Strange Music

by Strange Music (retail) (epub)

  Glancing at we as he left, ‘I pity you,’ minister said. ‘May the good Lord fill you with His strength, for I’ll not return to Cinnamon Hill.’ He couldn’t look at Mary Ann. He knew he had betrayed she. Quickly he was gone. Cinnamon Hill air felt much colder after that.

  I don’t care if you don’t return, I was thinking. You too weak, minister, to change Mister Sam from doing what he do to Mary Ann, for all you promised Charles, for all you ranting too.

  Mary Ann led me to upper verandah. Overlooking sugar works we eyes clearly drank in what trouble was about. Slaves bobbed out from bushes and along goat tracks. Mounting saddle as horse flung up its tail, minister galloped down plantation path.

  Ragged and crude drumbeat pulsed through evening air. Mary Ann scraped sharp fingernails up and down she arms, like she skin was crawling alive with biting bugs.

  ‘Papa say me turn yu crazy,’ Mary Ann said with honest voice and face. ‘Papa say yu a lunatic like yu ma.’

  Wanting to say I’m not mad, don’t fret, don’t be vexed, Mary Ann – Lord, lift me dawta up to Yu, I was praying. ‘Look,’ I said, ‘Mary Ann, flowers.’ Wanting to distract she from scratching I pointed at flowers of half-bud half-blossom nosing between orange-tree leaves in front garden below. But she paid me no heed.

  ‘Oo sleep on de ocean bed, Mama?’ she small voice asked. ‘Monsters?’

  ‘Only fish.’ I was gazing between side-window shutters as Jancra’s black wings slipped from a branch into soft blue sky.

  ‘Me tink it monsters, or bad men dere. Me head full of monsters,’ she said. Peering down between verandah rails, Mary Ann cowered, shrinking from Jancra’s path. ‘Mama, ow yu do know wen yu ded?’

  I moved behind Mary Ann, lifted up she chin and looked hard into she small, more than sad face. ‘Jancra cyaan hurt yu,’ I said. She didn’t want to look at me. Not then. Not ever since, it seems. She stood up straight, each pointed step she took leading to Mister Sam’s ottoman.

  Lying down, Mary Ann stretched, tiny feet feeling for a silk-covered footstool. She voice, faint as harp strings, sang, ‘Me mama not fraid fe Jancra.’

  My eyes followed a cloud of darkness unravelling from east to west. ‘Look! We can see round de world fram dis verandah. Dere’s de moon, see, on dat side. See sun setting on de odder.’

  ‘Kaydia! Kaydie!’ Mister Sam called.

  Turning for stairwell bottom I said to Mary Ann, ‘Wait ere fe me.’

  Mister Sam called me back into him study. ‘Fetch my uniform.’ He folded a key into my hand. ‘And musket. I’m going to keep watch from here. Mary Ann, polish my boots. Mary Ann!’ he called. ‘Mary Ann! Where in hell is she?’

  I ran to upper verandah, chasing my hope that Mary Ann would still be there. Every room I ran through stared starkly. ‘Mary Ann! Mary Ann!’ I bawled. Fearing Mister Sam, Mary Ann will have run to stable-block, crept to strong raw-leather smell behind saddle rack. Always my daughter hide in some dark corner. Perhaps where pimento trees’ shadows play in warm fragrant shade of crumbling stable walls. Peering over stable-door tops nibbled jagged by horses’ teeth, darkness answered me.

  From chamber closet I brought Mister Sam’s red militia jacket and hard cured cowhide belt.

  I sat alone against whitewashed upper verandah wall, gazing out over sugar works and thickly wooded slopes stretching through swampy saltwater morass to open sea. Cane-cutters from hill villages poured down valleys by now to flat land at foothill’s base, round swampy morass, dancing onto coast road in a mess of colour. And noise. Whistles, cowbells, horns, reeds. Goatskin drums. My head throbbed with strange yet familiar sounds. Women with rattles strapped to wrists, ankles, came dancing from slave quarters around great house.

  Hundreds of people, young and old, who’d been forced into slavery at Cinnamon Hill, Greenwood and Barrett Hall, celebrated, rushing from shacks to join this parade. But I cared little. Everything I reached for turned into dirt.

  Leaning on verandah rail I strained to see if Mary Ann’s head bobbed out at sea. That ever deepening blue was broken only by grey patches of reefs close to shore. Inland, patches of sunlight spilled gold across treetops, light flared from candle-wood torches. Under beds; behind curtains I made a search.

  ‘Me look fe Mary Ann everywhere an me cyaan find she,’ I said when Mister Sam returned in red militia uniform.

  Mister Sam’s deadly pale face watched hillside coming to life. ‘Where do they go?’

  ‘William Knibb in Falmouth church.’

  ‘But the church can’t hold this many.’

  ‘Den dey fill school-house, court-house.’

  ‘Surely Demar will order the militia to assemble.’

  But Doctor Demar didn’t come. Mister Richard Barrett gone to Spanish Town in Kingston. Militia messenger didn’t appear. All Cinnamon Hill cane piece deserted.

  ‘Yu treat cane-cutters strong, too strong,’ I said. Mister Sam wrung him hands. Dusk hovered. Birds chattered. My ears throbbed and burned with straining to hear Mary Ann’s voice sweeten evening air. ‘Me dawta, where she? Me have to know. Yu must ansa me.’

  Mister Sam was silent. On upper verandah he stood, where earlier that day me and Mary Ann had watched minister gallop away, struck by a screaming sun, a flashing, glittering sea. Sea was now a rippling cool turquoise blue. Hurrying from filthy quarters others still joined slaves’ wild dance, lit by orange torch flames now.

  ‘Lock the doors,’ Mister Sam’s voice trembled. All he saw he still believed he had a right to. We watched carts cross flat swamp at foothill’s base to Falmouth – that distant, strange land – yet all paths led there, and red-yellow flames on black night sky blazed with one lifelong desire. ‘God only knows how we’ll get the crop in with this . . . this . . . farrago.’ Slaves, as Mister Sam’s mouth moved, still crossed Salt Marsh for Falmouth, creeping night heavy with thunder of pounding drums. Light from candle-wood torches licked empty stomachs, backs. It was a mass of black skin, animal masks, feathered headdresses. Heathen practices – as Pa calls them. Rebecca Laslie . . . What would she have said?

  Night, a dark smear, drew across pink sky. A manic chant of mockery grew louder. Below me swirled an ocean of defeat. One man, with grey flowing beard and stringy mop of hair – him too a slave, ragged, lewd, cut from Africa – joined slaves’ wild dance on stilts.

  ‘Your daughter,’ Mister Sam said, ‘is probably running with those lawless lunatics.’ He then looked away from me, and said in a quiet tone, ‘I have been recalled.’

  ‘Recalled?’ I said.

  ‘Papa’s letter in today’s packet said I have been recalled to England for readjustment. I must sail very soon.’

  Struck off short in wonder that Mister Sam could leave for ever, I stood in quiet wonderment. No more injury? Me, Charles and Mary Ann will have freedom to live again? That happy moment lasted long. So very long. Peace, it hit my body so strong my legs quaked.

  ‘Hope Masterton Waddell is behind this. The decision smells of him,’ Mister Sam said. ‘Without Carey’s attorneyship I’m a bloody impotent manager. Waddell’s forcing me to leave Jamaica. Mend my wicked ways. Bastard! The bastard!’ he hissed between clenched teeth.

  I knew what was coming. And I knew it wouldn’t be quick. Mister Sam can turn feisty bad. Each shout shook stonework and echoed in my head sameway as rocks rumble down mountainsides. Hurling books from shelves, ripping down curtains, bashing jalousie blinds. Then he shrieked like a parakeet. A staring-glass crashed. Smashed. Splinters spun over polished floors. Sweeping chaos across silk rugs Mister Sam’s rage rushed like hurricane. Anger weaving through my body, I was running over parchments strewn about cool dark chambers, calling, ‘Mary Ann! Mary Ann!’

  Fixing my eyes on Mister Sam’s dressing-table I seized a walnut jewellery box with no sense of how to open it, how hard to throw. Until. It smashed. Gathering gold chains, brooches, dagger-sharp split wood, moving quick on worry, up narrow ladder I scrambled and into attic room. Except for Mary Ann I wasn’t afraid there. P
erfectly silent I became, lying on my back, listening, breathing darkness in.

  Knots of stars in dusk-dark sky shone between roof shingles. Deeper, deeper I fell, drifting in attic’s crib of darkness, sinking into a lumpy mattress Charles and I once used as we bed. Lifeless. But for breath stroking top lip. Even clatter coming up from downstairs, wrapped up in greater dark, became swallowed by black. Something like strong wind I need, that I can feel. That can hold me, cradle me, so there’s more sense to life. Wood floor’s disappeared, and I’m groping for something to hold on to. Someone. But there isn’t anything until I see Mama again, and find Mary Ann.

  Dawn light slid across dusty floorboards when I climbed down attic ladder. Cinnamon Hill great house huge rooms felt odd when Mister Sam’s fury had passed. One shattered bedchamber mirror had kept its glass. Mister Sam’s face stared from it. Veins rose on each side of him head; cheeks sprung red, mouth forming a soft O, marooned in a sea of papers, books, still like Barrett portraits, locked still; he was staring staring staring at cobweb-like cracks in glass.

  Under staring mirror stood Mister Sam’s desk. He unlocked it, slid out rests. ‘What did you do with my musket?’

  ‘Musket me lock up,’ I said.

  Mister Sam’s hands outstretched. Sad hands for me to drop closet key into.

  Beneath tiny hidden drawers at desk back lay low boxes split for parchment, goose quills, nibs, keys, maps. Mister Sam’s fingers brushed an estate map and, sliding up, stroked neck of empty white-rum bottle living in desk belly. Shaking rum bottle, straw-yellow hair flopping over him brow, he wrung bottle’s neck until drops dotted Barrett estates.

  What happened then I couldn’t have foreseen. Mister Sam stood nearer to me. A weird feeling of hatred and passion ran through my body. I couldn’t swallow, a lump blocked my throat. Him look was searching; pink lips waited. I felt each breath he took flow across my skin. I swallowed painfully, I wanted to coil away. My cheeks were burning. I’d never kissed a white man. It seemed a dirty thing to do. It felt worse than betrayal. It felt evil. I felt contempt for him. He’d destroyed Mary Ann as a pickney breaks a plaything. Then I felt a hollow chill, a darkening in my soul. I’ve even prayed to Him in heaven for mercy for what I did. White crest of Mister Sam’s neck was in my hand, blue-grey mistiness of him eye closed as him mouth closed on mine. He held me tight then shaking him head, turned away. And something else strange was in Mister Sam’s chamber. Something even more threatening. Beneath four-poster bedspread a sugar-sack-sized bundle stirred.

  ‘How would you like to live in England, Kaydie? Visit America?’ Mister Sam said.

  ‘Wot, yu mean yu tek me?’ I asked, wanting to hear him say it again. Anything I’d do, I thought, to protect Mary Ann for ever from him.

  Mister Sam hastily said, ‘Yes. You can go now,’ as shape beneath bedspread uncurled, drew sheets from head, shoulders, legs. ‘Go! Leave this room, Kaydia! Immediately!’ But Mister Sam’s order came too late.

  Covers were cast over griffin crests carved in mahogany-smooth bedhead. Dark curls streamed across she face. Beautiful she looked. Painfully open.

  ‘Why? How Mary Ann in ere? Walk on silent feet?’ I said. Why Mary Ann in Mister Sam’s bed? Why she’s undressed?

  Using arms to cover bumps where breasts soon would grow, Mary Ann struggled to tie long-faded brown petticoat of mine, gathering it into bunches round she waist with string. Looking older now than Mary Ann, shattered like my own reflection – trapped – in Mister Sam’s staring-glass, soundlessly she tiptoed through chamber doorway, and scuttled towards main stairs.

  Pulling me from wreckage of memory, ‘When will my cousin be here, Kaydia?’ Mister Sam says drowsily. ‘He’s coming to see us at Wimpole Street, is he not?’

  ‘Cousin already come,’ I say. I move to close jalousie blinds. From below a soft clucking rises up to bedchamber from scrawny chickens of part fluff, part feather, scraping earth bare.

  Mister Sam mumbles again, ‘When will my cousin be here, Kaydia?’ But I can’t turn round. Can’t look no more on Mister Sam. ‘When will my cousin be here? I have to write to William Carey . . . Papa and Elizabeth told me . . .’

  Outside, Mister Carey emerge with Mister Sam’s cousin from behind stable-block, each leading a handsome horse. Before mounting both men pause, squinting, shading eyes from morning sun, most likely looking for Old Simeon, then tighten horses’ girth. Mister Carey seemed no worse to me than other Cinnamon Hill buckra men until he brought a too terrible story and gave me bigger fever and anger than Mister Sam’s. Mister Sam was back in England; then memories swirl painfully. I am sick to my bones.

  I was sitting on whistling walk when Mister Carey had come, sun bouncing off him white skin and flashing from banana leaves by back verandah. ‘News has come,’ Mister Carey’s voice sounded flat, dead, ‘of your master Sam’s imminent return. He’ll be docking in Kingston any day.’

  Sadness filled mid-day air like rank smells can. Only this sadness was stronger than any stench. Inside I was crumbling.

  Me, Charles and Mary Ann had gone back to sleeping together in attic room, until that day we heard Mister Sam would soon come. Me and Charles can cope with anything buckra do. Anything. Everything. But we can’t cope with these things time after time after time Mister Sam does to Mary Ann.

  Hair splayed about golden shoulders like black flame, Mary Ann began wandering again – always she’ll be my pickney, I thought, though she sparkling brown eyes have died out like stars can. Before dawn glow she would sneak across creak creak creaking floorboards. Glide along upper verandah, down over wide chilly drawing-room. I remember thinking she don’t belong to me any more. Who can help she? often flashed through my mind. Obeah woman, Leah? I wondered.

  What happened in England I’ll never know but Mister Sam sailed back here to Cinnamon Hill with him brother, Stormie, almost as soon as he’d gone. Like he couldn’t keep away.

  ‘The niggers’ children carried yellow umbrellas strapped to bamboo sticks high up over the Blue Mountains to shield me from the sun,’ exclaimed Mister Sam when he strode into great-house hall with a trunk fleet of boxes, baskets, bundles, bags, packages all shapes, sizes, carried on heads, sumpter-horses, mules.

  At first when Mister Sam returned he buried him badness better, and I began to believe he might have changed. But he never hid what he did to my daughter from me or Charles for long. That isn’t all Mister Sam does, preying on Mary Ann again and again and again, but those other faults I could bear and so could Charles. Though I hardly ever saw Charles now.

  I fought Mister Sam when he pestered Mary Ann, I fought him with my mind. I lost my battle last Christmas, just weeks back, when Sir Joshua Rowe told Mister Sam he must hold parties less.

  But Mister Sam told me, ‘This year Christmas will be celebrated at Greenwood great house.’ After militia body assembled and troops mounted, I watched their dead white England faces; they missed chainings and whippings of slaves. I looked from cold face to cold face. All drunk. I can still remember Mister Sam’s bottle list, remember it like I remember songs. Mister Sam said he liked to ‘indulge’ at Christmas time. Good ale; cheese. Roast beef legs. ‘Women,’ Mister Sam had said, ‘are like laudanum; you have to double the dose as the senses decline.’ And then he said I must find and round up young girls on coast road, take them to Greenwood big party, big busha-house dance. Each night he drank himself into daylight, rum tumbler draining empty only as red sun rose.

  Early one dawn I went with Mary Ann gathering wild cashew nuts. Straying from forest path Mary Ann danced a dream-like dance. My eyes strained to fix on she sliding into shadow, darting round trees, through brushwood scrub she moved by scratching branches, gossiping leaves. Following lightly crunching footsteps past giant hand-shaped ferns, high over moss-covered rocks, through silver webs of streams seeping into deep blue pools, I was calling anxiously. Then I ran fast, dragging heavy pain, yelling, ‘Mary Ann! Mary Ann! Mary Ann!’ She led me to a place I felt was not good. Slowly trampin
g on, I reached a tall stone wall, a ruin blocking my path, draped in old ivy rugs. I gave up calling for Mary Ann for she never climbed stone walls so high; turning back I saw a hut I knew must be Leah’s. Would Mary Ann run-hide in Leah’s obeah hut? What had I to lose?

  Fountains of tree ferns I remember, every shade of green; bushes creeping across sandy floor of Leah’s pimento-grove clearing, and them red flowers cascading over she shingle-roof. Soft, wispy bamboo. Mauve mountains. Blue behind blue. Wattle hut was quiet. Secluded. Small stacks of shrivelled lizards lay on Leah’s doorstep before black darkness surrounding she. Sleepily a black dog stirred, sighed. Dried herb bunches hung from leather pouches hooked on wattle walls, or tied to rafters; leather buckets overflowed decaying flowers, roots.

  Leah never heard from me what Mister Sam did to Mary Ann. But I believe she knew what went on between them because, ‘Me understand,’ Leah said, ‘Mister Sam e’ll want yu in im bed, yu’ll see.’

  ‘If me can mek money me might,’ I had said.

  Leah said, ‘Kaydia, mek Mister Sam eye fix on yu an not on yu dawta.’

  ‘Wot if it don’t work?’

  Leah said she no care, making me nervous of following obeah word.

  Back through lonely dark woods I walked. When I came out on a path by sugar works, sunlight was too thick to see more than Mary Ann’s blurred shrinking shape running up plantation path, heading for great house. I reached Cinnamon Hill gardens and found Mister Sam not sleeping as most often he was when sun had risen high and hot. He was spread in osnaburg cloth hammock slung between cotton trees. I dreaded walking past.

  ‘Over here!’ he shouted at me, swinging an arm above him head. Cautiously I went into cotton-tree shade. ‘Is it true a group of field-hands attending Waddell’s church services are refusing to take the Christmas rum ration?’ he asked. ‘I believe this stupidity was encouraged by my carpenter. When did he give up drinking?’