‘Tell me all about him. Go on.’
‘Well, he’s tall, like he needs to be of course, and clever. He’s already passed math and history; that’s what he wants to do, history. He wants to study at college and go on to teach history. There’s nothing else on his mind but getting to college, and his folks pushing him hard for it too. Fancy that Safi. College. Nobody in his family ever been to college.’
‘Oh my, Arletta.’
His pa’s working flat out on the highway for it, and his ma’s doing domestic for two families. He’s got three sisters, all of them older than he is, and from what I hear, all of them in that family are hell bent on Red getting into college. I can’t see any doubting it at all. I like Red Benson on account of his good manners, for one thing, and he can sit in a room for four hours reading without saying a word.
I can tell that ain’t the kind of information Safi wants to be hearing about so I say, ‘And he takes size ten-and-a-half in shoes, in case Ainsley wants to know …’
‘Oh Arletta, ya know all about him. So what does he look like?’
‘He’s tall, and he takes size ten-and-a-half in shoes.’
‘Stop it.’
‘He’s just as good looking as Ainsley, thank you very much. I guess I’m just gonna say he can come over here so you can check him out for y’self.’
Well, with Safi pushing for it, there ain’t no way I’m gonna be able to get out of it at all. I’ll have to introduce him to Mrs Archer-Laing and Monsieur Desnoyers too. He ain’t gonna get through the front door and into that parlour unless he gets the okay outta them. They’ll be needing to know if he’s a churchgoer and it ain’t no surprise at all that I never thought of asking.
But Red Benson’s fine manners get him through all of that without a hitch.
‘He’s just ya sort,’ says Safi when she meets him. ‘I mean, he’s what ya call the studying kind, and that’s your kind too, for sure. Ainsley ain’t ever read anything but a price tag. And ain’t Red got a fine set of teeth?’
‘A fine set of teeth?’
We laugh about Red’s teeth till Agnes starts banging.
Red truly does like his studies, and he’s what I call a gentleman. I’m right pleased with that because he only ever pecks my cheek when he’s leaving. I sometimes think he might have a notion about my nerves.
Errol is always asking us if we want to try something new he’s just cooked up. Safi and Ainsley seem to be out all the time, over seeing his folks or down at the mill village, jiving and talking, so it’s just me and Red sitting in the back parlour reading and tasting for Errol. He’s baking all kinds of stuff from the New English Cookbook Mrs Archer-Laing brought back from her last trip, and we must have tried a slice of every tart and pie placed in front of the real King of England himself.
‘Lord, Errol, I swear my beau is just round here for some of that cooking, some of that pie.’
‘Sure am.’
‘So, ya not round here thinking I’m the finest catch in class?’
Errol is dishing up fruit pie covered in white sugar and saying, ‘I reckon ya is, Arletta.’
‘Ya ain’t seen the rest of that class, Errol. Ain’t two legs matching in it.’ Red gets one of Mrs Archer-Laing’s cushions slapped over his head for that. But we’re easy.
It feels so fine I don’t even notice Safi getting quiet till after everything happens and I look back on it. I’m so full of thinking about the first boy I ever really got to know that I just don’t notice she’s piling on the pounds till it gets like she can’t fit in her own clothes.
‘Ya getting porky Miss Sucree, that’s what that skirt is trying to tell ya.’
‘I know it. I’m gonna have a word with Errol about the size of his plates, and how nice and tasty all that baking is. Especially molasses pie. He gotta stop making that.’
‘Oh no, don’t ask him to do that.’
‘Well, maybe he should stop with that sugar pecan topping of his.’
‘Oh, not that either. Please.’
‘Well, I’m sure getting to look like one of his pies.’
I go home to see the pink cabin. Mambo is still growing her herbs in the front yard and the plot out back is yielding good since Quince started doing things round the place. He ain’t exactly what I’d call altogether his old self, but whatever Mambo is giving him sure seems to have got the devil in him tamed good and tilling soil. Even wrapped up Pappy’s fig tree; told me all about it. She’s still winking and wiggling, and he looks stuck on her again, so I reckon they’ve worked something out. Rochelle’s got a bit of me and Pappy in her with all her reading, and I see Quince is right proud of her.
‘I’m tellin’ ya, Arletta, he’s talking about his li’l girl gettin’ good learning from y’all, and he’s right happy with how ya keep bringing her on.’
‘He ain’t never been happy with me at all Mambo, never been.’
‘Ain’t true honey. He come to his senses and right fond of ya, just took him time, is all. Proud of all ya learning, tells folks about it.’
At least the place looks like he’s doing something with it at last, and he doesn’t smell of liquor. Mambo told me that’s on account of him getting carried back to the cabin one time, ain’t even able to stand on his own two feet with boozing. Rochelle bawl and cry and don’t want nothing to do with him for days. That just about do it. He lay off it from then, got grown-up senses. Just took him a time, like Mambo says.
Soon as get I back to Marksville after that visit, I feel something is wrong. Safi is curled up in bed; it’s not even five-thirty in the afternoon.
‘Hi Safi. How the folks? I was thinking I might meet ya on the bus, to tell y’all about Quince quitting liquor. Lord, he’s changed, holding conversations and sticking about the place, ain’t a weed left alive out there. Ya must have left your folks early.’
No answer.
‘Mambo says your ma’s rheumatism is much better with whatever she’s giving her. Lord knows what she’s putting in it, but if it works, it works. That’s what I always say about it. Ya ain’t sleepin’ already? Ya okay?’
I only notice then that Safi is shivering in the bed, drenched in sweat with a fever coming out all over. Her eyes are rolling up in her sockets and she’s looking like Mambo in one of her trances. My heart sinks low.
‘Safi? Safi what happened? Ya burning up. Oh, poor Safi, you sure are looking ill. I’ll go get Errol. He knows about fevers and colds, he’ll have something …’
She grabs hold of my blouse.
‘No. No Errol.’
‘Don’t be silly, Safi, ya looking terrible. We might even need a doctor. Errol’s gonna know what to do.’
‘No. Please no …’
Safi sounds like a bucket of stones are rumbling round the back of her throat. She’s shaking and pulling at her belly. Like she’s having some kinda fit is all I can think of.
‘What’s wrong, Safi? Ya hurting? Ya belly hurting?’
‘No Errol … doctor. I’m burnin’, burnin’. Please … stay with me Arletta, don’t get no doctor. Read that … please read that …’
‘Read what?’
Safi is slipping away.
‘Read it, Arletta, read it, please, please.’
She passes out right then. I stay awake all night mopping her sweat and wiping her down, but she’s just going from bad to worse. She comes to a couple of times, but I can’t make any sense of her mumbling. I tell Errol we’re both down with heavy colds and need a couple of days off work. I sniffle like it’s true, and make out I’m feeling groggy, so he says he’s gonna send word to her boss and over to the foreman at the mill so we don’t need to be worrying about that.
I bring hot milk for Safi, but she just about manages a sip and no more. Next thing I know she’s thrashing all over the place and I’m struggling to hold her down. I keep thinking the fever’s gonna pass soon, but then she starts throwing up. Her vomit is dark like treacle, thick and foul-smelling, and it keeps coming like it’s never gonna stop.
It’s all over Mrs Archer-Laing’s sheets, and her mattress.
I’m pacing in and out of the bathroom filling our jug with fresh water to keep her wiped down and as clean as I can. When all the throwing up stops, she lays there, eyes cloudy, and I don’t think she’s even hearing me speak. On days like these, when the heat lasts long past dark, water ain’t for running the way I’ve being doing and I just hope nobody hears me in and out of that bathroom. I hope Safi comes out of this before that tank runs out.
But it does run out and the pump pounds through the house for the whole world to hear.
I’m sitting on the floor feeling ready to give up when our door opens and Errol pops his head round. He takes one look at Safi, comes in and lifts up her eyelids. Then he feels for her pulse.
‘What’s happenin’ here, Arletta?’
I let the tears go because of his soft voice and me past knowing what’s happening here at all.
‘I don’t know, Errol, she’s been like this since I come back from seeing my folks yesterday. When I got back she was laying here all done out like this and sweating all over. I thought she must be having some kind of fit, and the last thing she said is don’t get Errol, don’t get no doctor. She made me promise no doctor. I don’t know what to do and she don’t seem to be getting better at all.’
‘Hush. We don’t need Agnes hearing nothing about this. She’s feelin’ hot, but wrap her up all the same. I’m gonna come back just now. I’m gonna fetch something. Maybe it helps, maybe it don’t, I ain’t sure. But I’m gonna try.’
I wrap a fresh sheet from my own bed round Safi and lie down next to her crying quiet tears so Agnes won’t hear me. Then Errol comes back carrying a glass of what looks like milk but smells like something else.
‘She gotta drink this right away. Lift her head up now. We need to be sure on gettin’ most of it down her throat. It’s gonna help.’
I lift Safi and hold her head back so Errol can spoon-feed her. My heart is breaking to see Safi this way. Her eyes are open but I know they ain’t seeing a thing. We’re speaking to her but there ain’t no sign she’s hearing any of it either. Her jawbone hangs slack like she’s never had a thought of sense in her life.
Errol is slow and patient. He gets most of it down her throat, says this is something he’s seen before.
‘Poison.’
‘What?’
‘She gone and taken somethin’, Arletta. I’s sure of it. I reckon she gone and got herself with child and now she’s taken somethin’ to be shot of it. Ain’t the first time I seen this, Arletta, but I never thought I was ever gonna see it again. She’s gone got herself in a heap of trouble.’
I don’t know how that can be at all. She never said a word to me, so that just can’t be what’s wrong. But then, when I think of the weight she’s been putting on for months, she’s about twice the size of me now, though I’m sure skinny still, I start to fear he might be right.
Errol lifts the sheet and feels Safi’s belly.
‘She gone and left it way too late. She clean outta time on it. This sorta thing needin’ to be done in the first few weeks, if folks thinkin’ on doing it at all. I ain’t no doctor, Arletta, but I say she’s gone over six months already. Ain’t no child that much on comin’ away easy. Any child that far on is bed-in hard. That child holding on strong and waiting to be born.’
‘What we gonna do, Errol?’
‘Where she get it, Arletta? What she took?’
I look at Safi. She’s calm now, awake it seems, but ain’t nothing going on in her head at all, I can see that. She’s staring blind, like there’s nothing out there to look at. Then she blinks, real slow like it’s hard work. I get minded of the first day I ever set eyes on her, when she come over our way to pick something up from Mambo to help her ma get her pa back home from wandering. I reckon she’s been to see Mambo.
‘I’m not sure about it, Errol, but maybe she got something from my ma. It’s hard to think my ma would give her this, but Safi, well she don’t know anybody else … and my ma, she’s …’
I’m sick at heart thinking my Mambo would do this to my best friend, and kin to her own best friend. It don’t seem right, but I always wondered if one day my Mambo might go plumb crazy.
Errol puts a bony arm on my shoulder and lets me weep.
When I dry my eyes, he goes to the window and looks down Main Street. I guess there’s a world out there carrying on like nothing happened. Inside our room underneath the eaves, Safi’s in trouble and he don’t reckon she’s ever coming out of it. If any sheriff finds out what’s happened here, they’re gonna come down hard on it. Mambo could end up with a lynching, no question about it.
‘That baby need to be comin’, Arletta. It likely to come too soon, but it gonna come.’
‘How? How can a baby be all right when she’s like this?’
‘I ain’t saying the baby gonna be all right. I saying it gonna come.’
I don’t know what to do. I’m just so worried about her, and her folks. Her ma’s gonna fall apart, ain’t no question about that. She’s gonna go right over the edge if she sees Safi lying there carrying a child and not a bit of sense in her head. Errol is gonna start her on fresh milk to line her insides. Might be, when evening comes around, she’s able to start taking fresh custard. That sure would be a good sign and I’d be happy to see her eating something. Maybe that’s gonna start pushing some of that poison on through.
‘What are we gonna do, though? We need to be telling Ainsley and her ma, don’t we? Oh my Lord, this just gonna put an end to her ma.’
‘Well, I reckon ya oughta go get Ainsley. Ya know where his folks biding?’
‘Yes, yes. I’ll go get him.’
I sneak downstairs, though I don’t think Mrs Archer-Laing is home, and slip out to fetch Ainsley. I don’t know what I’m gonna tell him. I’ve got no proof at all that Mambo gave Safi whatever it is she’s gone and taken. With so many old brews supposed to get rid of babies, we hear about them all the time at the mill, and so many old wives and young fools willing to hand them out, I get to thinking I ain’t gonna mention Mambo at all right now. Outside the two-roomed cabin where Ainsley lives with his family I put a full brace on myself and pray he answers the door himself.
He don’t. I started praying too late in life, ain’t got no knack for it at all. One of his sisters asks me in; she’s right cheerful.
‘Well, see, it’s just that Safi ain’t well and says she wants Ainsley over right away.’
Ainsley’s real happy to see me, but I never saw a smile wipe off a face so fast in all my life. He speeds on ahead like a bolt of lightning and it’s all I’m able to do to keep him in plain sight. By the time I get there, he’s already cradling Safi in his arms.
‘What’s wrong? What happened?’
‘I don’t know anything about it Ainsley …’ My voice don’t even sound like it’s my own. Errol sits next to Ainsley and puts a hand on his shoulder.
‘Son, I think Safi took something.’
‘Took something? What?’
I start to tell him but Errol puts his hand up, asking me to say nothing. He used to see this happen all the time back in the old days, so I take his advice. I’m about as shocked as he is, though, when Ainsley says there ain’t no chance of Safi being in the family way.
‘Well, I’m just as sure as sure can be Ainsley. I’m guessing well over six months. I ain’t no doctor, mind you, but that’s what I’m gonna say about it, that’s what it’s sure feelin’ like.’
‘And y’all thinking she took something to be rid of it? Safi, Safi, it’s me, Ainsley. Look at me, Safi. She ain’t with no child, no way.’
Ainsley is raising his voice but Safi’s poor head just rolls around stupid.
‘Okay,’ says Errol, ‘but when I’ve seen this, stuff taken when the child gets so far on, that baby always comes. Whatever she took, she took too late. That baby still there, Ainsley, ain’t been no blood or nothing. Eh, Arletta? Ya ain’t seen no bleeding come a
way?’
I shake my head.
‘It ain’t mine, we ain’t never, we ain’t never done it.’ Ainsley’s voice is low like a whisper. ‘Safi always says she’s gonna wait till we get married, that’s what she wants. We been thinking about maybe getting married, we just start thinking about it. Ain’t that right, Arletta?’
Errol turns my way, eyebrow raised up like I might know something I don’t. Safi never told me anything about having a child and I don’t know about no father if it ain’t Ainsley. The whole business don’t make any sense at all and I’m starting to feel like I’m accusing somebody of something, though I ain’t sure what of. It’s just that feeling. Safi never said a word about sleeping with anybody – not Ainsley, not anybody.
‘Ain’t legal, taking something, is it? I mean, folks get … folks get hauled up for it, don’t they?’ Ainsley starts to shake.
‘We sure gotta be thinking what’s best to do here, boy. The law don’t get nowhere with this sort of thing anyhows.’
Errol throws me a look that makes me feel better. It sure ain’t legal and we all know that. One good thing is that everybody will close up ranks, ain’t nobody gonna say no word to the law. It’s gonna be like nobody knows nothing. Trouble is, they’ll just pick on somebody and turn the whole thing into some kinda circus. Some folks don’t ever get to court: they’re gone, and the next thing you know they’re swinging. Ain’t none of that gonna help Safi, or Ainsley.
‘I’m tellin’ ya, son, say nothin’ to the law.’
‘I ain’t saying nothing to no law. I ain’t answering no questions. I ain’t got no answers for this, Errol.’
But I need to know what we’re gonna do about Safi. What is Mrs Archer-Laing going to think is going on? I’m asking because I’m not following what exactly we s’posed to be doing here, and we sure need to be doing something.
Errol takes a deep breath.
‘I’m gonna make sure the missus goes out in the morning and the two of y’all gonna get Safi back to her ma. Ya gotta hide her before the law gets on it. If Monsieur Desnoyers finds out, he’s gonna get the law in, that’s for sure.’
What the River Washed Away Page 15