‘Say wa? Only one bitt left,’ I say.
‘Yu cun give dat an yu crop an gloves an hat.’ Leah pulls me closer by she low growling voice. ‘Yu waan black pickney-dog?’
Leah’s black dog scuttle-hops up to me, one paw won’t touch stony ground. Dog’s belly sags like empty corn sack swinging from its scrawny back. Coromantee’s long sad notes twist from a black reed flute played by Leah’s nose blowing down its hollow body. Thinking black dog must be Myal man, Rebecca Laslie or Mister Sam’s pickney flopping along, backing from snarling, bristling, dog I realize no, him laugh at me. Laughing. Laughing. Laughing.
I drop my last bitt into Leah’s hand. ‘Mek me give yu all me money. Guava. Banana.’ Then scattering squawking chickens across old men’s skittles games me run away from market place.
Rebecca Laslie’s humming flows into tamarind forest, following as I run. Birds singing free beautiful notes. Deep inside my belly aches. One thought only circles in my head. Mister Sam. Past flame trees I run, through fierce and fiery sunlight. Branches’ crooked fingers point and scratch savagely.
By coopers on plantation path I meet Sibyl, Friday and Mary Ann. Skin beneath Sibyl’s eyebrows sags, hanging in heavy folds near temples at she eye corners, giving each eye a slanted look. Look like life hard as we make it.
‘Coconut oil? Tubs fe washing?’ Sibyl asks. Is she face always haggard this way? ‘Yu did see Mama Laslie?’
I say, ‘Mama says yu have me money.’ Sibyl says she gotta protect sheself from people like me. Who to believe? Who not? I say, ‘Yu’re half. Me half, dat way we should share.’ Because he feel shame fe it Pa won’t speak to me?
‘Yu have coconut oil, tubs fe washin?’ Sibyl asks.
‘A fe me money,’ I say. Clutching rattling tin, Mary Ann reaches up to my face. ‘Junius give yu dat? Nutten in-a dat. It full-a rakstone.’
Rapping my chest with rattling tin Mary Ann bawls, ‘Yu cyaan come back widout tings fe we.’ She headbutts my neck, tin knuckles beat my grey skirt; fists hammer my chest. My breast holds no comfort for Mary Ann – Rebecca Laslie milked me dry of comfort. Of love.
‘Yu have Junius’ jackass tobacco rope?’ Sibyl asks.
I shrug. ‘Junius put cramp in me head.’
‘Kaydia,’ Sibyl says, ‘lass night de cockerel crow, an hens a-cacklin afore dawn. It tell me something cyaan be rite. Tell me yu a-curse. Sand an rice me must sprinkle outside an roun me sack tonite. But yu cyaan lose me bitt, fe true. Yu pay it me. Yu a-bad curse.’
I’m making to punch Sibyl’s floppy belly, bawling, ‘Mama Laslie give yu me money! Me she dawta too!’
Friday sneaks behind Sibyl’s bulky body. Sibyl’s viewing me through narrowed eyes. Like I’m mad. Yu don’t know what’s wrong till yu done it. Mary Ann clings, Sibyl peels my daughter from my skirt. Walking on up plantation path they go, shadows slither behind them drawn long by a setting sun.
Bursting into Mister Sam’s chamber I run.
Stretched across four-poster bed, arm’s flung out sameway as washed-up starfish, ‘Papa,’ Mister Sam whimpers. ‘What have I done? My dear, poor Papa.’
‘Yu fadda in heaven won’t spare yu,’ I say, levering open jalousie blinds. Only calm thing I see’s blue salt water; inside me an ocean roars. ‘Wen minister come yu must repent of yu sin, Mister Sam, or be stuck in hellfiah.’
Mouth hanging open, throwing himself forward, dead crab stink in Mister Sam’s wet breath, ‘Is he not come to pray with me?’ he pleads. Sinking into pillows again Mister Sam’s throaty voice whispers, ‘Is he not come to pray?’
Drying mouth corners I say, ‘Soon me a-come, mek me go to do kitchen stove an me a-carry fe yu cool water.’
Window grids forged from cast-iron bars form a wall from ceiling rafters to kitchen flagstone floor. Old Simeon lurches down great-house track, him shape fits one small iron square. Red streaks hover as a doctor-bird flits across another square. Long scissor-tail feathers a-quiver – colours shrieking with light disappear into flower heads threaded through wood trellis outside.
Stuffing a pipe with tobacco, Old Simeon hobbles up to kitchen doorway. My toes crawl into golden sand spread across flagstones by evening breezes.
‘Fe wot yu look at me like dat?’ Old Simeon asks me. ‘If put on Kingstan freak show yu bring in big money.’ Hobbling across kitchen, ‘Wen yu gonna cook?’ he adds.
Emptying oven ash into bushes I’m glimpsing Old Simeon over my shoulder. ‘Why yu don’t shut yu mouth?’ I shout back.
‘No church service bring Mister Sam back,’ he returns. He lifts night lantern from kitchen shelf, him one good eye glitters spitefully; other eye’s clouded milky-white. ‘We have funeral afore minister rive ere.’ Leaning back, Old Simeon scratches him crooked spine against iron window grid sameway like old mule shoulder-scrubs a post.
‘Mister Sam not buried yet,’ I say.
Old Simeon’s pipe’s lit. White whiffs of smoke he breathes into dark sky-blue dusk. Smoke weaves round him aged face, and ears big like crinkled conch shell’s rim.
Sweeping hearths I breathe out despair, lost in feelings for what’s in my belly. Filling iron kettle from stone water jar, a terrible face something like Mama’s peers up from dark water. I hear Rebecca Laslie’s voice. Me cyaan find a name bad enough fe she.
I go by gentle smell from sleek horses sweating, slow-mixing with wood-nut smell of stable-block hay. Why I must search for Mary Ann, I’m thinking, I passed she on plantation path? But my eyes search front garden, follow plantation path sweeping round and down past sugar works’ red-tiled roofs to smooth blue stretching sea.
‘Mary Ann hide in Mister Sam’s chamber?’
Old Simeon chuckles, ‘Mary Ann hide ere in kitchen block.’
‘Yu a-crazy ass. Yu a-case,’ I snap back.
Old Simeon pauses from lantern lighting. Crossly he glances at me. ‘Me no case, no trunk, no box!’ Old Simeon’s tongue clicks sharply. ‘Yu rage wound yu pa’s heart. Minister, e not clebber but e know everything bout Mister Sam settin fiah to slave shacks. E know bout yu stealin. An what yu carry in yu belly.’
‘Ow minister know? Yu telled im an Charles an Pa?’
Old Simeon sucks on him pipe. He draws in again, breathing out only air. Chuckle-coughing, he shrugs, taps burnt tobacco flakes into a cupped palm, dusts tobacco from him hand. He shuffles with lighted lantern to kennels to let out Mister Sam’s dogs.
Mary Ann whines, ‘Me waan candle.’
Wedged between stove side and empty rum barrels, I see Mary Ann. ‘Yu go fetch a-candle. Git to yu chores.’
Sawdust trickles from she fist, drowning a rat-bat dead. Rat-bat’s flapping its cloak-like wings in dying circles on flagstone floor. Mary Ann’s face uplifts to mine. ‘Me cyaan,’ she says. ‘Me cyaan go now, me busy. Don’t ax me.’
‘Yu must see yu Mister Sam?’ I ask mockingly. ‘No! Yu go now.’
Minister’s voice finds me, shouting, ‘Kaydia! Kaydia!’ till again I’m going back on my step. Black gown fluttering about ankles, minister strides towards kitchen block.
Smoothly Jancra circles naseberry tree. Anger comes like ropes tightening round my neck, shivers run up my spine. Sameway as cold air creeps through cracked and crumbling stone walls, under doors, round cotton tree. Trailed by hungry dogs, Old Simeon goes to a bench below cotton tree. I follow minister to Mister Sam’s chamber.
‘I spoke with your, you, your . . . Charles on the coast road from Montego Bay,’ minister says.
‘Me know.’
‘Kaydia, why is Charles so deeply perturbed? He is beside himself, I mean I . . . As you, I am sure, are aware the leaf hasn’t turned over, so to speak, but is there anything else? Anything I should know?’
‘Me don’t know, sir.’
‘I think Charles thinks you are with child.’
‘Me?’
‘Then you must tell him. No, I will go to him. I’ll tell him this isn’t so.’ Swiping at air minister says, ‘There’s a mosquito in here. For goodness’
sake close the shutters, anyone would think you were trying to kill him.’ Desire flickers, flaring into fierce yearning. Like he have funny thoughts a little smile crosses minister’s lips. I raise Mister Sam higher on lace pillows. ‘Stay with your master all night,’ minister says.
Mister Sam’s trembling hand yellow-white as chicken feet reaches out to minister. Clasping arms round minister’s neck Mister Sam draws minister to him, kisses him hands; eyes brimming, tears leaking.
Mister Sam’s words to minister come soft, bitter, clipped. ‘Please . . . You must . . . write to my father. Please, tell him everything. Should I die, write to my sister, Henrietta. Send her my endless love.’ Mister Sam falls back again sighing and snivelling.
‘Wait outside,’ minister says to me. ‘Oh, and Kaydia, I appreciate that due to your duties you will be absent from the service tonight but I trust your daughter will be present.’
I close jalousie blinds. Groaning, Mister Sam writhes. Bed moans under him shifting weight. I wipe wet forehead skin; lower lip; cheek; chin. Curtains fall in heavy loops as slowly I drag blue velvet across windows. I dip in tallow rush pitch. Then I’m gone from Mister Sam’s bedside.
Leaning my ear against chamber door I stand outside. Voices sound muffled through solid wood like shadows look blurred under water.
‘. . . for God so loved the world,’ minister says, ‘that He gave His only begotten son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life . . .’
I walk across gloomy lawn towards kitchen block. Sky holds a faint red glimmer above dark blue sea.
‘Sam fever worse?’ Rushing down my spine, Pa’s laughing catches me. ‘E not noticin wot yu do fe im,’ Pa pitches testily. ‘Yu cyaan see dat girl?’
‘Where yu bin?’ calmly I ast. ‘Pa?’ Pa sucks him teeth, him eye matches hell’s fire. ‘Yu me pa?’ I cry, wiping tears from cheeks.
Moon makes shining leaves blue. Breezes chase leaves, brushing in and out of gaps moonrays passed through. Pa turns. Sweat brewing. But he cause me no more trouble now. Him gone.
Minister walks to him horse in stable-block. Pa scents victory, rays of him laugh flit between trees back through Cinnamon Hill gardens, reaching across black chamber into sea’s glittering blue deep as love depths.
I fetch cassava from storage jar and from sack, yam for boiling in water. Moonlight beams over kitchen flagstones.
‘Mama! Mama!’ Mary Ann calls. ‘Mister Sam bawling!’
Mister Sam’s face, a white mask, bends over chamber pot, vomits onto floorboards. And Mister Sam’s gagging, vomit gushes from him mouth. He retches again, it racks him body.
Getting onto my knees what strikes me’s how Mister Sam also weeps, forlorn face yellow-white, too weak to speak.
Softly him hand slips from him chest. ‘Papa,’ he moans.
Rocking forward, back on my feet, ‘Forget yu fadda,’ I mumble. I pinch Mister Sam’s shoulder. ‘E won’t know yu cyaan work. E cyaan know all wot yu dun.’
My wish for any place away from here’s bigger than anyone’s. But Mister Sam’s no longer with me. Already him thick with sleep.
‘Jesus, lover of my soul,’ I’m singing, sinking onto hard yacca floor. ‘Let yu to thy bosom fly. Mister Jancra fly up high. Sugar cane, water roll. Hide me. Save me. Save me.’
Chapter Ten
Elizabeth
1, BEACON TERRACE, TORQUAY
24 November 1839
My dearest Mrs. Martin,
. . . Since the first of October I have not been out of bed – except just for an hour a day, when I am lifted to the sofa, with the bare permission of my physician, who tells me it is so much easier to make me worse than better . . .
Dearest Papa is with us now – to my great comfort & joy! – & looking very well, & astonishing everybody with his eternal youthfulness! Bro & Henrietta & Arabel besides, I can count as companions – & then there is Bummy! We are fixed at Torquay for the winter – that is, until the end of May: after that, if I have any will or power & am alive to exercise either, I do trust & hope to go away . . .
Agreeing with Papa is not possible in this instance: he has confessed to dismissing a Wimpole Street servant for forgetting to lock the door after dusting ‘Mama’s room’. Since Mama’s death Papa treats her possessions as objects of reverence, and disallows anything to be re-arranged in ‘Mama’s room’ or for the door to be left unlocked. There is no movement from Papa on this, even though we have left one house for another. Even though Mama’s feet never walked Wimpole Street floors. His devotion remains immemorial, even though she has been dead for nine Octobers.
Disagreements with Papa are bad spirits sniping at me in this room. They clomped up the stairs, stomped up to my bedside as though stamping on the souls of us more earthly folk. Beards of smoke rise from the fire and hang about my chamber. I wish the curtains of stale air would clear. If only Crow would unlatch a window. But one breath of wind will increase my sickness so that, if it so pleaseth God, I may live only another day. Pains which were ghosts of sensations are now revealed fully in flesh. And I am haunted all week by leeches and blisters though I sometimes know not which doctor comes.
I sense Papa’s worries and feel that the decline in his good spirits is due to more unrest on his estates, poor sugar yields and, worst of all, Dr. Barry’s death and the decline in my health all coinciding with the anniversary of the loss of dear Mama.
The woman has returned. I believe she knows that in the dark world in which I live I can no longer spread or even open my wings, as I once did, galloping from hilltop to hilltop, cantering through valleys, the wind satin-smooth, a blue-white mist hanging over distant chimneys. At first I’d wanted to be rid of her, then could not bear us to be parted. Her face, streaked sometimes with distress, often seeps into my thoughts; cotton-soft as summer breezes the black folds of her garments slip past my sleeping eyes. Although I occasionally feel her touch whisper across my skin, two months have passed since she sat by the fireside, and now with horror I see a vision most grotesque.
She nurses a newly born baby the size of the wax doll with flaxen hair that is propped against Henrietta’s window-sill in Wimpole Street. But this baby’s complexion isn’t peachy-pale, her dress doesn’t mirror silk the lemon shade of buttermilk fringed with foamy lace. This baby’s round eyes aren’t blue but a bright clear brown, the dark bare skin copper-coloured, shiny. The baby’s face crumples up; its cry turns into a wail. Worst of all the little neck swells becoming scarred and red, the face blood-spattered. My heart begins to race. Could this be an aberration of light? A Negro baby, here, in my room? Surely it isn’t kin of mine.
I do not fear the future. It is the past that scares me. It is impossible to reconcile the past. Impossible. All my life I have been haunted by ghosts. The past constantly visits me. I believe souls live on because I can feel the spirit world.
When I find it within me to look back the baby has disappeared. A young boy stands at the woman’s side now. His attire, like that of little Ibbit’s, is tailored to suit the latest fashion. Long dark wavy ringlets tumble to a shirt collar edged with the best London lace and the shoulders of a light blue felt waistcoat trimmed with navy cord and matching velvet buttons. The yellow trousers stop just below the knee; bright white ankle socks and closed sandals. Somewhere, in the maze my mind has become, I have seen the gentle curves of this child’s face, the swell of the forehead, the coral bloom to his cheeks. He is not aware of me, only the woman. He hands her a square-shaped board. But no, no it isn’t a board, it’s a piece of needlework exquisitely stitched. A tapestry stretched across a wooden frame depicting the picture of an old house. The picture stops the woman crying. She begins to unpick the design. The stables are still there but the buildings I recognize as the home farm cottages begin to disappear, as does the clock tower, the lake and Alpine bridge: the lily ponds fringed with bullrushes are quickly unravelled. Threads pulled out she winds around her delicate hand, and then throws all that I once held dear in
a loose ball into the blazing fire. Lastly she attacks the house, unpicking domes, spires, leaving not even the shape of a memory, simply smooth cream-coloured cloth.
A frightful pain slices the left side of my body. Were it not for the coldness of the draught from the windows I would be content to lie back against these pillows, out of harm’s way, out of air’s way, and continue with the two things of which I seem a little capable: being ill and writing poetry.
25 November 1839
This morning the waves are quite calm. Oysters, fresh from their watery bed, have been harvested in gigantic nets, and now dear Papa is next door in the drawing-room contentment is not far from my reach. But every joy turns to sadness. Even the hushed crash of bursting waves grows tiresome. The bay. Screaming gulls. Sea and sky as one.
I feel as though I live in the sea. I have before me another full five months at sea. The mixture I take of opium and brandy does little to calm my nervous state. I wish to see no one. I have no compassion for it, but now Dr. Barry is gone, I must write.
I must write.
What grand thoughts these are – I cannot. Papa’s heavy knock is at my door. He walks in in a blast of sunshine and with a biting wind from the drawing-room windows.
There is a strangeness in the way his eyes search my face. Fearful, he takes my hand in his – almost as reluctantly as the sea’s heart he swells with sadness. And when I smile . . . When I smile, Papa says he lives for when I smile . . .
The savage fingers of this immortal wind glance between cracks in the sash-window-frames. Whilst Papa says he is struck by how many people still stroll on the beach, and amazed by the scores of swooping swallows, I am thinking Italy’s climate and romantic scenery will suit me better than any London or Torquay. Gulls, like torn scraps of paper, soar on each veil of wind. Sand studded with pebbles recedes, returns, unsettled in the restless, relentless swash of crashing waves.
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