Strange Music

by Strange Music (retail) (epub)

  Fear slapped my face. ‘Yu cyaan fix de blame on Pa,’ I said. ‘Pa’s yu carpenter but Pa don’t drink for long time past.’

  ‘Kaydia,’ Mister Sam said, as he eased both legs over hammock edge, ‘do you know what’s in this bottle?’ I nodded. ‘Take it to your father. You’ll find him in the lock-up.’

  ‘Pa don’t drink, don’t tek no more rum.’

  ‘A seasonal present. He must take it from his master, as any good Christian would.’

  A sickly rum smell leaked up white stone steps from lock-up in basement beneath great house. I hid rum bottle in my apron, hearing Pa curse Mister Sam. Bending down to lock-up keyhole I saw Old Simeon shake and shake him skinny arm. Face cut, lower lip swollen up, that’s what I’d seen.

  ‘Wayah! Wa mek yu both down ere?’ I was shouting at lock-up door.

  Through thick door wood Old Simeon sounded far away. ‘Me n Pa won’t tek rum so Mister Sam give we no Christmas sugar.’

  ‘Me won’t dance at busha-house!’ Pa shouted. ‘Mister Sam too wicked, too bad, too rough.’

  ‘Tek dis, Pa, fore Mister Sam mek yu,’ I said, and forced rum bottle down stone wall gun slot softly coated with yellow moss.

  ‘Yu cyaan gwan tell me wot to do. Yu full-a foolishness,’ Pa shouted.

  ‘Mister Sam and him cousin treat we sameway lek Old Mister Richard,’ Old Simeon said. From keyhole I saw Old Simeon’s sad heavy form lurch across lock-up, grab at a sugar barrel, stumble against oak door. Open welts on Old Simeon’s back wriggled with maggots, flies.

  Days later Mister Sam told me he was inviting Doctor Demar, Mister Carey and other court-house friends to stay at Greenwood for Christmas.

  Greenwood great house, a long low building of finely cut ballast stones, like all them large outhouses standing round its pretty grounds, was built only for parties, Mister Sam said, and he was to be head buckra for him cousin, who often stayed at Greenwood but was travelling to Kingston for Christmas to join with pickneys and wife.

  Rats rummaged in rubbish and yam cuttings Mary Ann put out for field-slaves. Mister Sam rounded a corner and, head held high, came gaily strutting by in showy fashioned clothes.

  ‘Hey. What’s going on?’ he asked me. I was in Greenwood kitchen plucking chickens. ‘It’s a holiday,’ Mister Sam said.

  A stronger than strong thirst rose from my belly to shelter Mary Ann from him come hell’s fire. Keep yu eye fixed on yu dawta betta, my head-voice said. But Mister Sam and me we sameway too much – both binding nearer to Mary Ann. A closeness between we from this filled each day before Christmas. Him eye would turn greedily on Mary Ann’s body curves, bare arms, muscular calves, smooth slim ankles.

  Air tasted rich from black crab pepper-pot bubbling over cook-fire on Christmas Eve. Mister Sam had brought to Greenwood a ship’s French cook, a woman he called Chef who could cook any dish.

  He dropped a mottled blue jade-orchid flower on kitchen flagstones carefully at Mary Ann’s feet. She smiled at him, uncertainly, bent down to petals speckled blue-purple, soft like Mister Sam’s neck-cloth he call silk cravat. Carrying blue jade flower Mary Ann went through doorway, disappeared into jade vine tunnels leading to rose gardens.

  Fat gobs oozed from wild-boar flesh on roasting spit, making cook-fire throw out loud hisses. I looked up again from chicken plucking, feeling Mister Sam watching me. He gave me a sharp stare; sheer blue-green eyes so clear I could see through to a more crafty stormy sea-blue. My stomach started shrivelling – he had seen fire in mine? – but him gone, disappearing behind huge carved great-house mahogany doors.

  Carriage wheels crunched on dusty stony drive winding from coast road to Greenwood. Red faces roared with laughter. Some had two chins, some three or four. Dressed as English pages, freed slaves with stony-black faces stared out like statues across Greenwood lawn.

  Ladies fluttered in dresses bright as butterflies. Candles lit tables, mirrored yellow in chinking glasses, silver cutlery. Greenwood dining-room air came alive, tasting of warm red hot spices. Mister Sam’s family portraits hung on walls; cheeks pale, slightly flushed; small slits for lips; sharp curved English noses like Mister Sam’s Cousin Richard’s – new paintings from England met my eyes – Mister Sam. Another showed a woman’s face buttermilk-white framed with black ringlets Elizabeth Barrett Moulton Barrett inscribed on brass lettering plaque.

  Mister Sam slumped down at black oak dining-table cluttered for grand feast and drink. Sangaree tumblers. Spiced wine. Jerked pork. Hot and cold pickled barracuda. Sweetmeats. Madeira. Lime juice water. Claret. Cassava. Beer tankards. Hock-negus. Rum punch. Turtle soup.

  Even seated Mister Sam swayed. ‘Kaydia!’ he called. ‘You’ve fed Henrietta, my new African pet?’

  ‘Saltwater nigger dirty,’ I said. ‘Ugly, mek too much nize.’

  Saltwater Henrietta’s chubby black face, scarred with Congo slashes, peeped from under Mister Sam’s elbow.

  ‘I can’t believe she understands a word I say, my new little girl, Henrietta, but I do believe she may be hungry,’ Mister Sam replied.

  Sniggering, Mary Ann held up a taper, flame flickering, wax melting easily as promises can. Mary Ann lit Mister Sam’s fat brown cigar; tobacco-leaf end flared up, crackled. Resting blue eyes on me, Mister Sam quietly puffed. An odour spiced with doom seeped up my nose like strange plunking English slow waltz running through my ears. Smoke clouds now masked Mister Sam’s face. This smokey smell was like false jangling music, strange to me. Nodding, Mister Sam grunted, a sleepy smile curving lips; missing him glass he sloshed white rum across oak table-top.

  Walking up behind Mister Sam Doctor Demar said, ‘For goodness sakes man, watch yourself.’

  Suddenly Mister Sam flicked bottle upright. Doctor Demar shook him head. Mary Ann giggled. Henrietta’s sticking to Mister Sam like a leech. Rubbing neck base, Mister Sam caught sight of Mary Ann’s gleeful face. Him mouth clamp onto anyone’s, by him eye-look I could tell. Never will I forget him lips closing onto mine before he sailed for England, and how Mary Ann was in him chamber. I’m going to help you, Mary Ann, a tongue inside me said. I’m going to win this battle. Going to keep Mister Sam from you. And now I know how. I’m going to do to him what he did to you. I’m going to follow Leah’s words. Not only that – by having Mister Sam’s pickney he’ll leave money to care for we when him dead.

  ‘Yu waan elp Mister Sam, eh?’ I asked Doctor Demar. I pointed to my daughter and Henrietta. ‘Tek she way. An she.’

  Dragging Henrietta and Mary Ann by their braids, Doctor Demar marched through grand dining-room, vanishing into swirling ballroom colours, waltzing satin, silks.

  Winding my waist, making him think I’m loose and begging for it, I rolled my eyes at Mister Sam. Thin straight lips curled up into a familiar smirk. Slipping one hand up my skirt, ‘I like pretty girls,’ he said. My eyes stung, making me turn away, almost making me weep as him other hand reached for a rum tumbler on drinks tray I held. Quickly I passed him a full tumbler, letting a little rum slop from its rim. A dark patch spread across trouser-cloth like it was soaking through to skin.

  ‘Good heavens!’ he yelled. ‘Kaydia’s trying to drown me!’ But no one cared to save Mister Sam. He straightened him high cravat.

  ‘It was by accident, Mister.’ Sliding serving napkins between him legs, I pressed and rubbed him tool until it hard like wood.

  ‘Black magic,’ he mumbled into him chest. He didn’t take him eyes from me yet him face showed no emotion.

  Up broad mahogany stairs Mister Sam staggered. I followed him into a spare chamber, as Leah had said he would want. He swung against four-poster bedstead. Collapsed. Rum stench – steamy, sticky scent of sweat, tobacco, sadness, sugar, shouts of overseers plump from drinking sugar juice soured Mister Sam’s breath. I looked away – this wasn’t happening but I stayed – blood pumping through my veins quicker. On a chest of drawers I found a black glass perfume bottle, a red silk tassel tied about its neck. Over my arms, into air, I sprayed to drive away Mister
Sam’s stink. Perfume made in Paris, he said. Deceitful smell – too sour, too bitter sameway as over-ripe mango fruit. Mister Sam’s hands grabbed my clothes; skin. Him shoulders tasted slippery, salty. I kissed swirling fair hairs on him chest, my eyes downcast.

  Climbing free of him heavily sleeping, gathering up my skirts, I went up narrow sharp rise of wood ladder to long attic where rat-bat now rest.

  Mary Ann slept in attic doorway. I carried she inside. Sadly my thoughts moved back reaching way into shadows where what’s past fades into darkness fast as a falling star. Deep down I was shamed, for I knew Mary Ann felt Charles and me battle long before she was born. And when she was a warm bundle tied to my back she would cry whenever I laid she to rest or left she for work. I want to unsay all I said back then. Undo all I did.

  Laying she on coconut-hair mattress, moon rays touched she pinched-up skin, smiles turned on she lips. Memories of a newly-born pickney fluttered in my heart, my head, though all childish looks had long fled from she face. Through tiny attic window I watched night sky. Clouds, carved like cook-fire smoke breathed across old moon’s face. Wave crests flickered white in sea bay below. Mister Sam stole innocence from Mary Ann. Mister Sam I can blame. But Charles? Me? I kissed she branded forehead skin, curled my body round she, and I felt myself falling.

  No yacca board flooring, no walls. Nothing. But me own secret in Mister Sam’s life. Darkness within darkness. Safety inside unsafeness. A needle of sunlight pricked my cheek. Light suddenly streamed through windows. I was laughing, my head back. I ran towards Mama and she lifted me up. I was in she arms. But I wanted to be free.

  When my eye opened to moonlight-filled attic I looked for Mama for a long time. I wished I could remember she.

  Taking me from that time, Mister Sam mumbles, ‘I fear I have done wrong since sailing from England.’ Reaching my hand onto him, I feel burning skin yellow with fever. Eyes, bloodshot yellow, turn looking up and back inside him head.

  I stand hot with anger. A well of pain and wanting opens inside with a rush. Quick as a trigger my thoughts click back to Rebecca Laslie. Wherever you are I need you, to make suffering mean something. Show me where’s a path.

  ‘Why yu don’t make me into yu will,’ I’m saying to Mister Sam through clenched teeth. ‘Leave lickle ting fe we pickney. Leave money fe Mary Ann.’

  Mister Sam don’t flinch at all. I look on him with pure bare hatred. Already he sleeps like him dead.

  Black gown flapping like mainsail in harsh Montego Bay wind, minister now strides from dazzling white wall of light into blue bedchamber, leaving yellow-green prints from tiny fluffy wild-sage flowers squashed on my polished yacca floor. Minister have clean-shaved cheek. Wispy goat beard fringes him chin and runs from ear to ear like church picture-book devil. Small square hands shaped as little cloven hooves flick back smooth leather Bible clasps. Batting lids of wide-set eyes he gasps; falls onto knees at four-poster bedside, places Bible on Mister Sam’s fancy table. ‘What is the burden that troubles you?’ he asks.

  A strange look crosses Mister Sam’s face. It open. Him eyes go past me to minister, beyond minister to blue.

  ‘Maskitta bit hard,’ I say.

  Minister’s thickly brown-haired head bows, turns to me, frowning; him voice pointed, accusing, says, ‘Bring only water,’ and when I do he says, ‘Go.’ But him shouting stops me in hallway. ‘Kaydia, what’s the date? Have you any idea of the date?’ Tall brass hall clock’s ticking, striking, shrieking, howling up to eleven o’clock. ‘Can’t you read the date hand? Can’t you read a clock?’

  Swaying through great-hall darkness, I can’t see for tears make time impossible to read. Before I lay with Mister Sam inside I was crumbling, now I’ve lost too much of myself to hold on to days. Live. Freedom don’t come to anyone here. Ocean rim creeps dark blue from behind white stone wall. Wind rolls up fiercely, its breath too hot, too sweet, too sugar-cane sickly. Choked up inside, crossing back verandah, roaring air rushes round legs, over feet; I’m trying to smother what’s in my mind but everywhere memories sprout like weeds round ruins, growing up into this island’s foul air.

  Swinging in Mister Sam’s hammock, Mary Ann and Friday chew sugar-cane sticks and pass between them an English china mug brimming with honey and buttermilk.

  ‘Pa tink me’ll be a-carpenter,’ Friday sings. ‘Me have no work on Sataday. No pay. No work on Sataday. No pay, no pay.’

  ‘Why yu cry?’ Mary Ann asks me.

  Wiping my eyes I turn to answer with all my love I can muster. ‘Dey’ll sort out wot to pay now we free.’

  Friday asks, ‘Yu ove any peas? We a-hungry.’

  ‘Yu eat too much. Friday, yu big nuff fe workin wid Pa.’

  ‘Where Pa?’

  ‘Ow me know dat, bwoy? Come now, we must mek money an go. We a-go to provision ground to keep belly full, see. Come, Mary Ann,’ I say. ‘Fetch cassava fe selling at Sunday market. We ration not match field-slave. Salt. Pickled fish. Sugar. Rum.’

  ‘Gimme a-rum,’ Friday giggles, swinging, singing carelessly in Mister Sam’s cloth cot. ‘Rum an wata ple-e-e-se.’ Rum spikes Friday’s hot breath gushing across my face. Still plump from drinking first cane juice, Friday spits out chewed cane-wood chunks, sips honey and buttermilk.

  ‘Mek up yu mind,’ I say.

  But Friday keeps up singing rowdily, ‘Rum an wata ple-e-e-se.’

  ‘Mek we galang now. Friday! Mary Ann! Why yu tek so lang?’

  Mary Ann flops down beside me saying, ‘Me a-come.’

  Friday slides from hammock perch. Him dirt-stained green shirt dances ahead along great-house drive, past tethered donkeys’ lowered snorting heads, over plantation path, in and out of slave shacks’ tiny yards. Friday’s singing voice stays close and loud, ‘Me a-go Barrett Town Sunday market.’

  Crushing cordia flowers Mary Ann and me walk on grass. Mary Ann’s forehead skin’s drawn bumpy, sameway as finger-like ridges of cotton tree’s spreading roots. Light sings yellow between cotton-tree leaves, golden-orange notes scream.

  ‘Kaydia! Kaydia!’ minister’s shout comes faintly along driveway.

  Brow scars wrinkling and fattening, Mary Ann’s looking up to me. Taking she hand, I say in a strained half-whisper, ‘Minister want me to run back an nurse Mister Sam.’ Slow turning, we follow minister’s call back across plantation path to Cinnamon Hill drive. Over lawn slow slow. Cotton-tree roots, too overgrown to see, prod bare feet soles.

  ‘Coming, Mister Waddell,’ I’m shouting. To Mary Ann I say, ‘Keep close in hall till me a-come.’

  ‘Me go see me Pa in rum store in still-house.’

  ‘No, Mary Ann, keep close wid Friday. Soon me a-come.’ I look for Friday. But all I’d seen of Friday’s gone. He fall asleep, I think, under mango trees. Already drunk on rum.

  Mouth gaping, eyes open wide, Junius, storekeeper man, comes up against me like he about to crash into Mister Sam’s chamber. He takes my wrist. ‘Look. Ere. Read!’

  I read letter Junius have. Many words I can’t make out but kernel’s clear to me – letter accuses Old Simeon of theft of Barrett jewellery box. Signature I see belongs to Mister Sam’s cousin. ‘Ol Simeon bin an stole sumting?’

  ‘Yeh,’ Junius says.

  I pass back letter. ‘Im tief! Old Simeon, im tief!’ Is me do it, I want to say.

  ‘Yu see Ol Simeon,’ says Junius, ‘yu ax im to see me.’

  Walking from Mister Sam’s chamber with short jerky halting steps, ‘Pray,’ Minister Waddell asks, ‘what is the matter, Kaydia? Can you not come when called?’ Wearily dropping my head I follow minister to Mister Sam’s bedside. ‘Should I tell you of Sam’s condition first as I think I see it now?’ Minister asks me. ‘Can you then explain this to Doctor Demar when he arrives?’ Firmly he shuts Mister Sam’s door. ‘On but Monday Sam was well enough yet to me he has admitted to his wish to partake of the Sacrament of the Lord’s supper, as he has never partaken of it and had been, he was sorry to say, very inattentive to the importance of the c
rucifixion – too much of the deadly opiate hardened in sin, I dare say. Nevertheless, to follow Sam’s desire through might give rise to a fatal delusion. I begged of him not to fix his mind so intently on that particular thing – a popish superstition – as it is but a sign of the death of Our Lord Jesus Christ, but to give all his thoughts to the Saviour himself who died the just one for the unjust that he might bring us to God. The Sacrament, I have reminded Sam, is not essential, but faith in Christ and repentance for our sins are absolutely necessary, for without them we must perish. Let this not alarm you, Kaydia, for as you well know the Lord is always with us. But Sam said,’ and minister whispers, ‘“I do not expect to recover and I fear that I am not prepared for another world.”’ Nodding knowingly minister raises him eyebrows. ‘I then offered to make use of your master’s own church prayers, if he preferred them, but he requested I should not, but pray as I always do. Whilst thus engaged he joined in the most earnest manner with many tears. I pressed particularly on his attention that he should fully confess his sins to God as a necessary part of repentance and essential to his peace of mind and procuring of pardon; quoting to him, “He that covereth his sins shall not prosper, but he that confesseth and forsaketh them shall find mercy.” As ever, I spoke to him as a faithful Christian friend. Having quoted a number of passages of Scriptures on these points, I inquired if Sam believed them, he eagerly answered, “I believe them, Mr Waddell, every one.” Being unable to hear more,’ minister goes on, ‘your master has requested that I return as soon as I may on the morrow.’

  ‘Mister Waddell?’

  ‘If Sam changes time for eternity and I haven’t arrived, arrange for him to be interred the same evening in the Barrett family burial ground.’ Minister pauses, chewing on him bottom lip. ‘There’s something else. Kindly remember to tell the good Doctor Demar that one of the reasons I am unable to administer the Sacrament to your master is because I am deeply sorry to say that I know Sam hasn’t changed in the ways one might have hoped. Tell the doctor the minister knows this to be true, Kaydia, because Charles has informed him, and I know Charles and Charles is truthful. The other reason being that I do not approve of administering the Sacrament as a preparation for death, as I have already said. I am not myself a clergyman in the Established Church so should not be called upon to administer sacred rites. What I mean, Kaydia, is . . .’ Minister’s eye makes four with mine. ‘No need to explain too much, Kaydia,’ minister says almost to himself, ‘Demar will, I believe, understand. Yes, you will communicate my words to Doctor Demar?’ I nod. ‘And what of the African Negroes from the Ulysses? Near on eighty are here attending Barrett Town church regularly. All must be baptised, given Christian names.’