The Sugar Planter's Daughter

by Sharon Maas

  Yoyo was joyously pregnant, her bulging belly taut and big, like an oversized watermelon about to burst open. I laughed, and placed my hands on it. ‘I can feel it kicking!’ I said. ‘Isn’t that the most perfect feeling in the world?’

  ‘Him,’ corrected Yoyo. ‘He’s kicking. Only a boy would be kicking around so much. Oh Mama! I can hardly wait!’

  ‘Have you chosen a name for him yet?’

  ‘Yes – Ralph, Clarence’s middle name. And Archibald, after Papa.’

  ‘Papa will like that,’ I said. ‘I assume you’ve written to him with the good news?’

  ‘Indeed I have, and he has written back. He is ecstatic – at last a grandson he can be proud of!’

  That was rather a dig, and I reprimanded her.

  ‘Winnie’s sons are perfectly good children and your father should be ashamed of himself. They are his grandchildren just as much as this one. He has every reason to be proud of them!’

  ‘But he isn’t, is he?’ she replied, gaily and matter-of-factly. ‘Papa never wanted George as his son-in-law and being in prison hasn’t changed that. Why mince words? Papa wanted an heir and he’s going to get one – through me. Seeing as Kathleen has only produced daughters, like you!’

  She was technically right, and so I held my tongue, but that truth hurt – the truth that Archie rejected completely Winnie’s children, solely on the basis of their mixed race. It didn’t seem fair. But it was a fact, and so I let it be.

  And then the night of her confinement was upon us. The maid came knocking at my door in the middle of the night, and I was up in a trice.

  ‘Is Miss Yoyo, ma’am!’ she said, eyes wide with panic. ‘She water break! De baby comin’!’

  ‘Very well, Mabel. No need for panic. Woman have been having children for thousands of years. Now run along, find Poole, and tell him to drive to the village and fetch Nurse Prema.’

  Nurse Prema was the Indian nurse-midwife who had moved to the village from Georgetown three years ago, and now ministered to all the births on the plantation, be they labourer birth or European, black, brown or white. I for my part rushed to Yoyo’s room and then, establishing that she was comfortable, to the servants’ quarters to wake Cooky, whom I instructed to boil water. It was going to be a long night.

  But, it turned out, it wasn’t. Yoyo, now that she had held on to a baby to full term, proved to be as much a natural at giving birth as she had been at pregnancy. Hardly had she let out her first protracted scream than the baby slipped out and into Nurse Prema’s competent hands. A strident wail filled the room, and the requisite tears my eyes.

  ‘A girl!’ cried Nurse Prema as she cut the cord.

  ‘Oh! A girl!’ Yoyo sounded stunned and just a little disappointed. ‘I was so sure – oh, but never mind! Come. Give her to me!’

  She held out her hands to receive the baby. Nurse Prema and I exchanged a knowledgeable glance. This wasn’t going to be easy. Nurse Prema took the baby, wrapped now in a white sheet that brought out all the more the dark teint of her skin, and placed her in Yoyo’s waiting arms.

  Yoyo’s smile vanished in an instant. She frowned.

  ‘Oh, but…’ She folded away the sheet to regard the baby in her full naked glory. ‘But – how could – I didn’t…’

  And then the cry came: ‘She’s black!’

  ‘She’s perfect,’ I said. ‘She’s just perfect.’

  ‘Very healthy child,’ said Nurse Prema by way of encouragement. ‘Good lungs!’

  The little bronze baby lay on the bed in front of Yoyo, naked, wriggling and screaming. I longed to take her in my arms, but this was Yoyo’s child, Yoyo’s task.

  She didn’t fulfil it. Instead, she turned away.

  ‘Take it away,’ she said, pointing to the baby. ‘I don’t want it. I don’t care what you do with it. Just get rid of it. Give it to George.’

  * * *

  I tried. I really tried. Immediately after birth is not the time to make wise decisions.

  ‘Yoyo,’ I said, ‘wait a few days. I know it’s a shock, and a disappointment. But when you get used to the idea, maybe’

  ‘No!’ she burst out. ‘I know what I’m doing! Take that child away! I don’t want it! I can’t bear that screaming!’

  She put her hands over her ears and pressed, her face an ugly grimace.

  I handed the child to Nurse Prema, who simply said, ‘I will take care of her. Some mothers need time.’ She bundled the baby into her arms, kissed the tiny head and headed for the door.

  ‘How could this happen!’ Yoyo wept. ‘How could it!’

  Nurse Prema, the baby in her arms, turned round.

  ‘Ma’am – you have intimate relations with a coloured man?’

  ‘Yes, yes…but’

  ‘Then that’s the reason. Nature in’t picky.’

  ‘But we stopped – he stopped – didn’t finish…’

  Nurse Prema chuckled. ‘You mean, coitus interruptus? It never worked. You know how many ladies – and they husbands too – I had to warn, because they think not finishing goin’ to stop a baby from gettin’ born?’

  ‘But it was late in the month – too late! I thought…’

  ‘That method don’t work either. You didn’t use a French letter?’

  ‘No, no, I thought, I thought…’

  The thing is, Yoyo hadn’t thought. She had seized the opportunity, and trapped poor George. She had thought she was safe because of the timing, and afterwards she had thought she was safe because he had not finished, as she always discreetly put it. But we all know that nature has a mind of its own. A woman might do all she can to conceive, but if nature says no, well, it’s no. And she might do all she can to prevent conception, but if nature says yes, well, she’s in big trouble if the man’s not her husband. Not even French letters are perfectly safe; many a woman has told that tale. Yoyo took a big gamble and she lost. And this poor child would have to pay the price.

  ‘Have a rest,’ said Nurse Prema now, ‘have a rest and when you feel better you will love this sweet li’l baby. Such a pretty baby! Soch a lovely li’l thing!’ and she kissed the baby’s head again and left the room.

  But I knew my Yoyo. Stubborn as an ass. She would not change her mind. Yet still, I had to try.

  ‘Yoyo, darling,’ I said later, after she had rested. ‘You have a little daughter. You are strong. Since when have you been afraid of scandal? Yes, people will talk but you are your own mistress. I’m sure Clarence will’

  ‘Mama, didn’t you hear me? I said I don’t want this child. You must give her to George. He’s obviously the father. I don’t know how it happened, some kind of a twisted miracle, because – well, surely it wasn’t possible, considering how… But look at her! Black as sin! Give her to George. Didn’t they want a daughter?’

  ‘Yes. But’

  ‘There you are, then. A daughter for Winnie and George and they didn’t even have to work for it. No pregnancy, no labour, no nothing. I did it all for them. It’s my present to them. Tell them that.’

  Yoyo has the sensitivity of a turtle, and that’s an insult to the turtle. Can’t she see how utterly impossible her proposition is? Winnie and George have recovered so nicely from the dramas and scandals of last year. They have rallied their forces, strengthened their marriage. Winnie has forgiven George; their new home is almost finished. Their family is complete, Winnie having found a new commitment to her boys. When I went down to spend Christmas with them she confided in me:

  ‘Mama, my obsession with having a daughter blinded me to the boys. I neglected them. Not physically, of course; I looked after them as well as ever. But emotionally. I refused to really see them, to feel them, to comprehend them, take them into my heart and truly love them.’

  It’s as if George’s infidelity and all the pain it caused has made her see her own blind spots. Cracked open the armour of her obsession, so that she can be herself again, find the loving-kindness that is her true nature. But most of all, it’s the change in George th
at has healed them.

  George has found a new lease of life in his music, his singing. What a voice that man has! I always thought I was an excellent musician, but my talent seems technical, acquired, stilted in comparison to George’s. When he sings shudders run up and down my spine, my heart swells, I want to cry.

  I’m not a very religious person – I converted to Christianity just to please my husband’s family, and my initial enthusiasm has grown cold over the decades. But when that man sings – oh, I’m a believer all over again. He moves me to the marrow of my bones. To the core of my being. And that’s his effect on everyone.

  But he keeps it private. George could easily make a career out of singing if he wanted to. But he doesn’t want to. He sings for private groups alone; every Saturday he is invited to this or that home and sings for that family and their friends. He will not accept money. He sings for the poor of Albouystown and the rich of Cummingsburg and Kingston alike.

  And it is George’s singing more than anything that has saved their marriage. It had grown dull; George had lost his fire, as had Winnie, mired as they both were in the responsibilities of raising a family of five rambunctious boys in cramped quarters. George’s singing has brought life into their lives and now they sing together as a family every evening. It calms the boys, who are now each learning an instrument. Humphrey has a violin, and he is good at it – Winnie finds the time to teach him. Gordon and Will have recorders; Will is better than Gordon. The toddlers have their drums and bang away as toddlers do – with full enthusiasm. This is a happy family. The wound has been healed. The birth of this child was always going to crack it open again; and now Yoyo wants me to give the child to them? She is out of her mind.

  The empathy of a turtle.

  The child was born yesterday, a Good Friday child. I’m not sure of the significance of that but there must be some message. The poor little thing. Nurse Prema has taken her to a wet nurse in the village for the day and will bring her back later, to see if Yoyo has changed her mind. If not, I don’t know what I will do.

  Before she left, Nurse Prema said to me, ‘Ma’am, I got to register the birth.’

  ‘Well, then do so!’

  ‘A lil problem, ma’am, with baby father name.’

  ‘Ah – what do you do in such – uncertain – cases?’

  ‘Mother’s husband is always official father, ma’am.’

  ‘Well then. What’s the problem? The baby’s father is Clarence Smedley.’

  ‘What is the baby’s name, ma’am?’

  ‘Well, how should I know? Ask the mother.’

  ‘Mother don’t want to name the baby, ma’am.’

  ‘Well then, let’s ask the father. Mr Clarence.’

  Clarence had dropped in to meet his latest child, and had been not in the least shocked at her appearance; I suppose he was used to it, having already sired several half-caste children in the village and on the estate. I have this to say for Clarence: whatever his other faults, he has not a bit of racial prejudice.

  ‘Poor little mite!’ he said when he saw his latest daughter. ‘I should like to keep her. I wish we could.’

  ‘Perhaps Yoyo will come to her senses in a day or two,’ I said.

  ‘It’s not possible, though. What with the obvious – er – discrepancies. Paternity and whatnot.’

  I was disappointed, though I suppose it was too much to have hoped for. It’s one thing Clarence acknowledging a white child as his own – but a dark-skinned one? That was, I suppose, too much to ask.

  ‘I think it’s a good idea, to give her to George and Winnie to raise,’ he said. ‘They’ll make excellent parents to her.’

  I sighed. Neither he nor Yoyo, it seemed, sensed a problem there.

  Now, Nurse Prema and I went to see Clarence, who was enjoying an early-morning celebratory drink on the verandah.

  ‘Nurse Prema is going to register the birth,’ I said. ‘She will have to give your name as the father, as Yoyo’s legal husband. Unless you object.’

  ‘Object? Object? Why should I object? Nurse Prema has registered me as father on many a birth certificate. Not true, Nurse Prema?’

  ‘Yes, sir. But this time…’

  Clarence took a sip of his drink, licked his lips and said: ‘One half-blood bastard is as good as the next. Who cares. Father, mother, it’s all the same.’

  ‘We need a name for her,’ I said then. ‘Yoyo refuses to name her.’

  ‘Mary,’ he said. ‘Call her Mary, after my mother. A perfectly good English name. Poor little mite. Let me look at her once more.’

  Nurse Prema bent over so that Clarence could behold his putative daughter. His eyes turned moist and for a moment I thought he was going to reach out for her. But he didn’t.

  ‘Poor little mite,’ he said again. ‘Poor little Mary. Give her to George. He’s a better father than I am. Me, I’m just the sire of bastards. Poor little half-blood bastards.’

  36

  George

  Easter Sunday – my favourite day of the year. Kite-flying day. Of course we all made our way to the Sea Wall. Humphrey and Gordon had made their kites themselves, with just a little help from me. I made Will’s kite with just a little help from Will. Winnie made tiny kites for Charley and Leo: frameless paper pentagons in gaudy colours, with tails of twine decorated with raggedy bows; they’d never fly, but the babies loved them. Babies! Charley and Leo would always be our babies, though they were nearly four and nearly three, and growing a bit more each day.

  After breakfast we rounded them up, laughing and running after the more rumbustious ones in order to get them out the house and down the road to meet the tram.

  ‘You are the most boisterous children on earth!’ I said. ‘Leo! Come back! Leave that dog alone! Will, no, you can’t have Humph’s kite. You have your own!’

  ‘Want big kite!’ wailed Leo. Humphrey lifted his kite high above his head.

  ‘No, it’s mine! You got your own!’

  ‘Winnie! Winnie, where are you? These boys are out of control!’

  It was like rounding up a troop of monkeys; the moment one was ready to go the other found some new distraction. Now Gordon had spotted a ripe mango on the neighbour’s tree and had slyly removed his slingshot from his trouser pocket and, silently and stealthily, picked up a pebble and taken aim. You needed eyes at the back of your head for that boy. I snatched the slingshot from his hands at the very last moment. Mr Greer was protective of his mangoes; he and Gordon were fighting an ongoing feud.

  ‘I’m coming!’ called Winnie. ‘I forgot to pack the black pudding.’

  ‘Of course we’re boisterous!’ said Gordon. ‘We’re boys and we live in All Boys Town. We’re the boisterous Boys of All Boys Town!’

  ‘That’s good!’ shouted Humphrey. ‘The boisterous boys!’

  ‘Of All Boys Town!’ chorused Gordon and Charles.

  ‘The boisterous boys of All Boys Town, of All Boys Town, of All Boys Town… Pa, you must write a song for us!’

  ‘Yes, yes, a song about us all! Please, Pa!’

  ‘I will if you all get into line and stand still and stop being so boisterous right now! Chop chop!’

  ‘Are you going to chop off our heads if we don’t?’

  ‘I might!’

  ‘No you won’t!’

  ‘Yes he will! With a carving knife like the lady in ‘Three Blind Mice’!’

  ‘Three Blind Mice, Three Blind Mice, see how they run, see how they run, they all ran after the farmer’s wife, she cut off their tails with a carving knife…’ sang Charles on cue.

  ‘Maybe Pa will cut off our tails and not our heads!’ cried Gordon.

  ‘But we don’t have – oh!’ That was Humph, who often took words a little too literally.

  They all burst into laughter. ‘We have front tails!’ cried Gordon, and immediately pulled down his trousers to demonstrate. ‘And I need to use mine.’ He ran to the fence and began to pass water.

  ‘Gordon! You don’t do that outside! G
o to the outhouse!’

  ‘But we’re ready to go – I’m just saving time!’ said Gordon, who had already finished and now returned to the group, pulling up his trousers.

  ‘Pa, I need a wee too!’ cried Charley.

  ‘Me, too!’ said Humphrey.

  ‘I thought you had all gone already?’

  ‘Yes we did but’

  ‘Here I am!’ called Winnie, bustling down the front stairs with a basket slung over her right arm and a big canvas bag over her shoulder. A picnic for five boys and two adults needed as much organisation as a huge formal dinner party.

  ‘Ma, Pa’s going to cut off all our willies!’ cried Charles, who was obviously going to run with that joke all day long.

  Finally we managed to herd them out of the front gate and down the road to the tram stop, Humph and Gordon holding hands, Will and Charles behind them refusing to hold hands, Winnie and I at the rear, Leo riding on my back. I held the basket and Winnie carried the bag over her shoulder. She looked pensive, and did not speak. I wondered if she was remembering, as I did, last year at this time: she had been pregnant, and just beginning to show, and looking forward to Gabriella Rose.

  ‘A year from now,’ she had said, ‘our family will be complete. Gabriella Rose will be with us.’

  I hoped she was thinking now, as I was, that our family was complete. I hoped she was as happy as I was, right at this moment. Yet she looked sad.

  But if she had been sad at the start of our trip, by the time we reached the Sea Wall all trace of it had disappeared from her features. It was a beautiful sunny Easter Sunday and it seemed that every single Georgetown child had dragged their parents to the beach, kite in hand. Long before we arrived we could see from the tram window, the boys pointing and exclaiming, the heralds in the sky – spots of bright yellow and red, and green, sailing against the cobalt blue of the sky, swaying in the brisk Atlantic breeze, soaring up to the sun.

  My heart soared too as we climbed out of the tram and mounted the wall. We walked along, single file, for about a hundred yards until we came to the promenade, and there we descended on to the beach. The tide was out, and the hard undulating sand reached out seemingly to the horizon.