There were a few catcalls from the landings when Henrietta left Holloway, but otherwise she was ignored. What a difference to her arrival, she thought. Back then there had been a series of degrading encounters, in which first her possessions, then her clothes and finally every last scrap of dignity had been taken from her. She had been dressed in a prison-issue frock, harangued with a long list of rules and lectured on what she may and may not expect in terms of contact with family and friends. When the time came to leave, however, she was simply shown the door. Her own clothes, the ones she had arrived in, had been brought to her, wrapped in brown paper, the night before. Her silk camisole, drawers and waist-petticoat had all been laundered, but her skirt and blouse had been neither washed nor hung, so they were marked here and there with smuts and were horribly crumpled. The WSPU sash, on the other hand, was pristine, carefully folded and placed almost respectfully on top of the pile of garments like a gift. The sight of it had given Henrietta a jolt, in the same way that an old photograph can startle a person: showing them, perhaps, who they once were.
On the morning of her departure Henrietta dressed herself – this took time; the buttons and laces resisted her fingers – and then sat on the edge of her bed with the sash on her lap. She held it at one end and let it unfold in a noiseless stream to the floor. Purple, green and white: dignity, hope and purity. Mary Dixon was a skilled seamstress; Henrietta traced a thumbnail along the tiny, near-invisible dots of silk thread and wondered at the patience required for such a task, and the perfectionism. She wondered, too, at the pride and passion for the cause that seemed to her to be miraculously embodied here, in this lovingly worked length of cloth. A small part of her wished to keep it as a memento, but when a warder rapped on her door and she stood to leave she carefully hung the sash over the end of the metal bedstead. It looked festive in the plain, grey cell.
Unaccompanied, she crossed the cobbled yard and passed through the great fortified entrance to the world outside the prison. When the door swung shut behind her she felt the vibration in her bones. Tobias was there in a voluminous linen car coat that flapped open on either side like two vast wings as he strode towards her. He enveloped her, pulling his coat around them both. She breathed in his cologne, a sharp, delicious mix of lemon, lime and lavender, and surrendered herself to the utter relief of freedom, the certain promise of comfort and the safe, firm embrace of her brother. All their lives she had regarded herself as stronger than him. Now she could see that she had been wrong; or rather, if he was weak, she was weaker still.
Tobias had brought a two-seater Daimler, pillar-box red with a hood lined in tartan. This was folded back, and Henrietta’s motoring hat and cape were on the passenger seat. He placed the hat on her head and tied the chiffon scarf into a soft, floppy bow under her chin, then took the cape and arranged it on her shoulders, fastening the row of mother-of-pearl buttons as if she were a child and indeed, like a child she submitted to his attentions. He held her face, and with his thumbs he stroked the blue-grey shadows under her eyes and looked at her with such loving sorrow that tears of self-pity welled in her eyes.
‘Come on then,’ he said. ‘Let’s get you home.’
He held open the door of the car and she climbed in. She was glad to be sitting down. Her head spun with the effort of so much movement after so many days of torpor. She leaned back in the seat and closed her eyes to ease the giddiness. Tobias glanced at her with concern.
‘You look all in,’ he said.
She nodded. It hurt to speak.
‘I haven’t told Ma that you’re out today,’ he said. ‘I thought the very last thing you’d want is any kind of reception committee, or fuss of that kind.’ He was driving now, but he kept darting anxious looks at her to gauge her reaction. She smiled wanly to show her approval.
‘I’ll tell her you’re coming out tomorrow. She’s delighted, you know’ – again, a sideways glance – ‘that you’re being released, that is. I know she hasn’t been to see you, but that’s not to say she doesn’t think about you.’
Henrietta held up a hand. ‘Tobes,’ she said in a strange, rasping whisper. She coughed, and held a hand against her throat. It felt damaged, but the pain was deep inside and if there was scarring, it was hidden. ‘It’s quite all right,’ she said, trying again. ‘Don’t make excuses for Mama.’
He laughed ruefully. ‘Righto,’ he said. ‘Fair do’s.’
The little coupé was performing well, and even in the present rather strained circumstances he could take pleasure from that. Tobias generally drove as if each new journey were a rather speedy game of chess. There was nothing more disappointing to him than an entirely empty road, free of other traffic. What he enjoyed was the check, cross-check and checkmate of motoring strategy: the triumph of getting ahead in the nick of time and against the other fellow’s will. Now he nipped through a narrow channel, between a Buick and an old-fashioned brougham, and was rewarded with shouts of protest from either side as he sped on
‘Tight squeeze,’ he said without the slightest concern.
‘The horses,’ whispered Henrietta, ‘didn’t like that.’
He couldn’t hear and whizzed on, jinking through the traffic as they negotiated the teeming urban swathes of Holloway. Henrietta reached over and tugged at his sleeve, and when he turned she half spoke, half whispered, ‘Please can we go via Bedford Square?’
He pulled a face. ‘Must we?’
She nodded, and he opened his mouth to argue then closed it again, as it seemed, after all, a small thing to ask. She didn’t speak again until they got there, and then she only said, ‘Wait here, Tobes,’ when he started to get out. He watched her make her way to the front door of the Sykes house and felt like a bounder because she looked so vulnerable, and so unsteady on her pins. She had doubtless hoped to find Anna, but it was Amos Sykes who opened the door and Tobias’s heart sank for his sister: she’d get nowhere fast with him. He adjusted his position in the car seat so that he had a clearer view of Sykes’s expression which, for a tub-thumping left-wing zealot, was relatively benign. Henrietta was obviously doing most of the talking; Tobias could see Sykes leaning towards her, straining to hear. Tobias did the same, but he couldn’t hear a thing over the engine and from this distance. Sykes nodded, answered, grimaced – unless that was a smile – and then closed the door as Henrietta turned and made her way back to the motor.
‘All well?’ said Tobias. ‘Message delivered?’
She nodded. She’d used up her voice for the time being. Tobias longed to know the details of the exchange, but when Henrietta was settled once again in the passenger seat she patted him on the leg as if he were a loyal hound, then closed her eyes for what remained of the journey to Belgravia, and Fulton House.
Chapter 41
Seth still hadn’t visited Eve. He wasn’t sure how to, since his uncle had carried her off to Sugar Hill. There was an unspoken veto on casual visitors, and Seth lacked the confidence to turn up uninvited, even if his mam was there on her sick bed. He lacked the confidence, too, to ask permission, and this made him angry with himself for being such a sap. But also – and this third reason was, in truth, the principal one – Seth was hamstrung by guilt: burdened and held back by the dull weight of it. He hadn’t visited because he couldn’t bear to face the truth, which was that she might not be on the island if it weren’t for him, and if she wasn’t on the island she wouldn’t now be dangerously ill. This was the term Uncle Silas always used: not critically or chronically, but dangerously ill. She was in peril, and he, her son, was not only powerless but culpable. This fact, and it had, by now, hardened into solid fact in his mind, made Seth’s heart pound and the bile rise in his throat. On the brink of manhood, he felt like a helpless child and he hated himself for it.
When his thoughts alighted uncomfortably on the letter dictated by his uncle but written by him he blushed with shame and berated himself for the weasel words that had lured her here. In his heart he had known that Uncle Silas should have sent a b
usinesslike letter: open, transparent, frank. There had been a good chance that his mam would have come anyway, without the need to draw her by her heartstrings. No, the right way to go about things would have been for Uncle Silas to write to his mother, stating their present difficulty and the proposed solution in clear, objective terms. Seth knew that not only would this have been the correct way to go on; it would also have been normal. It was not normal, not at all, to manipulate, cajole, or deceive in the pursuit of one’s own selfish, professional interests.
So.
This was where Seth always stopped. He shifted in the desk chair, stood up, paced the perimeter of the room, adjusted very minutely the position on the wall of a framed map of Jamaica. The incontrovertible truth, and the nub of the problem, was this: if he knew that his uncle’s behaviour was unacceptable in this regard, he supposed that it was unacceptable in others. This was a thornier subject for Seth. He loved his Uncle Silas and he admired him, and he resisted with all his might the diminishment of those important feelings. From the day he had left Netherwood to work alongside him, Seth had felt it an honour, and a remarkable opportunity, to listen and learn. From nothing – literally nothing – his uncle had built an empire and stamped his name all over it, so that Whittam was known across the world to be synonymous with quality. At the docks, in Bristol and here at Port Antonio, there were wooden crates of bananas stacked high, with Whittam & Co. printed on the sides in dark blue ink. A warehouse towered over the wharves with the same words emblazoned above the main entrances and again, in smaller letters, above the gantries. In Yorkshire, at Dreaton Main Colliery, a glossy blue board bore the same company name and – best of all, in Seth’s opinion – there it was again, painted on the prows of the finest fleet of liners to sail the Atlantic Ocean.
How, then, when he had made his mark on the world in such a bold, emphatic, indelible way, was his uncle capable of the sort of wily selfishness that even Seth, who was not yet seventeen, could see was almost childlike? How could his brilliance, skill and business acumen exist alongside this stubborn determination to please himself at any cost? It troubled Seth deeply that the uncle to whom he had paid such avid attention, the man he had copied in all matters of style and substance, was perhaps not everything that he should be. Something had changed, thought Seth; something had altered his outlook so that his drive and ambition, and his ruthless eye for a deal, seemed to be mutating into wild unpredictability and morose self-absorption. In Seth’s mind the letter to Eve had been the catalyst and there, again, he was able to lay the blame at his own feet. Since they had colluded over the letter everything good had been twisted out of shape. Uncle Silas had begun to drink too much; he reached for the Scotch whisky at any time of day and drank it greedily, as if he were parched. He shouted, not just at the staff but at Seth, and it happened too often and in public. He shut himself away at Sugar Hill and made a mystery of his life there. He stayed away much of the time, then, when he did appear, he scattered ill will and cynicism about him, as if his aim was to sow misery and watch it grow.
Seth, out of his depth in so many different ways, considered his situation. His uncle’s frequent absence meant he was, he supposed, in charge, and yet he felt just about the least capable person on the premises. None of them – Ruby, Maxwell, Batista, Scotty – ever sought his opinion about anything. The menu, the decor, the drinks they served in the bar: all were organised and overseen by the Jamaican staff. Even the new waitresses, Precious and Patience, who were younger than Seth, didn’t seek his direction. Rather, they stared at him boldly and made him feel hot to his roots. They wore knee-length sleeveless frocks in vibrant colours and their slender brown arms and legs were alluring but also innocent, and this provoked some turbulence in Seth’s soul. He was unequal to their silent poise; without ever uttering an insolent word, he felt they mocked him.
All of these anxieties drifted through Seth’s mind now. They were familiar thoughts, and he was weary of them. He stared out of the window and comforted himself with the fact that Hugh Oliver would soon be here. When Hugh came everything would be better. He was urbane, competent and calm, and he was due any day now. By rights, Uncle Silas would then sail back to Bristol for a few weeks, although Seth wondered if his mam’s illness might keep his uncle here. Miserably, he acknowledged that, at the moment, he hoped it wouldn’t. He wanted Uncle Silas to go away, and that seemed terribly wrong: a sort of betrayal. He had to cling to his respect for his uncle. All of Seth’s pride, all of his standing in the world, was invested in that.
Outside, he could see his little half-brother Angus talking to the gardener. The child was squatting on his haunches, chirruping away to Bernard who, Seth could see, now and again nodded or smiled or said, ‘Uh-huh,’ which was all Angus needed for encouragement. Seth felt guilty about Angus too, although not as guilty as he did about Eve. He couldn’t summon any genuine interest in the child, who resembled Daniel too much to feel like flesh and blood. Seth didn’t mind Daniel, but he was part of a chapter of his mam’s life that Seth felt didn’t include him, just as Jamaica was a chapter of his own life that probably shouldn’t have included his mam. Watching Angus, he felt a swell of resentment at the child’s ease in Bernard’s company. He might be a native, hunkered down like that, barefoot and tousle-haired, and then Ruby Donaldson appeared and the three of them – the cook, the gardener, the child – all laughed at something she said.
‘God damn it!’
His uncle’s favourite curse in Seth’s voice sounded unconvincing, so he tried again: ‘God damn it all to hell!’
This time it was louder than Seth had intended. Bernard and Ruby turned impassive gazes towards the sound, and Angus, confused and alarmed, stood up and stepped sideways, closer to the cook. Ashamed, Seth ducked down, and moved quickly away from the window.
Ruby had seen him. White-faced, jug-eared, peering out at them from the safety of his office, which none of them were meant to enter without first being summoned. She kept her mouth shut, because here was little Angus and that strange individual at the window was, after all, his brother. Whatever Ruby might think of Seth, she didn’t wish to alter the little boy’s view of the world, whatever that might be. But, over the top of Angus’s head, Ruby and Bernard exchanged a look that said plenty.
Bernard was Batista’s cousin – ‘From de laang, lean branch o’ de family,’ he said when he first came to work here. Ruby had looked up at him, and then down again to short, fat Batista with a sceptical smile. He was devout, like his cousin, but less mournfully so; he regarded life not as a long, deep river of human suffering but more a pleasant sojourn in God’s earthly garden. They shared a similarity around the eyes, though, and a certain quiet belligerence. Bernard was digging up peonies, which he’d planted six years ago, under sufferance, knowing full well they wouldn’t thrive; it was too hot for them here, and when it rained the few blooms they’d mustered soaked up the water like sponges and bent in a sorry, sodden arc to the soil. Bernard planned to make a bed of Jamaican orchids, which is what he’d recommended to Mr Silas at the time. Well, now, Bernard thought, a bucket with a hole is no use at the riverside. Mr Silas should learn to mind those parts of his business that he knew about, and leave the rest to others. He carried on thinking and digging, as if Ruby and Angus weren’t there. The orchids would be pink, like the peonies, but they would hold their heads high in the sun and the rain. There were two hundred species of orchid on the island, Bernard knew: only a white man would want peonies instead.
‘His daddy’s a gardener,’ Ruby said now, placing a proprietorial palm on Angus’s head. The novelty of his hair – soft, like silk thread – never failed to charm her, and she twirled a strand around her finger and watched it slip away.
‘My pa’s a gardener,’ Angus corrected her. ‘Not my daddy.’
‘I do beg your pardon. Your pa, of course.’
‘Gardeners fine fellows,’ Bernard said, tuning in, though only briefly. ‘Fine fellows.’ He had a slow drawl, difficult for Angus
to understand.
‘My pa has a big garden,’ Angus said. ‘As big as this island, I think.’
Bernard chuckled. ‘Dat some plot.’ He stooped to worry with his fingers at the earth, where old roots clung with desperate tendrils to the loamy soil. Angus helped him, burrowing with two hands into the bed, wheedling out the parts of the peonies that the spade had missed. Ruby left them to it and walked down the path to the road where Maxwell and Edna were waiting – for the second time that day – to take her to Sugar Hill.
‘Can I come?’ Angus called, but he stayed by Bernard’s side and there was no real urgency to his question, or any expectation of success.
‘Soon,’ Ruby said over her shoulder. ‘Maybe next time.’
Eve was propped up in bed, pale and slight against the bolster. Beside her was the small pile of letters, sent from England and, until today, unopened. The curtains were drawn closed, but behind them a window was open and the cream fabric billowed and swelled in the warm breeze, like the sails on a boat. Eve’s eyes were bright with recent tears. Ruby understood, and said nothing about it. Instead she cocked her head jauntily and said, ‘Well aren’t you a sight to gladden the heart?’
Eve smiled. The yellow taint had almost entirely gone and her complexion was now merely wan. She said, ‘Justine’s gone to fetch tea. I feel like Lady Muck.’
Ruby put down her basket. ‘Who’s she?’
‘Figure of speech,’ Eve said. ‘I just mean, I’m being waited on. I’m not used to it.’
Ruby perched on the edge of the bed. ‘You’ve been waited on for some weeks,’ she said. ‘Waited on, and watched.’ When she’d left Eve this morning she was awake, but barely so, and Ruby had had to support her while she took small sips of bitter bush tea. There was more of it in a flask in the basket; it was a dark brew, foul tasting, but it was helping mend Eve’s poor, ravaged insides. The herb-filled bath that she and Justine had given her a few days ago had worked differently, from the outside in. It had enveloped her in a pungent steam that every Jamaican mother knew could work miracles when other medicines failed. Look at her now, thought Ruby: a living soul, brought back from the very edge of death.
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