For the Reckord

  LUCINDA: Did he die?

  ANNIE: Yes. So God punished them.

  LUCINDA: Did they die?

  ANNIE: Two slavers less.

  LUCINDA: How did they die?

  ANNIE: Burned to death in a barn. Sometimes, occasionally, very occasionally, brutes die painfully. One of the few thoughts I find bearable.

  LUCINDA: Were you near the barn?

  ANNIE. No. But when I was ten things flew around my room. Doctors said my carnal feelings were inflamed, and there were one or two happenings later on. So I left home and lived with the ravers, religious free-thinkers and free-lovers. I am not religious, but I liked the way they raised their children in common, and so could give them all the time and affection they needed. The result was the children weren’t mean in their affection, and were naturally carnal with each other. But this was obviously a ‘den of iniquity’, though the children had carnal knowledge among themselves, not with elders. So when the barn burnt to a cinder, with my brothers in it, there was talk of murder by witchcraft, and I was married off to Mr. Palmer.

  LUCINDA: How could you marry a slaver?

  ANNIE: Struth, you know the drill. All the money for sons, not a guinea for daughters. So I could have been a poor and persecuted raver, a slavey for my aunt the bald duchess, or marry a cocksy rich man. Why, I didn’t even smell his stockings. Then they dressed me up fit to kill, came with praise from far and near, so here I am, meant to spawn a dozen slavers.

  LUCINDA: I wish I knew you Miss Annie.

  ANNIE: (Coming clean.) My dear it was the dock or the altar. I had to leave the country to evade arrest.

  LUCINDA: That’s the rumour.

  ANNIE: (Fiercely.) My lover was murdered and nobody charged.

  LUCINDA: Did you ever love your brothers?

  ANNIE: They were kind in little ways, and hideous in large. Believed wars are just and slavery necessary. I’ve always found human-beings confusing, if I assume they are human. Now I assume two out of three people are sheep, and will bury me in sheep-shit that deep. That’s my guiding truth, and it isn’t arrogance but despair; though I don’t mean to be buried.

  LUCINDA: It’s a wonder Mr. Palmer didn’t hear the rumours.

  ANNIE: He was too dazzled by my connections. We met and married in a month.

  LUCINDA: What will happen when he hears them?

  ANNIE: (Dry.) He knows witches can’t breed… What happened to your babies’ father?

  LUCINDA: He ran away.

  ANNIE: Are you still in love with him?

  LUCINDA: (Averting her eyes.) He’s a rebel.

  ANNIE: What was his name?

  LUCINDA: Herrera. Why was? Is he dead? You read the future?

  ANNIE: And wonder who writes it.

  LUCINDA: Herrera went mad with hunger in the drought and joined the rebels. When you love them it’s awful. The love thing is awful. (Distressed.) You trust your vision? Is Herrera dead?

  ANNIE: Never trust visions my lovely darling. Crude reality wins in the end. (Migrating birds pass over.) Look. Magic guides migrating birds. Such powers have faded in men. My nice brother experiments with electricity, and will light up the world, but we live in psychic darkness. All hit and miss. Not scientific. The day I married I saw a hole being dug near this house. I knew it was my husband’s grave. I was wrong.

  LUCINDA: They’re digging a new shit-pit. They’re just startin’ it.

  ANNIE: Dear God it will be my own grave. I feel ill. My sister died in child-bed and I’m six weeks on. I need a powder.

  LUCINDA: That is death milady.

  ANNIE: I must get one.

  LUCINDA: How did you abort on the boat?

  ANNIE: I got powders from the ravers. They don’t last.

  LUCINDA: Speak to Princess.

  ANNIE: Princess?

  LUCINDA: She’s the housekeeper. Speak to her.

  ANNIE: Tell me about her.

  LUCINDA: Her husband is keeper of the stores, and she made him buy extra food for the slaves during the drought, and when bakkra finds out he’ll be in danger. Princess wants slavery abolished. If you need a powder speak to her.

  PALMER re-enters drawing-room with DAWES. He shouts “Miss Annie, Miss Annie”.

  DAWES: Tall rum bakkra?

  PALMER: Tall rum.

  CHLOE: You want food?

  PALMER: My belly’s unsettled. Coming over Mt. Diablo, road wet and slippery, the horse nearly pitched me over the precipice.

  ANNIE sweeps down the stairs.

  ANNIE: (Dry wit.) A widow? At twenty?

  PALMER: Horse pitched and nearly killed me and she laughed.

  ANNIE: (Hugging him.) No more bragging and prating about the great horseman he is.

  PALMER: Couldn’t you sleep?

  ANNIE: Isn’t it time the black men stopped drumming?

  PALMER: You hear them. You hear the welcome back we get from the niggers.

  ANNIE: I hear the women refuse to breed.

  CHLOE: They want to grind ma’am but they don’t want to breed.

  ANNIE: (Dry.) Oh that’s wicked of them. Proper slaves would breed without grinding.

  PALMER: (Laughing.) She comes from a great reformin’ family like me. (Of DAWES and CHLOE.) I promote black people. I wouldn’t marry ‘em but I promote and use ‘em.

  DAWES: (Of the drumming.) This drumming is not forbidden milady. We allow this.

  PALMER: It’s the mosquitoes that will serenade us to death.

  ANNIE: I hear them singing.

  CHLOE: It’s not sing they singing, it’s cry they crying, for blood mam.

  PALMER: Chloe will look after you.

  CHLOE: My father was an old soldier man, from England, so I’m not too dark. I cleaned out your room from top to toe, me same one, so neither spider nor scorpion will creep and crawl.

  PALMER: And this is Dawes. Dawes is my right hand.

  DAWES: You must wear shoes milady, so people can hear you.

  ANNIE looks at him gravely.

  PALMER: Her grandfather was a slave-trader. And the family crest has two niggers on it. Come give me a kiss Miss Annie and I’m gone.

  ANNIE: May I come with you to see the estates?

  PALMER: No. Lawd, you’re so pretty, you must bring me luck.

  ANNIE: Pretty is lucky, is it?

  PRINCESS enters with pork.

  PALMER: Princess, jerk-pork in England was no pork to pork in this house. (To ANNIE.) Princess is my house-keeper.

  PRINCESS bows.

  They don’t know jerk-pork. All they know is abolition.

  PRINCESS: (As PALMER belches.) And good English manners.

  PALMER: And you know how loud I can get. I can get very loud. They thought only a fool could be as loud as me.

  PRINCESS: (Dry.) Till they saw your carriage.

  PALMER: Her son is my favourite bastard. (Shouts.) Cupid. Where the hell is the boy?

  CUPID enters.

  You are sixteen years old. You should be planting good seed, not sulkin’ all over the estate. You should learn how to handle women. Your mother gave way to Chloe and several betwixt and between, yet there is no contention among any of ‘em. You can write that on my grave. He ground women and cane and ground ‘em well. Chloe, tell Mrs. Palmer how many bastards I have. Octoroon, quadroon, every kind of coon. But this (CUPID.) is my favourite one. (To PRINCESS.) Where is your man Sammy?

  PRINCESS: Waiting to greet you sir.

  PALMER: Abuku call Mass Sammy. And call Rhone.

  PALMER is silent, waiting for SAMMY, creating great tension. ANNIE gazes at PRINCESS.

  PALMER: Dawes, give me that bill. (DAWES hands it to him.)

  SAMMY: (To ANNIE, bowing.) I am Sammy milady. Keeper of the stores, Princess’s husband, Cupid’s step-father, and your humble servant, blessing the marriage.

  ANNIE: (Smiling.) Marriage needs every blessing.

  SAMMY: Mornin’ bakkra. And respect sir.

  RHONE: (To PALMER.) My respect sir.

  PALMER: Sammy look at t
his bill.

  SAMMY: Yes bakkra.

  PALMER: Tell me what it is about.

  SAMMY: Food sir.

  PALMER: Dawes tell me you ordered salt beef and salt pork for the niggers in my absence.

  SAMMY: Drought burn up the ground since you gone, and nutten grow. Even the few goats drop down from hunger and thirst.

  PALMER: So you order salt beef and salt pork for the niggers.

  SAMMY: They were starving bakkra so I got feeding for them. Worst drought in memory.

  PALMER: You told Dawes?

  SAMMY: No bakkra. That is not Dawes’ department. I bought it the day you married, to bless the marriage with feeding.

  PALMER: A bill for fifty pounds to bless the marriage. Chloe will tell me it’s an omen!

  SAMMY: Well bakkra, rebellion is spreading from Santo Domingo. I had to decide. You don’t see the welcome you get from the people.

  PALMER: You know they must feed themselves from the ample grounds I give them.

  SAMMY: (Repeating.) From the ample grounds you give them.

  PALMER: And you know that since sugar duty rise and price fall, one hundred estates in Jamaica shut down. And slaves are wandering around. A danger to us.

  SAMMY: Bakkra I know.

  PALMER: Yet you order salt beef and salt pork from the Jews? They greased your palm?

  SAMMY: Me? Sammy? Bakkra, 400 hogshead the niggers produce. The grub well earned.

  PALMER: Their Sunday market shut down?

  SAMMY: They’re selling food still, yes bakkra, but little or nutten.

  PALMER: They sell their own food and eat mine.

  SAMMY: Bakkra they were hungry, and raised rass, and called for feeding.

  PALMER: Dawes.

  DAWES: Yes bakkra.

  PALMER: Put Sammy up for sale.

  CUPID: But they were hungry.

  SAMMY: (Prostrating.) Mercy bakkra.

  CUPID: The fire in Santo Domingo will burn down Jamaica.

  PALMER: Liberty, equality, fraternity is a belching fart. That won’t bankrupt me.

  DAWES: (Kicking SAMMY.) Come old man. (Strips him of keys.)

  PALMER: (Throwing RHONE keys.) Rhone, take over the stores. And take Sammy out.

  RHONE exits with SAMMY.

  PALMER: I’ve come back to taxation, bankruptcies, rebellion. I’ve had so many anxious hours this year I would not wish the same again for double the profit I may get, if any. But now I have a wife, and a son coming up.

  DAWES: (Passing round drinks for a toast.) God bless ‘em.

  CHLOE: (With a little curtsey and hand-clap.) God protect ‘em.

  PALMER: Health and long life Miss Annie. (To CUPID, who isn’t cheering.) Raise your glass.

  DAWES: Bakkra, what will make him a winner?

  PALMER: Energy, man, like my father. He had more energy for detail than other men. There was no joy in the man but he could add one and one. I want my son to be born feet first, like that old man. (A toast.) My son will dine with dukes.

  DAWES: And they will envy his money and write down his discourse.

  PALMER: Yes Dawes, my son will be the richest commoner in England… Chloe they cook a royal dinner for milady?

  CHLOE: Tea, coffee, claret, hock-negus, madeira, sangaree, hot and cold meats, stews and fries, hot and cold fish, pickled and plain, peppers, gingers, sweet-meats, acid-fruit and sweet-jellies.

  ANNIE: It’s too hot for a greasy feast. (Ready to vomit.)

  PALMER: (Embraces ANNIE.) Oh my wife fattens my eyes. We took long walks and lay a-bed. Gave large gifts and little presents. She’s turned my life round. Before I met her I’d wake up feeling like a double-blank. Not a state you want to describe.

  ANNIE: (Dry.) I arrived on a bad day. (RHONE re-enters.)

  PALMER: Rhone, I’m going to my estate at Ramble. Any trouble, call out the militia. Miss Annie, I’m gone. If you want a boy to fan you, tell Rhone.

  RHONE bows and exits, followed by everybody except PALMER and ANNIE. As CUPID and PRINCESS exit, they share a private toast.

  PRINCESS: (Of ANNIE.) May she die in child-bed. (Exit.)

  CUPID: May she die in childbed.

  PALMER: (To ANNIE.) You talk to Cupid. The blasted missionaries teach ‘em rebellion. We must restrain ‘em. If they didn’t rebel, we wouldn’t have to murder them.

  ANNIE: Let Sammy stay in his house till he’s sold.

  PALMER: That’s for me to say milady.

  ANNIE: You’ll correct me if I’m wrong. But if we have so much more of everything than the slaves, they might start murdering us for a change.

  PALMER: If I lost every shilling down a nigger’s maw, it would cat and kitten its way back to me, and tomorrow we’d be rich again. I don’t say the niggers are lazy, but they’re born ignorant, and when they’re not they rise like Dawes.

  ANNIE: Free Sammy from the dungeons till he’s sold.

  PALMER: (Gazing at her.) Love mixed with business troubles men’s fortunes.

  ANNIE: (Gazing at him.) Are you in danger?

  PALMER: I’ll tell Dawes to leave Sammy in his house.

  Both exit. HERRERA the rebel, armed with a machete, steals into the house.

  LUCINDA: (Standing at the top of the stairs, sees him; whispers.) Herrera

  She runs down the stairs and hugs him. PRINCESS enters with a suckling pig in a basket.

  PRINCESS: (To HERRERA, hissing.) Make haste.

  LUCINDA runs back upstairs. HERRERA puts the suckling in a crocus-bag, and flees as CUPID enters.

  PRINCESS: Great God, I feared it was Dawes.

  CUPID: How did he get past the safe-niggers?

  PRINCESS: Are the safe-niggers safe?

  CUPID: (Angry.) You feed runaways?

  PRINCESS: Sammy is for sale and you do nothing?

  CUPID: (Rage.) I didn’t know my mother was a criminal. (He starts to exit, then turns and desperately hugs her.) Thank God you haven’t been caught. You must stop.

  PRINCESS: Do something for the liberty you prate about!

  She exits and CUPID follows, trying to reason with her.

  ANNIE: (Off, to PALMER.) Safe ride.

  PALMER: (Off.) I’m tempted to tarry. I’m right up on tiptoe.

  They re-enter the drawing-room, and go upstairs to the bedroom.

  ANNIE: Today my lord came home from the wars, and pleasured me twice in his topboots.

  PALMER: Which wars?

  ANNIE: It’s a quotation sir.

  PALMER: Kneel down, but I mustn’t be long.

  ANNIE: (Kneels, resting on the bed.) You’re seldom up for long sir.

  PALMER: I never know when you mock me. (He shoots off and blames her.) I feel mocked and spill it. Why do you mock me?

  DAWES: (Off, shouts to PALMER.) Bakkra, bakkra, come quick.

  ANNIE: (Laughing.) Tell him you have.

  PALMER: (Angrily.) No more mockery!

  DAWES: (Off.) Bakkra they catch the rebel Herrera.

  PALMER runs out. In the courtyard, RHONE, surrounded by a crowd off-stage, disgorges HERRERA from a crocus-bag.

  VOICE: (Off.) Is me Joko, ketch him. Me Joko. Bakkra prize-nigger. Herrera is you one born, and is you one goin dead.

  VOICES: Cut ‘im. Cut ‘im.

  HERRERA: (Whinnying with fright.) Don’t make dem cut me.

  DAWES puts a gun to HERRERA’S head.

  PALMER: Fire!

  DAWES fires, and HERRERA drops.

  DAWES: (To RHONE.) Feed the dogs.

  RHONE carries off the body. Dogs, off, start whining.

  Lights on ANNIE, in her bedroom, holding LUCINDA who is sobbing. And on PRINCESS and CUPID downstairs standing shell-shocked.

  ANNIE: Show these merchants the terror they bring, and they burn witches, love their wives, and count dividend.

  PRINCESS: (Looking out the window, to CUPID.) If they kill him today, they can’t kill him tomorrow. Join the rebellion.

  CUPID, troubled, exits as ANNIE comes downstairs.

  ANNIE: (To PRINCESS.) My hus
band has agreed to leave Sammy in his house.

  PRINCESS: (Bowing.) I owe you favours.

  ANNIE: Princess, this is no ménage for an innocent and I’m six weeks on. I need a powder to get rid of the richest commoner in England.

  PRINCESS: Here we get rid of husband and child, or we only get planted again.

  ANNIE: Funny, I saw him dead by now. It’s the only reason I married him. I saw his death, then lost it.

  PRINCESS: It’s one thing marrying a man, hoping he’ll die, but actually to have seen him stone dead…

  ANNIE: I feel cold-blooded about slavers.

  PRINCESS: You want five estates.

  ANNIE: If I must choose between being slaver or slave. Hungry or overfed. Does he always ride with armed men?

  PRINCESS: He walks alone at night on the estate.

  ANNIE: I seldom missed the rats on the boat.

  PRINCESS: Guns are noisy and flash in the pan. Milady would hang.

  ANNIE: It wasn’t the way I saw him die.

  PRINCESS: Who killed him?

  ANNIE: Was he killed or driven mad? Did his mind go?

  PRINCESS: His heart? Broken?

  ANNIE: It was one end of him or another.

  PRINCESS: (Droll.) Not his eggs.

  ANNIE: Surely that would have been unforgettable. Do get me a powder my dear, and send Rhone in.

  PRINCESS: Rhone is a man who hasn’t suffered and causes suffering.

  ANNIE: Please send him in.

  PRINCESS bows and exits. ANNIE lights up a lovely clay pipe. CHLOE enters with coffee.

  CHLOE: You saw what happen mam? I was busy drawing coffee and miss everything. (ANNIE is silent.) You can get a cool bath, sweet and scented, with lime and orange blossom. You want a drink while I draw the water milady? You can get punch or sour-sap or tamarind.

  ANNIE: I’ll just have coffee.

  CHLOE: Yes milady.

  ANNIE: You have children Chloe?

  CHLOE: No milady. I want the right daddy for them, so they’re high-brown with good hair. I don’t want any nayga pickneys.

  ANNIE: Nayga?

  CHLOE: Niggers mam. There are niggers like Rhone, and there are mulattos like me. My father got away with cook and that was me, a mulatto. Mulattos come from white men with black women.

  ANNIE: Or white women with black men.

  CHLOE: What mam?

  ANNIE: Black men with white women.

  CHLOE: Never heard of it mam. No black man should risk that.