by Sharon Maas
But Winnie, it seemed, had been completely captivated from the start. ‘Love at first sight’, she called it. Baloney! There’s no such thing. But Winnie latched on to him like a leech, pursued him, betrayed her family for him, and this is what we ended up with: the family dragged through the ugliness of a public trial, our father a convict, and a Cox princess married to a darkie postboy from Albouystown. No wonder she and I quarrelled incessantly when she moved back to Promised Land after the trial! I could not forgive her, and I was glad when that cursed wedding was finally over and done with and I could get down to my work managing the plantation.
I hadn’t reckoned on Mama being every bit as stubborn as Winnie when it came to making changes and, backed by Mad Jim Booker, overriding my objections.
And now here we were: the new housing almost finished, the coolies excited and rallying around their new manager; me in a subordinate position, reduced to mere accountant, and Winnie and George due to arrive at any minute.
So yes, I was angry. But I couldn’t show it. Not blatantly, anyway. On the outside I would be as cordial as a sister can be; on the inside, seething. I would play my cards subtly, and cleverly. I was in no hurry.
We took our seats at the dining table and I glanced at George. He had changed into a rather smart suit with a white shirt and a bow tie, and actually looked quite dapper, if one looked past the colour of his skin. George could be charming when he wanted to be, and obviously, this evening he did want to be – after all, he had to impress his mother-in-law. Though he didn’t have to work hard for that; it was quite obvious that Mama was completely taken in by George and fully approved of Winnie’s choice. That, to me, was inexcusable. To her right sat Clarence, but it had been plain from the start that Mama and Clarence were like fire and water and, having lived with him for several months by this time, she had not the least compunction in ignoring him completely and giving all her attention to George.
The table was set for five, with Mama at the head, Clarence at her right and Winnie at her left. George sat next to Winnie, and I sat on Clarence’s right, opposite George. Pansy brought out the steaming bowl of mulligatawny soup. I had engaged a male Indian cook from Georgetown – Rupnarine was his name – and I had expressly requested this soup, as it was his pièce de resistance. The very aroma of it was enough to make even the most dedicated ascetic swoon, and George, not being an ascetic, immediately commented on it.
‘That smells delicious!’ he said, making an exaggerated gesture of breathing it deep into his lungs. ‘Mulligatawny is my favourite!’
‘His mother makes it too,’ chirped Winnie, smiling at Mama. This was her strategy, it seemed: to be constantly drawing attention to points in her new family’s favour. ‘And she’s taught me to cook it!’
And, I might add, boasting of her newly found accomplishments in her new life. She never let me forget the fact that she was, apparently, an expert Morse technician and had even worked in the telegraphy office in Barbados – as if working in a public institution was anything to boast about! Perhaps she had forgotten one of the many German aphorisms Mama had taught us as children: Eigenlob stinkt – self-praise stinks. She had been far more modest before this affair with George; when we were growing up Winnie was the one who never seemed to believe in herself, and I was the star, the one everyone admired and praised. Yet here now was Winnie putting on airs, passing herself off as some kind of a gourmet cook.
‘She’s good, too!’ said George, beholding her with shining eyes as if she were an angel with spreading wings floating above us all. Winnie beamed at the sycophancy.
‘I like cooking,’ she said. ‘I never thought I would – I was never very practical as a girl – do you remember, Mama? You always said I had two left thumbs when it came to sewing and embroidery!’
‘Tell her about your guava jelly,’ said George, in between sips at his soup. He held the soup spoon completely wrong, slurping out of the front of the spoon instead of nipping at the side. It was obvious he had not been brought up with any kind of table etiquette whatsoever, and that Winnie had not bothered to teach him either. A drop of mulligatawny soup fell on to his shirt, and I couldn’t help but titter. Clarence, too, noticed this, and we exchanged a secret smile.
Winnie, of course, did not notice – she would probably never see any fault in her George – and now she took his encouragement as a cue for yet more bragging. Oh Winnie, Winnie – where did you leave your modesty?
‘Yes, Mama – you see, we have two guava trees in the backyard and they bear the most delicious, huge, white guavas. They are far tastier than the pink ones – quite a delicacy! Well, on my first day as a married woman George’s mother – who can be quite formidable when she wants to be – taught me how to make guava jelly. And since then I’ve been going around Albouystown buying those white guavas from anyone who has a tree. I walk from door to door with a basket and I pay good prices. That way I also made a few friends among the women. And then I make the jelly, and sell it. You see, Yoyo – you’re not the only businesswoman among us!’
I smiled and bowed my head in acknowledgement, but inwardly I fumed. How dare she compare guava jelly to a sugar estate? How dare she compare us? How dare she!
‘And you know what?’ said George. ‘Now people have started calling the white guavas “White Lady Guavas”. Not just in the neighbourhood – the name has stuck even in Bourda Market.’
Winnie had the grace to blush.
‘How lovely!’ I said, and caught George’s eye. He frowned, and I suspected he had read my sarcasm, but Winnie hadn’t – she was far too naïve to mistrust any praise I offered, possibly because it was so rare. She simpered and said, bubbling over with enthusiasm: ‘I’ve brought you some jars, Yoyo, so you can try it. And some pepper sauce, and tamarind chutney, and mango pickle! I brought them in the trunk of the car. Has Poole brought them up to the kitchen yet? I’ve been trying out all these wonderful recipes George’s mother taught me, and it’s such fun – I never knew I’d be good in the kitchen!’
There she was again, fishing for compliments, and of course Mama took the bait this time.
‘Yes – Winnie was always more of a dreamer, a musician. Do you still play, Winnie?’
Winnie’s face fell. ‘No, Mama. In fact I left my violin here – we don’t really have room for it at George’s place. But anyway, I’m so busy.’
‘Well, you shouldn’t let your talent go to waste. We’ll have to do something about that one of these days – I’d love to play a duet with you again.’
And so the conversation turned to music, of which I know nothing. There it was again, the favouritism. It wasn’t my fault that I didn’t have a musical bone in my body, and that Winnie and Mama could get so carried away by Beethoven and all those boring German composers. Mozart of course was Austrian, and it didn’t help that Mama came from Salzburg, his birthplace. I supposed we would all be subjected to after-dinner symphonies from now on.
Mama and Winnie, of course, had always been avid musicians. I remembered well those days when we were children, how the two of them would play duets: Mama at the piano, Winnie with her violin. I had stifled my yawns and survived those evenings. But now they were beyond eager to play again, and, it turned out, Clarence had learned to play the cello, and he was a musical aficionado, and he could keep up with the tedious talk. They did try to engage George in the conversation – apparently he played the banjo, and had a nice singing voice – but Mama and Winnie and Clarence, of course, played at a higher musical level than George and, with their talk of Mozart and Bach and concertos and symphonies and chamber music and major and minor keys and so on, soon left him behind.
I wondered how George would take to this side of Winnie. Of course, as a darkie he lacked that culture, that refinement of taste, and that was one thing he and I might have in common. Mama always used to say I wore armour over my heart because I didn’t appreciate the subtleties of good music. But it just came down to taste, and music was just one way for Mama to dismi
ss me as a philistine and prefer Winnie. And now I didn’t have Papa, for whom I could do no wrong.
It was clear that not even Clarence would stand up for me. Now the three of them launched into a deep discussion about Russian composers and all I could do was wrinkle my nose to show my boredom. Again I glanced at George; he was pretending to follow the musical conversation and show deep interest in the nuances of Tchaikovsky, but I would have bet anything that he was just as uninterested as I was. I managed to catch his gaze, and rolled my eyes. He understood my meaning immediately, because the ghost of a smile touched his lips and though he looked away again I knew I had found an accomplice of sorts.
Covertly, I inspected him, and I had to admit he was not a bad-looking fellow. He was tall and rangy, and had a certain awkward charm and grace of movement, though at the moment he was struggling with the cutlery. His eyes were fixed on Winnie, who was secretly showing him which knives and forks to use – I wondered if she had tried to cue him with the soup and he had missed it. Now he was almost dainty in the way he cut his meat and pushed it on to his fork. He had a long neck, slightly prominent cheekbones and a high forehead, and mossy black hair clipped close to his head like a cap, curving around his face in what the Germans called Geheimratsecken – a word that literally and rather poetically means ‘secret councillor corners’ but translates to the rather mundane ‘receding hairline’ – his high forehead going deep into his skull on the left and the right, giving him an air of intellectuality. I did remember him saying he had once won a scholarship to Queen’s College, the best boys’ school in the colony, which hardly ever admitted darkies. He had then had to leave to earn money, and had become a postboy. So I suppose there was more to him than his low status indicated. I wondered briefly if darkies had the mental capacity to become doctors, lawyers, statesmen, and if all they lacked was education and opportunity? I supposed it was all rather unfair, but that wasn’t my problem. It was the luck of the draw: some of us were born this way, some that, and who was I to question a status quo from which I profited? I knew that Winnie did – which was why she had ended up in a ramshackle cottage in Albouystown – but Winnie had a touch of the martyr to her, and I can’t stand martyrs. They all have this air of complacent self-aggrandisement that they hide behind a facade of modesty – it is all for show, and behind that facade they are just as proud of themselves as anyone else – proud of their martyrdom, their humility. Winnie didn’t fool me in the least. We all want applause, and she wanted it for her great sacrifice – giving up her privilege for the sake of the underdog. I wasn’t at all fooled. But Mama was. Winnie would always be her shining star.
The musical discussion seemed to have come to an end, and after a rather pregnant pause – I chose that adjective deliberately – Mama said, ‘Well now Winnie, so what is this news you mentioned in your letter? You seem to be doing everything in your power to delay the announcement, but I won’t let you wriggle away again!’
‘Oh Mama!’ said Winnie and turned quite scarlet.
‘I think I can guess!’ said Mama, beaming, and all of a sudden the penny dropped in my brain and I knew what it was and I couldn’t help it – I dropped my knife and it clattered to the floor and there was a flurry of activity as Pansy, who had been hovering in the background, rushed forward to pick it up and I scraped back my chair to allow her room to retrieve it. But this little incident allowed me time to gather the chaos of thoughts and emotions I had been catapulted into.
Of course! Why hadn’t I realised it right away! I was normally far more astute – I had of course noticed that Winnie had gained weight but I had put it down to the feeding-up she was getting from her mother-in-law – these people eat mountains of rice with little meat or fish to go with it, and of course everyone knows that rice settles on the hips and waist. But how perfectly idiotic of me to put two and two together and get five!
Now Winnie seemed to have lost her tongue, and while I carefully arranged the contours of my face to disguise my true feelings and not reveal even a trace of vexation, she hemmed and hawed and simpered like the perfect fool she was. I don’t think I have ever hated Winnie more than in that moment. There. I said the word. I hated her, even before she finally put away her false coyness and said the fatal words:
‘Oh Mama! You have guessed it, haven’t you? George and I are going to have a baby!’
She glanced at me then, and I saw the triumph in her gleaming eyes. ‘I beat you to it!’ they said, though her lips stayed closed. I seethed. But I smiled.
I wanted sons. I needed sons. Soon after Papa’s conviction I had discovered among his papers the deeds to some lands up in the Essequibo region, and more land in the Corentyne, to the east, near Skeldon. Land, lying fallow! What we could do with that land! I needed a team of strong young men to develop that land, to rule it and make this family great again.
But I can hardly be expected to deliver a son when my husband refuses to plant one in my womb.
Perhaps that is wrongly expressed. It was not so much that he refused to plant the son; it was more that he refused to partake of the very act of planting. It wasn’t the son he didn’t want – he didn’t want me. It seemed, in that respect, that any little coolie girl running around on the plantation was preferable to me. It was the insult to end all insults – but the more I rebuked him for his refusal to oblige, the more he refused. Perhaps, though, he had no choice in the matter – it wasn’t so much an actual refusal, more a failure, of which he actually seemed ashamed. I had, as mentioned, tried cutting down his rum intake, but to no effect.
He swore to me that he was faithful, that he had given up his liaisons with labourer women since our wedding. I had wondered for a while if he was one of those fairies, but his dalliances with labourer women were well-known so it couldn’t be that. But what else could account for such unmanliness?
I was inexperienced in such matters, of course, but everything I had heard about the subject indicated that it is the natural inclination of a man to do this rather disgusting thing – and yes, it does require a certain willing suspension of disgust on the part of the woman, but of course I was willing to suspend! I wanted to do it. I wanted sons, many sons, and if this was required of me then, very well, I would do it. I was not the least bit squeamish in that respect. I would do what it takes.
And now here was Winnie gloating and simpering and basking in Mama’s attention and George’s devoted gaze, and even Clarence had the gall to congratulate her, seemingly without the least bit of shame. But then they all looked at me and I realised I had said nothing congratulatory yet. So I arranged my face into the appropriate expression of required delight (hopefully none of my previous dismay had revealed itself), stretched and curved my lips into the requisite smile, and spoke the words they were all waiting for: ‘Oh, how wonderful! A baby! A sweet little baby! I’m going to be an aunt!’
They seemed satisfied with that and mercifully left me alone to wallow in my distress. I clenched my hands in my lap to prevent me reaching across the table to dig out my sister’s eyes. The violence of my reaction surprised even me, even though I know that I am, deep inside, not quite as ladylike as society requires and that I do have violent tendencies. I manage to disguise them well, as appropriate for my position. But now – oh, how I raged. My nails dug into the palms of my hands as I tightened those hidden fists. I took some deep breaths, which helped to calm me, but still, I almost shook with rage.
So intent was I on controlling my feelings I missed most of the sycophantic conversation swirling around Winnie. Mama, of course, was beside herself with joy: her favourite daughter was about to have a baby! Winnie’s child would not be her first grandchild; our elder sister Kathleen, who had moved to England years ago, had already produced two daughters – but it would be the first she would see and hold and generally spend all her frustrated nurturing tendencies on. Mama had fallen into a deep melancholy when her last child, the much-longed-for heir to Promised Land, had died soon after birth. She had sunk so deep into
that Darkness – as we all called it – that she had to be sent back to Austria, where a certain Dr Freud treated her – with some success, it seemed, since she had returned to us completely herself again.
Be that as it may, Winnie’s condition now threw her into an ecstasy of projected commotion.
‘I’m going to start sewing some clothes right away! You must come with me to New Amsterdam tomorrow to buy some fabrics, and embroidery threads, and patterns!’
I decided to throw a little cold water on her euphoria.
‘A pity we no longer have Edward John’s little things – those were exquisite!’ I smiled at her in pretended sympathy. Mama had filled a trunk with beautifully handmade clothes for our poor little dead brother. Turning to Mama, I said, ‘I gave it all away to a church group that cares for the Poor Unfortunates of New Amsterdam. That’s what you would have wanted, isn’t it?’
This, of course, was the first Mama had heard of that act of generosity, and a cloud passed over her features. I looked brightly from her to Winnie and back again.
‘But I’m sure Winnie would not have wanted a dead child’s leftovers – they would probably have brought bad luck. Isn’t it so, Winnie?’
An awkward silence descended over the table as they all drank in my words. I did feel a tinge of conscience – perhaps it was slightly tactless, cruel even, to raise the ghost of Edward John precisely at this happy moment, and maybe I had not adequately disguised that cruelty – I had smiled sympathetically at Mama while speaking, but Mama did have the talent of reading people’s eyes, and perhaps, just perhaps, I should have been more circumspect. However, it was Mama who broke the awkwardness.
‘I shall make new clothes!’ she said firmly. ‘Winnie’s baby shall have only the best!’