Olga - A Daughter's Tale

by Marie-Therese Browne (Marie Campbell)

  I asked Becky if Chickie had finally given up hearing from Victor Condell again. She said Chickie is desperate to marry Victor, because she doesn’t want Maurice growing up being illegitimate.

  How strange, Jamaica’s not like England, where illegitimacy is frowned upon and such a lot of stigma is attached to unmarried mothers. The other day the Gleaner reported that last month there were 137 births in Kingston and 80 were illegitimate. The island has a history of illegitimacy and it wasn’t that long ago when marriage was discouraged and even forbidden but I must admit it was at a time when planters could get more money for their slaves if they were sold separately, rather than as a married couple. Becky’s says in today’s Jamaica, marriage gives a family respectability and, of course, she’s right.

  ******

  Chapter Fourteen

  Letter to Vivie, Miami, USA

  from

  Olga, Kingston, Jamaica

  Dearest Vivie

  There’s been a terrible scandal in the family. You just won’t believe what happened last Saturday morning when we came down to breakfast.

  “That’s strange; I can’t smell any burnt toast”. Dolly said. You remember Vivie how cook insisted we eat burnt toast, because for some reason she thinks it’s good for us. Well, there was no toast, no porridge and in fact, there was no breakfast at all.

  Then Mammie came into the dining room and said cook hadn’t turned up for work and she asked Pearl to go to cook’s house and see if she was alright.

  Pearl said “No, Mammie, I get frightened when I go near that house, it’s full of voodoo stuff”. Pearl’s right. If we have a boiled egg for our breakfast, cook makes us smash the empty egg shell because she said if we don’t then witches can use them as boats and control the winds. What’s wrong with that, I wonder?

  “She lives alone and maybe she’s ill or hurt, after all it’s very unusual for her not to turn up for work”. Mammie was clearly very worried about her.

  But, as we all know, she doesn’t really live alone. She lives with talking peacocks, voodoo dolls, three scrawny chickens, a pet mongoose and that whopping big black cat of hers, called Lucifer, which follows her just about everywhere she goes.

  Do you remember Vivie when cook first started working for us Lucifer used to follow her here and because Mammie wouldn’t allow it in the house, it used to curl up under the cotton tree out the front and wait for her to leave at the end of the day. I tried to stroke it a couple of times but it would hiss at me.

  I certainly didn’t want to go to cook’s house and neither did Ruby, so Mammie said she’d go, but in the meantime Cassie was to get breakfast ready while

  Ruby went upstairs to wake Sydney, because he hadn’t appeared either. Well, within minutes Ruby came running down the stairs and into the kitchen very excited and announced that Sydney’s bed hasn’t been slept in all night.

  Now that’s quite unusual for Sydney I know, but I told Mammie that Sydney had probably been working late and fallen asleep on the couch in the office at the back of the bicycle shop.

  “I expect he’ll come home shortly to wash and change his clothes. After breakfast I’ll go with you to cook’s house, Mammie” I said.

  So, just as we’re finishing breakfast in walks Sydney and we all heave a sigh of relief.

  He sits down and says “I have something to tell you” and without even pausing for breath he says “I’m getting married”.

  Mammie throws her arms around his neck and gives him a big hug; there’s lots of excitement and laughter. And then he says “I’m going to live with cook until we can marry”.

  Well, I don’t mind telling you, Vivie, there was silence, a big silence. He’s not serious I thought. Never mind she’s black, she’s a witch for heaven’s sake.

  How can the head of the Browney family live with a witch? What will people think? What will Father Butler think? It’s quite common for Jamaicans to just live together without being married, although respectable people are expected marry. But Sydney is still married to Janetha even though they haven’t lived together for ages. The Catholic Church doesn’t allow divorce so I suppose that’s why they’re going to live together.

  Our faces must have shown the disbelief and disappointment we all felt.

  Ruby got up and quietly left the room. Dolly and I followed leaving Mammie and Sydney to talk, but the talk didn’t last long or go well because Sydney came roaring out of the dining room saying he would never set foot in the house again and slammed the front door as he left. He was in a big rage Vivie. Mammie started crying and in between her sobs she asked me to contact Cissie and Dyke in Montego Bay. So, I left and sent Cissie a message:

  Telegram to Cissie and Dyke, Montego Bay

  From Olga, Kingston

  URGENT. COME QUICKLY. SYDNEY GONE OFF WITH THE COOK .

  Dolly ran to Boysie to tell him what had happened. He came round straightaway and gave Mammie a big hug and told her not to worry, he would talk to Sydney and everything would be alright.

  Later on, who do you think walked in, Vivie, none other than cook herself, all dressed up and wearing, I must admit, a very nice straw hat with flowers all round the brim.

  “I’ve come for some of Sydney’s possessions”.

  “Why would you want Mr Sydney’s things” Mammie asked her.

  “Because we are in love and he’s living with me now”. Honestly, she was so cocky I wanted to hit her.

  “I’ve brought a suitcase with me so I’ll just pop upstairs and get a few things”.

  “Pop upstairs” sounded funny coming from cook, it’s so English and she’s so witchy.

  And then she said to Mammie

  “He won’t be giving you any more money. He will need all his money for the family I will give him”.

  As she turned to go upstairs, Mammie jumped up, rushed over to cook, put her hands on her shoulders and pushed her away from the stairs. Dolly, Ruby and I joined in and the four of us pushed her right out the front door and told her never to set foot in our house again.

  The next day Cissie came up from Montego Bay and took charge of the kitchen. She did lots of cooking, baking bread, bulla cakes and biscuits. Oh, she was wonderful and she gave Mammie some money to stop her worrying.

  Boysie and I continued to go to the shop but Sydney didn’t appear for about a week and when he did he and Boysie went into the back office to have a little chat. Boysie was concerned that even though we were giving Mammie nearly all our wages now, we were still short of money.

  “It’s not like you can’t afford it”, Boysie told Sydney. But Sydney wouldn’t budge. He said he was going to start his own family now and was not prepared to support us any more. Boysie was horrified, and what started off as a calm conversation developed into a huge quarrel with Boysie finally saying he was ending their partnership and wouldn’t be coming to the shop again.

  Now Sydney was coming to the shop every day but Boysie wasn’t. I wasn’t happy working there and wanted to leave, but, couldn’t. I’m trapped here, Vivie. I hate Sydney.

  All my love, Olga

  ******

  Chapter fifteen

  Olga’s Diary

  Dear Diary

  She’s put a spell on him: Later Mammie told us why Sydney had stormed out of the house when he told us he was going to live with cook. He called Mammie a hypocrite and said it was ok for her to live with a black man and cause huge misery and pain, not only for her parents, but also her sister and children. He meant Vivie and Aunt Martha.

  Mammie replied that at least she and Pops had got married and anyway she didn’t think cook was the right person for him.

  Sydney was in such a rage, Mammie said she was too frightened to say anything more to him. She told us that Sydney had been right about her objections to the cook because she was black.

  “I experienced such hatred from people I never dreamt could behave in such an ugly manner and I don’t want any of my children to go through the treatment I received nor do I want Sydney�
�s children turning on him one day because of their colour.

  “We’re not all prejudice like some of the others” dear Pearl told Mammie.

  But Mammie’s convinced that cook has put a spell on Sydney to make him fall in love with her. That’s the only explanation she says.

  “Why else would he choose a short, fat, ugly black woman who practises voodoo.

  “I’m going to turn the tables on her”.

  “Olga, get Cassie. We’re going to see Annie Harvey.”

  Annie Harvey’s the woman we go to for herbal remedies sometimes when we were ill. Well, as everyone knows, she also practises Obeah and Mammie wants Annie to work Obeah on Sydney to make him come home.

  But I was worried about us going there because the punishment for practising Obeah is very harsh if you are caught by the police. It can be 20 lashes and a prison sentence of six months with hard labour if you are found guilty and even if you’re a woman.

  I tried to talk Mammie out of it, but she was determined to go.

  Annie Harvey makes quite an impression and is still a very striking woman in her white turban and red cloak. I was surprised when I saw her house, it’s rather nice, with a little white fence and pretty flowers in the garden. The sort of house I’d like myself one day. Anyway, Annie took us out to a shack in the backyard.

  Inside it was dark, and it took a few minutes for my eyes to adjust before I could see properly. You couldn’t see a single bit of the ceiling because there were dried herbs hanging from it everywhere.

  There were wooden shelves on one side of the room with different sized coloured bottles and some were full of liquid, but others only half full. I recognised some zinc powder and ingredients for making a “medicine bath” and poultices. There was also a tin of Epsom salts sitting on one of the shelves, which I thought strange, because we have that at home.

  There was another shelf with some pimento leaves and pieces of logwood bark, bird feathers, broken egg shells and some ashes. Cassie told me later she saw a chicken’s foot and a lizard’s tail.

  Mammie explained to Annie Harvey that she wanted Sydney to return to the family. He had deserted us in favour of a bad woman who was a danger to him.

  “We wanted to protect him from this evil woman who has cast a spell on him and taken him away from us” said Mammie to Annie.

  Annie Harvey left the shack for a minute and when she returned she was holding a bunch of green leaves which she put into a wooden bowl and with a small piece of wood, rounded at the end; then she pounded the leaves together until they turned into a thick green paste.

  Then she sprinkled some ashes into the paste and from a small blue bottle around her neck she sprinkled just two drops of a dark brown liquid into the mixture and then mixed it up again. Each time she mixed the paste she talked in a strange language that none of us had heard before. She covered the paste with some muslin cloth and then wrapped it in brown paper and tied it up with string and told Mammie to put it in Sydney’s food and he would come home.

  On the way home, Mammie said we were going to stop at the Holy Trinity Cathedral to offer prayers to Jesus to pray for Sydney’s return. When I asked why after having just come from the balm yard, Mammie said she was covering all options.

  When we got home Mammie said she was sure Cassie our maid would tell cook that we’d been to Annie Harvey’s balm yard and worked Obeah on him.

  “It won’t be long before Sydney comes homes, but, in the meantime, Olga, you’re going to have to put the paste into Sydney’s food.”. I knew it!

  When Annie Harvey gave Mammie the paste, I thought to myself, guess who’s going to have to do that little job Olga”.

  “I can’t do it, I’ll get caught” I told her.

  “Choose your time, when he’s out, make a nice sandwich for him, his favourite, pork with apple and ginger. Spread the paste in between the slices of meat or mix it in with the apples.

  “You can do it Olga”.

  “Mammie, if he catches me I’ll get a whipping”

  “If he catches you, I’ll tell him it’s my fault. Please Olga, we need him”.

  So I agreed to do it and, lady luck was on my side.

  Sydney was expecting a shipment of bicycles to arrive from London the next day and fortunately for me the paper work was not in order, so he had to spend hours down on the docks sorting it out so by the time he got back to the shop he was ravenously hungry. I produced the sandwiches each filled with thick juicy pieces of pork, sliced apple, ginger and the paste and he just gobbled the sandwiches and, obviously, never tasted anything unusual.

  Mammie was so happy when I told her. Oh I do hope it works, with all our wages going into the household pot, we have hardly anything to spend on ourselves and Sydney has a whole heap of money, tons of it, he’s just being nasty by making us all suffer.

  ******

  Chapter sixteen

  Olga’s Diary

  Dear Diary

  Sydney and the Burglar: It’s the middle of the afternoon and, apart from a young woman and an old man, I’m alone in the Cathedral, the only place I know that is peaceful, quiet, and cool. Half my life’s been spent in this church, going to mass, confession, benediction, the stations of the cross. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining, Jesus is very important to me and I come to church because I want to be close to Him, or, when I want to think, like now. I wonder just how long Sydney and cook’s relationship has been going on.

  I bet you it started with the robbery that time Sydney was working late in the shop. There was a knock on the door one evening and when Sydney opened it there was a tall black man with a handkerchief around the lower half of his face. He pushed Sydney back and forced his way inside and put a gun to Sydney’s face threatening to shoot him if he said a word. Then another man came into the house and started to ransack the place looking for money which Sydney usually kept on the premises, but he couldn’t find any money and said so to the man holding the gun.

  This turned the man with the gun’s attention away from Sydney momentarily, so Sydney tried to grab the gun and there was a struggle when suddenly the gun went off and the robber was shot dead. The second man immediately ran from the shop and Sydney called the police who recognised the dead man as Alphonse Williams and said the other man was probably his brother Didnot.

  Didnot was soon picked up by the police and, because he wasn’t wearing a mask, Sydney easily identified him as the second man.

  Sydney was charged with the manslaughter of Alphonse but at the end of the trial was found not guilty because the jury said it was self-defence and the law says a man is entitled to protect himself.

  And that was that, thought Sydney, although to prevent any further thieving Sydney resorted to Obeah.

  I bet that’s where cook came in. He pinned bits of red rag and some bird feathers to the front door of the shop. If any would-be thief saw these items Sydney said it would be enough to deter them from going into the shop.

  But then strange things started happening. A fire broke out one Sunday afternoon, behind the main shop, in the workshop where bicycles are repaired. Mrs Clarkson, who lives next door, saw a small blaze in the workshop and raised the alarm. The fire brigade arrived very quickly, put out the blaze so not too much damage was done.

  And then something else happened that really scared Sydney.

  He told us he was walking home one night when he felt warm air on the back of his neck which he described like someone’s hot breath. This happened more than once and cook said she had found out that Didnot Williams had set a duppy on Sydney and that an Obeah man must have caught his shadow and now the shadow will do whatever the Obeah man demands. According to cook the best way to stop the duppy from following Sydney was to carry a piece of chalk and, whenever he felt the hot breath on the back of his neck, Sydney was to make an x on the ground with the chalk, representing the figure ten.

  Cook said duppies can only count up to nine and will spend the rest of the night trying to count to x.
/>   She said duppies are clever, but I wasn’t too sure about that if they can’t count any higher than nine. But she said they are because they can do similar things to living people, like talking, laughing, whistling and singing, even cooking. That made me wonder if cook was a duppy too.

  Anyway, believe it or not, putting a cross on the ground worked for a while and Sydney stopped feeling warm air on his neck and he was more confident walking home.

  But then one lovely clear moonlit night Sydney and Ruby were walking home together and they saw a big owl sitting in the cotton tree outside Mission House. When cook heard she got everybody worked up again and said that was a very bad sign because the duppy was still on Sydney. She said he had now to find a powerful Obeah man to remove the curse or he would be in serious trouble. Of course, cook knew one and Sydney agreed to go with her but said I had to go with him. I said I’d only go if Dolly could come as well. And reluctantly Dolly agreed.

  So off I go again to another balm yard and went into a very dark, smelly room. I remember it only had one window and the light couldn’t get through it was so dirty and grimy. Oh, Lord, was I terrified.

  The Obeah man’s name was Ali Acquabar, an old man, with a short sharp looking face. He sat at a table in the middle of the room and beside his chair was a walking stick with the head of a serpent on the top. He told us to sit in the chairs facing him. I noticed a nail with three different size rosaries made out of bloodstained beans hanging from it and there was a mirror on a wall. On the table was a pack of cards and a dark blue piece of cloth with some sulphur, what looked like human hair, small bones and feathers.

  By now I just wanted to get out of there but, once again, my courage failed me and I stayed.