Strange Music

by Strange Music (retail) (epub)

  ‘Wot maggot do afore dog git sore eye?’ I ask, taking a cup from him. I examine china decorated with Barrett family crest – a creature in a lion’s body, bird’s head, great curved beak, outstretched wings.

  ‘Me a servant to Mister Sam’s mama in London an at Hope End great house,’ he replies. He peers beneath cups. ‘But now me money lass.’

  I see through Junius when him lie. Him eye can’t make four with mine. I pass back him treasured Barrett-crested cup. ‘Yu have any bitts?’ I ask, keeping my open hand reached out.

  ‘Mek me give market money to yu dawta, Mary Ann, dis afternoon.’

  ‘Junius, yu a duppy feedin off cotton-tree root an bamboo thicket, or yu like fig-leaf feeler digging into any tree trunk or nook.’

  ‘Tekeere of de road.’ Him eager smile waves me away. ‘Yu get kawn, jackass rope tobacco fe me?’

  Once a slave always a leech, I’m thinking, wading through weeds ankle-deep. Even sun’s too hot for Junius since he sailed from England. But what’s in my belly hits hard, giving morning cramps, daybreak sickness, I think. Junius soon slips from my mind.

  Following Sunday market women out when chores are done, women carrying tall baskets crammed high with coconuts, plantains, yam. Women streaming sameway as goats flocking from rough shacks onto market path. Coconut-palm mats stroke arms, brush shoulders. We jostle, we shove, stumble over grey boulders rising sameway as small islands; market path moves river-like, sometimes slow, sometimes fast. Tiny pickney’s hands clutch small bottles; big tin boxes balance on heads; packages filled with magic powders leak down necks. Star-white flowers peep from bushes. Banana trees stand taller than me. Bamboos tower. Pimento leaves drip dark green between spicy-scented tamarind trees. Rebecca Laslie fills my mind sameway as flower scent. She found it hard to talk straight when last I saw she. I remember she tear-stained cheeks when she scooped handfuls of dirt to ram down she throat. I know why she did it, to bury searing feelings of aloneness, feelings of bring wronged. She knew I knew too. I read she eye. But we didn’t say one word. And my shame flares up at hill’s foot when I branch off track rise to fiery red flame-heart trees.

  Rebecca Laslie’s house stands darkly against forest dressed in brown and red. Weeds swallow my feet. Shabby shutters painted green match wood frills lacing eaves. Weird and grimly windows peer between cottonwood and flame-heart trees. When last did fire glow in your yard? I’m wondering. When were your slatted wooden walls, so creased and cracked from too many idle dry years of sunshine, last licked with de green paint that now peels freely in bold strips? Ants leave trails between thin grasses growing from sandy hollows scattered with tiny yellow flowers before verandah planks.

  Cross-legged in verandah shade a man sits on a woven banana-leaf mat beside a cow-head mask. Long time since I seen William Gray, John Canoe-man, who bought himself freedom. He lifts him glistening eye, taps goatskin he tightens to make a goombay drum. Him eye says Life’s still hard up here, even for men like William Gray.

  ‘Fetch Rebecca Laslie,’ I say.

  Tucking a river reed into yellow bandana tied tight round him brow, he says, ‘Laslie inside.’ Smile he gives looks slippery. He remembers who I am? Lips slant down to snarl, then slide into a false grin – cow-head mask, teeming with maggots, looks more real to me and full of feeling than false smile him face wears.

  ‘Oo did build de house?’ I ask.

  ‘Old Mister Samuel give money fe Laslie years back an Mama Laslie tek me on to care fe it.’ From mouth corners wrinkles pool and ripple out across him brown-skin face like stones dropped in water. Drudgery and grind of slavery’s hard-marked into every line.

  From doorway shadows thin and high I know that voice that says, ‘Is yu, Kaydia?’ Face floating from deep gold dust-dirty shade, Rebecca Laslie moves into daylight. Yu suffered in me belly. In spite of no memory of yu as a pickney, me love yu, an’ me sorry, it says. Sharply she chin twists out over she chest, neck bones poke proud as she walks onto tired verandah planks where weeds make a shady roof for toes. Dull threads like unpolished silver threaten to gleam in Mama’s black curls. She pitted cheeks swell out when she smiles and, stepping down from verandah, she swallows, short of breath. She acts well but I know she’s not so old. She petticoat edging, cut from coarse linen, looks prettier than ones whites provide. My throat tightens slightly. Silk stockings Mister Sam brought from England; gloves; lace collar; my stiff straw bonnet’s what’s she keen eye fixes on.

  Spinning round sharply, showing sweeping low-cut back of she red dress, Rebecca Laslie, daintily as a cat, mounts verandah steps up to dusky doorway. Rebecca Laslie’s house have one long hall holding many doors – my skin prickles, my heart puffs with pride – handwash stand I see; staring-glass; good mahogany bedstead. Mahogany table, chairs. Yet spiderwebs cling to my face, and these walls sing a strange song – neglect, shame, abuse, lies. I walk in on gritty floorboards, market basket’s reed handle weaving into my shoulder. Cobwebs smother window-glass, red ants swarm on cracked yacca floor I’m resting basket on.

  Scraping she shin with she foot bottom, turning from me, she pours a tumblerful of rum – one spine-shuddering gulp. Rebecca Laslie turns again, she round bold forehead bows towards mine. Beneath each eye dark hollows lie so deep they scoop into she beauty; like wood carvings made by Pa’s young hand, they clumsily shape Rebecca Laslie’s face and could have been formed by Pa’s younger hand. She clamps my face between hot palms, kisses my forehead.

  Humming old Jamaica tunes she can’t give up hugging me and holding me in she terrible ageless gaze. I watch till I can’t watch no more.

  ‘Old Mister Samuel give yu de house?’ I ask as she squeezes out my last breath.

  Rebecca Laslie’s clasping me closer, and she low humming swallows me, I think she’ll squeeze blood out-a me.

  But she fetches a sturdy mahoney-wood pestle for pounding coffee beans. Mama’s club-shaped stick stands tall as William Gray. I remember, like open flat of my hand, Mama’s tunes rising pelican-swift, and steady tud-thudder-tud-thudder of wood splitting roasted beans.

  ‘Dem evil white buckra.’ Rebecca Laslie batters beans with she mighty smash. ‘Mad! An old Myal man oo always wear black, e turn into dog. Mad black dog.’ She body sighs, quits hitting. Heat pushes house walls in. ‘Wot of young Mister Sam?’ she asks. ‘E fix yu up in de proper way?’

  ‘Mister Sam wid fever.’

  ‘Yella fever?’

  ‘Im onda bed tree day.’

  ‘Wen tiger git old every dog bark afta im. Catch im, girl, im hot.’ She pauses. ‘Yu should have better intelligence. Yu not backward as Congo nigger, not tainted wid deir lunacy. Me high cheekbones come fram white Ingland’s criminals made to work in dis ere colony,’ and, like she feels she must check they’re still there, pinched fingertips stretch up, running across collapsed skin under cheeks. Turning again she pours rum straight from bottle’s mouth down she throat; back rigid, but swaying slightly. ‘Mek me wash starch out-a bammie,’ she says, forgetting to brew fresh coffee.

  ‘Why yu stay away?’ I ask.

  ‘Nursin old Mister Samuel in Kingstan. Im tek too lang to die. But now e buried good an ded in Kingstan churchyard. Me have to wait fe money e leave in im will. First e say e leave it. Den e don’t. Me plead an plead wid executioners.’ Taking a machete up from table-top she tests blade’s rusted edge, tickles she thumb, rasping red metal against skin before slicing a yellow pumpkin in two. ‘Old Mister Samuel buried twice. Bishop say im body to be dug up fram Kingstan churchyard an buried at Cinnamon Hill wid all Barrett tribe. Yu dig up ded wot yu can expect? Barrett tribe bankrupt. Wot of it? Yu marry Charles yet? E a man dat treat yu good?’

  ‘A man can treat a woman good? Dat’s one more ting yu never telled me. Many time Charles would’ve beaten me if me didn’t move so swift.’

  ‘Yu git yu fine clothes fram young Mister Sam? Yu git silver, gold?’

  Slipping down inside me she words tilt, hope cracks sameway like brittle coffee beans break, split, s
plinter then shatter. I follow Rebecca Laslie, carrying both pumpkin halves in market basket, through to outside cooking yard. One wooden table stands in yard centre.

  Rebecca Laslie says, ‘Wen man ded grass grow at im door. Me have young Mister Sam,’ she giggles. ‘If yu tire of im or Charles, tell me.’ She has claws for nails. Wrenching out pumpkin guts she fixes she stony sunken eye on me. ‘Yu chile, lose tongue in yu head?’

  Pickney sobs I drown in, I don’t like it here. Knowing what I have to do I feel older than she.

  ‘Old Mister Samuel juggle in im head fe me money, an leave it up to young Mister Sam, ere,’ Rebecca Laslie says.

  ‘Yu did get it?’

  ‘Me did not. Young Mister Sam owe it me. Things changin, an young Sam Barrett have no manner fe caring fe im uncle’s old ooman. Old Mister Samuel build dis ouse but me cyaan live ere wen me work fe im in Kingstan.’ Rebecca Laslie’s tongue clicks, ‘No.’ Turning on me she says, ‘Yu eye wata?’

  ‘W’appen, Ma? Yu cyaan elp me?’

  ‘Mek yu gimme ackee.’ She hand, slithering forwards, reaches into market basket. ‘Seed peepin out-a pod.’

  ‘All Mama Laslie ever do’s waan waan waan fram me. Wot yu done fe Mary Ann an me?’

  From goatskin drum outside comes William Gray’s ragged finger pulse.

  Rebecca Laslie screams, ‘Yu have no rite, no rite to come calling me Mama!’ Remembering she swipe have strength of driver beating yard ox, I take back one step. ‘Yu no care, yu no good, yu –’ Hands strangle my throat. Table-top smacks my forehead. Fingers crushing crack wring my neck with power of great white ox pulling cart full-a cane stack.

  ‘Yu no good cockroach.’ She throat grip tightens. ‘Yu no dawta. Yu waan dis, dat. Yu don’t know – too much grief. Yu have life too easy. Me had to give yu up!’ she shrieks. ‘Old Mister Samuel cyaan let no ooman keep no pickney. Not if im its baby fadda. Yu not normal. Leah, she telled me. Why yu waan buy horse fe Pa, good milch cow – e cyaan tek care o’imself? Pa not yu fadda. Why yu give im any money? Is me money dat yu give.’

  Drum outside moving louder.

  ‘No, yu lie! Yu lie!’ I’m shouting, shaking, feeling she and me lose we grip. Clutching she belly Rebecca Laslie buckles, keeping she eye on me what say I remind she of she loss. Of what she don’t want to remember. Of what she thinks I gain.

  ‘Yu punch up me belly till me all pumped up,’ is what I think she says but words disappear into squawks. Sweat beads she back. Shrinking over table-top, she cradles she belly and bundles up in she faded backless red dress. Thickly down she leg a red path dribbles, staining sandy floor where my feet trod. From verandah goombay din comes like Mister Sam’s funeral’s here already, marching up house path. Rebecca Laslie’s feet shuffle to cover slimy red pool. Dead pickney’s what it is.

  Staggering through hall darkness, I follow she into bedchamber darkened by closed jalousie blinds. Stretching across a coverlet, soaking cream lacework red, she sobs. Dust swarms round she body in sunlit shafts. I squeeze she shoulder. It tense up.

  She claws my arm. ‘Yu jus try to kill me!’ Lunging out she screams, ‘Yu not me chile! Too white! Too white! Because of yu me lose me pickney!’

  ‘Yu a-no good mother,’ I scream back.

  ‘Me hope yu die poor an slowly.’ She brow’s rutted as dirt track I’m wanting to be on. ‘I’ll tell Charles wot yu done, bout Mister Sam yu baby fadda.’

  ‘Charles areadie knowed it, Mama.’

  ‘Me hope yu spend yu life alone. Yu messed up. Yu deserve no one. Come, lissen.’ Grabbing my collar, grasping my neck, forcing me nearer, nearer, tearing English collar lace, Rebecca Laslie hiss-whispers, ‘Me never talk wid yu again. Old Mister Samuel, e yu pa. Me give yu money to Sibyl yesterday. Sibyl’s Pa’s dawta. Not yu!’

  Wrenching my neck free from she grasp, running through cobweb-strung chamber, inside I’m seething. Whipping up market basket, William Gray’s drum marks my heart’s beat. Spilling over basket rim, mangoes smash. Ants teeming thickly and swiftly, dark like a wool blanket, welling up from holes in hall floorboards. Daylight punches my face. Drum. Drum. Drum keeps rolling. Hitting stony path splits my yams. Wings my feet have, flying down hill track. Melon pips and flesh scatter scarlet on dusty stones. Running, running, running from Mama’s words inside my head.

  She keeps up bawling, ‘Cyaan ebber come back! We don’t waan yu ere no more! Cyaan come back now! Yu! Gwan!’

  Brightly printed scarves on freed slaves’ heads stop my haste hitting market track, dirt flies all around me like golden waterfalls flowing up.

  Beggars squat-huddle beneath bamboo branch tunnels. Shade sits on beggars’ wrinkled ash-grey skin. Mangy black dogs whimper, tied to wrists with string. Naked pickneys sucking mangoes crawl about like little beetles on their bellies.

  One worry-flecked face trips me up. ‘Beg yu a cotch fe de nite?’ beggar asks. ‘Me a-come fram Kingstan.’

  Down I look into small brown pools for eyes, but Rebecca Laslie’s voice comes screeching from flickering sunlight freed by waving bamboo bursts. Pa not yu fadda. Pa’s not my Pa?. Too white! Too white! Me had to give yu up! Old Mister Samuel, e yu pa. Because of yu me lose me pickney. Sibyl’s Pa’s dawta. Not yu! Pa isn’t who he is.

  Hurrying on I’m gone with others, joining beggars dressed in tatters, rush-walking fast as flames to grass shacks, heading for Barrett Town. Dirt, I’m thinking. Dirt. Rebecca Laslie’s face’s carved from golden dirt.

  Market’s a hot jostle of naked pickney screaming. Stench of unwashed bodies, clothes, leaves my belly reeling. I’m shrinking, shouldering past trays balanced on gay shawls tied round women’s heads. Stale stench from foul slurry flowing in open gutters I’m leaping over, mixed with high reek of rotting meat. Passing pens crammed with bleeting goats, barking dogs, squealing pigs, I find a stall for Sibyl’s shopping. ‘Me waan coconut oil,’ I say to stallholder.

  One nigger-black slave woman canters, dog-like, around stall where I’m standing. We eyes, like paths, cross. Who she is? A bunch of lilies she carries draws my gaze. Flowers for what? I’m thinking. To celebrate crazy life? Death? Birth?

  From stallholder’s mouth filth rolls out, waving brass-ringed fingers, clinking bangles jangling. Bottom rolling, she shouts, ‘Wots wrong wid de red nigger girl?’ She a field-slave, me think, for she tiredness disappears on Sundays.

  Nigger-black slave woman stands stone still. Can’t see thoughts behind she gaze. What stands between nigger-black slave and me? Air? A sea of confusion? Mister Sam moves between two worlds, England and Jamaica. Islands can drift together, but I don’t move. She eyes search urgently. Like I must listen to some suffering. Listen to she wanting. In my head I’m following. Following an urge to reach out.

  Wrapped in some terrible secret, she does nothing but stare. Slave’s mouthing my name. A hint of remembering – Sheba, my head-tongue says, yu a field-slave fram Cinnamon Hill plantation – she face’s stayed sameway. We eyes still crossed, I cannot speak. My feeling of wanting, to touch, to pull my hand from my chest is so strong. All my life. All my worth. All of what I am like dead blossoms wilts to nothing.

  Gold light from a cloud streams, sunlit eyes search mine. Sunbeams offer a halo but Sheba’s no angel. Can’t see wings. Scent of lilies hovers above rancid smell of market, of decayed flesh. I peer over basket rim; three bitts left; one guava; one hand of bananas. Sibyl’s bitt must’ve fallen with fruit and yam and without me down Rebecca Laslie’s hill, or Rebecca Laslie stole it. Two bitts I throw to Sheba. Cheap glory come from small bitty-money, I know.

  ‘Kaydia! Wot yu did do?’ Charles’ eye dismember me body but him voice stays proud. Can’t bear him in my sight. Can’t swallow, throat’s too tight. Can’t breathe, air’s too hot. But my head turns back to a world I know.

  Pushing through growing market, growing heat, I slide sideways, mingle with pickneys flocking behind nigger man on fine bay buckra horse. He swigs long from brindled goat-hide water flask then, head down, twists him moist beard betw
een finger and thumb. Charles’ narrow face I’m looking up at. Charles looks down on me, cold brown eyes hatred-filled, seething.

  Mister Sam tugs on my mind. ‘Wot news yu have?’ I ask.

  ‘Ride. Me a-ride to Mo’bay, den on fe a-work in Spanish Town. Mister Sam fever badda dan ever. No good.’ Bay horse Charles’ perched on stamps, tossing its head, tail swiping flies. ‘Kaydia, come, yu cyaan save im. Come, move away fram Cinnamon Hill wid Mary Ann an me. Is betta Doctor Demar tek on all im care.’ Market heat’s stronger. Slanting forward, Charles reins horse back.

  ‘Wot yu doin on Mister Sam horse? Eh? Ow come?’

  ‘Mary Ann’s where?’ Charles asks. ‘Wot yu done wid she?’

  ‘Is yu oo touch she,’ I say; I feel a guilty sense of glory. Mister Sam’s baby’s snug, safe inside my belly. ‘Don’t yu touch Mary Ann again,’ I say.

  Charles bellows, ‘Is betta fe Doctor Demar come.’

  Leave Cinnamon Hill? Go? Where? Sickness in my belly swells from unborn pickney. If Mister Sam’s uncle’s me pa, an this new pickney’s Mister Sam’s – it’s too too white-skinned. Me know Charles’ll know whose new pickney is. Me cyaan leave Cinnamon Hill with him.

  Striking out, Charles’ heel cuts into my belly. My body disappears in spikes of pain. Pickney around we stop chattering. All eyes turn sharply on me. Pickney crowd’s backing off. What’s become of my baby? Charles’ foot stabs horse’s ribs. Charles lets one tear escape. Gathering slack from reins he says, ‘Me wi see yu on Chewsday. It tree, no two day times. Yu cyaan live no more in de great house.’ Mister Sam’s horse walks swiftly away. Ripping inside me don’t stop. Sealed off, Charles rides on. Thick with fury my tears come.

  I’m shrinking from sun’s brightness shouldering past women bartering jerked pork for fresh cow’s milk, past grain stalls with sacks empty and folded from low rainfall.

  ‘Sum kawn fe me?’ I ask a woman’s humped back. She rests against piles of pigeon-pea sacks. Smoothing oily wet hair, twisting round, Leah’s skin’s taut sameway like bulging bag draped over she arm. Splitting me apart she says, ‘Yu wid chile yet?’ She questioning eyes gleam, like I’m a known enemy. ‘Me eye say yu owe me money to keep pickney dere, or it born dead, or born as black dog.’