by Olive Senior
“Certainly, Mr. Bridges. And”—I was into this without even thinking—“I’m sorry I was so rude to you the first time we met. I don’t know what came over me, it was the music …”
But by the time I got there I’d lost that surprising burst of confidence that had so carried me along, for it came out as “whtcmeovermeitwasthemuzik …” and my voice faded to nothing. I studied the toes of my new shoes.
Celia wasn’t a top-flight interviewer for nothing. She was right there with, “Lovely seeing you, Mr. Bridges.” He smiled, inclined his head, and headed into the house.
We stood there for a moment then, she and I. I expected her to say something. I was full to bursting. I thought she had noticed it, the way I had managed to carry on a real conversation with Mr. Bridges, knocking the ball back and forth. I felt like a child, wanting her to praise me. But I don’t think she noticed. She leaned over and brushed my cheek with hers, got into the car, and drove off. I stood there for a while wondering why I was feeling so let down after my high a moment ago, how the feeling of warmth we had captured at the coffee shop could have vanished so quickly. I couldn’t help thinking, and not for the first time, how animated she seemed when we were with other people, how lacklustre with me, as if I was always the pinprick that deflated her.
34
BUT IT’S HER FATHER all over again, isn’t it, always putting me down, as if everything I did interfered with his pleasure: “Don’t be a spoilsport.” “Don’t cling.” “Don’t bother me with that now.” Though I never did learn the ways in which I transgressed. He never said, “Don’t nag,” for I didn’t, if nagging is purely verbal; we never spoke beyond the most basic acts of communication necessary for two people to get married, have children, and run a household. I ran the household, cutting and pasting, turning inside out and basting. He ran me, just as I imagine it had been with his parents. I thought then, and for a long time after, it was my fault, for he was the outgoing one, the talkative one—with everyone but me.
To this day, I have no idea what it was about me that attracted him in the first place. He never said. Not like they do in the books, where the loved one is told something specific and thrilling. Something to make her feel womanly and beautiful, for beauty exists, after all, only in the eyes of the beholder. Why hadn’t he followed up and simply seduced me, as he had countless women? Was I so lacking in charm that a noted womanizer disdained me? This is something that bothered me a great deal. Not then, for I wasn’t so aware, but later, when I had a great deal of time to think, and wonder. It finally shamed me, defeated me. The thought of being so lacking in attraction.
Once he got me, he treated me with such bemused disinterest that I can only assume his original intention was simply a desire to see how quickly he could bind me to him. Or perhaps I was a ripening fruit to be plucked—and discarded for being too green. Or it could have been that I was simply a victim of a silly schoolboy joke, a way of annoying those complacent and self-righteous relatives, Miss Celia and Aunt Zena. He came from a line of cruel people, I was to learn, people who joked and tormented. I don’t know what I did or failed to do, but he was bored with me from the start, for after he took me to his mother and left me there, I hardly ever saw him.
Wasn’t his whole family something else! Tropical Gothic, I would have named it, had I known then what that was. Sam’s father was dead and his mother lived in the old family house she shared with a married daughter whose husband worked as an accountant and came home on weekends, while the boys—there were three unmarried sons in all—lived together in another house nearby. This was a house of bachelors: “the Bull Pen” the locals called it, for all the Samphire men were noted womanizers, including the father, as I was to learn.
They were a breed of countrymen who were as bold and lusty as their animals. They had some colour and some property; when they took women in whatever way they wanted, usually girls of poor families, it was simply regarded as their due. Nothing had changed since slavery, except the tint of the master. But of course these thoughts never occurred to me then. I was just like the daughters of the field labourers: I too was up for grabs. I questioned nothing.
We women were never allowed in the bachelor house, and from all the sounds, they lived a raucous, drunken life. A frequent visitor was the fourth brother, Johnnie, who was married and had children but seemed hardly to have spent time at his own home, which was about a mile away. It was only after arriving there that I understood what would have driven Aunt Zena’s disapproval of Sam, of all the Samphire men.
35
SAM’S MOTHER, DAISY, CALLED Ma D by everyone including her own children, was a small, lopsided, sweet woman who simply took me over when he brought me to her. When, late that afternoon, he handed me down from the horse, I was trembling, aching, tired, and ready to weep from the numbness and confusion that had begun to overwhelm me from the time we left the river and set out for the unknown. On that journey I can truly say I lost track of time, as I clung tightly to him, my lifeline, my fog of confusion lifting occasionally to focus on this romantic dream I had of what awaited us, the two of us, when we were alone together at last.
When we stopped at this huge, sprawling, unpainted wooden house that didn’t seem at all ramshackle to me—rather a filigree of wood sun-baked silver and magical—and he lifted me down, I could barely stand. He had to steady me as my knees buckled; but, even in my confused state, I sensed the lack of contact, the impatience, as he held me. He did smile at me as he said “Whoa,” and O how that smile lifted me, for my emotions were oscillating like a toy windmill in the breeze. For a moment, smiling into his face, losing myself in the blue-green eyes that seemed to warm me, I did feel that everything would be all right. Until he turned his head and I turned too to look at the house that should have been empty, like the landscape, with no other actors but us two, playing out our roles, to see this figure filling the doorway. She came out onto the veranda and looked over at us, shading her eyes as if to see better. And then she came down the steps, crablike, and headed in our direction. I could see she was a small woman dressed in a house dress—a collarless short-sleeved shift of dark blue cotton, her feet pushed into ankle socks and house slippers, a hairnet holding down her steely white hair, her dark brown face surprisingly seamless, though pulled to one side by a nasty scar. I was further confused as to who she was by the fact that Sam looked nothing at all like her.
As soon as she appeared, Sam let go of me so quickly that I lost my centre of gravity and stumbled and I had to shake my head to clear it. I watched him stride quickly to meet her. I could tell he was already speaking and gesturing as he neared, but moving too far away for me to hear what was being said. I stood there, feeling foolish, not knowing what to do. They faced each other and talked for a while. I could see her looking over at me, shaking her head and throwing up her hands, palms facing inwards. He threw up his hands—a different gesture, palms up and out—and I could imagine his ingratiating smile. I could see she wasn’t smiling. She shook her head many times. From her hand gestures, I could tell she was angry. But Sam with his talk and gestures became even more persuasive, and she threw up her hands one last time and headed in my direction.
I felt true terror then, for I had no idea who this woman was or where Sam had brought me. I felt both threatened and guilty, as if I had transcended some boundaries, but what these were I had no idea. I was overcome by the same kind of shyness and embarrassment I felt at meeting anyone strange, the shyness that made me want to run and hide when even relatives came to visit Miss Celia. But now there was nowhere to hide, for I was exposed by this new landscape that was treeless and flat and open as far as the eye could see. The only movement was the john crows wheeling far above in the seamless blue sky that couldn’t care less but was simply allowing the heat to pour down like rain. I was damp with sweat, and I felt my legs, my whole body turn to jelly as the woman neared. Sam, behind her, smiling, hat in hand, didn’t make me feel any more assured. More than anything, that smile,
that overarching confidence reduced me, making me feel as if I had done something shameful and had no right to be in this place.
Although I kept my head down, I could see her scrutinizing me as she came on. When she reached me, she stood close, so close that I was forced to lift my eyes up to hers and I was embarrassed to be staring at the deep gouge on her left cheek that pulled the lid of her eye down so I could see more of the white than I wanted. I quickly looked down again. She didn’t move an inch. I could feel her staring, until I was forced to raise my eyes. She locked me in a gaze I couldn’t break. She seemed to study every inch of my face for a very long time. And then she nodded her head and smiled, a smile that transformed her whole being from scary to sweet.
“Fabian’s girl,” she said.
I burst into tears then. I couldn’t help it. Deep horrible sobs, tears of relief. She knew my father! It was the nicest thing anyone had ever said to me in my whole life. And this woman, whom I had never seen before, did something strange. She reached out and put her arms around me and held me close. It made me never want to move. I couldn’t name what I felt as I bent my head to lean my forehead on the shoulder of this tiny person who seemed so capable of bearing me up, to a place I had never been before, where my tears could fall freely, without scrutiny, in the open light of day.
36
SHE FINALLY DISENGAGED HERSELF and said, “Come child. You can call me Ma D.” She held my hand and led me towards the house, calling over her shoulder, “Sam, you want some dinner?”
“No,” he said, and I turned to see him put his hat back on. “See you later.” He inclined his head towards us both, so I never knew to whom this promise was addressed. I assumed it was to me. I didn’t know where he was going, why he wasn’t coming with us, but how could he not return?
At first I thought that Ma D’s children were so indifferent to her that she served as nothing more than a food factory for them, sending cooked meals and cakes over to the Bull Pen, leaving food for her daughter in the kitchen for whenever she chose to eat. She never ate with us. Hardly spoke to us at all. It was only after I was there for a while that I realized Ma D was still the powerful matriarch, for they deferred to her on everything important in their lives.
That day, Ma D took me in and tried to feed me, though the lump in my throat prevented me from swallowing. She made me wash up and she gave me a white cotton nightie and a cup of cocoa and put me to bed, asking no questions, murmuring nothing but comforting words all the while. She opened a big chest to take out clean sheets and pillowcases, releasing into the air the familiar aroma of dried khus khus root that scented the linen and left me aching even more, as if I had lost something precious but didn’t know what it was. “Don’t worry, my dear, everything will seem better in the morning,” Ma D murmured as she bustled about. “It will work out, you’ll see. It’s not the end of the world.” But it was for me. He hadn’t returned. That was all I could think of as I spent the night trying to choke down my sobs. That was all that drummed in my head until near morning when I fell into a restless sleep.
I don’t know what Sam told his mother, but the first thing she did, I learned later, was to write to Miss Celia. By the time the messenger arrived, they already knew who I had run off with, and how. Aunt Zena returned a note to say on behalf of her mother and the rest of the Richards family, they never wanted to see me again as long as I lived. I was an ungrateful wretch, and a thief to boot.
Ma D was more disturbed by this last piece of news than all the rest, for she didn’t immediately show me the letter. She only said she had a note from Aunt Zena to say I had stolen something from her. Had I taken anything? All this in a very gentle voice, and perhaps surprised, too, for she could see I had come empty-handed. It was only then that I remembered the grocery money in my pinafore pocket still, along with the list for Mr. Lue. It didn’t matter that Ma D returned the money the very next day, with an explanation, I was forever tarred with the designation of thief. My family declared that nothing on earth would move them to take me back. The messenger was given a cardboard box—Drax Soap—packed with all my worldly goods. It was addressed to “Mrs. Daisy Samphire,” for they never communicated directly with me.
Once I settled in, I was so glad to be away from their constricting care that it took me a while to realize the enormity of what I had done. They were the only family I had. With a child’s optimism I thought their anger would never last, they would come around, I would be able at least to visit again, but to the day she died, Aunt Zena did not speak to me. Miss Celia never did either, her head as high as Aunt Zena’s when they passed my house. But when my first child was born, someone sent me a beautiful piece of linen and a five-pound note. Although the bearer said she couldn’t reveal who it was, I knew it could be no one but Miss Celia. I was so touched, I gave my baby the middle name Celia and I saved up the linen until she and my second daughter, Shirley, were old enough and I made it into dresses for them one Christmas.
The day the bearer came I was sitting on the veranda with my baby in the cradle beside me, studying her sleeping face, my feelings oscillating between elation and utter despair from the first moment I looked at her, wondering if I would ever be up to the task. From the kitchen I could vaguely hear the sounds of Millie as she cleaned up and prepared to leave for home. Out of the corner of my eye I thought I saw a patch of blue sticking out from behind the cedar tree near the road and my heart leapt, but when I stared it vanished and just then I was distracted by Millie’s shout from the back to tell me she was going.
As soon as Millie disappeared down the road, a figure in navy blue emerged from behind the tree and approached me, fingers to her lips. I nearly died laughing. It was Miss McDonald, the village dressmaker, a lady so full of secrets and so scared of spilling any that she spent her days entirely buttoned up. Literally. Though she was renowned for making the most exquisite dresses, she herself affected plainness of garment; her only concessions to adornment were the buttons that she liberally added to her own clothing. She was wearing a simple paisley print shirtwaist with a self-made belt, and matching covered buttons marching in close order all the way up the front, right to the high neck she affected. There were buttons in tight rows holding the cuffs of the long sleeves together. She never exposed more flesh than she could help. Miss Mac was childless, tall and thin, so of course all the children called her Macaroni, though she wasn’t round but totally flat from whatever angle she was viewed. As she approached I smiled at a vision that floated into my head of her lying on her back with the row of buttons showing above her supine body like a second backbone. Her own backbone she carried very straight from the tips of her sensible laced-up shoes and thick stockings to her greying hair. Miss Mac was noted for her dignity.
Her hair was the one thing she could not control. She pulled it severely back into a little bun and wore a hairnet, but wiry wisps always haloed around her head and softened her rather hawkish features. The source of these very European features and brown skin was the only thing Miss Mac never wanted kept secret. Everyone knew her father was a Staunton, the white Busha of the property where her mother worked as a field labourer, who never acknowledged the child. But that mattered little to Miss Mac’s mother, who had rejoiced in her brown-skin girl and passed on to her ridiculous notions of her genealogy. Poor Miss Mac acted as if she were way above the group she rightly belonged to, yet she was constantly rebuffed by the one to which she yearned to belong. Such as never once being allowed to enter the Richardses’ house through the front door. Of all the people I knew in my childhood, Miss Mac for all her silliness was the one with whom I could feel an affinity, for I sensed she was as out of place in the world as I was.
“My dear Miss G,” she greeted me, like everyone else acknowledging my newly married status by giving a handle to my name. She moved to bend over the cradle and smiled and cooed. “How you keeping? How is the little one?”
“Fine, Miss Mac.”
She looked around. “You one here?”
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br /> I nodded. She was fishing in her large cloth bag with the wooden handles at the same time she was looking around in all directions. Satisfied that we were not overheard, she brought out a parcel in brown paper tied with string.
“Take it,” she whispered. “Don’t tell a soul.”
“Thank you, Miss Mac,” I muttered and took the parcel, wondering why all the secrecy.
“No, no, don’t thank me, child,” she whispered. “Someone asked me to bring it to you.” And then, I swear, she winked and tapped her nose with her finger as she took a seat on the bench beside me.
“Someone? Who? What is it?” I was so mystified that I made no attempt to open the package.
“Someone who wish you well. But don’t want other people to know she send you anything. She don’t want a fuss so she ask me to bring it. Our little secret. But go on, open it,” she urged. “There’s a nice piece of cloth that I will make into a lovely dress for you, as soon as you get back your figure you can wear it to the christening. A five-pound note to buy something for baby.”
Five pounds! That seemed such a fortune I knew it couldn’t have come from Miss Mac herself.
“Miss Mac, who?” My mind was racing as I feverishly tore the parcel apart and found inside the piece of yellow linen, neatly folded, and a white envelope with the money inside. To my great disappointment, no note or anything written on the envelope. I put the money back inside the envelope and held it in my hand, my heart thumping in my chest. The only person I could think of was Miss Celia, but why couldn’t she have sent it to me openly, or even brought it herself? Didn’t she want to see her great-grandchild?