by Sharon Maas
‘You know what I mean. The drums, at night. The Indians – that’s how they communicate. Isn’t it? It’s Morse code.’
When Uncle Jim smiled his whole beard tilted upwards at the sides. He said nothing at first.
Then. ‘All right. If you clever enough to figure that out you deserve to know the rest. Who you think teach them?’
I didn’t have to think for very long. ‘George.’
‘Right. Your George. Why you think he came up here in the first place?’
‘Because Mr Perkins retired?’
‘And why you think Mr Perkins retired? Just so we could get George up here for a couple months. It wasn’t too easy – we had to find representatives from all the plantations who could read and write English, to teach them the code, and then we had to get expert tabla players from all the plantations up and down the Courantyne, and teach them to drum the code, so that it sound natural.’
‘Isn’t it risky? What if someone from plantation management knew the code, and figured it out, just like I did?’
‘A risk we had to take. Not too many people know the code. And not too many English people clever enough to sit down when night fall and listen to the drumming. To them is just coolie noise. It would-a been safer to send the messages in Hindi or Urdu but we’d-a had to figure out some whole new code since is a different alphabet. So it had to be Morse.’
‘Anyway, it’s brilliant,’ I said. ‘Papa and his friends just don’t understand how well coordinated the protests are. And to think that George – George …’
‘And that’s another reason why George so confused ‘bout you. You’re not only on the wrong side of the racial divide, you’re a Cox. You belong to them up there. The Sugar Kings. Them in those big plantation houses with they English lawns. The Bookers and the Coxes and the Davsons and the Campbells – all-a them Sugar Kings. You understand a little better now?’
I nodded. I did. ‘But you’re a Booker.’
‘Right. But a black-sheep Booker. I got a long history of protesting Booker politics. Standin’ up for the workers. Marryin’ a black woman. Not playin’ the Booker game. I already show whose side I on. You, now …’
‘All I ever did is run away to Georgetown like some foolish love-sick schoolgirl,’ I said, and I had the grace to blush at the memory. ‘But I’ll prove myself, Uncle Jim! I will; I promise! I know I haven’t produced much useful information yet. But maybe one day I will. I mean it. I really mean it.’
Uncle Jim patted me on the shoulder. ‘You’se a good girl,’ he said. ‘You take after you mother.’
‘You knew my mother?’
‘Met she once or twice. But anyway, everyone know ‘bout she. People does talk, you know. She was good to the servants. For a white woman, she was good. Got a good reputation with the Africans and Indians. A good woman; got a good heart. I was sorry to hear what happen. About the lil’ boy.’
‘She never got over it. And then she abandoned us.’
‘It must-a been hard for she, to know what goin’ on here, and not bein’ able to change anything. Just like you. Or, you jus’ like her.’
‘Except that I will do something, Uncle Jim. I will take a stand. For George. I’ll prove myself to him.’
He patted me again. For a moment I even thought he was going to hug me, but he must have changed his mind. But certainly, he was moved.
‘Do the Indians know? Do they know I’m on their side?’
‘I told them you support their cause. I din’t tell them the other thing. Spyin’ is secret business and got to stay secret. But they trust me an’ if I say you is all right then is all right. But you is the Massa daughter, Winnie. That’s a hard thing to overcome.’
‘I’ll overcome it,’ I said.
One day I was able, at last, to deliver some news: useful, but devastating.
‘Uncle Jim,’ I said, ‘They’ve got a spy. An Indian spy. I don’t know who he is; they refer to him as our boy and never mention his name. I believe he lives in the logies; he’s not one of the inner circle. But there’s definitely a spy.’
‘Hmm.’ Uncle Jim said. ‘Keep listening. Keep watching.’
But for all my listening and watching I could not find out the identity of the spy.
By this time I felt more at home than ever with Uncle Jim. He was certainly more a father to me than Papa, and a girl does need a strong old man in her life; a man who can guide her and help her find her way. Uncle Jim was my support, the only one I had in those empty years. His home became my home. His family, my family. I met his adult children over time, Gladys’s children: Rose and Amy, Peter, Michael and David, all of them living in Georgetown. One son, Andrew, was studying in London. All of them accepted me, and even the Indians, who came and went, people who worked on the plantation, now sometimes smiled and waved when they saw me. I was earning their trust.
Not Bhim, though. Bhim, I eventually learned, was not a labourer. He was an educated Indian whose parents were labourers on our Promised Land; he had no apparent source of income but, I learned, he wrote for and edited a small protest newspaper that was circulated in Georgetown and on the plantations, which was strictly forbidden by the colonial authorities. Bhim continued to hate me. I could see it in his eyes whenever he saw me. No matter what I did, Bhim would always hate me for no other reason than the accident of my birth.
Bhim’s mother though, liked me. I met her several times at Uncle Jim’s: a thin, tired woman who looked twice her age. So proud of her eldest son: he who had escaped the drudge and the struggle and the sweat of indenture by winning a scholarship and climbing the ladder of education. Bhim had attended Queen’s College, just like George. George had probably known him; they looked the same age. In fact, George must know him, as both were friends of Uncle Jim. Once I was married to George, Bhim would accept me. He would have to.
Mama’s Diary: Plantation Promised Land, British Guiana, 1906
Liebes Tagebuch,
I am pregnant! I have made some calculations and it is all wrong – on the other hand, it is all right. I only hope this child will be born early, as the others were. If not, if it is full term, there will be a lot of explaining to do – when actually there is no explanation. It is all so simple. Yes, I am guilty of the most shameful sin and yet I feel no shame. Perhaps this child will be my salvation. I feel a spark of hope. Maybe he will pull me out of the darkness. Maybe he will give me the courage to start a new life. That ‘he’ slipped out voluntarily – Archie has longed for an heir for so long, I automatically think of my next child as a boy. How ironical, if it is a boy, at last, the heir Archie longed for, and yet not!
Whatever it is, boy or girl – it means change. I must find courage: the courage to leave this place of darkness, even if it will cause scandal. Will I take my daughters with me – move to Georgetown, buy a house with the money I have inherited? I don’t know – I only know I cannot stay here. I must start a new life, a new family! I will teach my son to be a good man. That is all I can do. That is all a mother can do – raise the next generation to be better than the last. A noble task indeed! All my hopes are now pinned to this child. He will save me, save us. What will Archie say, what will he do when he finds out? Right now, I do not care. I only know that I have found hope. It is over.
Chapter Twenty-One
I survived those two years as in a waking dream. It wasn’t real, this life; I could not be real! It was not for me! I was only playing a part, and one day it would all be over and I would sail off into the horizon to be the one I was meant to be. People are entitled to their dreams, I suppose. But then they need not complain when they are given such a pinch they wake up to find everything crumbling around them into small pieces and they know not where to turn. In my case, it was Yoyo who delivered that pinch. I did not see it coming.
Yoyo and I had drifted completely apart, each of us living in a world of her own, locked away from the other. I was aware that she had secrets, but really, I wasn’t interested. Nothing about Promised Land int
erested me anymore, except for the work that I did to undermine its existence. It was a tainted paradise, and I lived only for the day I could escape. But all this time Yoyo was growing up, changing, developing her own ideas, cultivating her own future in her own way. She was now sixteen, a beautiful young woman who in a different life would have been the darling of the London season, coming out to a flurry of flirtations and marriage proposals. But here on Promised Land everything was different. She could have had her pick of any of the young men coming of age in the senior staff compound, but Yoyo was clever and ambitious had always looked down her nose on romance.
I might even have seen it coming, if the very notion of it had not been such an atrocity.
It happened on one of those occasions when Clarence Smedley had come over for dinner. This happened on a regular basis, now. In spite of his dissolute ways – for he was as much a drinker, a gambler, and as louche here as he had been in London – he had over time learned the basics of plantation management, and Papa was pleased enough. I suppose he provided male company for Papa: serious conversation, the discussion of politics, cigars, drinks, cards; the kind of after-dinner entertainment that makes men feel like real men. It is very possible that I was the last to know, because surely Mr Smedley had dropped hints along the way. Be that as it may,
on this specific evening, Yoyo, who had been particularly quiet all through the meal, suddenly spoke up.
‘Papa!’ she said, during a pause in the conversation. ‘I have an announcement to make.’
Papa, who had just told a rather silly joke, looked up at once. Yoyo was still his favourite, and when she spoke he listened.
‘Yes, dear? What is it?’
‘Rather,’ said Yoyo, ‘We have an announcement. Clarence and I. We’re engaged to be married!’
I almost fell off my chair. My jaw dropped and I sat there staring at her in stupefaction.
‘Darling! Wonderful! Congratulations! Congratulations to you both! Oh, that is marvellous news – though I can’t say it wasn’t to be expected. Smedley, you rascal, I knew you were up to something! Yes, I knew. Oh, well done, well done. I thought it would never happen, and you did too, didn’t you, at first? But didn’t I tell you? ‘Girls like to play hard to get,’ I told you, didn’t I, over and over again. ‘Persevere,’ I said. ‘Try harder’.’
He turned to me at that moment. ‘I hope you aren’t too disappointed, Winnie. By rights it’s your turn to marry first. But you have only yourself to blame – if I remember rightly you were not particularly welcoming – well, let’s not talk about that. Yoyo it is, and nothing could please me more. This calls for celebration! Mildred! Mildred!’
He rang his little brass bell and Mildred came bustling out of the kitchen.
‘Yes, sah?’
‘I believe we must still have a bottle of champagne. Go down into the store-room and have a look. Bring out the champagne glasses!’
Miss Wright had turned to Yoyo – who was sitting next to her – and was warmly shaking her hand and whispering some congratulatory words; their two blonde heads were bowed together, and Yoyo was smiling and nodding.
Mr Smedley sat next to me, chest thrust forward, grinning smugly about the room, inordinately pleased with himself. I sat there like a statue, stiff and speechless. I stared at Yoyo, trying to catch her eye, but she was still preoccupied with Miss Wright. Bile rose in my throat. I wanted to scream, to storm, to pummel Mr Smedley with my fists to wipe that smirk form his face. It could not be! It could never be!
‘Winnie!’ It was like a whiplash. I turned to Papa and finally closed my mouth. ‘Your manners, Winnie!’
‘Oh,’ I said. I raised my hand and turned to Mr Smedley.
‘Congratulations,’ I said. My voice was as listless as a damp floor cloth. My hand hung limp in his as he pumped it. I met his eyes. They were beadier than ever, lit up by a self-satisfied leer.
‘Sorry to spring this on you,’ he whispered hoarsely. His breath smelt of stale rum. ‘Yoyo thought it was best. You looked shocked; but you did have first choice, you know. I wasn’t going to wait around forever.’
My stomach twisted into a knot. I jumped to my feet; my chair fell over and crashed to the floor. I ran to the door, flew out into the hall, vaguely aware for a split second of three pale faces staring at me in shock. I was never the one to create scenes; that was more Yoyo’s forte. But she had had her little scene, and it was too much for me to bear. I raced up to my room. Footsteps clattered behind me: Yoyo was hard on my heels. Reaching my room I slammed the door in her face, but she pushed it open and barged in. I flung myself on to the bed, face down.
‘But why? Why, why, why? Why?’
With every ‘why’ I pummelled the pillow. I had to punch something, preferably someone. Yoyo, or Papa, but best of all, Mr Smedley. Him, I longed to punch until he was black and blue all over, a walking bruise. I had never, in all my life, hit anybody, or had even wanted to do so; Mr Smedley had pushed me to a level of exasperation beyond anything I’d ever known before.
She, the author of all this rage, sat calmly on the rocking-chair next to the window, facing the bed.
‘Let me explain,’ she said for the fourth time. ‘Winnie, just listen …’ But I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t let her speak. Winnie, the quiet, paragon of virtue (or so they thought), was beside herself with rage. Yoyo was now the meek one, pleading for my ear.
‘Nothing,’ I glared at her as I spoke and I hoped my eyes were every bit as fierce as my voice. ‘Nothing in the world could excuse such a thing. Mr Smedley! Mr Smedley, of all people, Mr Smedley! You know what he’s like. You detest him! And you’re going to marry him? Him? How could you, Yoyo. How could you?’
‘I’ll explain,’ she said for the fifth time, and this time I didn’t interrupt. I was breathing heavily now but my ire had exhausted itself. I still could not imagine any good reason to marry the detestable Mr Smedley, but I was just too tired to protest further.
‘It’s to save Promised Land,’ said Yoyo. ‘We always knew, didn’t we, that one of us would have to.’
‘Well, of course I know Papa’s plan,’ I replied. ‘That’s obvious. Marry the heir so that the plantation stays in the family. I just didn’t realise how much you wanted to be Queen Sugar. That’s you’d whore yourself to get there.’
‘Winnie! That’s not fair! You still haven’t heard me out! You’re jumping to conclusions! Just listen, will you!’
‘You don’t love him, do you? You can’t love him!’
‘Of course I don’t! Don’t be silly! You know what I think of love! I think he’s just as horrible as I always did. But …’
‘His hands on you! His lips on yours! Revolting!’
I shuddered, shaking my head vehemently to rid it of the ghastly image.
‘I’m strong,’ said Yoyo. ‘I can take it. It’s worth it. See, I want sons – two of them, at the very least. And then Promised Land will be ours again. Winnie, don’t you understand? It’s all a plan. It’s a good plan. Listen!’
Something in the gleam in her eyes as she leant forward to take my hands cut off the caustic comment I was about to make. Sons! Heirs! It was like one of those awful history lessons Miss Wright was always pushing down our throats, where the only point of marriage was to continue the bloodline. We had always scoffed at such marriages. And now this. But I let her talk.
‘You see, Mr Smedley has no backbone. He’s a slithering, spoiled weakling. He has no guts, no character, and no ideas. My plan is to marry him and then hold him in the palm of my hand. He’s besotted with me; he won’t even see what’s happening. I can do it, Winnie. I can. Then I’ll take control of Promised Land. I’ll encourage Papa to return to England, to retire. You know he wants to. And when he’s gone I’ll run it. And once I run it, well, I can do everything we said we’d do. I can change things, Winnie. I know I can! I can run the estate!’
‘You! But – but you’re just a …’
‘Just a girl. I know it. But I’ll be a woman one da
y, and who says women can’t run an estate? I know Papa would never teach me himself but you see, my plan is big, Winnie. Really big. I’m going to learn everything. I’m going to go to Georgetown and take a course in Business Management at the Government College and …’
‘Georgetown! You want to go to Georgetown?’
‘Yes – for a year, till we get married. I’ll take a course, and … ’
‘They’ll never let you. Papa will never let you. And only boys study Business.’
‘I can deal with Papa. As for the course, I’ve made enquiries. That is, Miss Wright has – she supports my plan entirely, you know – and they have accepted one girl already. So why not me?’
‘So, you told Miss Wright, but not me?’
‘I had to tell her. I needed her help. And why I didn’t tell you – well, I knew how you’d react. And I was right. Winnie – forgive me for keeping secrets from you. It’s just that – I knew you’d disapprove. I know your thoughts on love, and marriage, and all that …’
She was going to say ‘all that rubbish’ but I wouldn’t let her.
‘Because love and marriage are wonderful, beautiful things! And what if you do meet someone and fall in love? It could happen, you know. What then?’
‘Oh, you mean a grande passion! I wouldn’t mind having one of those, one of these days. But I won’t let it upset my life. I’ll take him as a lover, that’s all.’
I shook my head. This was, to my ears, almost blasphemy.
‘What about Mama! Didn’t she always, always teach us about the power of love? That love was the highest, the greatest, the most wonderful thing on earth? I mean, everything I believe about love, I got from her. Those beautiful stories: she and Papa, in Vienna …’
‘If anything, it’s Mama and her example that showed me what nonsense all that is!’
Yoyo’s voice was hard now, and grating. Her eyes, so warm just a minute ago, were now cold as a glacier.