by Rita Marley
Eating—specifically, what am I gonna cook for our dinner tonight?—was exactly what I’d been thinking about when the car knocked me over. It had never occurred to me that I might stop concentrating on the road, and when it happened I was totally surprised and frightened. Why had this happened to me? By then people on the street were used to seeing me, so all around me I heard “Queenie, your records!” and “Queenie, you all right?” Everyone tried to help me, people gathered in the street. “Queenie, man, you no fear ride the bicycle?” “Queenie, man, you forget you aren’t a car?” And I’m thinking, yeah, that’s true! I’m gonna stop doing this, I’m gonna give this over to one of the guys! I’d hurt myself, too, but I was just glad the accident hadn’t been fatal, and when Bob saw me, and saw what the bicycle looked like, that was the day I stopped riding to sell records!
I’d been worried about cooking because most of Bob’s friends had started coming to our house, and they had to be fed, that’s how they were. Aunty’s place had become a social scene. They’d stay all day and they would make music, smoke a little (well away from the house), talk, make more music, tell jokes, make more music, play a little football (soccer). A lot of people learned from Bob the discipline and patience required for making music. As Ansel Cridland of the Meditations was to say years later, “Is not like a thing that is just run in there and look at the clock and trying to get it done in … an hour or something. It’s a time. And when you spend time on your work you get better results. Working with Bob Marley was a great experience.”
Still, I was the one who had to think about practical things, like making sure we had something to eat, and paying for the electricity we used playing records over and over, because even though we weren’t paying Aunty rent, it was only right that we paid for the power. So if I wasn’t thinking about the next meal, or the electric bill, I was worrying about how we’d pay the bill for the bed and dresser we’d bought on credit at Courts Furniture Store in Crossroads.
Sometimes Aunty would say she didn’t see any life in this; she’d be upset because it didn’t look like there was going to be a better day. I was always under that microscope of hers, and she would make sure I knew it. But then our music began to be played on the radio and the sound systems; the street people were reacting to our music, and after that we started doing a little TV. Aunty liked that, she liked the charisma, she liked the excitement. And now, when people would ask her, “How is Rita?” she’d say with a smile, “Oh she’s not too bad. She turned out—not as we wanted, but you know, t’ank God, she’s not too bad!”
My brother Wesley, though, was furious when he found out about my Rastafari beliefs. Though Bob and I were already married, as a policeman Wesley felt he had a little authority, and he had an attitude, you might say. “Do you think it is right,” he asked me when he came home from one of his parish assignments, “after all the money Aunty and I spent on you, that you end up like this? What are you getting out of it? You think because you’re married you’re big? You’re still under our protection, and you have no right to be a Rasta! That’s being worthless!”
I said to him, “You have no right to be a policeman, you’re a Babylon!”
And he boxed me! Slapped my face—pow! I cried and thought, I’m still being treated like a child. What the hell is this, where’s my life? But I was determined, despite all these objections.
When Bob heard about my brother having hit me, he cried too—even more than I had. He felt humiliated that this had happened to his wife, and there was nothing he could do because we were living in their house. He felt he was no longer just “Robbie”—Aunty still called him “the boy”—but a married man with responsibilities. So he said, “You know what we should do? Come, let’s go to my home.”
He meant his birthplace in the countryside at Nine Miles, St. Ann. The idea appealed to me, since I’d never been there and it could be something new. But despite being married and nearly twenty-two years old, I was still so young and inexperienced that I said, “Oh, first I have to ask Aunty!”
But I also didn’t feel Bob was capable or prepared enough to take up responsibility for me, wholly and solely, 100 percent.
Nevertheless, we decided to go. I was already pregnant with Cedella, and Aunty said, “You’re crazy, you’re gonna go down there and tu’n wu’thless, you’re gonna be a country woman, what is he gonna give you? You’re gonna do farming? You’re gonna plant yams and cabbage?”
And Bob’s mother wrote that St. Ann would be the end of us, that he should come back to Delaware and be a gentleman—the type who wears neckties and works nine to five and commutes was what she wanted. You’re going back to the careless life, she said, the life that doesn’t show money-making. You and Rita have no ambition!
Like many other parents the world over, Jamaican parents wanted you to make money, but only the way they’d intended. Otherwise they were upset with you. How dare you be what you want to be! But Bob had his directions and I believed they were right for him and so I encouraged him to follow them. I felt I would always be by his side. Later on I was given a lot of scorn, and many accusations came my way for urging him to remain conscious of his calling and his religion and his power. But then I said, “If going to St. Ann is what he wants, I’m gonna do it. Whatever my husband wants me to do.”
chapter four
TO LOVE SOMEBODY
EVEN BEFORE WE decided to go to St. Ann, we’d been talking about the changes in Aunty, who had started to act a little suspicious—or maybe just condescending—in response to everything we did. Bob felt that she was getting a bit of a sore eye with us being around so long and not able to get out of her place. I think what offended her most was our refusal to eat from her pot, because she cooked pork whenever she felt like, which of course was her right. I understood that, and usually cooked our food separately, but I guess it didn’t make any difference. Bob and I had discussed the situation for many, many nights, as he was getting very unhappy and had begun to spend most of his time across the street, rather than staying in Aunty’s yard and hearing himself constantly referred to as “the boy” or included with his friends as “dem boys.”
Our plan was to go to Nine Miles and live in the house his father had given his mother, which was then standing empty. If we spent some time there and saved a little money, we figured, maybe we would be able to afford rent so that we could eventually come out of Aunty’s place. Or maybe we could build a house in Nine Miles, though the fact that I was all for going there didn’t entirely put Bob’s mind at ease. “There’s no water, no electricity, it’s not like you’re used to,” he kept saying. And I kept answering, “Well, let’s just try it. I want to. I want to go there, see what it’s like.” I felt it was compulsory for me to have this experience, because I didn’t know his family and wanted to know where he was coming from. All I knew about St. Ann was that Marcus Garvey had come from there, too.
I know my enthusiasm made Bob happy anyway, and I guess we were so in love we didn’t care where we were as long as we were together. This was when he recorded “Chances Are”—which, as usual, was about the life we were leading: “Chances are we’re gonna leave now/ chances are hang on right now/ though our days are filled with sorrows/ I see years of bright tomorrows …” I kept my eyes on those “bright tomorrows.”
I was so excited, so eager to go when the time came, that even Aunty’s continual grumbling didn’t bother me. I was like a child! I went shopping because we had to carry flour and rice and sugar, since Bob said there weren’t any places to buy staple foods there. I packed the suitcase he’d brought from America, all the while listening to Aunty in the background: “Where you think you’re going, you don’t know, you don’t know, you never did this before, they might take advantage of you … You might get sick, what can they give you if you get sick, what kind of clinic you’re going to, to have your pregnancy tests?” And all of this and that.
Finally I said, “Don’t worry so, Aunty! I’ll write you, and I’ll come back in a
bout a week to let you know how we are, and if it don’t suit, I’ll come back altogether.” And that seemed to satisfy her a little. In any case, she knew I’d keep my word about returning, because we were leaving Sharon with her while we settled ourselves, and Aunty knew we didn’t plan to stay away from Sharon for too long.
At last it was time to go and we went down to Parade Square, in downtown Kingston, where the buses leave from, to catch a country bus, one of the painted buses that Jamaica is famous for, with names like “Amazing Grace” or “Praise the Lord.” Right away I said, “I want the window, I want the window!” But up to the last minute Bob was still questioning me. I’d already sat down and had my nose pressed to the glass when he said, “You sure?” Of course I was sure—to me it was like going on a long trip, plus the chance to learn more about him and how he grew up. And that to me would only mean I could love him even more.
It’s about a seventy-five-mile journey to St. Ann, a couple of hours if you go in a car without making too many stops, but for more than four hours that country bus went slowly over winding mountain roads, stopping at every corner. And that was an experience! People got on with children, chickens, baskets full of every conceivable variety of fruit and vegetable. It didn’t do too much for the morning sickness I was having—in fact, at one stop I had to jump off the bus to throw up—but I just kept looking out the window and trying to breathe the fresh air and stay positive.
When we finally got off after reaching Nine Miles, it seemed as if the whole neighborhood had come out to welcome us. It was a party! People were shouting, “Oh, it’s Nesta!” and “Mas Nes come home!” and “Mas Nes come and bring him wife!” And then Bob pointed up this long hill, almost like a mountain, and said, “There’s the house.” And I looked up and said, “That’s the house?” Because it wasn’t what I thought of as a house, or at least not what we meant by a house in Trench Town. But he said, “Yes, that’s it, let’s go.”
We climbed the hill, though it was getting dark and as he had warned, there was no electricity, so there were cries of “Where’s the lamp? Where’s the lamp?” And when we got inside and I saw there was no kitchen or toilet, I thought, oh my God, what did I get myself into. The smell of the place nauseated me, and I realized that this is what Aunty had been trying to warn me about. Still, I knew that going back to Trench Town right then was not an option. Whatever it is, I thought, that’s what my husband has, and that’s what I have to accept. I felt as if I had entered a different world.
Yet being surrounded by all these loving people who were so glad to see us felt just fine. His mother’s sister’s children, his cousins Clove, Dotty, and Helen, and his Aunt Amy and Aunty Ceta made me so welcome and kept saying, “Oh Mas Nes, what a nice girl you have for your wife!” “Anything you want, just call.” It was decided that Clove was to be the helper for us, and to this day Clove is still Cedella’s favorite, because it was she who nurtured me through my pregnancy.
That night I told Bob that it looked like life was going to be rough, but that I was ready. The next day we got started, trying to figure out how we were going to make things work. We had to rig up a bed from some boards and logs, and prepare a kitchen. But everybody came and gave a hand. And I really began to enjoy the adventure.
At the end of a week, as I’d promised, I took the bus back to Kingston to spend some time with Sharon and tell Aunty how fine we were, and so she could see for herself that I was still looking good. Naturally she was not impressed. “You better come back home!” was all she had to say. So I had to close my ears. I bought some things we needed, borrowed some curtains and sheets from Aunty, kissed Sharon and promised to take her with me next time, and went downtown and got back on the bus. I remember that this one was called “Promised Land.”
And we began to live happily in that land—without worrying that Aunty was listening to everything we did and said. We could scream and be happy and be free! And that was such fun, to be totally independent. I felt, at last, like a grown woman. I’d get up in the morning and go to my own little kitchen, and bring water up the hill to my yard. Just the thought that we owned a yard now made Bob so proud. I think it added to his manhood. You could see the change in him, now that he was in his territory. And I could tell he was happy, because the first thing he took up after we unpacked was his little acoustic guitar. And right away he started to play and write songs—one of them mentions “the house on top of the hill.”
And we did, indeed “do farming,” as Aunty had predicted, on property that had belonged to his grandfather that someone in Bob’s family allowed him to use. We planted yams, potatoes, and cabbage, and to get to our farm we had a pet donkey called Nimble. Every morning our friend Nimble would take me to the farm on his back, clippety-clop, clippety-clop, slowly, slowly, with Bob walking beside, and everybody would say, “Mas Nes!” “Hi, Mas Nes!” “Morning!” “Mornin’, Miz Marley!” I felt like a queen on the back of that donkey! Clippety-clop, clippety clop … Country people don’t just pass you, everybody we met said, “Howdy” or “How do you do?” And of course you had to reply: “Fine, thank you, ma’am!” or “God bless you, man.” Bob once spoke about that in an interview: He said he never minded what people said about him, because where he came from in St. Ann people always blessed him, would say, “Good morning, Mas Nesta, God bless you, sir.”
He treated Nimble like a son—even gave him vitamins! Wherever we went, Nimble was with us. I could hardly wait for the next morning to get on that donkey, with my big belly sticking out, to ride to the farm or to the village. Aunty had worried that I’d be pregnant without any attention; in the country, she was sure, there were no clinics. But Clove found one where I could be examined.
Every other week or so I went to Kingston to keep our business in perspective, to make sure we weren’t losing money and customers, because that’s what we ate our food from, the few records that sold. The bus would pass by our house early in the morning, around six-thirty, and I’d ride for three or four hours with the country people and their chickens and boxes from St. Ann to Kingston. I bought food in Kingston and took it back to the country to supplement what we managed to get there. And I’d better not forget to buy the tonic for Nimble—Bob would be so disappointed if I came back without Nimble’s bee pollen! But whenever we were broke, or when my sugar or something else I couldn’t afford was finished, or when I needed a pillowcase, I’d say, “Aunty, I need,” and she’d say, “You have towels?” But I’d have to pay a price: One day I let her cut my dreadlocks off, because I knew she wanted to see me as she saw me, as the Rita, not the Rasta!
But I knew my locks would grow again, and more important, I knew where I wanted to be. The bus back to St. Ann left at five in the evening, and if you missed it you had to stay in Kingston overnight, there was no way you could get back except to hire a taxi, which I couldn’t afford. So I always tried to be first on line at Parade when that bus opened its doors. Sometimes I’d take Sharon with me, to spend some time, because she hadn’t yet started school. While I was gone Bob would clean the house and cook a meal so we’d have something to eat when we arrived. And there he’d be when the bus pulled up, just as he always said: “Rita, you look out for me when the bus come, I’ll be standing up waiting for you.” Years later, when he was called “the first Third World Superstar” and the “Negus” of reggae (meaning “the semidivine Ultimate”), I always wanted to remind people what led there. In St. Ann he had one pair of underpants, which I washed out every night. And if he cared enough to have a meal waiting for me when I came back from Kingston, I wanted to be back in time to care for him.
All in all I stayed healthy throughout my pregnancy, building Cedella in that country atmosphere; maybe that’s why she’s so strong today. And I was very active between going back and forth from Trench Town to St. Ann, going to the farm, and riding Nimble with that belly bouncing up and down under my chin.
But the clinic where I was being examined, in the village of Stepney, was quite a few miles
away, and after a while I was so big, and it was so hard for me to walk any distance, that getting there became a problem. Then they said my iron was low and put me on some iron tablets. When I told Aunty, she had a fit. “See? You’re not eating! What they’re giving you? Only yam and cabbage! You have to come home, you have to drink milk, eat meat and fish, or you can’t have the baby … Oh Lord, look what this child come to …”
And then I began to get nervous about the whole situation. I knew from what little I had studied in nursing school that some of what I needed was not available. And they’d just put a thermometer in someone’s mouth, then maybe dip it in some alcohol and flash it and put it in your mouth! Getting closer to the time of Cedella’s delivery, I began to think that Aunty’s threats had some reason. “Because what if you should need a cesarean, or anything else should happen with this baby’s delivery …” And oh no, I didn’t want anything to happen to me or my baby, Bob’s first baby. Besides, I’d begun to reconsider those warnings: What you gonna do down there? Gonna do farming? Gonna plant yams? I kept wondering where the decision to come here had taken me, apart from walking up and down the hill and going for water to the parish tank—which I enjoyed, but was this what I’d be doing for the rest of my life? After a while I began thinking about how I could make this change and not leave Bob, because I loved him so much that I wanted to be with him wherever he was going to be.
Eventually we decided that we should go back to Kingston a month before the baby was due. So I had Cedella in Kingston, and there we were, back at Aunty’s again. But my brother had left the police force and emigrated to Canada, which made life a little easier because there was less tension in the house. And now we knew we had a place to go, that we could always go to St. Ann and be welcomed there. Most of all, even if it hadn’t lasted, that taste of independence had been sweet.