by Olive Senior
“Devil’s food, my favourite,” she said after we’d been silent for a few mouthfuls. “It’s what Auntie used to make for my birthday. She was a great baker but she never made this any other time so I spent a whole year looking forward to it.”
I paused with my fork halfway to my mouth. Celia must have realized what she’d said, for she suddenly looked down at her plate. “Sorry. That just slipped out. I know you don’t like to hear me talk about them.” Instead of the unconcealed enjoyment of a moment ago, her face started to close in and she was using her fork to play with the cake.
I felt awful then, as if I was the one denying her joy. And I realized that I really wanted to hear what she had to say. It is true that I have never wanted to hear anything of these people before, but now I found I was curious.
“No, please,” I said. “Did you have a party on your birthday?”
“Yes. They always made a big fuss. Invited the neighbours’ and their friends’ children.”
She seemed reluctant to go on, so I asked, “So what was the party like? What did you all do?”
She smiled a bit. “We wore paper hats and played games. The cake had candles, which I blew out. All the children took home presents. I had lots of presents too. Uncle would put on a fake moustache and a funny hat with stars on it and entertain us with magic tricks. I was so happy my birthday fell in the summer holidays so I was at home, not like some of the poor girls at boarding school whose birthdays fell during term. Some of the parents did send cake and arranged for ice cream, but it wasn’t the same, was it?”
I wouldn’t know, I thought, never having had a birthday party myself, nor for that matter having ever organized one for my children. We would note the date and try to give the child a little present, something special. But organizing a party is not something I would have thought of doing. I don’t know anyone in our part of the country who did.
Celia had fallen silent and was putting cake in her mouth, but not with the previous enjoyment. I could feel a kind of sadness creeping up on us that I wanted to head off; I desperately didn’t want us to fall back into our usual silence.
“Well, you certainly seem to have enjoyed yourselves. I’m surprised!” I know I sounded silly and my voice seemed false to me. “The Reverend Doctor doing magic tricks even. I thought ministers were supposed to be sort of serious and sing hymns and pray all the time.”
Celia surprised me by breaking into a genuine laugh. “Well, yes, I guess there was a lot of that, but it wasn’t what people imagined. Remember, these were quite sophisticated and well educated Americans. I mean, they were serious, diehard Christians determined to win souls for Christ, or whatever, but they were quite liberal in some ways.”
She paused to sip her tea and gaze out the window, but I didn’t feel threatened by this silence. I could feel a relaxing of the tension.
I thought of the Reverend Doctor the times I had seen him and how hearty he had seemed. I could imagine his great booming voice swaying souls in the large white tent they had pitched on an open lot. I had passed by once and seen it, the place where they started their first church in what was to become a well-established business. The Reverend Doctor must have worked a lot of magic from such humble beginnings. The church had grown to the point where there were now handsome concrete structures bearing the name “Church of the Living Bible” the length and breadth of the country, each one looking like the first, differing only in size, each with a main door on which was painted an open Bible. They had also established schools, a hospital, and a radio show on Sunday mornings, Spiritual Breakfast Time, which for a few years had the ears and pocketbooks of the converted all to itself until competition directly from America began, and nowadays of course from our own homegrown Reverends.
Celia was staring out the window, but with a little smile on her face. “I guess if they were around today I would find myself disagreeing with them on a lot of issues, as I do with the so-called religious right. But when I was growing up, I adopted their point of view on everything. I mean, they did encourage me intellectually. They wanted me to think for myself so they encouraged discussion, but there wasn’t any clash in terms of moral values. I didn’t start thinking differently until I went to the States and entered university. That is what opened my eyes to a lot of things, I can tell you.”
I nodded and poured more tea.
“Plus,” and she seemed terribly embarrassed, “it’s when I really discovered that I was Black.”
For a moment I didn’t quite know what she meant, but I didn’t interrupt, for she was talking in a rush that surprised me.
“Not that the non-white girls weren’t segregated at boarding school. The point of those schools was to ensure that we knew our places in the hierarchy, wasn’t it? So”—and she gave a funny little laugh—“I was always somewhere in the middle. Of course the fact that my adopted parents were white and considered rich counted for something with the headmistress and teachers, who were mainly all English themselves. Though their respect was somewhat tempered by the fact that they were Americans. Still, looking back, I suppose I was somewhat indulged. But when it came to things like sleeping arrangement in the dormitories, you can be sure I was safely tucked in with the brown and black girls in our little side room. The main dormitories had to remain untainted.”
“What!” I said. I was truly indignant. I had known nothing about this. “You mean you went to a school where they behaved like that? Here? In this country?” I thought of the Pitt-Bull. Is that how she conducted her school? Wait until I got back to Ellesmere Lodge and that woman. I would certainly have it out with her!
I might even have said this last part aloud. Celia laughed in an indulgent kind of way. “Oh G! Of course that’s how it was before Independence. Remember, I was still a tiny girl when I started boarding. Of course things changed a lot afterwards. By the time I was ready to leave school there was none of that foolishness. At least not on the surface. But that sort of thinking was everywhere. Poor black people couldn’t afford to send their children to those schools anyway. And the ones who could afford it were so pleased to get their daughters into this elite, snobbish institution they certainly weren’t going to listen to any complaints from their little ones about how they were treated. Nobody listened to children then anyway. No one wanted to hear anything about race. Certainly not those who considered themselves respectable. Remember how it was? And it’s still that way in some places, if you ask me.”
The thought of my child being treated like a second-class citizen was still burning me up, so I wasn’t paying much attention to her next remark until it bounced back and hit me.
“You of all people should know what that was like anyway. Didn’t your father’s family treat you like a second-class citizen?”
“What?” I was so startled I nearly fell off my chair. I had never discussed my father’s family or my upbringing with any of my children. Or with anyone for that matter. “What? How—who told you that?” I babbled.
Celia showed nothing on her face. But I was learning to read her body language, and though she was still smiling she was twisting a lock of hair round and round her finger, which signalled embarrassment to me.
“Oh. Sorry. I might have been wrong. I just gathered that from some things Dad might have said.”
“What? What did he tell you?”
“Nothing really, just that they always referred to you as ‘the little outside girl.’”
I sat back in my chair and said nothing, amazed that I could still feel crushed by the indignities of the past, by hearing that hateful phrase from the mouth of my own child. It had been such a way of reducing me to nothing that I had pushed it to some forgotten corner of my mind. I was surprised that Sam knew it and that he would have mentioned it to Celia.
“How did Sam know? What did he tell you?” My knowing that suddenly seemed important.
“He didn’t tell me anything; occasionally he would mention how they treated you. I mean, they were his family too, weren
’t they? So I guess he knew what they were like. They just came into the conversation sometimes, that’s all. It wasn’t like we were discussing you or anything …”
O yes, I thought, you did discuss me with your father. One day I’ll find out what was said. I realized this wasn’t the right time. Instead I smiled, remembering how Miss Celia and Aunt Zena would puff up and get angry at any mention of the Samphire boys. Was it the hint of danger they represented that had pulled me to Sam?
“They said Sam and his brothers would never be allowed to cross their threshold. This was long before I even knew Sam, so I have no idea what that was all about.”
“He was a lot older than you.”
“Fifteen years. Nowadays I suppose that’s nothing, but when you’re young …” I was suddenly thinking of how much I had in fact told Sam in the early days of our marriage when I thought that was what intimacy is about. A way of pulling him closer. Instead, it exposed my neediness.
I didn’t say any more because I was thinking that Celia was as entrapped by the past as I was and I genuinely wanted to hear her tell me more.
“So what happened at university?” I asked her. “You said that’s when you discovered you were Black.”
“Oh well, that’s what everyone was doing in America then. It was the ‘Black is Beautiful’ phase, so I suddenly became conscious of what I was in relation to these white people who had raised me. I don’t know, it’s hard to explain without going into a lot of detail. I was suddenly questioning a lot of things I had never noticed before. And not in a very subtle way, I’m afraid. I was used to being obedient, so it was a painful time for me—and them too. Regardless, they were awfully good to me. Probably treated me much better than I deserved.”
“Oh, don’t say a thing like that,” I said for want of something to say. In my heart I wanted to hear that those people had gotten their comeuppance.
She suddenly laughed. “You know, the first thing I did was loosen my hair from all the clips and ribbons they got me used to, to hold it down, keep it neat and looking as straight as possible. I turned this nayga hair loose and began to look like a wild woman. Later on I was into headwraps, African style. My flag of liberation was flying from my head. I was hot in the Women’s Lib movement too.”
Celia seemed to be enjoying this vision of her younger self, wild and free, and I was trying to envision it, too. But apart from the hair, still loose and curly, I didn’t feel that I had been exposed to anything else that was wild about her. She seemed as buttoned up as always, controlled, the voice of reason and the personification of the woman who was always well pulled together. But then, of course, I was coming to realize that there were so many other Celias to be discovered and that I had never given her a chance to reveal those selves to me. I let her keep talking.
“I feel terrible because after that it was as if I turned my back on them. I didn’t really, but I was no longer their little girl and I got impatient with their protection. By this time, of course, they’d retired and moved back to the States, so I was still living with them when I started university. By my second year I’d moved out, and after that, though we still saw a lot of each other, I got caught up in my own life that was taking a different turn. Uncle died around the time I was entering grad school and Auntie moved to California to live with her eldest daughter. I kept in touch but, you know, not the way I should have, after all they had done for me. I still feel guilty that I was so neglectful of her.”
I sensed her sadness and I instinctively reached across and placed my hand on hers. She smiled at me and placed her other hand on top of mine and held it there for a while till the warmth spread to my heart. Her eyes glittered as if there were tears in them and I let my hand rest where it was, between hers, really surprised at myself. I guess she was surprised too, being unused to any such gestures from me. She moved her hand then and the moment passed and neither of us said anything for a while. There was really so much I wanted to ask her, but my words had dried up. I no longer knew if I should feel happy or sad at anything she had said.
“Well, Mo—G—I guess we should be getting back,” she said rather brightly, looking at her watch and reaching for her bag. Then she looked at me. “Here I am calling you G. Impertinent, eh? But I feel much too old to be calling you Mom. You don’t mind?”
“No, of course not,” I said as I rose from the table and picked up my packages. I was actually quite pleased. I couldn’t help thinking that though much hadn’t been said, it was as if Celia and I had crossed some sort of bridge and were walking in the same direction. On the drive back to Ellesmere Lodge neither of us said much, but the silence felt companionable rather than forced. For the first time in months, my body didn’t feel rigid with the rage I’d brought with me.
33
RED LETTER DAY. DEAR Diary, ha-ha. I was wearing red, a colour I would never have chosen for myself, but it was one of the dresses Celia had bought me that was hanging brand new in the closet, and I had put it on to go into town with her, a red linen two-piece with the cutwork embroidery at the collar. I’d worn it just to show her I was not an ingrate. I always made an effort to tidy myself nicely whenever she took me out, which was the only time the smart clothes got worn. Otherwise I just slopped around. Today I dressed with care, even put some powder on my face and wore a pair of new shoes, smart black leather court shoes with tiny heels. I carried the red and white handbag that matched the dress. I hated wearing closed-up shoes, anything dressy, but since I wasn’t sure I was out of the woods yet, in terms of trouble with Matron, I got it into my head to make the effort to please Celia. I’m glad I did, for she had remarked on it when I got in the car, how nice I looked.
But that was as nothing compared to what happened when we returned home from the bookshop and she pulled into the porte cochere at the entrance. For who was standing right there, having just come out of another car that was driving off, but Mr. Bridges, him that I had murdered. Looking back, I am amazed that the first thought that came into my head when I saw him was pleasure because I was looking so smart. Then reality overtook me. I wanted to sink into the ground as he turned towards us. He frowned when he saw me, and then he looked at Celia and his face lit up. She was already walking towards him and extending her hand. They knew each other? Who didn’t know her? They were greeting each other as old friends and then she turned to me and said, “I believe you have met my mother, Mrs. Samphire?”
I could see the various emotions washing over his face, for he had made a special effort to avoid me since that fateful day, barely nodding if we happened to cross each other’s path. But good breeding won out and he extended his hand and said, “Well yes, under rather curious circumstances but never mind, now I know who she is …” and me not looking but stretching out my hand and muttering “pleds2meetusorryabouttheother dayidon’tknowwhati …”
Barely touching my fingertips, he turned away from me and was saying to her, “Samphire? I had no idea that was your maiden name. I’m sure I know your relatives, there’s only one set that I know of, used to play cricket with them when we were boys, me and my brother though we were a lot younger … our uncle had a property near theirs and we spent our holidays … George, no, what was his name, he was the most brilliant fast bowler we had ever seen, blasted my stumps every time. No, not George, it was …”
“Geoff,” she said. “That’s my uncle. My father’s youngest brother. He was known all over …” and they were away at it. Cricket… and what had happened to Uncle Geoff … and his children … one of whom she saw all the time and …
I just gaped at her, shocked. How did she know this? But of course she was her father’s daughter, wasn’t she? I had made a point of never taking them to their father’s home. His mother understood, especially since she was the one who had seen to it that Sam and I moved away after we were married. She visited us from time to time, but she never once suggested that we visit her. I can’t remember if Sam’s brothers visited much, he was more likely to go back to visit them.
So how could Celia now be talking about her Uncle Geoff in this familiar way?
Before I had time to consider this, Mr. Bridges was turning to me again, and in my agitation the two packages I had been holding slipped. I caught them just in time, but before I righted them a book fell out, the very one I had bought to tempt him! He bent and picked it up and the title caught his eye as he handed it to me. “Oh, the latest Martha Grimes,” he said with pleased surprise, pulling back his hand and gazing at the front cover and then turning it over and passing his eye over the back. “You are a fan?”
He looked at me properly then, for the first time, I think, and I managed to smile and croak out, “Yes. Are you?”
“Wonderful,” he said. “I’ve read all her books and I’ve been meaning to get this one.”
Before I even knew it, I was handing the book back, saying, “Please, why don’t you keep it and give it back when you’ve read it?”
“That’s very kind, but I can’t deprive you of the pleasure. I’d be happy to borrow it when you are through, though.”
“Don’t worry, go ahead,” I said, fishing in the bag. “I have two more of hers to get through.” I held them up in triumph.
“Oh, I have read those,” he said. I already knew this, as I’d seen him with them in the lounge.
He looked at the new book he was still holding. “Well … if you’re sure?” His voice was quizzical, but I could see the book lover’s greed in his eyes.
I nodded. He looked pleased, paying more attention to the book than to me. “If that’s all right, I’d be delighted.” Then he added, looking at me again, “Good to know there’s another reader with my taste around, Mrs. Samphire. Perhaps we can do a little book exchange from time to time.”