My grandfather tried his best to keep my spirits up, but his job had mostly been as a storyteller for us children, and I was no longer interested in hearing Anancy or duppy stories. Most of all, I missed the sound of Grandma Melba’s laughter.
I still had a month of my school holiday remaining, so Grandpa decided it would be best for me to pay another visit to my father’s house for a couple of weeks, rather than hang around in what he’d taken to calling ‘de ole empty place.’
‘Mi a beg yuh, Grandpa,’ I cried when he told me, ‘dere is plenty tings here mi kyan help wit! Mi kyan go a mi fada house pon de next holiday.’
‘I understand you, chile,’ he replied sadly, ‘yuh have a good heart. Melba woulda proud a yuh. But it betta fi yuh fi spend time wit yuh fada an him family. De company will help tek yuh mind off tings an yuh will come back innah good time fi school. An true seh yuh nuh ave much time left pon de island, tings a go ave to sort out soon.’
‘Wah yuh mean, Grandpa Sippa, bout mi nuh ave much time left pon de island?’ I asked him, perplexed by this statement. ‘Den a weh mi a go?’
‘A fortunate Missa Booker know yuh fada,’ Grandpa continued, ‘because yuh fada wi ave to sign papers, so yuh can go join yuh mada in Hinglan.’
Join my mother in England? I suddenly felt as if Grandpa Sippa had taken a large rock and dropped it on my head and smashed me into the red dirt yard. Go to England? I couldn’t believe that my grandfather was making plans to send me away. And, worse, that I was being sent to live with the ugly Satan devil man. Grandma Melba would have died a second time, had she been able to know that this could happen! Nevertheless, I din’t want to argue with my grandfather, so I accepted my fate with a heavy heart.
The next day, I walked alone to the bus stop. This time the bus journey unfolded in a kind of slow motion. The countryside held little of the interest of my first journey to my father’s house. In fact, I barely glanced out of the windows. Even the noisy chatter on the bus couldn’t block out my grandfather’s words. It was as if I was trapped in a bad dream that had somehow got stuck inside my brain and, once there, it kept repeating on a loop. Had the driver not shouted out, ‘One stop, Miss Erna! Yuh figet seh a yasso yuh ave to drop off?’ I most likely would have ended up at the final stop.
Dusk fell in that sudden way it does on the island, and before I could complete the short journey to my father’s shop, the night sky became so littered with stars that it appeared that the moon was having to fight for space.
The shop was busy as always. A few of my father’s sons and some older men were sitting around drinking island beer and sodas. A different half-sister, a girl I’d only seen briefly before named Priscilla, was serving behind the counter. She had one of those faces that seemed never to have broken into a smile.
‘Cock a rass!’ she declared, looking at me. ‘Papa outside-pickney de back yasso aready.’
‘A big man daughta!’ someone else hollered out.
‘How come yuh a walk street soh late! Yuh nuh fraid a duppy?’ said another.
I sat on a stool to wait for my father to turn up.
‘Mama seh yuh fi sen ova one chicken and a two-pound bag a flour,’ said Alvita, who had wandered into the shop. Then she seemed to notice me. ‘Yuh back soh quick, Erna, yuh grandmada duppy run yuh?’ she said.
‘No,’ I replied, ‘mi jus back. Mi grandmada is resting in peace.’
‘If yuh seh soh,’ she replied, with a suck of her teeth. Then, after a pause, she added, ‘Papa nuh deya yet. But im wi come soon.’
‘Yuh sure seh Mama want de frozen chicken?’ Priscilla asked Alvita. ‘She nuh did kill fowl dis morning?’
‘Mi a jus de messenger! Mama want de frozen chicken. She seh she a go pour boiling water pan it. De fowl she kill scrawny to ratid! It kyaan mek dinner fi all wi. An now Erna come tun up, it definitely nuh enough.’
Alvita took the frozen chicken and the flour and left. The chest freezer in my father’s store was the first I’d ever seen. The poles that carried the electricity cables all the way from the road stopped at the shop, so he was able to keep a freezer full of dead chickens and rabbits.
‘A how yuh comeback so quick, Erna?’ Priscilla asked in a disapproving tone. Without waiting for an answer she called out, ‘One a yuh bwoy go look fi Papa, tell im seh Erna deyah, again!’
For a moment none of the boys moved and it soon became clear that it was the youngest boy who was expected to go and fetch my father. This boy, who was about a year older than me, was another ‘outside’ child. He had slicked-back coolie hair, which suggested his mother was probably Indian. He got up and ran at full speed up the hill to the house. A short while later I heard my father’s voice. I stood up and went outside to greet him.
‘Evening, sarh,’ I said, before he could say anything. ‘Mi know seh yuh nuh expect mi, but mi grandfada said it good fi mi to come stay wit yuh to stop mi fretting over mi grandmada, sarh.’
‘Yuh grandfada right,’ he said, ‘yuh need plenty sumady round at a time like dis.’
Then I asked him about the subject that had been driving me to distraction ever since Grandpa Sippa mentioned it. ‘Mi grandfada seh mi a go Hinglan soon, sarh, but mi nuh want fi go! But mi grandfada seh im kyaan look after mi now mi grandmada dead.’
My father gave me a long, level look. ‘Is true dat,’ he said, ‘an mi jus a get fi know yuh. Wen yuh a leave?’
‘Mi nuh know, sarh. Mi grandfada seh a yuh have to sign paper, but mi nuh know what kind a paper him did a talk bout, sarh.’
‘Mi nevah know yuh mada ave belly until she carry yuh here when yuh a baby,’ my father said, without any apparent connection to what we were talking about. ‘Iris seh she would tek yuh in and yuh mada tell wi she wi tink bout it. Dat was de last time mi see de two ah oonoo. Erna, mi nuh did know if yuh did dead or alive. Is true still dat a whole heap pickney mi ave, but mi try fi own every last one a dem, if dat’s what de mada want.’
I didn’t really understand why my father was telling me this. It sounded like he was blaming my mother. He knew my aunt, so it couldn’t have been that difficult to find me if he really wanted to.
Still, there was no time to be angry. I just wanted to spend as much time as I could in his company. If the plan to send me to England really was true, then there would not be many more opportunities to visit. Though, despite his proclamation about what happened after I was born, I heard no offer from him now to take me in.
Still, I could see that my father also wanted to build our relationship, and as the days passed I felt more and more at ease in his company. He began asking me to join him on little outings and I jumped at every opportunity to hop on the back of his motorcycle to wherever he was going. Being on the bike was nothing like riding my donkeys or even being driven in a bus or car. I loved the sensation of moving so fast on the dusty, open roads, the cool breeze on my face when the sun was beating down at its hottest. The outings were usually to check on his workmen and animals. Sometimes we’d hang out at the Boldero provision store, where he’d play a few hands of dominoes with the other village men, while I sat and watched and drank soda.
Grandpa was right: being at my father’s helped me. It was a busy place, which meant that Grandma’s face wasn’t always the first that I saw in the morning or the last at night. When I wasn’t hanging out with my father, I went to the market with my half-sisters and helped them with chores. From time to time, the boys entertained me with their endless squabbling and the odd fist-fight, seemingly intent on trying to kill each other. And then there was the day they tried – and failed – to get me to ride a bike, which left me with bruises all over and a badly dented pride. My least favourite activity was going to church with Miss Iris. Miss Iris had endless sins to pray about – mostly linked to my father’s womanising – so she attended church on the three days a week that the church was open. My father, on the other hand, often walked straight past the church without even looking at it. And he never went inside.
‘Sarh,�
�� I asked him one day, ‘yuh nuh waan fi go a church with Miss Iris?’
‘Mi? No, sah!’ My father threw his head back and laughed out loud. ‘Dem place a fi mad people fi go jump up, jump up! Yuh nuh catch mi in a dat place, sah. Yuh see man deh!’
Apart from going to church with Miss Iris, I’d enjoyed my time at my father’s so much that I felt quite sad when it was time to go. Most of my half-siblings had been accepting of me this time, and several of them had become friends; it appeared that Grandma’s death and the news that I was probably going to England soon had stirred up extra interest in me. The day before I left, they rather optimistically placed orders for the things they wanted me to send to them once I was in England. My sisters mostly asked for clothes; Alvita said she’d like a watch so she could know the time. The boys wanted baseball caps. Longers was more ambitious: he wanted me to send money so he could buy a motorcycle like our father’s. I nodded appeasingly at them all. While I didn’t feel quite ready to say goodbye, I was nevertheless happy to be going home to my grandfather.
As I made ready to leave, my father rested his hands on my shoulders and said with a soft smile, ‘Miss Erna! Mi wi miss yuh, man. De time too short, but mi did glad to know yuh and mi hope seh yuh wi write mi and dat yuh wi come and visit when yuh can.’
‘Thank yuh, Papa!’ I replied. ‘Mi glad fi know yuh too, an mi wi definitely write yuh.’ The word ‘Papa’ slipped effortlessly and unexpectedly out of my mouth.
My father just smiled and repeated, ‘Yes, man! Mi ago miss yuh.’
Miss Iris and my half-siblings stood three-deep as I said my goodbyes.
‘De bus wi reach Boldero school innah de next twenty minute, Erna,’ my father said, after watching us all hugging for a minute. ‘It betta yuh dere fi wait far it, dan get dere las minute.’
‘Yes, Papa,’ I said, and with that I climbed on to the back of his motorbike to cries of ‘Sen some money fi wi!’ echoing from my siblings.
‘Erna, nuh tek notice of dem pickney,’ my father shouted over the noise of the engine, ‘dem too craven an gravalicious!’
My father waited with me at the side of the road, and when the bus pulled up, he put an arm around my shoulders and gave me a big hug.
‘Mi wish yuh a safe journey an God’s speed, Erna,’ he said.
‘Tanks, Papa. Mi promise, mi wi write yuh soon.’ I boarded the bus and sat in the one remaining window seat.
‘Remember yuh promise now,’ he shouted, when I stuck my head out of the glassless window.
The bus moved forward and I waved to my Papa until he was out of sight.
Chapter 17
The heat had built up inside the bus until it was like an oven, and I soon felt tired and irritable. I certainly wasn’t looking forward to the walk to the village all the way from Preston. But when I climbed off the bus, to my delight, I saw Grandpa Sippa sitting outside Mass Julius’s shop with Bugle Boy and Treasure Girl hitched-up to a nearby pimento tree.
‘Mi miss yuh round de place, Erna,’ Grandpa Sippa said as soon as he saw me.
‘Mi did miss yuh too, Grandpa,’ I said, giving him a hug, which given his height meant just above his waist.
We climbed on to the donkeys and began making our way back to the village, chatting as we swayed along the rough dirt tracks.
‘How is mi chicken dem, Grandpa?’ I asked.
‘Mongoose call!’ he replied. ‘Dem grab two a de hen dem before de yard bwoy could do anyting. Yuh know seh mongoose fas. De yard bwoy fix up de fence round de coop, soh de rest of yuh fowl dem safe, fi now.’
I had been the proud owner of twenty-one hens until Grandma decided that Sensay, the mother hen, was too old and was ready for the cooking pot. Sensay had laid hundreds of eggs and was mother to my other twenty hens. She’d turned into quite a peculiar looking fowl, with her few remaining feathers sticking out all over the place. One Sunday morning, Sensay had failed to appear in the yard as usual with her adult brood trailing behind her. It turned out that Grandma had risen early, collected Sensay, and stuffed the old fowl’s body under a tin basin. She used the rim of the basin to hold the fowl’s head from her body and, with a flick of her knife, she sliced off my Sensay’s head and then plucked her remaining feathers in readiness for Sunday dinner. My poor Sensay! Her headless body, once released from under the basin, would have danced about for a couple of minutes before surrendering to death. Thinking about this story and my Grandma brought everything back, and as we rode alongside each other I found myself welling up with tears. I could feel Treasure Girl’s body tremble under my frame as if sensing my distress.
‘Yuh waan stop a while, Erna?’ Grandpa said. ‘Mi know seh yuh nuh bawl bout de fowl mangoose catch.’
I nodded, so we dismounted and sat on a nearby rock.
‘Erna,’ Grandpa said with a sigh, ‘yuh know seh, wi kyaan bring Melba back. An yuh know seh yuh grandmada had a good life. It was har time to go an when dat time come, only God Jehovah kyan stop it, but him nuh choose to, chile, because a de one ting wi all hafi go trough. Wi jus kyaan pick de time. Dat is all!’
The sun had nearly disappeared, so Grandpa lit the two bottle torches he’d brought with him and handed one to me. Bugle Boy and Treasure Girl had travelled the route so many times they could be ridden without us having to hold on to their bridles, which made it easy for us to carry our torches.
Grandpa’s words had helped, but as we approached our house I began hiccuping so violently that my body shook. He dismounted from Bugle Boy, hitched her up to a nearby tree, and came over to Treasure Girl, leading her to the front of our verandah. Grandpa gently helped me climb down from her saddle, before tethering her to the same tree as Bugle Boy.
‘Go an siddung in yuh grandma chair,’ he said. ‘Let mi go move de donkey dem fi de night.’
When he returned, I followed him nervously into the house. I could feel Grandma Melba’s presence as strongly as though she were standing right there in the Hall. I sat on a chair and started to cry again, but this time it felt like I would never be able to stop.
Grandpa placed a hand on my shoulder and whispered, ‘It hard to believe Melba gone fi true.’
He went to the kitchen and brought me back a mug of sweet tea. I drank it down and stuck a finger inside the mug to scrape out the condensed milk that had settled at the bottom.
‘Go fix up yuhself an try fi get some rest, chile,’ he said when I finished. ‘Mi know seh a big ting dat Melba gone caus yuh nevah ave mada or fada, and mi know how much yuh di love and depen pon yuh grandmada. De good Lard wi pull us trough. Off you go now,’ he added gently, and I trotted off to bed.
Grandpa and I quickly found ourselves a routine, where I did a bit more of the yard work and tending to the smaller animals. But he also put me in charge of the cooking. Sadly, like Grandma Melba, I was not the best of cooks; my sister, Patricia, despite being two years younger than me, had been much better at preparing a reasonable meal.
One evening, as Grandpa struggled to eat the mountain of hard food and chicken that I’d served up, he exclaimed, ‘Chile, mi is sure yuh a cook fi duppy! Whole heap a duppy! De food plenty even for a big sumady like me! Ahn mi nuh waan yuh fi feel bad, but mi kyaan fine de taste. It come like yuh nuh bada wit one drop a seasoning!’
‘Sorry, Grandpa Sippa,’ I replied, ‘mi will memba fi add more seasoning de next time.’
‘Chile, wi ave every ting, salt, pepper, scallion, thyme, every striking ting! Yuh jus ave fi use de tings. It wi mek de food taste like food!’
And so, in our clumsy way, we carried on without Grandma Melba to keep everything in order. I continued to work as hard I could, in the secret hope that there would be no more talk of me being sent to England. I thought Grandpa and I were managing just fine, but one Sunday afternoon after we returned from church Grandpa called me over and handed me a letter from my father, which had arrived the previous day. The letter had only one sentence, written in ungainly capital letters and signed with a barely legible slant. It was addr
essed: To Whom It May Concern. I scanned the three lines:
I JUDAH AUGUSTUS MULLINGS HEREBY GIVE MY CONSENT FOR MY DAUGHTER ERNA ANNETTE MULLINGS TO BE SENT TO ENGLAND TO JOIN HER MOTHER, VIOLET PEARL WILLIAMSON.
My grandfather had forwarded those exact words to my father, the very same words that my mother had sent to him in one of her letters from England. I handed the letter back to my grandfather.
‘Pickney! Yuh ah young sumady,’ Grandpa said, in a voice full of emotion. ‘Mi deya fa almost as long as Methuselah. Mi know seh yuh nuh waan fi leave dis place, but mi nuh know how fi tek care ah yuh without yuh grandmada. Dat was Melba job.’
I listened to Grandpa Sippa in silence. It was the moment that I’d so desperately wanted to avoid. I must have been in a state of shock, because my voice disappeared for two full days. But, whether I liked it or not, preparations for my journey to England began in earnest. Grandpa Sippa took me back to Mr John the photographer to get my passport pictures taken. He also asked his good friend Mass Charlie to travel to the registrar office in town to get a copy of my birth certificate – the one that Uncle Cleveland had given to my Grandma had long disappeared from the massive King James Bible where Grandpa kept important papers.
Mass Charlie arrived in the village with my birth certificate on the same day that a carefully wrapped brown paper parcel covered with colourful stamps bearing the face of Queen Elizabeth II arrived.
My birth certificate, which I’d never seen before, was a foot-long strip of cream-coloured paper. Written on it were my full name, the date and place of my birth, and my mother’s name and occupation. The box where my father’s name should have been was empty, apart from a black line drawn through it. The irony was not lost on me: despite the absence of my father’s name on my birth certificate, he was the only person who could give permission for me to leave the island. What if Mass Booker hadn’t known of his existence? What if the story that he was a thief, who had broken his neck and subsequently died, had been true? Then there would have been no father to sign anything and no preparations for me to go to England. Grandpa thanked Mass Charlie, took the birth certificate into the Hall and placed it inside the same Bible from which the original had disappeared. When he came back to the verandah, he sat down and carefully unwrapped the parcel. First, he removed and admired two checked shirts and a flat cap that were clearly meant for him. He appeared very pleased with the flat cap, in particular, which he immediately placed on his head. Then he pushed the parcel towards me.
The Day I Fell Off My Island Page 14