by Jacob Ross
What will they say if you tell them that this month the rainbirds sing their last songs and the yam-shoots will come snaking from the earth, redder than blood from a fresh-cut finger?
If they would only listen, they will hear the garden-people chopping in the deep bush, the sound, like heartbeats, coming, going, coming over the cane-fields, up and beyond the river-valley. Like you, they wouldn’t need to close their eyes to imagine that the trees, the grass, the vines are living things that talk among themselves of this, the rich time of warm soil and new leaves.
The river will be bright with sunshine. The stone on which you like to sit and watch the girls come on Fridays to laugh and tease and do their washing is cool.
The girls make fun of you – the boys too, who gather like blackbirds on the bank to stare at Ela, Jenny, Sara, Pansy, standing wet and almost bare in the pools, pounding clothes on the stones.
Then the bigger boys come racing through the sigin and wild calaloo. They chase the blackbirds off. But they leave you alone as they wrestle on the bank among the water-grass and shout in men’s voices.
In the pools, they splash white water and fish among the stones – their trick to draw close to the girls and fondle them.
‘Behave!’ the girls used to scream. Now they no longer laugh like girls; they plant their hands on their hips and leave their washing floating on the water.
Ela leaves the water and follows Carl. She is laughing as he tugs her along. They go through the guavas, past the tall breadnut tree, up where the kakoli tie their branches together and make leafy caves. Ela’s woman-laugh comes loud and clean above the bush. Then silence – except for the cee-cee birds, the johnnyheads and the pikayos cheeping among the foliage.
Jenny follows Masso; Sara, Sam, until they are all gone, leaving ugly Polo standing on the bank, his miserable eyes on Pansy who never looks up from her washing.
You used to wonder: what made the girls go? What happened there in the quiet where the vines hang down from the cutlet trees like a bright green waterfall?
It was Pansy who made you know. One day, when no one else was present, she woman-laughed and began teasing you. Why, she asked, did you always sit on the same ole riverstone, dumb like makookoo, and just watch the world run away? She said it nice and friendly, so you answered her. And she, pretty with her smile, was surprised.
You told her that the world never ran away if a person held tightly onto it; it just took them along. She laughed, which made you brave enough to go to her and take her hand.
You were both afraid: Pansy, because she had never gone up the bank before, through the guavas, past the breadnut tree and into the silence of the vinefall; you, because you had always gone up there alone.
Nothing more should be said about this. It was not like in the book Steve lent you. You did not feel to boast. Your voice did not deepen and you did not grow taller. Was that why Pansy couldn’t look at you, or you, her? Was that why you’ve never spoken to each other since?
Still, you like the river and your stone – so different from this hateful place that smells of ink, paper and old furniture. This scratch-scratch-scratching of chalk on board, pen on paper; the endless hive of whispering, tittering voices you cannot shut out, even in your dreams.
But you cannot leave here. Mammy always finds out.
Each day she comes from work, sets her tray down and asks, ‘You went to school today, boy?’
‘Yes, Ma.’
‘Show me what you done, then.’
She squints at the notebook. Ma does not read or write but she knows that a red X means you got it wrong and a tick across the page is what you ought to have there.
No fresh writing means you did not go to school. So she takes out the whip and, while thrashing you, complains that she is killing herself for a pittance on the gov’ment road. She has to swallow the abuse of schoolchildren who call her ‘travaux’. And what for? – one useless boychile who prefer to dreeveway rather than put some learnin in iz head. A child, too-besides, who ‘fadder’ was a nastiness that left her heavy with him and run off with some jamette who dunno how to wash she own face.
Your father, who is he? You cannot make a picture in your mind, though in the evenings, after work, Mammy sits describing him in detailed cursings. She stares at the roof as if he lives up there and abuses him until she falls asleep in the chair. You do not miss him. You have many fathers – all the tall, nice-looking men you see on your way to school. You give them a voice, dress them as it pleases you and they are your father whenever you wish, for however long you want.
Mr. Celestine could never be your father. He never smiles, is happy only when his leather strap is crashing down on some poor pupil’s behind. Besides, he can’t have children because he has only one seed. That might not be true, though. The boys who say so do not like any teacher who could make them shut up with a glance.
But there must be a reason why he is so full of rage. Always. He brings it with him in the morning, spills it out on the class and at lunchtime, goes back home to refill. He is hungry-thin – no one ever sees him eat – and he shuts himself up in his office for long hours after school.
He hates you. Else, why does he look at you as though you’re a fly sitting on the edge of his ruler?
You still remember the morning he read an English comprehension passage to the class. In the story, Tarvy and Jane had cereal with milk, toast with butter and eggs for breakfast. Mr. Celestine spent half the morning talking about balanced diets.
‘What did any of you have?’ he asked the class.
Most of them had bread and eggs and milk. Most of them were lying. Then he came to you. ‘Anthony Skinner. Skinner! Yes, you! Wake up, boy! I asked you what you had for breakfast?’
‘Ham and egg and bacon, Sir. And wholemeal bread.’
Mr. Celestine looked into your face and smiled, as though he could see the two green bananas boiled in salted water, and the plain black sage tea you consumed that morning. But he silenced the class savagely when they started laughing.
Now you really want to escape because soon the bell will ring and Mr. Celestine will collect the test he has asked the class to do.
You have not done the test. The papers lie untouched before you. Instead, you’ve chosen to do yesterday’s assignment – the composition he had belted you for not doing because you were in a mood for reading Geography. He will not want yesterday’s work. In fact, he will murder you when he finds that you have not done the Maths test. For some strange reason, you felt compelled to write the composition.
‘Honesty,’ Mr. Celestine had said, ‘is the hallmark of good writing, so, keeping in mind the Queen’s English, I want you people to write about anything you like. Just be honest about it.’
Now, yesterday’s assignment lies almost complete. The test untouched.
Mr. Celestine has begun to collect the test. He must not see what you have written about Pansy, Ela, Jenny… about the river calling, your mother staring at your father in the ceiling, about Mr. Celestine himself. So you put the three pages of the composition together and begin to tear.
‘Hold it there, Skinner!’ Mr. Celestine’s voice cuts through your head like a whip. ‘Why you tearing up the test. You mad?’ His eyes are hard. He is striding toward you. You have to get rid of the composition.
‘I said hold it, Skinner! What you doing there?’
‘Nothing, Sir.’
‘Nothing! You call tearing up your Maths Promotion Test nothing?’
But he’d never said it was a Promotion Test!
‘Come, come, come! Let me see what you’re not satisfied with. Pass those pages.’
Mr. Celestine snatches the torn pages, looks at them a long time and becomes very, very confused. ‘Something is wrong with you,’ he reads. ‘They keep telling you that…’
The bell rings. He stops. Looks up. ‘Okay, class. You heard the bell. Stop looking at me as if it’s the end of the world – though it might well be for you, Mr. Skinner! The rest of you l
eave your work on my desk and file out, you hear me? In an orderly fashion. I don’t want anybody hanging around my office. You will proceed there, Sir Anthony Skinner and wait till I come. I advise you to pray for your personal deliverance while you wait. Now move!’
‘Sir…’
‘I say moove!’
The office is quiet, white, small. A single desk stacked with paper. It smells of books and Bristol board. On the far wall, a single picture of a small boy clutching a bunch of dried flowers.
Mr. Celestine is sitting at the desk. The strap is in his right hand. ‘Skinner, what is the problem?’
‘No problem, Sir.’
‘You call playing the arse in class “no problem”?’
‘Nuh, Sir.’
‘Well what is the problem then!’
‘No problem, Sir.’
‘You realise you spoil your chances for promotion to scholarship class?’
‘You didn’t say it was a promotion-test, Sir.’
‘I don’t have to say so.’ Mr. Celestine’s right hand convulses near the strap.
‘I suppose you expect me to write the answers on the blackboard for you too?’
‘Nuh, Sir.’
‘Well then, what’s happening to you, man! Like you gone stupid or something. You do everything wrongside: you walk wrongside, you think wrongside, you even look wrongside! Sit up and button up your shirt. Look at those fingernails! Jeeeez! Your hair comb?’
‘Yessir.’
‘I have a good mind to spend this hour lacing you. But licks don’t make no difference to you. You Missa Tarzan himself. Like your skin harder than this strap, right?’
‘Nuh, Sir.’
Jeeez! You miss that by a nook.
‘I don’t know why the hell I so concerned about you…’
‘Me, Sir?’
‘Shut up!’ Mr. Celestine gets up, walks a few feet from his desk and stands glaring at the closed door. His anger fills the room. He reseats himself and levels a finger at my face. ‘If you were stupid I wouldn’t mind. I wouldn’t even look at you twice. I know what the problem is: you’re ashamed! That’s what. Don’t think I don’t know. You watch the children with shoes on, then look at your own bare feet and feel the world owing you a pair. Since when a new pair of shoes becomes equal to how well you perform in class?’
‘I didn’t say so, Sir.’
‘Shut up! You refuse to come first in class – like is a responsibility you ‘fraid of. Don’t look at me like that! You damwelly know you wasting yourself, letting those shoes in class frighten you into playing the jackass. You think they don’t know it! Ask yourself why they keep flashing them in front of you. Look at me! You think I was all that different from you?’ Mr. Celestine dawdles with the strap. He does not speak for a long while, then:
‘So the class don’t like me?’ He speaks as though he couldn’t care less.
‘Well, Sir… uhm… You see, I won’ really say so. They jus’ a lil’ bit afraid of you.’
Mr. Celestine smiles. He plays with the strap and looks up at the picture of the boy with the dried flowers.
‘Amazing,’ he tells the picture. ‘Where did you learn to write like that?’
The picture doesn’t answer.
‘I ask you a question, Skinner.’
‘Sorry, Sir. You mean the composition? Dunno. It just come. I write and it just come.’
‘“I” – no – “you” – second person singular. “You told her that the world never runs away if a person held tightly onto it. It just takes him along.” You believe that?’
‘Yessir.’
‘I had faith like that once.’ Mr. Celestine speaks to the picture on the wall. ‘But now, I don’t know. I jus dunno. Listen, Skinner, don’t repeat this, but your crazy composition that you should’ve done yesterday was more useful to me than the whole damn Maths test. And to think I was beginning to dislike you. You know that?’
‘Nuh.’
‘You hungry?’
It is less embarrassing to leave the question unanswered. Mr. Celestine takes a plastic container from his bag. He pauses a long moment, then with a strange smile, he opens it. Inside, there is saltfish and green bananas steamed in coconut juice.
‘Here, Skinner!’ He holds out the container and grins. ‘Have some of my ham and eggs and bacon with wholemeal bread.’
The food is good; the odour sweet.
‘Listen, Skinny,’ Mr. Celestine chuckles and licks his fingers. He looks happy to have someone licking fingers with him. ‘Hear this. Next year I will be teaching scholarship-class. It means I have you fools for two years straight. When I finish, y’all will be as sharp as cutlass on grinding stone. You will pass, even if I have to kill you to make you do it. Because I want the island scholarship, and you, mister-man, will get it for me. Then it will be my chance for Teacher’s College, and after that, university. They can’t refuse my application if I get the best results. Five years in this place is enough. A man must move on. I want to go. Go! That is why I don’t want no children – and not for any other reason, y’understand?’ Mr. Celestine’s eyes are black and reproachful.
‘Yes, Sir.’
‘So no more jumping around on riverstones and playing bushcar with little Miss Fancy or whatever-her-name-is. You catch me? From now on is books, books, books and more books. Agreed? Now, come shake hands, because this is an understanding between us – a contract if you like. You get the Island Schol and I get what I want.’
The food was nice. A pity there wasn’t more. There should have been more. His hands are warm, firm – like a father’s should be.
‘Take this envelope. Give it to your mother. Don’t open it. Tell her to buy a good pair of shoes, a real shirt and a pair of long pants. Some underwear too. I don’t want to see all your spare parts sticking out at everyone anymore. Now get out of my office before I do something crazy with this strap. By the way, if the class ask what happened, tell them I near tear the skin off your backside. Stop grinning at me, Skinner.’
‘Yes sir.’
‘And do me a favour, man. When you get outside, go to the standpipe and wash the mud off your feet, seeing as school really begin for you on Monday.’
‘Yes, Mr. Celestine.’
‘Now… er, before you go, tell me, little man, why doesn’t the class like me?’
‘Well, Sir, they don’t know you like I know you now.’
‘Who! You? You know me?’
‘Nuh-nuh, Sir, I don’ know you. I don’ know you at all.’
‘Good. Go on – and close the door behind you. Erm, Skinner?’
‘Sir?’
‘Don’t let nobody fool you; nothing wrong with you, y’unnerstand?’
Mr. Celestine does not seem to hear the door closing. He is glaring at the picture on the wall.
GIRLCHILE
For Navice
It shamed her, just the thought of telling her mother the things the men said each evening as she walked past them. But since the stranger arrived and joined the idlers on the root of the white cedar tree that faced the road, they stopped doing those nasty things with their hands and mouths, and no longer loud-whispered dutty words to her.
Now the weight of their gaze felt much worse than their teasing as they sat – all eight of them – just like the stranger, with their elbows on their outspread knees watching her approach.
Just before she reached them, she drew breath, her arms tightening around the schoolbooks pressed against her shirt while the muscles of her legs grew heavy as if she were wading through a pool of mud. In that shaky passage before the nine pairs of staring eyes – not that they would ever see her shaking – she smelled the stale rum on their breaths and heard the wheezing of the thin man with the big voice they called Stinkweed who sat swizzling a piece of stick between his teeth.
A couple of weeks ago, she’d almost lost her temper. She was so concentrated on holding it in she bit down on her lower lip until it bled.
She barely noticed the others now –
just the new man: his big rum-yellowed eyes dropping to her white school shoes, travelling up the rest of her and settling on her face, watching her in a way that made the skin of her back feel prickly.
Over the weeks she’d tried to make herself not hear them by whispering:
Shoo fly doh bodder me
Me an you not no company…
but sometimes Stinkweed’s rumble broke through her recitation. Today, he was saying something about de way the girlchile growin… pretty likkle face… skin nice-an-smooth an deliket… s’matter ov fact… leavin aside de fact dat… girlchile still in school… she’s a ooman now… and a man had a right to…
‘Watch y’arse, Stinkweed!’ The voice of the new man was rough and sharp, and despite herself, she looked at him, met the staring eyes, took in the thin brown face, the veins that ran down his neck like cords, the imprint of his shoulder blades against his shirt. Then she swung her head away. She wished she had someone to walk along with, like her mother’s boyfriend, Missa Byron, because Byron didn make no joke with nobody.
Long after she went past Missa Elton’s shop and home was just around the corner, Stinkweed’s thundering trailed after her. She was too far off to make out his words but they raised a wash of laughter from the others and it made her wish there was some other way to get home after school.
The next day the stranger wasn’t there. A fine drizzle was insinuating its way into her starched white shirt. A downpour would spoil her books and drawings, soak her clothes and mess up her hair. Her mother had passed a hot comb through it just this morning.
‘Come shelter from the rain,’ Stinkweed called. He raised a hand at the darkening hills. ‘Look it almos reach. And is a big, long one that comin.’
The men laughed, while the little man eased himself along the root and patted it.
She concentrated on her recitation.
‘Cuttin style!’ he called. ‘Yuh think yuh nice; not so? Well you could ha been nicer if you didn have yuh fadder k-foot.’