Olga - A Daughter's Tale

by Marie-Therese Browne (Marie Campbell)

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  Chapter Five

  Becky’s Diary

  Strange Folklore: Lucy and John have a baby boy and they’ve named him Bobbie. Lucy say’s it was the shock of hearing about our recent accident that hastened his arrival. I’m amazed that Lucy wasn’t attended by her own doctor but instead by a black woman called Ernestine who has no nursing qualifications although is well know in the area for having delivered scores of babies, black, white and coloured.

  “I was in good hands Becky. Ernestine gave me some herbs which helped me relax and, believe me Becky, I’ve been long enough in Jamaica to know that old women like her understand how and when to use herbs that grow naturally in Jamaica and I was happy to take whatever medicine she prescribed”.

  According to Lucy it was a straightforward birth, long and painful, but bearable and both Lucy and little Bobbie are fine. I’ve learnt a lot about Jamaica’s history and culture in a short space of time, but Rosa, one of Lucy’s servants, gave me a severe shock a few days after Bobbie was born.

  I was lying on the lawn in the back garden, enjoying the warmth of the sun on my body, inhaling the heady scent of the flowers and listening to the hum of the bees as they flew between the flowers when, suddenly, Rosa came running into the garden shattering the stillness of the afternoon and I noticed that she was holding something.

  Whatever it was Rosa wasn’t very happy about it, running with her arms outstretched and holding her head back and tilted to one side – looking like she wanted to be as far away as possible from what she was carrying. I got up and went towards her and as I did so I saw Rosa was carrying a brown paper parcel and asked her what she was holding.

  “I got the plenta thing and string!”

  “Ernestine give it to me and tell me bury it in the garden for the new baby tree”.

  Rosa put the parcel on the ground and with the tips of her fingers gingerly pulled back the brown paper to reveal a bloodstained cloth. Then she slowly pulled back each corner of the cloth carefully as if she didn’t want to disturb what was in there until finally she revealed Bobbie’s three day old baby placenta and umbilical cord in all its gruesome glory.

  “In the country the placenta and umbilical cord are kept for three days after a baby is born and then buried in the ground. A young tree will be planted in the same spot and the tree would be known as the baby tree. It’s our custom” Rosa told me.

  “We been doing it this way in the country for hundreds of years. It bring good luck for the new baby.”

  Later, I told Lucy the story and asked if she known about this particular custom.

  “Of course not” she replied, “what’s more the thought of keeping a three day old placenta is disgusting and Bobbie will have to manage without his own baby tree.

  But it’s amazing,” she said, “just when I thought I’d learnt everything there was to know about Jamaican customs and traditions, up pops a really bizarre one.”

  ******

  Chapter Six

  Lucy’s Diary

  Constant Spring Hotel: Becky left “Mon Repose” very early this morning leaving a note asking Martha and me to meet her at the hotel in the afternoon as she had something to tell us.

  Both girls had recovered from their accident surprisingly quickly but had been reluctant to rebook their passage home to England. Martha is considering staying on in Jamaica and opening a dress salon, but is hesitant about taking such a big step. She has struck up a friendship with Thomas Bonnett who owns a large department store on Harbour Street. Apparently he was very impressed when she told him she worked at the Theatre Royal in Drury Lane and he realised she had skills he could make use of. Thomas suggested she stayed on in Jamaica and work for him, until she felt the time was right to start up on her own, or returned to England, whichever she decided to do. Since Becky’s recovery I hadn’t seen too much of her either. Bobbie keeps me busy and Becky’s always been self-sufficient and can amuse herself. Sometimes she takes a boat to Port Royal, the train to Montego Bay or Port Antonio.

  One day I asked her if she makes these trips alone and she confessed she had met someone special. I suspect this “someone special” is the reason she has asked Martha and me to meet her here.

  The Constant Spring must be the most beautifully situated Hotel in the whole of Jamaica. It’s as tropical as you can get, set 600 feet above sea level and at the foot of the Blue Mountains amid sugar, banana, pineapple and coffee estates.

  As you come up the front steps of the hotel there is a splendid Royal Palm tree standing in the main entrance. Inside it is cool, comfortable and elegantly furnished and outside there are spacious cool verandas where you can sit and take in the scent given off from the exotic and colourful tropical plants and shrubs that fill the hotel’s gardens. The hotel serves wonderful ice cold fresh fruit drinks, like pineapple and coconut or the hotel’s specialty, a drink called matrimony, made with the pulp of an orange and a custard apple which is what Martha and I are drinking while we wait for Becky.

  On an immaculate green lawn to my left a group of men and women are playing croquet. On my right, elderly guests, who find the sun too hot, sit under shaded arbours and tropical foliage which provides shelter from the unrelenting sun, either reading or quietly talking; elsewhere some children are shrieking and laughing while playing, what sounds like, a game of hide and seek, in the hotel’s specially designed children’s garden.

  Sitting a few tables away from me are some men and women talking and laughing loudly at the tactics that had taken place at a practice game on the polo field that morning. And in front of me beyond the gardens and shrubbery, is the tennis court from where, in the distance, I can hear a game is being played and the players calling out “well played” and “good shot” as a winning point is scored.

  At last I saw Becky coming towards me. She looked beautiful. Her long blond hair tied loosely back with a yellow ribbon and wearing a simple white dress which showed off her perfect, slim figure. She was holding hands with a good looking young man and laughing at something he was saying to her, both of them completely oblivious to the glances the other guests were giving them. I knew immediately they were in love.

  They sat down still holding hands and Becky introduced him to Martha and me.

  “This is Henry” Becky said and then she paused before she added “and Henry has asked me to marry him.”

  His name was Henry Alexander Browney and he owned a meat market down by Kingston Harbour. Becky chatted away, telling us how they met and Henry sat quietly listening. There was a pounding in my head and I felt dizzy and slightly nauseous. I reached out for my drink, my matrimony, but knocked it over – an involuntary action or a reaction. I couldn’t say. Becky was still chattering away singing Henry’s praises.

  “He’s charming, intelligent, articulate, well read and very amusing” she told us. I agree that any man with those attributes one would consider to be a real catch for a woman. But as Becky sat next to him in her pretty white dress I could only focus on the fact that Henry was as black as coal.

  It is not an exaggeration to call Jamaica a paradise. But it has an ugly past. Non whites far outnumber whites and the colour and social prejudice, which was the mainstay of slavery, remains today. Slavery has left some legacies.

  The white upper classes still have all the economic control, social prestige, political power and status. They still see as inferior the middle class, who range from almost white to pure black and who may be lawyers, doctors, business men or women, teachers, clergy, and skilled tradesmen.. It is true that this class is not barred from occupying a position in any walk of life, including public service, providing they are suitably educated and qualified.

  Some of them are magistrates of Petty Sessions, and some are Chief Magistrates of their Parishes. In the capacity of their professional positions they can and do associate with white people on equal terms. But that is where the association stops. In their private social life white Jamaican, with a few minor exceptions, refuse to mix with educat
ed and wealthy coloureds or blacks.

  It came as a surprise to me that these middle classes don’t want or expect to be invited into white Jamaican circles. Because of indoctrination during slavery, the coloureds believed they were inferior to white people but superior to the blacks and in turn the blacks believed they were inferior to both groups.

  But what has changed significantly with the middle classes is the tendency to be very obsessed with skin colour and what they consider to be good European-type features, like the shape of a nose and hair. It seems that with emancipation the question of colour seems to have become more, rather than less, important as a sign of status.

  A marriage between a coloured man and white woman would be superficially acceptable if he were very rich and influential, which in itself would be a very rare occurrence, but would also be considered damaging to the purity of the white race. A marriage between a white man and coloured woman would be tolerated. I saw this advertisement recently in the Daily Gleaner.

  SCOTTISH MAN, 28, SEEKS ATTRACTIVE WEALTHY COLOURED LADY

  WITH A VIEW TO MARRIAGE.

  PLEASE SEND PHOTOGRAPH AND DETAILS IN CONFIDENCE TO:

  P O BOX 999, DAILY GLEANER, KINGSTON

  It was not the first time I had seen something like this and I expect the young man will find what he’s looking for since there are quite a few rich coloured Jamaican women. He will get financially security and she will get a very cool and limited entry into white Jamaican society being excluded from the more prestigious events that were held.

  The only relationship between a white man and a black woman that I have heard of was during slavery. White men don’t advertise for black woman to marry, even if they are wealthy and educated.

  If Becky, a white woman, plans to go ahead with this marriage to a black man, she can expect, with a possible few exceptions, to be ostracised completely by Jamaicans whatever their colour, after all it wasn’t too long ago that it was against the law for a white woman to marry or have children with a black man.

  I knew that with Becky’s news, Martha’s dream of owning a successful dress salon would suffer. I felt sorry for her because she had been tantalisingly close to achieving what she wanted most but being Becky’s sister would ensure that she too was excluded from Kingston’s elite social circle.

  Martha said nothing throughout the meeting, but I read her eyes and her reaction was cold fury. I don’t think she looked at Henry but, as she got up to leave the table, she leaned towards Becky and whispered something in her ear.

  As Martha left I realised the rest of the guests had all been watching us. Lucy and Henry were still sitting holding hands and maybe the enormity of what they were about to undertake was beginning to dawn on Becky.

  I worry for Becky’s future but am overwhelmed with admiration and so very proud of her. Prejudice does exist between Jamaicans and it is a strong person whose voice or actions make it clear that they are not part of the colour and social structure that operates here. As Henry, Becky and I prepared to leave the hotel, I asked her what Martha had whispered.

  “Nothing. She was just being silly”.

  That evening was a typical tropical night, still, beautiful and clear with the moon riding high in a cloudless sky. A wind slowly started to get up throughout the night and steadily increased in force until by about 2 am in the morning when it must have reached over 100 m.p.h. With it came a ferocious rainstorm and relentless thunder and lightning.

  The next day the devastation was awful. Coconut trees that had stood for fifty years were torn up by the roots and thrown yards away as if they were matchsticks. Plantations, including my own, have been hit badly, but nowhere near as badly as the peasants who will have lost their homes as well as their crops. Years of work wiped out in one night. God knows what these poor people will do without money or means to restore the crops on which their livelihood entirely depends. Martha called it retribution for Becky’s actions. A little dramatic, I thought.

  Shortly afterwards she returned home alone to England.

  ******

  Telegram from Samuel Ross, Droop Street, London

  to

  Becky Ross c/o “Mon Repose”, St Andrews, Jamaica

  MARTHA HAS TOLD US OF YOUR PLANS TO MARRY. PLEASE RECONSIDER. CANNOT AGREE WITH THIS MARRIAGE. IF YOU PROCEED YOU WILL CEASE TO BE OUR DAUGHTER AND DO NOT WISH TO SEE YOU OR SPEAK TO YOU EVER AGAIN. WE BEG YOU TO RECONSIDER. PA.

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  PART TWO

  THE BROWNEYS

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  Chapter Seven

  Becky’s (Mammie) Diary

  Holy Trinity Cathedral, North Street: The Cathedral stands in its own spacious grounds and is a very impressive piece of architecture with a great copper dome and four Minarets which can be seen from a distance. The cathedral was rebuilt after being totally destroyed in the 1907 earthquake and although it’s very big and grand inside I get a great sense of peace in here, perhaps because the delicate shades of the colour scheme are restful to the eye.

  White marble steps lead to the Main Altar and the life size figure of Our Lord hanging on the Cross. The rose windows tower above the mosaic decoration on the walls where the 14 stations of the cross hang and there are also the statues of St. Anthony, the patron saint of missing people, St Francis, the patron saint of animals and the Little Flower, St Therese. Left of the main altar is the Altar of Our Lady and on the right of it is the Altar of St Joseph with the Child Jesus in his arms.

  Another year, another candle. Eight years since Ma died and six since Pa. I thought he’d go first. Who would have guessed that when I said goodbye to them that foggy afternoon on Avonmouth docks all those years ago, it would be the last time I’d see or speak to them?

  I still have all the letters I sent them and which they returned, unopened. They never found it in their hearts to forgive me for marrying Henry.

  “Ma, did you find it as heartbreaking as I did to remove me so completely from your life; did I really cease to exist for you?”

  “Did you ever think about your grandchildren? Did you ever wonder what they looked like?”

  “Why did you punish them, for my actions? You paid a high price for your prejudice, never knowing the love or experiencing the joy of getting to know your wonderful 11 grandchildren.

  Settling down: Coming to Jamaica for a holiday was one thing, but settling down to live here permanently was another. I had so much to adjust to in Kingston. The heat, humidity and dust were the worst things to cope with, especially when I was pregnant with Sydney, my first child; the heat drains you of all energy. And then there were the insects – the mosquito bites, oh I was bitten from top to bottom and sometimes I would get ill and develop a fever.

  Henry said I had very sweet blood and that’s why they would bite me. Hardly any consolation, but night time was better because we slept with a net over our beds. We threw out all our upholstered furniture and rugs because fleas were breeding in them and replaced them with polished floors and cane furniture. Ants were a terrible nuisance; they were everywhere, particularly where there was food.

  Earthquakes terrified me. One of the worst happened one day when I was visiting Lucy and I had Sydney, Cassie and Vivie with me. Lucy and I were sitting on her veranda and as she got up to go and make tea, without any warning the ground began to tremble and there was a terrible noise. It was as if we were underneath a railway arch and a very long train was passing over our heads, but the noise was like a great roar and a hundred times greater than a train. The whole experience only lasted about 10 seconds. Vivie slept through it but Sydney and Cissie started crying because the noise was so loud.

  The earthquake was felt all over the island and the fires which followed just about destroyed Kingston. People rushed out into open to places like Victoria Park and Kingston race course where they stayed for days.

  Life was hard then, but manageable, especially when you’re in love. Because of my marriage, I became infamous.

  “You’re a notorious
wanton woman now” Henry would say teasing me.

  People would point at me or just stand and stare and many, including people I had once considered to be friends, would cross the road to avoid walking past me. White and coloured Jamaicans would spit at me and the name calling was endless; nigger-lover was the most common

  I tried to understand how Jamaica’s Christian middle and upper classes, supposedly wise, intelligent and intellectual people, could treat others in such a cruel manner.

  But these inconveniences, as I called them, were more than made up for by the charm, dignity and generosity of spirit I found among the black Jamaicans in spite of their circumstances. I smile inwardly when I read in the papers how the Government likes to promote the view overseas and, particularly to tourists who visit the island, that whites and blacks live side by side in perfect harmony. What rubbish, what lies! You would have to be blind not to notice that the majority of blacks are uneducated, poor and despised by both the middle and white upper class groups who never bother to disguise their contempt for them. They’re more concerned about their own status than those of the black masses.

  The blacks live within the twin boundaries of poverty and unemployment and cannot step outside them unless they have education or money and if they can’t get those they will remain where they are. Jamaica opened my eyes to the frailties of human nature. Until I came here I hadn’t realised that humanity could come in varying degrees and that there could be such a dramatic class distinction in the social structure of one race of people.

  Kingston is still an attractive city with wide streets and buildings painted in shades of pink, cream and blue, the gardens full of hibiscus and blood red poinsettias and rich purple splashes of gorgeous bougainvillea vines. But I prefer the old capital, Spanish Town, and even though it’s now shabby, neglected and damaged by earthquakes, there still remains some splendid Spanish architecture and the ancient cathedral.