by Sharon Maas
Mavis handed out lanterns at the foot of the stairs, and we marched up in single file. My room – or rather, Winnie’s – was at the end of the top landing, and I pushed open the door and entered, closing the door behind me. The flame in the lantern was not yet quite steady, and in the light it gave out I did not see her at once. But I heard her.
‘I thought you would never come, darling George!’
I froze. Everything within me turned to solid ice. I almost dropped the lantern in shock at that voice. My instinct was to flee, but instead my body froze while my mind raced. Run! It said! Run! Flee! But where would I flee to? What would I do, where would I go? I was in a strange house, trapped. With her. The light, now steady at last, threw its glow towards the bed. The mosquito net was down, but as a veil it did not hide much.
My sister-in-law lay stretched out on the bed, stark naked. And even as I registered this, she sat up, raised the net, ducked under it and stood up. She held out her arms in invitation. She smiled as she slowly walked towards me. She spoke as she walked.
‘You look shocked, George. Don’t be. This is me. Here I am, all yours. I know you want me, but you think you can’t have me, don’t you? I’m here to tell you that you can. This will be our little secret. Come, George darling. Forbidden fruit is the sweetest on earth.’
She walked slowly, so slowly, and that was my window of escape. This time my body did not freeze. I ran. Plunged to the door, opened it, stopped for just a second to pull it closed behind me. Had there been a key I would have turned it. I fled along the landing, down the stairs. The lantern swung precariously as I ran. Across the drawing room, to the front door. Down the outside stairs. And only then did I stop, my heart racing. The guard dogs broke into a volley of barking. Joseph the watchman appeared from out of the shadows.
My heart pounded. My thoughts raced. My breath so ragged I could speak only in staccato, I managed to stutter a few words.
‘The-bicycle-shed… can you-open it-for me?’
Somehow in my mad flight from that cursed house I had known what I would do, where I would go.
Joseph led me to the shed. I easily recognised Winnie’s bike – the only red one. I grabbed it, wheeled it out. Joseph walked with me down the drive to the main gate. He was obviously bursting with curiosity, and goodness knew what the servants would say the next day – Christmas! – but I did not care. I spoke not a word more. By the time I reached the gate my breath and my heartbeat had returned to normal, and a glorious sense of freedom washed through me. It was as if a curse had lifted.
Once outside the compound I mounted the bicycle and sailed away, pedalling at full speed as if chased by a fire-breathing monster.
Twenty minutes later I stood outside a familiar gate ringing my bicycle bell. Dogs barked. A light went on in the windows of the large white house before me. A man stood at the window.
‘Uncle Jim!’ I called. ‘It’s me, George! Come down and open!’
In a zigzag, roundabout way I had come back home.
Part II
All Boys Town
FIVE YEARS LATER: 1918
24
Winnie
‘It’s her, this time, George. I feel it. I know it.’
I felt like a parrot; I had said those words, or similar, so often over the years. And yet, never had the certainty been stronger. In the past it had been mere wishful thinking – how I longed for Gabriella Rose! And that wish had translated into a feeling, with every pregnancy, that she was on her way to me. This time, I knew it. I really did.
But George did not believe me. True, he nodded and smiled and agreed with me, as he always did, but in his heart he had given up. Five boys already. He had grown used to boys. His mind was made up. I was afraid that that closed mind was what prevented her from coming in the first place – what if she was a soul, hovering in the background of our lives, longing to come, but convinced that George no longer wanted her? It sounds ridiculous, I know – I would never say such things aloud to George, who is so very scientific – but what if?
Even the boys did not believe it. Humphrey, my strong silent eldest, would only nod sagely when I spoke of his future sister, but I could see the disbelief in his eyes. Humphrey would never contradict me. He would never say anything that might hurt or disappoint me. Out of my five boys, he was the rock. As the eldest, he assumed a responsibility beyond his years – what would I have done without him? Humphrey was used to boys, and Humphrey could not begin to imagine a sister; but he would never tell me so to my face. He kept the myth of Gabriella Rose alive, for my sake. He said what I wanted to hear: that a sister was on her way. I loved him so!
Gordon at five, had no such compunctions. Gordon said what he thought, the words tact and empathy foreign to him. He could not grasp their meanings, much less practise them.
‘We live in All Boys Town,’ he would say. ‘Ma, why would a girl want to come to All Boys Town?’
Patiently I explained to him the difference.
‘Yes, dear, it sounds like All Boys Town. But it’s not written that way.’ I picked up his school slate and wrote down the proper spelling of Albouystown and then All Boys Town beneath it, to show him the difference. But he would only shake his head.
‘There’s no difference,’ he said. ‘I don’t hear no difference. It’s all the same. All Boys Town.’
I went to the trouble of investigating the source of the name Albouystown, for his sake. I had to get that troublesome idea out of his head before it infected us all, made us believe in it. Albouystown was called that for a reason, and it was disrespectful to distort that meaning. But Gordon only shook his head.
‘All Boys Town. You’re going to have all boys. And it’s better so. I don’t want a sister. Girls are silly.’
‘Lots of girls are born and live in Albouystown,’ said Humphrey. Humphrey would always stand up for me, support me, even if he didn’t quite believe me. ‘Look at Mrs Murray across the road. She has three daughters!’
‘But this is us and we are going to have all boys. I want more boys. Ten boys!’
When he said that I almost fainted. What if it were true! Ten boys! No! It could not be. A girl was on her way, Gabriella Rose.
William, three and always eager to learn something new, took the slate and slate-pencil from my hand and began to copy the words All Boys Town beneath my own writing.
Gordon looked at Will’s writing and laughed. ‘You write like crabfoot!’ he said, and burst into song: ‘Crabfoot marching in the burial ground, tek a big stick and knock ’um down.’
‘You forgot the apostrophe,’ said Humphrey, taking the slate-pencil from him and adding the little mark. Humphrey had taught himself to read and write at the age of three. He was meticulous and careful; his cleverness was of the slow, introspective but rather pedantic kind rather than the quick and sometimes slapdash, extrovert and very vocal intelligence of Gordon. It was Humphrey, not Gordon, who had penetrated the brooding silence of Pa, merely by showing an interest, and then an equal passion, for the dull pursuit of philately. Humphrey could sit for hours on Pa’s lap learning the intricacies of stamp-collecting. Humphrey had an eagle’s eye for errors in perforation; he knew the history of certain famous stamps, and he could handle stamp tongs and magnifying glass like an expert; and all that at the age of six.
‘What’s an apos trophy?’
‘Apostrophe. It’s that little mark. It means the possessive of boys. It’s to show’
‘It’s stupid. It makes no difference. It’s still All Boys Town, isn’t it?’
‘Yes, but’
‘Well then. They don’t need no trophy.’
‘That’s a double negative. You can’t say that.’
‘I can too! I just did!’
‘Ma! A double negative is wrong, isn’t it?’
I had turned away to run behind Charles, three years old, who had found the Cow & Gate powdered-milk tin and was trying to prise it open with a knife. I took the knife away from Charles and gave him an empty ti
n to play with, placing the full one back in the cupboard he had quietly opened. Absent-mindedly I said, ‘Yes, dear, it certainly is.’
‘What’s a double negative?’
‘It’s what you just did,’ Humphrey broke in. ‘You can either say they don’t need a trophy, or they need no trophy. If you use both at the same time it means the very opposite.’
I smiled to myself at Humphrey’s explanation. I had taught him that particular grammar rule. Living in Albouystown, the boys were obviously going to pick up the local speech, which did not care about such niceties as double negatives. I made sure they learned and spoke correct English at home, at least. Indeed, a local boy would have said they ain’t need no trophy, so I could be at least grateful for Gordon’s don’t. But of my two oldest boys, Humphrey was the one who would always strive to speak King’s English. Gordon, I knew already, would not care. He would grow up to speak like a local, at least outside our home.
Their very looks confirmed that difference. Humphrey was fair, his skin a shade of dark cream, his hair black, crinkly, but soft. Gordon was a very dark shade of bronze, the image of his father, and his hair a close-fitting cap of kinks, a helmet of black moss. Visually, he fitted in perfectly in Albouystown. Humphrey, like me, would always stand out as different. Humphrey was quiet, refined; even at six years of age, he possessed an aura of maturity, wisdom beyond his years; but, paired as it was with his inherent kindness and humility, he would never be a snob. Humphrey crossed his t’s and dotted his i’s. Gordon never would.
Already Gordon was proving to be the most physical of them all; my bet was that he would be our sportsman. His favourite toy was the little cricket bat George had carved for him, and he was always to be found out on the street with much older boys, batting and bowling and running. Humphrey had been out of his brace for some time now, but he still walked and ran with a limp; never as wild as Gordon, he nevertheless loved outdoor games just as much, cricket especially. He was excellent at bowling, and never put a foot wrong when climbing trees, unlike Gordon, who would clamber and fall and get up again and try again. Will’s main sport was the catching of guppies from the gutter running beside the road, and he was an avid tree-climber, with little Charles not far behind on the lower branches of the mango tree.
And Will was our musician: already he played the recorder better than both Gordon and Humphrey. I would soon be sending for my little half-violin, which was still packed away at Promised Land, and starting him with lessons.
I found it fascinating how each child had his very own character, his way of being, his strengths, his world. As their mother, it was my task to identify and know each little individual, and bring him to fruition. I was developing eyes in the back of my head, and as many hands and arms as a Hindu god. I saw the world through each child’s eyes, new and miraculous every single day.
In the afternoons they would run out to play with some of the raggedy older boys down the road: cricket in the street, or catching creatures in the gutters, to keep in jam jars. Climbing trees, stealing fruit from neighbourhood gardens, coming home covered in mud or with faces smeared with overripe mango. Ripped shorts, buttons missing. Cuts, bruises, bumps, sprains, scratches, rashes. Ringworm, tummyaches and once a broken arm (Gordon). Earthworms, guppies, tadpoles. A pet scorpion. Black soles of bare feet to be scrubbed each night. Laughter and tears. Ants in sand-filled jam jars. Tree-branch swords and slingshots. Marbles and newspaper aeroplanes. Slugs and snails and puppydog tails. Boys, boys, boys.
When it rained, and it rained often, they stayed indoors playing word games: using an atlas, they learned to name all the countries in the world, continent by continent. They loved lists: all the fruit that grew in BG, for instance. If you paused longer than a count of three, the next one took over. Will, as the youngest of the three older ones, started: ‘Orange, tangerine, lime, lemon, grapefruit, pawpaw, banana, mango, guava… is pineapple a fruit?’
‘1-2-3 yes,’ said Gordon and continued: ‘Star-apple, golden-apple, custard apple, sugar apple, monkey apple, mamee apple, soursop, simatoo, sapodilla, gooseberry…’ He paused too long, and Humphrey took over: ‘Cherry, grapes, psidium, cashew, tomato’
‘Stop! Tomato isn’t a fruit!’
‘Yes it is!’ said Humphrey. ‘Fruits come from the ovary at the base of the flower. They contain the seeds of the plant. I read it in the encyclopedia.’
‘Know-it-all!’ said Gordon.
‘…tamarind, plums, locust, pomegranate, jamoon, five-finger, whitey, cookerite, owara, corio, avocado’
‘Cheating! Avocado definitely isn’t a fruit!’
‘It is! It is! I’ll read it to you from the encyclopedia!’
‘I bet you can’t even spell cycle-whatever it is!’
‘Of course I can!’ Humphrey did exactly that, and I confirmed it.
‘But I can list all the fish in BG and you can’t do that!’
‘Go on then!’
They reeled off Gordon’s tongue: ‘Catfish, hardhead Thomas, kwakwarie, cuirass, kassee, bangamary, four-eye, queriman, gilbacker, basha, two-belly basha, butterfish, grouper, snapper, sea trout, silver fish, churi churi, sunfish, hassar, patwa, hoori, lukunani, hymara, luggalugga, dew fish, mullet, cuffum, snook, paccoo, morocut’
He stopped. ‘See! I can too! And I bet they aren’t in your blasted cycle-book!’
Will piped up at once: ‘Mammeeee! Gordon said a rude word!’
Humphrey sniffed, vanquished yet again by his younger brother. Gordon was our fisherman. The big boys taught him to fish in the Sussex Street trench for kassee, cuirass and hassar, and catch prawns in a rice bag seine. For that, Ma procured an iron barrel hoop, sewed it along the top of the bag, put flour and rice mixed with molasses along the sides and bottom and put leaves in it. Gordon would put a few stones in it to make it sink and stay under water; he’d let it down with a cord to the bottom of the trench, and there it would stay for an hour or so. When he pulled it up it would be full of prawns. Ma would peel, wash and lime the prawns that same night and the next day we’d have the most delicious prawn curry.
And so my boys were becoming proper Albouystown boys, learning the ways of the street and how to fend for themselves. I was infinitely proud of them.
My babies, I called the two youngest ones, even though Charles had more than outgrown his toddler legs, and was quite precocious. He was bright and cheerful, good at everything he put his hand to. Charles and Leopold were so close to each other in age that I almost thought of them as one – feeding times, sleeping times, play times: their lives seemed synchronised to the minute. When one cried the other was quick to join in. When one vomited over my shoulder, so did the other, on the newly made bed. When one child reached out for a cuddle, so did his brother, demanding, needing, little parasites hungry for my lifeblood. Yet they too were different. Charles, dreamy, artistic, sweet-natured. Altruistic. Leo, brash, assertive. Always taking away Charles’s toys – although he’d have given them willingly enough – and even those of the older boys. Screaming when he didn’t get his way. Charles was a giver; Leo was a taker.
My babies. Little people. Souls in my care, for me to mould and guide and help to be who they were. It was, finally, a good thing. In two or three years they would each show their calibre.
Sometimes, a few minutes of nothing-to-do opened up like a green alpine valley newly minted from the hand of God and I would throw myself across the bed or into the rocking chair and close my eyes – but never for long. Exhaustion nipped constantly at my heels. I was not born to this kind of life. I was not raised to raise a horde of babies without maids and nannies. Sometimes a grumbling little voice nagged at the back of my mind. Why? Why did you choose this life? You could have done better! You know you could have done better! Think of… and a name, a face, a lost alternative, tried to edge itself into my consciousness. But it never did.
I learned to gag that little devil voice. Get Thee behind me! I would cry out in silence, mimicking our Lord in the desert, and that s
tern command was always enough for it to slink away, a dog with its tail between its legs. I lectured myself. You chose this life because you loved George. No, not loved: LOVE. Love placed you here. Love is your master, love your storeroom of strength. And I would sigh and rise to my feet and walk on, one step at a time. I thought of the other mothers of Albouystown; they too had broods of children, they too got through the day. And they had had no options, whereas I had chosen this life. So who was I to complain? I refused to be that white lady from the white mansions too good for practical work, too proud to raise her own children. No – I would be as good as any Albouystown mother, as strong and resilient and upright in my duties. I would keep going.
Yes, I admit, it was hard work, keeping up with my boys as well as managing their care. Ma helped, of course, but her day was filled with housework and most of it fell to me. I wouldn’t have managed, I admit, without hired help – a girl called Cherry who helped in the kitchen, and Efna, who sometimes minded the youngest ones. Both of them were themselves dwellers of Albouystown. They should be working in the more affluent areas of Kingston or Cummingsburg, not for a neighbour. It made me feel privileged, a sense I had been trying to overcome ever since I first fell for George. I had determined to start at the bottom and work my way up. Doing the simple household tasks that kept a family going had brought me down from my fool’s paradise of dresses and dances, made of the fluffy-minded dreamer a down-to-earth and practical woman, a mother with hands that knew what to do. But now, with five boys – well, I was grateful for the help. If only I wasn’t white and they brown. The differences in our skin colour reinforced the tired old hierarchy of privilege, and that was what caused my guilt. Being an Albouystown resident made it all much worse.