Strange Music

by Strange Music (retail) (epub)

  ‘Wot yu waan she for?’ I asked. ‘Yu don’t go to church no more?’

  ‘Mister Sam! Mister Sam! Me come fe Mister Sam! Let me in, Kaydia, e bin wid we Mary Ann.’

  ‘Me cyaan let yu in,’ I whispered, my hands behind my back clutching door-frame.

  Clouting solid front door, ‘Open! Open!’ Charles screamed. ‘Old Simeon might be half blind but e aint deaf, e tell me Mister Sam have him way wid we dawta. Me kill im!’ Charles screamed.

  Cold. I went cold, though it was hot like every other day. Dreading what I might see I was walking up stairs, along corridors, my belly a churning sea, heart beating fast, painfully – I felt I shouldn’t be there. Noises leaked from blue bedchamber, odd muffled grunts, one long deep wheeze. Struck by a bolt of fear I stood unable to walk on in. But I did, being tied to Mary Ann by my heartstrings which came from inside out by then. What was I to do but turn brass handle slowly, silently, opening door enough for my eyes to move across bedchamber? Mister Sam was astride Mary Ann doing what they do. I closed door shut stealthily, noiselessly. Swallowing vile bile in my saliva what I felt I’m too sick to explain.

  Down stairs I ran and through great hall to dining-room. I saw Charles’ head outside sink below a window until it almost disappeared and all I could see was a brown brow topped with a curly crop of black hair.

  ‘Me cyaan let yu in,’ I whispered. ‘Yu voice threaten murder.’

  Window glass rattled; one pane was unlatched. Charles shoved frame up, glass shuddering, and slid a thickset arm inside. ‘Ow yu can call yuself she mama? See,’ he cried. ‘See dese tings?’ Charles’ hand unfolded. Earrings flashed and glinted, guilty rocking on him palm. ‘Old Simeon say e did yesterday find dem under flagstones in stable-block. Mary Ann hide dere.’ Charles’ cheek muscles twisted tight as rope, he slipped him thin slanted bearded face through window opening. ‘Now, tell me it isn’t true!’ he screamed. Crouched on wide window-sill this new sharp-faced Charles glared wide. I knew every muscle in that trembling body. He slid down onto yacca floor. We stared at each other, eyes making four – shouting Who destroyed we dawta? Mister Sam? Yu? Me? Yu love she, don’t yu? We both do – we thoughts echoing from one mind to another.

  Full of badness Charles pushed past me, hurled himself up stairs, shouting over top banister, ‘Yu cyaan work fe im no more, Mister Sam. Yu ear? Me kill im!’

  I dashed after Charles. He bashed blue chamber door, I remember brass lock hanging loose then dropping clang on yacca floor. At first I thought Mister Sam was still in blue bedchamber too.

  ‘Rass ooman out! Gwan!’ Charles bawled at me. I fled to upper verandah, huddled in a corner, clinging onto rails.

  ‘No! No!’ Mary Ann was bawling. ‘Me won’t leave!’ Charles dragged she shrieking body round blue bedchamber, I heard each horrible bumping sound. Loud thuds too. Like she tortured in hell’s fire Mary Ann bawled and shrieked.

  ‘Leave she alone!’ I yelled, coming out from my cowering place. ‘For God’s sake leave she alone!’

  Throwing Mary Ann at my feet, ‘Filth!’ Charles shouted. Him face had turned iron grey.

  ‘Afore Mister Sam mek militia assemble yu must be away!’ I screamed. ‘Gwane! Militiamen’ll shoot if dem find yu ere like dis.’

  ‘Mary Ann tek no more presents fram Mister Sam,’ Charles said to me. ‘E teach we pickney to be bad. Yu know Minister Waddell offering me church eldership? No! Me say no! Fe me watch over me lickle girl! Yu cyaan care fe she!’

  Hot blood rushed up my face. Shaking, I drew Mary Ann up, clasping she head to my chest. Pressed like geckos against verandah wall, mama against flattened daughter – if I could have made she and me disappear then I would have – she head nestling into my dress, my fingertips taming, sinking into wild matted hair.

  Clinging so tight they burned, Mary Ann’s little hands riveted onto my arms; nails scraping, tearing skin.

  ‘Me tek care of she best way me can,’ I finally said. Charles threw himself at me. Dashed against stone wall I couldn’t breathe, or see. My body burned prickly red, spicy rage filled my head. Suddenly Mary Ann broke free.

  Bawling over him shoulder, ‘Wotever yu do, God, E’ll know,’ Charles scurried, rat-like, down stairs, dragging Mary Ann. She quick eyes searched mine. Then she vanished with him.

  Peeping from shoe closet now Charles gone, Mister Sam’s face wore a silly meek grin, hungry for forgiveness. I couldn’t find any words, Mary Ann torn from me.

  Always I’ll be hunted down by this. Though I too hungered – hungered for peace – sickness rose in my belly. Disgust. Guilt. Shame. Hating myself, I moved away from him.

  Charles kept Mary Ann in old shacks near sugar boiling house. Weeks passed before I saw she again. Months passed before Mary Ann came back to work at great house.

  Door handle creaks, breaking into my thoughts. Opening blue bedchamber door, in steals Doctor Demar, muddy-eyed face still swollen with drink. He looks hard at Mister Sam’s sleeping body. Behind Demar, stealthily quiet, creeps Mister Sam’s cousin from Greenwood and Mister Carey. Mister Carey have hairy hands, too large for him lanky arms and lean body; stringy hair curls straggle round him doleful face.

  Rooting through all trouble that’s been I step back from bedside.

  Mister Carey whispers in Doctor Demar’s ear, ‘You put it perfectly. You’re right, Sam’s father could have done more, yet granting Sam attorneyship of this particular estate was his only option for keeping the boy here. And what with the apprenticeship system over and done with I will have less to do, that’s for sure.’

  Mister Sam’s cousin says, ‘It’s not the fact the debts –’

  ‘Shsh,’ Mister Carey warns him. ‘Better remove your hat.’

  ‘Right then,’ says Doctor Demar, ‘let’s get down to work. Carey, Sam’s will? You’ve got the testament, haven’t you? You brought it here from Greenwood?’

  Mister Carey says, ‘I did. What should I do? Read it back to Sam?’

  ‘Well, we’re here as witnesses. Yes,’ Doctor Demar says.

  Grouped around bedside, three men try to wake Mister Sam. Listening, watching, a sea stretches wide between me and them. Reddened by webs of broken lines Mister Sam’s eyes open, then dim, like agony runs through him back and head.

  What’s past don’t go. Don’t grow thin. But I feel small stone of hope snug in my belly. Lightness streams into my head while heart-searing sadness swells in my chest. If joy and fear can live together they do, now, within me.

  Mister Sam dips nib in inkwell cradled in my palm. If he tie me into him will Mary Ann should come back closer to me. Pa might change, might treat me better. Quill quivers, scrape-scratching ink tracks swirl. That sprawling pattern sign him will? Stretching out to Doctor Demar, holding up parchment, quill pen, Mister Sam’s hand’s shaking – I’m sinking into a basin of blue sea. Silence cuts. Lips murmur, a deeper level than him. My floating feeling vanishes. My name wasn’t spoken. Mister Sam would leave me with him pickney, without money fram him will? Can hope be ended this easily? I’m thrown, twisting turning without warning into sea’s drowning grasp. Tears won’t stop coming. Can’t swim from painful memories. If Mister Sam could live longer he might mention me.

  Mister Sam’s cousin sighs. First time I’ve seen him sober. Mister Carey’s eyebrows crinkle together, he steps around dirty sheets and bedclothes. I try to hold Mister Sam in my sight but sameway as me to him, Mister Sam’s just shadow. Can’t see for pain of swelling anger. Can’t hardly breathe for loathing him.

  Taking up parchment, Doctor Demar says, ‘The maid will make things more orderly in here after we’ve finished. You’d better hang onto Sam’s will, Carey, for safe keeping.’ Slowly he crosses blue bedchamber, turns, retraces each step.

  Waves draw back, crash forward. Mister Sam’s chest rises, falls. Him head flops sideways, words leak from him throat, ‘Sacra . . . Hope . . . Kaydie. Sacra . . . Sacram . . . Sacra . . . Hope.’ Hope giving me courage. ‘Kaydie. Hope.’

  Flipping through s
tiff note books, Doctor Demar asks, ‘Carey, can you decipher any of this?’ Doctor Demar glances at me, ‘Kaydia, can you interpret what Sam says?’

  Melting out from chamber wall, ‘Me cyaan mek sense out-a nonsense,’ I’m saying, hunting for answers before they come. I feel twinges as a dull ache darts like little stitches deep inside my belly. Mister Sam’s pickney stirs. Already?

  ‘Kaydie . . . Kaydie,’ Mister Sam moans.

  I’m wanting to punch him up, but I can only stand thinking I’m losing everything; thinking, Pa takes happiness from me. All them do, Charles, Sibyl, Friday, Rebecca Laslie, Mister Sam, Mary Ann. What happens to Mary Ann if I go like Rebecca Laslie, a lunatic way? How Mary Ann’ll find love with she face like it is? Scars she have outside. Scars she have within. Ruin and chaos he move into she life.

  Straining to raise him head, ‘Kaydie,’ Mister Sam sighs, ‘Hope. Hope . . .’ Four-poster bed’s spinning, chamber’s spinning. Him mind changing? Him remembering? I’m trying to say what’s knocking loudly in my head.

  Doctor Demar looks round, ‘What?’ and unplugs stethoscope from one ear.

  Me care fe Mary Ann, me dawta. Mister Sam, yu can do what?

  ‘Get Hope, Kaydie. Get Hope,’ Mister Sam croaks; lines twitch across him face.

  ‘E waan Ope. Mister Sam ast fe Ope,’ I say.

  Sitting down on mattress edge, wiping glasses with Mister Sam’s clean bed sheet, ‘Sam,’ Doctor Demar bellows. ‘Sam, can you hear me?’

  Leaning forward, I listen to Mister Sam’s mutterings. ‘Me tink e say e waan tek bread an wine,’ I tell Doctor Demar. ‘Cornwall minister called Hope.’

  Doctor Demar quickly stands up rigid. ‘Sam wants to partake of the Sacrament?’

  ‘Impossible!’ exclaims Mister Sam’s cousin.

  Carey’s mouth twists in surprise. ‘After all that’s happened, is that wise?’

  Doctor Demar prods Mister Sam’s chest. ‘He hasn’t eaten for two whole days.’

  Spinning don’t stop, trembling beginning. Sweat of cold loss beads my forehead. ‘Me cyaan do noting wid im, Mister Demar,’ I say, feeling if more tears come I’ll never surface again.

  ‘What?’ says Doctor Demar. ‘What’s the matter with the maid?’

  Morning shadows slide from Mister Sam’s face, turning it yellow-white as planks Pa planes. Sun strikes Christ’s body hanging in pure wretchedness above Mister Sam’s head, wearing creased crucifix cloth Pa carved for Friday. My eyes turn to floorboards and make out patterns in woodgrain. I have no body to bury but enough loss to drown slow slow slow in raw pain. I hear sea’s queer moan rushing out from a shell’s open mouth, rushing in. Lost in a blur of arms, legs, floor hits my face.

  Pressing on my forehead’s a hand, a strong force clamps down my legs. ‘Quick, Demar!’ Carey shouts. ‘Help me restrain the girl. She’s liable to attack someone.’

  Voices drift overhead. Cool air breathes across my eyelids; jalousie blinds whisper, Mister Sam, yu a sin. Yu remember wot yu did? If life could be called back I’d call what happened from that night, change it with a flood of rage: Yu a man of lies. Pity on you. Shame. Shame. Shame.

  Tugging me by an elbow up onto my feet, Doctor Demar says, ‘It’s just a mild fainting fit.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ asks Carey.

  Doctor Demar says, ‘See?’ fixing my head between firm hands. ‘She’s acting worse than she feels.’

  ‘God, whatever next?’ says Mister Carey in one breath.

  ‘Send for someone to deliver this.’ Mister Sam’s cousin hurriedly writes a note, blots ink dry, seals parchment with red wax stamp, and gives it to Doctor Demar. ‘To Hope Masterton Waddell at Cornwall great house.’

  My legs rush away. Stumbling onto knees again, sea-washed shells I hear, hot pink lips pressed to my ear singing, swirling, hissing wave upon wave of sadness reaches from my childhood. From chamber door I see Doctor Demar cross great hall, plunge deep into pressing heat. I wish Rebecca Laslie never left me here at Cinnamon Hill. I wish Mister Sam dead.

  ‘I’m not mistaken,’ says Mister Sam’s cousin, peering over open desk. ‘That is Maria’s handwriting. You know my wife, Maria. Well, she wrote to Sam last Christmas about a missing jewellery box. She believes Old Simeon stole it while we were staying here about twelve months past. It was a while before Maria realized the box was gone. The box was her mother’s – a family heirloom. We never had a reply from Sam to our letter.’

  Fear inside me mixes with pure hatred. Jewellery box on dressing-table. They can tell? Mama Laslie say it not thieving. What we take’s still theirs.

  ‘Sam’s been busy in England and with extra responsibilities,’ Carey says.

  ‘I know, but once when we stayed at Cinnamon Hill, Old Simeon was caught red-handed with Maria’s silver crucifix.’

  ‘Yes, I remember,’ Carey says. ‘Old Simeon said he’d found the crucifix under a table and was going to return it to Maria.’

  ‘Believe that and you’ll believe anything,’ Mister Sam’s cousin replies. ‘I can’t understand why Sam kept the monkey on.’

  ‘Give the matter to Junius to resolve. He’s the store-key keeper. He’s trustworthy enough,’ says Mister Carey.

  I care not who jewellery box belonged to but am scared for Old Simeon. Is me do it, my head-tongue says.

  Mister Sam’s violently sick again. Waves crest over. Mister Sam’s face rolls on pillow lace, skin sameway pale as porcelain jug I bring.

  Doctor Demar says, walking in from landing, ‘Girl, clear your master’s chamber.’

  Gathering scrumpled bed shirts, trousers, I can’t stand straight to suffer all this shock. I shake trouser pockets out. ‘Wantin laundry, Mister Doctor,’ I say, and slip Mister Sam’s loose coins into my hand as I scoop up a spotted neck-cloth.

  I hardly notice other buckra men go while stacking nibs, quills in blue-black desk wood.

  Mister Sam’s chin’s grown stubble. Sweat jewels him back. Him body – a powerful snake – squirms with sudden strength, tightly wrapped in swirling white linen. Letters on Mister Sam’s desk catch my eye. Musty memories move, unfolding stiff parchment, of Mister Sam scrumpling up bills. He never paid them.

  Lizard-like, Mister Sam’s heavily hooded eyes slide shut. He lies still and dumb again. Writing’s scrawled across both sides of parchment in my hand, aloud I read but strain to make any meaning of such fancy words: 31st July 1838. Sir Joshua Rowe, Kingston. I remember Sir Joshua Rowe, Chief Justice of Jamaica, staying at Cinnamon Hill. Memories pour into my head. Disasters long past appear clearly now. Even Chief Justice of Jamaica knew of Mister Sam’s wicked ways.

  Standing behind Mister Sam in Cinnamon Hill study, wondering how to protect Mary Ann from him, I watched packet ship’s sails tighten, white blades slicing a blue skyline.

  ‘When Sir Joshua Rowe arrives I shall enlist his assistance for my swift departure for America,’ Mister Sam said. He broke red wax letter seal.

  ‘Packet come?’ I asked, watching him read.

  Lolling back, he tipped chair up on its legs, rested boots on study-desk edge. He cared little for what I said. Him eye flickered, ‘News of the brats at last.’ He laughed. ‘My sister, Henrietta, would find me a wife. Shall I tell her I already have one?’ He glanced through an open window at glistening sea. ‘William Weld, damn him. Thank heaven that lawsuit’s over.’ Raising a glass, saying, ‘Freedom! At last!’ Mister Sam sipped rum then turned straight to me. Back then he had a straw-coloured moustache, it went up and down whenever him lips moved. ‘My cousin says we should expect trouble with the slaves tonight. A minor uprising again. Is that true?’

  ‘Me cyaan say, sir.’

  Knocking at hardwood study door Old Simeon, munching tobacco, shuffled in. ‘Me announcin Minister Ope. E walk in by back door, says e wait in great all fe yu.’

  ‘You can take your leave for now, Kaydie,’ Mister Sam said. ‘Yes, and before you disappear, remember to leave a full bottle of rum out there for me in the drawing-room.’

&
nbsp; But I stayed in study-room after he left. I spied though open door crack and heard all Mister Sam and Minister Hope Waddell said.

  They argued. Argued. Argued all afternoon in drawing-room over no more Sunday worship, wages for freed apprentices.

  Minister Hope suddenly bawled, ‘Sam, you will cease your wicked ways.’

  Mister Sam tore through great hall, darted up stairs, shouting, ‘What right have you to tell me how to run my own plantation?’

  Hope Waddell was shouting, ‘The plantation is your father’s. Carey’s still the attorney!’

  Upstairs doors opened and slammed shut. From outside came distant cheering; shouts; it was hard to tell what made such a noise. Looking out from study-room side window, I saw Mary Ann soaking up late-afternoon sunlight beside stove-wood bundles. I saw she in my head – wildly she bolted back and forth in a blue blur. Between me, Charles, Mister Sam, she was caught – a doctor-bird trapped in a glass case. Reason and order vanished in a haze of beating wings flying like my own rage. Mary Ann had not long been back with me working in great house after first time I found she with Mister Sam and Charles had hid she in old shacks. Charles told me minister said he would speak with Mister Sam, put an end to Mister Sam’s wicked ways. I went from study-room, ran to minister. He had fallen silent and was gazing through jalousie blinds across Cinnamon Hill garden. A powerful anger came upon me.

  Into drawing-room Mary Ann came running. ‘Wot’s dat noise, Mama? Wot de cane-cutters waan?’ Pulling my apron she said, ‘Cane-cutters going down plantation hill.’ I glanced through front window and saw a crowd streaming past great-house driveway.

  Minister’s bawl carried up staircase: ‘Sam, the Lord is your Master. Let His spirit guide you.’ Shaking with anger minister made to climb staircase. Him soft hand went hard like it’d throttle wood banister.

  Afraid to leave Mary Ann near Mister Sam I told she, ‘Go. Do yu chores.’ I looked down into she twisted and burning with love face.

  Yanking my apron, Mary Ann was chanting ‘Freedom! Freedom! Freedom! Dat wot cane-cutters say.’

  ‘Trouble reach ere,’ I said. ‘Mek yuself go, Minister Waddell. Slip troo back door, ride out by cut wind.’ Minister’s cheeks drained white like bleached starched linen. ‘Me lock door behind yu wid Mister Sam key fram under doormat, ere.’