For the Reckord

by Barry Reckord

ANNIE: What would happen?

  CHLOE: They would chop off his sinting.

  ANNIE: (Laughing at the pun.) Sin-thing.

  CHLOE: They would chop it off. Play with niggers they take liberties with you. Lie down in your bed with their fleas.

  ANNIE: (Looking to escape.) Do they?

  CHLOE: You hear what is happening in San Domingo? A little ugly black coachman named Toussaint slept with the white ladies and took over, and San Domingo’s collapsed. All the pretty plantations are ruinate. You heard about it?

  ANNIE: I hear about nothing else.

  CHLOE: Aren’t you frightened it will spread?

  ANNIE: Slaves seldom rise. Too tired, too frightened, too uncertain whether the rebels aren’t as insane as the tyrants.

  CHLOE: You want sugar mam?

  ANNIE: I’ll use the honey.

  CHLOE: You an abolitionist milady?

  ANNIE: Why?

  CHLOE: Not using sugar?

  ANNIE: Oh dear no, Chloe. I’m sure there must be reasons for slaughtering blacks to make sugar, when bees make honey so successfully. Beside, where would we be without the money?

  CHLOE: Milady married for money?

  ANNIE: Dear Chloe, how can anyone marry for money, only to risk screaming to death nine months later in child-bed? It’s not on.

  CHLOE: Unless you’re a witch milady, and mean to get rid of the child.

  ANNIE: In England they drink gin, and jump off tables.

  CHLOE: A witch will murder both husband and child.

  ANNIE: I do believe murdering husbands to be a most ancient anti-conception. You’re left with a flat belly and a great fortune.

  CHLOE: Unless you hang.

  ANNIE: It’s too hot to burn people, isn’t it Chloe? I’m in two minds whether to be dressed for the mosquitoes or naked for the heat.

  CHLOE: (Alarmed.) Milady walks naked? (ANNIE looks at her.) I’ll open the blinds in your rooms to let in the cool.

  ANNIE: When does your master return?

  CHLOE: He never says, milady.

  ANNIE: Does he just arrive, or send word?

  CHLOE: He arrives milady, or sends word.

  She exits, and RHONE enters.

  ANNIE: Fan me.

  RHONE: There are boys to do that mam.

  ANNIE looks at him.

  You want a boy to fan you mam?

  ANNIE: Coffee?

  RHONE: I’m not high enough yet to sip coffee in the great-house milady.

  ANNIE: (Showing him some sketches.) Look at these.

  RHONE: Niggers.

  ANNIE: Sailors on the boat.

  RHONE puts down the sketch-book disdainfully.

  RHONE: Such big thick lips.

  ANNIE: Like yours.

  Long silence.

  RHONE: Far too ugly to mark down on paper.

  ANNIE: Beautiful.

  RHONE: What?

  ANNIE: Your lips.

  RHONE is silent. CHLOE knocks and enters.

  CHLOE: Your scented bath’s ready milady.

  ANNIE: Thanks, my dear.

  CHLOE exits and spies on them.

  I’ve got a splinter in my foot. Take it out.

  RHONE: There again you need a boy mam.

  ANNIE: I’ll get a needle.

  RHONE: I’ve never touched a white lady, milady.

  ANNIE: I want to sketch you.

  RHONE: When?

  ANNIE: When Chloe’s fast asleep.

  RHONE bows and exits. Lights on CHLOE in the courtyard, talking to ABUKU.

  CHLOE: Ride hard, and tell bakkra to come back here tonight.

  Lights on RHONE spreading his sleeping-mat on the drawing-room floor. He sits on the mat, troubled. CHLOE lights the candles. There’s fierce drumming in the distance. Lights on ANNIE in her bedroom with LUCINDA. They’re smoking herbs.

  ANNIE: They’re drumming the God over from Africa.

  LUCINDA: Not permitted.

  ANNIE: Call him from Africa.

  LUCINDA: Not permitted.

  ANNIE: God takes six hours to cross the sea.

  LUCINDA: And when he come he not sea-sick…

  ANNIE: Or weary.

  LUCINDA: And he’s so glad to see us…

  ANNIE: He takes shape and form, like a man.

  LUCINDA: And sit round the table and drink a rum and laugh and curse, and after he give us the news he pinch the ladies, and we curse him, yes.

  ANNIE: Yes, but you’re glad, because he’s the bigger headman.

  LUCINDA: Bigger than bakkra.

  ANNIE: And he came far to see us, and we take him and grind him and possess him.

  LUCINDA: And grab his back and shudder.

  ANNIE: (Dialect.) And God sinting stand up well strong.

  LUCINDA: And never go down.

  ANNIE: Till he pleasure us.

  LUCINDA: And free us.

  ANNIE: And free us.

  PALMER steals, unseen, into the dark drawing-room.

  RHONE: (Sitting on his mat, talking to himself.) Man, you just promote. Walk and think twice. Walk and think three times. Tek a walk. (He doesn’t move.)

  PALMER, unseen watches him.

  Upstairs, LUCINDA smoking, mutters to ANNIE.

  LUCINDA: Rhone is murder.

  ANNIE: Just what I need.

  PALMER goes rigid as someone comes down the stairs. It turns out to be CHLOE. She looks in his direction but can’t see him in the shadows, and goes off. RHONE puts out a few candles, then goes back to his mat and lies down. PALMER watches the stairs waiting for ANNIE to come down.

  Upstairs ANNIE dolls herself up with powder and perfume. Downstairs PALMER’s hands are sweating. He wipes them and shuts his eyes with anxiety.

  ANNIE: (To LUCINDA.) Go down and put out the candles.

  LUCINDA: Is Herrera’s ghost in the house?

  ANNIE: He’s not.

  LUCINDA: Did you call him?

  ANNIE: He’s frightened of Palmer.

  LUCINDA: Mr. Palmer is not in the house.

  ANNIE: He must be. Go and put out the candles.

  RHONE looks up as LUCINDA comes down the stairs. She starts to put out the candles and sees PALMER.

  PALMER: Where’s milady?

  LUCINDA: She can’t sleep for the drums, so she asked me to sit with her.

  PALMER goes upstairs.

  ANNIE: (To PALMER.) You were quick.

  PALMER: There’s talk.

  ANNIE: Mere talk never lost a good husband.

  PALMER: Was I palmed off with a stable lad’s shag?

  ANNIE: Even stable-lads swell bellies Mr. Palmer, and I was flat as an angel.

  PALMER: You were not intact.

  ANNIE: I lost it, alas, on a horse.

  PALMER: Was I a jackass to believe that?

  ANNIE: My father told you, before the banns.

  PALMER: There’s talk of murder.

  ANNIE: That was my great grand-mamma. She murdered her good husband in bed, and strangled the dumb bitch that barked at her.

  PALMER: Is there insanity in your family?

  ANNIE: She said there were more good men than good land. She was perfectly sane.

  PALMER: Did she hang?

  ANNIE: They hanged a servant. It was clearly a male job. She said there were too many servants.

  PALMER: There’s talk of witchcraft.

  ANNIE: Witches are useless aren’t they my dear. They couldn’t even put out the fires that burned them. Come to bed.

  PALMER: You break my heart and I’ll break your neck.

  PALMER exits. ANNIE stands at her window till she hears his horse gallop away, then she goes downstairs to RHONE, and bares a candle-lit breast.

  ANNIE: You daren’t tell, and I daren’t tell.

  RHONE: Right here quick.

  ANNIE: Come to the sea, and swim in it.

  RHONE: We can do everything right here quick.

  ANNIE: I want to play. (She strokes it with her toe.)

  RHONE: (Drowning.) I have my life. I have a woman.


  ANNIE: She has black breasts, with purple nipples.

  RHONE: (Grabbing at her.) Sea too far.

  ANNIE: I’m a witch. Fly me.

  RHONE: Don’t tease me. Don’t rape me.

  ANNIE: You want me?

  RHONE: Now.

  ANNIE exits and RHONE pursues her.

  Lights up on CHLOE clearing up coffee cups in the drawing-room. She starts to exit with a tray when ANNIE enters through the front door.

  ANNIE: Chloe, come here. (CHLOE puts tray down and walks the length of the room.) Are you spying on me?

  CHLOE: (Raising her voice.) Niggers are good for nothing but darkness and lechery. They have a big heavy black sinting like the devil, and lust burns the babies up. Bakkra give the women £5 for every pickney, but they not breedin’. They shrink from the pain God almighty ordain.

  ANNIE: You want them to suffer, do you Chloe?

  CHLOE: Woman tempted man with the apple of sex.

  ANNIE: And she must suffer for it?

  CHLOE: Yes mam. Woman ate the apple, and discovered sex, and lost all shame, and lift up her fig-leaf, and she must suffer the pains of hell. Monthly.

  ANNIE: You won’t spy on me again, will you Chloe?

  CHLOE: (Frightened.) What are you doing to me?

  ANNIE: Are you in pain?

  CHLOE: My monthly is starting on me.

  ANNIE: Is it your monthly?

  CHLOE: It’s early. (Frantic.) I need rum.

  ANNIE: Can’t you reach it?

  CHLOE falls, heading for the rum.

  CHLOE: (Screaming.) Don’t witch me, I beg you, don’t witch me.

  ANNIE: You go to the witches, don’t you?

  CHLOE: (Weeping.) Yes mam.

  ANNIE: Do they heal you?

  CHLOE: No milady. They use herbs, and when herbs fail, they use charms, and I smell hell every month, but I don’t know where else to turn. I want to breed for Cupid, but I can’t. (Weeps.) I’m a mule.

  ANNIE: For every malady of woman there’s a leaf in the forest, and the wise women who searched for them for centuries to stop their own pain and enjoy their desires, were called witches and burnt, and their knowledge destroyed. I do fear that the sexually disturbed rule the world, working our bodies to exhaustion, making useless silver and sugar and gold, binding with briars our joys and desires, as Mr. Blake the poet said. And you spy for them.

  CHLOE: Milady, I’m a slave. I love who I fear, and I fear you more than bakkra. My eyes are shut milady.

  ANNIE: I’ll have my bath now Chloe. That sounds delicious.

  Both exit. Lights down to just before dawn. Night noises. Gunshots. CHLOE appears at the top of the stairs, listening to them. ANNIE and RHONE enter, naked, from the sea, and cross CHLOE on the stairs. She averts her eyes.

  CHLOE: Morning milady.

  ANNIE: Dare anyone enter my rooms?

  CHLOE: No milady.

  ANNIE: We are not to be disturbed.

  CHLOE: I am only awake because I hear gun fire in the night.

  ANNIE: Couldn’t you sleep?

  CHLOE: No milady.

  ANNIE: Neither did we my dear. Goodnight Chloe.

  Exits with RHONE. CHLOE kneels down and prays. We hear the wash of the beautiful Caribbean. DAWES quietly enters the drawing-room. Sees CHLOE praying. Takes a rum. Looks at RHONE’s empty mat. Glances upstairs. Calls quietly to CHLOE, talking in whispers.

  DAWES: S-s-s-t. During the night I ran into five runaways.

  CHLOE: Did they have guns?

  DAWES: No, and wanted mine. I fired twice. Three ran away. (Drinks.) Two less… When I kill I feel sentimental, and came to see you in the delicate hours. (He looks again at RHONE’s empty mat and starts sniffing, his nostrils flaring.) You smell anything in this house?

  CHLOE: Like what?

  DAWES: Passion.

  CHLOE: There is no passion in this house.

  DAWES: I smell pussy-juice.

  CHLOE: You smell your own tail.

  DAWES: Some men can smell water and I can smell passion. I smell carnality in the house.

  CHLOE: Wine is a mocker.

  DAWES: You think I am drunk.

  CHLOE: Strong drink is ragin’.

  DAWES: I sincerely hope I am drunk. I am carnal when drunk. You think the carnality I smell may be my own?

  CHLOE: Yes Mr. Dawes.

  DAWES: Anytime I hear the word carnal I get a feeling right here between the eyebrows. (Touches his cock.)

  CHLOE: Yes me God.

  DAWES: You feel carnal?

  CHLOE: I have the house-work to do. (Bed starts creaking.)

  DAWES: (Listening.) Hear me state my predicament.

  CHLOE: (Listening.) State your predicament Mr. Dawes.

  DAWES: My sinting got lazy, and want to sleep at night, and need sensual refinements to incite it.

  CHLOE: (Listening.) Refinement?

  DAWES: (Listening.) Refinement.

  CHLOE: What about the white ladies? They not sensually refined?

  DAWES: Pshaw, every nigger wants a white woman, because that is either revenge or promotion, but I don’t need promotion.

  CHLOE: And what about revengin’ dem?

  DAWES: I get a conscience. (He gets excited by the creaking bed and starts feeling CHLOE.)

  CHLOE: Bakkra came back again in the night.

  DAWES: I knew I smelt passion. The sound of the bed is very incitin’.

  CHLOE: (Fending him off.) What about all the young coloured girls in the kitchen?

  DAWES: Phsaw, they too renk and too young. They want romance and play the man not the ball.

  CHLOE: Lawd, Mr. Dawes, state your requirement to every house-gal and one of them will know how to incite you.

  DAWES: Chloe, is that now. I don’t know exactly what I want. All I know is I go along without satisfaction, yet I am a big man on this estate. (Dialect.) Habbe, habbe, no want it. Want-it, want-it, can’t get it.

  CHLOE: You have it you don’t want it, you want it, you want it, you can’t get it.

  DAWES: That’s my predicament.

  CHLOE: But you’re a big side-man on the estate. You can get it anytime.

  DAWES: But if I can get it, I don’t want it. I’m chronic.

  CHLOE: I hear unmentionable things about you Mr. Dawes. I hear you suffer from sadness after the act.

  DAWES: There is nothing unmentionable about that.

  CHLOE: The unmentionable, of course, cannot be mentioned.

  The creaking stops. DAWES listens a long time, enjoining CHLOE to silence every so often. In the stillness RHONE appears at the top of the stairs. He hears and sees nobody and starts descending. CHLOE sees him and distracts DAWES.

  (Amorously.) Come here Mr. Dawes.

  RHONE reverses up the stairs.

  DAWES: You want me now?

  CHLOE: Well to tell you the God’s truth Mr. Dawes I don’t want you at all, but you can break down me door if that will incite you.

  DAWES: That won’t suit.

  CHLOE: Well whatever suit you sir.

  DAWES: Your tail must say yes, and your mouth must demurely say no.

  CHLOE: My mouth say yes, and my tail say no.

  DAWES: That is lip-service.

  CHLOE: What more you want?

  DAWES: Tails yes, heads no.

  CHLOE: That’s very refined.

  DAWES: And I don’t want anybody else down there but me. So talk now.

  CHLOE: Yes Mr. Dawes, but right now it’s me monthly.

  DAWES: (Disgusted.) Oh me God. You know there are four swear words in the Jamaican language for your condition: rass-cloth, bumbo-cloth, blood-cloth, pussy-cloth. That must be unique.

  CHLOE exits, shocked as ANNIE enters.

  DAWES: Milady slept well?

  ANNIE: And safely thank you Dawes.

  DAWES: Is bakkra upstairs?

  ANNIE: Why?

  DAWES: Rhone slept in the house?

  ANNIE: Yes.

  DAWES: I trust not too soundly milady.

  ANNIE: Sl
eep on a mat on the floor would hardly be sound.

  They exit in different directions. PRINCESS enters with an armful of flowers and puts them in a vase. ANNIE re-enters with a cup of tea.

  PRINCESS: (Pouring a powder into the tea.) Swallow this.

  ANNIE: How many more?

  PRINCESS: Two more milady. Dawes is spying on you.

  ANNIE: Tell me about Dawes.

  PRINCESS: He’s a forger, and will forge the deeds for this house.

  ANNIE: Tell me more.

  PRINCESS: He has two eyes and one mouth and sees twice as much as he says.

  ANNIE: I feel exposed.

  PRINCESS: What will you do about Dawes?

  ANNIE: Nothing. I never put my head out to see if I’m seen… Such an exquisite morning. So clear. And there’s my headless man. He put his head out. (PRINCESS sees nothing.) Do you see spooks my dear?

  PRINCESS: No milady.

  ANNIE: The dogs chewed his head off. Can’t you even sense him? Herrera. (Rolls the name round her tongue.) Mr. Herrera. What a torso. And there’s his bleeding head. I have no idea how I’ll get those two together… Yes, I think I know.

  Blackout.

  Lights up on PALMER in the drawing room, leafing through ANNIE’s sketchbook. RHONE enters.

  PALMER: She’s sketching Abuku?

  RHONE: Yes bakkra.

  PALMER: She’s sketching you?

  RHONE: Yes, sir.

  PALMER: (Dismissing RHONE.) That is all. Send Dawes in. (RHONE exits. PALMER pours himself a rum.)

  Dawes…

  DAWES: Bakkra.

  PALMER: I want to look at my will.

  DAWES: It can’t be changed sir. Milady inherits. No strings.

  PALMER: That is an incitement to murder.

  DAWES: I warned you sir.

  PALMER: Dawes.

  DAWES: Bakkra?

  PALMER: You forged the deed for the Ramble estate.

  DAWES: And now Ramble is yours.

  PALMER: Forge a new will. Milady inherits, unless I die childless or suspiciously. Then Cupid inherits. If the rumours are true it will not be contested.

  DAWES: Your attorney must be party to that, and he’s in England.

  PALMER: He’ll be back in a fortnight. On the next boat. I’ll be on the estate if you want me.

  Both exit. RHONE re-enters, looking for ANNIE. She comes in with flowers from the garden.

  RHONE: There is suspicion.

  ANNIE: Not too late to stop.

  RHONE: Too late. (He kisses her; romantic.) Why are you married? Why did you marry?

  ANNIE: My hole is my fortune. And now my husband means to kill me with child. Unless he dies.

  RHONE: (Dialect.) Bakkra na dead. Bakkra born under the ram. Bakkra piss heavy.