy telling the tale of her last sea voyage. ‘Robert, did I ever tell you that the ship I travelled in to Jamaica bucked and rolled me across that ocean so cruelly that being strapped to a whale’s back would have been no less arduous a journey?’

  But we must, for a moment, leave Mr and Mrs Goodwin at the table—come, we have heard that tale before and wait . . . wait . . . I believe she is about to repeat it again! Let us move on quickly through the doorway of the dining room, out into the hallway. For there, stationed behind the door, clasping an oval, silver, dome-lidded serving dish is our July. As she instructs Elias—who stands before her, wiping his nose with one hand while fidgeting to adjust his itchy breeches with the other—she leans forward to speak as close into his ear as the awkward salver within her hands will allow. Her command to him is to place this dish, ‘Before the massa, you hear me, nah? What me just say?’

  When Elias shrugged, she kicked him awkwardly. ‘Before the massa, not the missus. What me say?’ As Elias repeated, ‘The massa, the massa, the massa . . .’ she handed the salver into his outstretched arms with the command, ‘And be careful you no drop it.’

  Elias walked the twenty paces from the door to the table, quick as a lizard escaping a snake. July, peering upon him through the crack of the door, inhaled a fearful breath, which she did not release until the fool-fool boy had placed the dish upon the table in front of Robert Goodwin. As his massa turned his head to find Elias asking, ‘What is this, boy?’ Elias ran from the room without reply.

  As Robert Goodwin was saying, ‘Yes, yes, Caroline, I did hear you the last time you told me of that voyage,’ he placed his hand upon the handle of the salver’s lid. He then lifted it. A thousand black cockroaches, suddenly freed into the light, scurried from out that dish. They swarmed across the table-top like a spill of dirty water to drop pitter-patter from the table on to the wooden floor. Some fell into his lap. Robert Goodwin was too stunned to feel the crawl of them. He sat entranced, staring at a hideous mound of dead and crushed roaches that were piled high upon the salver. He took a while to start yelling. But then he jolted to his feet—hopping and swiping at his lap, his chest, slapping his arms and face, as the pitiful roar of a donkey painfully dying emitted from his mouth. Caroline stood upon her chair to shriek.

  While July, silently watching this frenzied scene through the crack in the dining-room door, did hope it would make her smile, did believe it would make her laugh, and was quite vexed to find that it did not.

  CHAPTER 33

  READER, MUST I NOW show the fuss-fuss that went on as the massa and missus of the plantation named Amity finally took their leave from this Caribbean island? Do you desire to hear the squealing of Caroline Goodwin one last time within this tale, as she directs their belongings loaded up on to the carriage? ‘Byron, be careful, be very careful, boy, that is very valuable . . . Slower, Elias, do not run . . . Robert, where are you? Elias, where is your master? . . .’

  Or shall we pass on by to a quieter place? To find our July sitting a little distance from the garden, within the cooling shade of a tree, regarding all this commotion with a glad eye. For come, it was not, ‘Marguerite! Marguerite!’ that was being called.

  July had at first asked kindly to be allowed to attend Robert Goodwin upon his sickbed. She meekly appealed to the missus. Following that, she pleaded with her. Finally, she was obliged to drop to her knees to kiss the missus’s slippered toes and beg her. Seven times in all, did July make her requests (or every minute of the night and day for weeks and weeks, if you care to take Caroline Goodwin’s version of July’s remonstrations).

  ‘He must not see negroes,’ the missus had told her.

  And July informed her, ‘But me is not a negro, me is a mulatto.’ Her missus—frowning with deep puzzlement—just replied, ‘Oh who upon this earth cares about that silliness? You are still a negro, and it is negroes who have brought him to this. You will come nowhere near him, Marguerite. He does not wish to see you. He wants you to stay away from him. Do you hear me?’

  The missus had then tasked Joseph to guard the only unbolted door into the great house. His sole command was to shoo July—to get her gone, to shout and curse upon her that the massa no want to see her.

  Only when resting quiet in that little room under the house could July be anywhere near Robert Goodwin. For she did hear him in his room above her. If her breath was held she did feel him turning fretful within his bed. If she stood upon her tip-toe she would catch his sigh as he stared, bored, through the window. His muffled voice did often drift down to her, but too indistinct to be worth straining for his meaning. But sometimes at night his resonant snore did rattle in to rest beside her.

  When, one evening, she sat nursing Emily, softly singing, ‘Mama gon’ rock, mama gon’ hold, little girl-child mine,’ his laughter came tripping through her ceiling. ‘Papa,’ July said to Emily, who was suckling with her one hard tooth. The missus’s footsteps skipping heavy across the room above her were not unusual. Nor was her giggling. July thought nothing of the silence that followed.

  She laid Emily into her box, sat upon her bed, and snuffed out her candle to preserve it. It was in that gloom that her ceiling began to creak. And soft moans and breathy sighs and panting began drizzling down upon July’s head. The bed began to bounce above her, rhythmic and strong. Thump, thump. Come, July had felt a tickle of dust gently falling. Then, slap! He enjoyed to spank bare flesh. Ouch! He loved to pinch. Oh! And to bite. Faster and faster, the bed had bumped upon her ceiling. And although July blocked up her ears with her fists, the missus did not think to stifle Robert Goodwin’s mouth when he at last discharged his final cry.

  July spent many days gathering up those cockroaches for Robert Goodwin’s leaving dish. It was not, however, a thousand roaches that menaced Robert Goodwin, for they became quite hard to find. But more than one hundred, July managed to capture. Most were crushed, for they were the devil to keep in one place. And not all were cockroaches, but beetles and centipedes and tumble-bugs and strange black slithery things that squirmed within the shitty pit-holes. But all were diligently hoarded by July, for far too easily had she just been discarded.

  July heard Robert Goodwin command not only Joseph, but Byron and Elias that, ‘Miss July must be allowed nowhere near the house, or the garden. Do not let her return to her room until we are quite departed. And she must stay far from the kitchen. Do not, under any circumstances, permit her to approach the missus or myself. She must be warned that if I glimpse her anywhere within my sight then, so help me God, I will have the policeman brought from town to incarcerate her in the lock-up. Anywhere! Savvy that? Anywhere! And neither your missus, nor myself, wishes to bid her any sort of goodbye.’

  Their departing carriage disappeared that day, rippling and swaying in a heat haze. July watched it go until the last black dot of it appeared to simply vanish.

  July turned her gaze to watch Emily, who
sat at her feet. Her pickney was singing a song to herself—a nonsense song, for she knew no words. And as she sang she played with a piece of lace, turning it over and over in her fingers until she began sucking it keenly within her mouth.

  The lace had been gifted to Emily by Robert Goodwin. He had hoped July to stitch it into a christening dress for his daughter. The christening would now never take place, but July leaned forward to her pickney to promise, ‘But me still gone make the dress for you,’ as she wrested the soggy lace from Emily’s sticky hands.

  It was then that Molly arrived. She stood before July saying nothing, just staring her one good eye down upon her. So long did Miss Molly remain silent, that July thought to ask her where she would go now there were no white people within the great house who required her nasty food.

  Molly lifted her gaze to the clouds to at last speak. She began by saying that she had milk. It was warm and fresh and straight from the cow and should she take Miss Emily to feed her some? Then she smiled upon July.

  July thought nothing of it as she handed her pickney to her, for Molly often fed her. But perhaps if she had noticed that Molly was wearing a hat—a missus cast-off with a blue satin bow that hung down comically in need of a stitch—she would have waved her away. Oh, reader, if July had remembered that Molly, in the whole of her days, had only ever smiled in spite, perhaps she would have just clutched her pickney tight to her.

  But she did not.

  July walked the path up to the great house, where every window and every door of that big place was barred and sealed to her. Only the veranda remained open to welcome. July lifted herself into Robert Goodwin’s hammock. As she rocked there she watched a column of red ants determinedly climb the veranda steps. They marched in their thin red line straight under the bolted door of the house. Where once July would have chased them back with a broom or threatened them with a fire stick, now she let them go. And there was no missus to squeal, ‘Marguerite, Marguerite! Come quickly, there are ants!’ Come, so quiet did it remain that July could hear the pitter-patter of the ants’ legs as they walked that wooden floor. And she fell asleep there, rocking within a hammock that smelt faintly of an Englishman.