by Jackie Kay
BLACK HARRIOT:
Bien sur!
CONSTANCE:
Of course!
FX:
(Cane field.)
LAMPLIGHTER:
After the savage ship
There were the savage fields
MARY:
I was a field hand.
We made the fields; before us there were no fields;
We hacked back at the frontier wilderness,
Clinging to the edge
Of the wild frontier,
Slowly, painfully, pushing
Forward
And back.
We did the digging and the planting,
The cutting and the burning,
The carrying and the loading.
LAMPLIGHTER:
With hoes and knives and axes,
We sliced and stripped methodically,
Pushing back the line of cane,
We sweated and dripped continually.
MARY:
I worked in the Third Gang first,
Before the Second and then the first.
My work was heavy –
With the other women
I moved my hoes quick, quick and in time,
Singing to stop me dying in the sugar cane.
I could hear the sugarbirds whistling
In the sugar cane.
MUSIC:
(Sugar cane music.)
MARY:
From sun up to sun down
From four in the morning
Up with the conch shell
CONSTANCE:
Stripping it down, cutting it down.
Weeping sugar cane. Crying sugar cane.
MARY:
The sun told the time.
I was a field hand a long time
Third Gang, Second Gang, First
I worked the sugar cane.
My body never grew a child.
I was barren.
The child I might have had
Shrivelled up and died inside,
All the sugar sucked out of it.
I worked from when I was a girl
Till my old age.
Till my hands were wrinkled
Till my fingers looked like bindweed,
Knarled and crossed over themselves,
Like the roots of old trees.
I was a field hand all my days.
CONSTANCE:
I was a hand in the house
BLACK HARRIOT:
I was a hand in the street
LAMPLIGHTER:
I was a kitchen hand
BLACK HARRIOT:
My children, the BigHouseMan’s children
Became servants to their brothers
And sisters. Their father
took us wherever he found us
MARY:
In the fields
BLACK HARRIOT:
In the house
CONSTANCE:
In the outhouse
MARY:
In his bedroom, kitchen. He noted it down in Latin. Every one of us he took, he wrote it in an old book.
CONSTANCE:
Tup – twice. Sup lect – on the bed; Sup Terr – On the ground. In Silva – in the woods. In Mag or in Parv – in great or small house. Illa habet menses – she has her period.
MACBEAN:
A slave was catched by Port Royal eating canes. Gave him a moderate whipping, pickled him well, made Hector shit in his mouth, immediately put a gag on whilst his mouth was full and made him wear it for five or six hours.
MARY:
He came for me night after night
Morning after morning.
Each time he left
He took a piece of me away.
I would be as silent as the moon.
One night when the moon was hidden
Behind the cloud, I hit him.
I hit him and hit him again.
Across the back of the head,
Hard as I could.
And as I did it I let out a roar.
It was not a scream. It was not a cry.
MACBEAN:
Slave Code: Under British law, if any slave resist his master, or owner, or other person, by his or her order, correcting such slave, and shall happen to be killed in such correction, it shall not be accounted felony; but the master, owner, and every such other person so giving correction, shall be free and acquit of all punishment and accusation for the same, as if such accident had never happened.
MARY:
He had me flogged then tied to the cherry tree and left for dead
I was left swinging for three days
To be seen, to break the spirit
Of anyone whose spirit might
Need breaking,
And after three days, I was cut down,
Expected to be dead. I was alive, just.
Still slightly breathing.
I was so beaten and whipped
That my face, back, hands were scarred.
I was ugly, knarled, twisted.
When I found myself alive
I knew I had been born again
And that the Lord Christ himself
Had come to give me salvation.
CONSTANCE:
Rise, let us be going; behold he is at hand that doth betray me. Hereafter shall ye see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power and coming in the clouds of heaven.
ALL:
Amen!
CONSTANCE:
One teardrop, two, three teardrops, four, five teardrops, six, seven teardrops, more, eight, nine, ten. Nine maidens crying, eight, seven maidens sleeping, late, six maidens dying, five maidens weeping, four maidens leaping, three, two, one, nought, nothing. No. Stop. Stop. Stop.
LAMPLIGHTER:
I rose before dawn in that house and went to bed long after dusk.
I never knew a day off. The House Lady tried to teach me the precepts of God’s word. Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.
But I was her slave.
I suppose she never saw me as her neighbour.
BLACK HARRIOT:
She never saw me at all!
LAMPLIGHTER:
Except when I did something she didn’t like!
She was always telling me I was lazy!
CONSTANCE:
Visible. Invisible. See. Be not Seen. Hear be not heard.
To be seen and not heard.
To be or not to be, that is the Question.
MUSIC:
(The beat of a drum.)
BLACK HARRIOT:
When I arrived off the ship,
I was polished with palm oil
To make my dusty skin shine.
My anus was plugged with wadding.
MARY:
To fetch the best price for me.
LAMPLIGHTER:
A note was placed OVER my head
MACBEAN:
Good breeding stock
ALL:
To fetch the best price for me.
The women start shouting and we hear a terrifying and sudden din and clamour. The yard door opening and the chorus shouts out prices (improvise).
LAMPLIGHTER:
And without a moment’s notice
There was all hell and noise and scramble
And men rushing towards us
Wanting to buy us, turning us roughly round,
MARY:
Rushing towards us
BLACK HARRIOT:
Whirling us round
CONSTANCE:
Torn, yanked, pulled, pushed, kicked, stamped, branded. I was given a new name.
MARY:
Mary MacDonald
CONSTANCE:
Constance
BLACK HARRIOT:
Black Harriot
MARY:
Mary MacDonald.
Original meaning uncertain.
Possibly, bitter or wished for child.
CONSTANCE:
I was named Constance.
Constance so that I would behave myself
So that I would be a virtue
Like my sisters Faith, Patience and Charity
So that in my abstraction
I would forever be constant.
Standing right there
At the side of, but not seen by,
In the house of, but not heard by,
In the bed of, but not loved by,
To be touched by, but not loved by,
To be felt by, but not loved by,
To always be, to never stop,
To always be Constant – reliable,
Sturdy, neger wench!
BLACK HARRIOT is surprised at this and laughs out loud.
BLACK HARRIOT:
I had a few names before this one.
My name is a joke.
There was a white Harriot once,
Not me.
They called me Black Harriot
So that white Harriot
Never needed to be called
White Harriot
And could just be Harriot.
CONSTANCE:
The old German for home ruler!
BLACK HARRIOT laughs even more.
BLACK HARRIOT:
Black Harriot
CONSTANCE:
Constance
MARY:
Mary MacDonald
BLACK HARRIOT:
We call her the Lamplighter.
LAMPLIGHTER:
They call me Lamplighter.
ANNIWAA:
My name is Anniwaa
LAMPLIGHTER:
There are things I can’t help but remember.
ANNIWAA:
Remember my name is Anniwaa.
LAMPLIGHTER:
There are things I wish I could forget.
ANNIWAA:
Don’t forget my name is Anniwaa.
LAMPLIGHTER:
These are the things I cannot stop remembering;
these are the things I cannot stop forgetting.
MARY:
I tell my story to remember.
BLACK HARRIOT:
I tell my story to forget.
CONSTANCE:
The History of the Lamplighter,
related by Herself.
MARY:
This is slavery.
FX:
(The sound of sea on cobbles in the background.)
LAMPLIGHTER:
I was stood on the cobbles outside the Inn in Avon, not so very long ago.
My face was raining.
CONSTANCE:
I tell the story to let me sleep.
BLACK HARRIOT:
I tell the story to keep me awake.
CONSTANCE:
I tell the story to pass it on.
MARY:
I tell the story so the story will stop.
FX:
(Fade sea on cobbles.)
LAMPLIGHTER:
What I tell is not a story:
How they hid me in a sack,
How I thought I was going to be killed
Or eaten;
How I saw the furnace copper boiling.
How I smelt the blood on the galley.
How I heard the cries of women and children.
How I hit rock bottom.
My mouth was stuffed with rice, to drown my crying,
How I felt like jumping ship.
I never saw my brother again.
I never smelt the smell of my own country.
I never heard my mother’s voice again.
I never did not feel like jumping ship.
BLACK HARRIOT:
After the floating prison
There was the field prison
After the field prison
There was the kitchen prison.
Anything I did, or said
Was wrong, always wrong
CONSTANCE:
The whip was made out of plaited cow skin.
It could take the skin
Off horses’ backs or lay marks
In a deal board;
When I was being flogged for nothing
I never did cry out or scream
I stayed silent – close to serene,
I would not give the mistress
the satisfaction of my distress.
LAMPLIGHTER:
And I heard The HouseLady one day say
When she was teaching me the book,
All things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you,
do you even so to them;
For this is the law of the prophets.
CONSTANCE:
When I was moved from the field
To the house, I thought I’d got lucky.
But The HouseLady was as demanding
As any field driver.
HouseLady would lie in bed till noon
While I looked after her children.
Her children talk my talk
And walk my walk
And know me better than their mother.
Those children know my songs
SONG:
(Spiritual: the next part the chorus sings.)
SONG:
(CONSTANCE sings a Creole lullaby under the others singing Daniel.)
ALL:
I’m gonna tell my Lord Daniel
I’m gonna tell my Lord Daniel
How you done me here Daniel
How you done me here Daniel
This aint none of my home Daniel
This aint none of my home Daniel
Slip and slide the street Daniel
Slip and slide the street Daniel.
Didn’t my Lord Deliver Daniel
Didn’t my Lord Deliver Daniel
Didn’t my Lord Deliver Daniel
And why not every man
MARY:
In Jamaica, I worked hard.
CONSTANCE:
In St Lucia, I worked hard.
BLACK HARRIOT:
In St Kitts, I worked hard.
CONSTANCE:
Spinning and weaving and making clothes,
MARY:
Digging and planting, cutting and burning.
Water had to be carried from the wells and pumps
Heavy backbreaking loads carried for miles.
CONSTANCE:
I was plucked from the fields and trained in the house. On call twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week; to her, to him, to them. Used until I was sixteen and then sold again.
MACBEAN:
A neger Wench fit for plantation work, or very capable of making a Good House Wench having for some months served as such in a family.
CONSTANCE:
And in that house, the planters offered me
To their friends for sexual favours,
To neighbours, to young men.
MACBEAN:
A neger wench I have must be brought to Knowledge.
CONSTANCE:
I could tell HouseLady didn’t like it
When Fatman did what he did to me.
Next day, she’d punish me for
His punishing ways.
By the break of day, I was broken.
By the close of day, I was broken.
CONSTANCE:
This story was repeated.
LAMPLIGHTER:
This story was repeated in the sugar mills.
BLACK HARRIOT:
This story was repeated in the tobacco fields.
LAMPLIGHTER:
This is the story of the Lamplighter.
MARY:
Related by Herself.
SONG:
(The next part is sung.)
BLACK HARRIOT:
Ah well looka here missy, what in the worl’ are you trying to do.
CONSTANCE:
I said looka here missy, what in the worl’ are you tryin’ a do.
LAMPLIGHTER:
Don’ know what makes me love you, you gonna break my heart in two.
(Repeat song twice.)
CONSTANCE:
I was picked from the fields to work
&n
bsp; In the house: I learned: sewing, spinning, steaming, boiling, hot.
Wiping, cleaning, polishing, spick and span.
The Man can have you anytime he can.
Shimmy shammy. Hand on foot. Rub a dub.
Three men in a tub. Shimmy shammy. Mammy.
Mammy. Mammy. Filthy, dirty. Dirty, dirty, clean.
BLACK HARRIOT:
A lick and a promise.
MARY:
I was always at the field driver’s beck and call.
BLACK HARRIOT:
I wouldn’t let them take me. I took them.
I grabbed their balls and pulled them.
I licked their faces. I rode them like
I was wild on a wild horse, Yahoooooo!
I took him and took him and took him again!
Till his red face got redder,
His red chest got weaker.
I knocked the breath out his chest
And he was panting like there
Was never going be any tomorrow.
I took him for everything he got.
I took him till I finished him off.
CONSTANCE roars with laughter.
MACBEAN:
Thomas Sutherland made free with the slave women. He used to say that a likely negur wench was fit to be a Queen. It is not known how many queens he fitted into his plantation. He was a gentleman greatly addicted to his women slaves.
SONG:
(The next part is sung.)
LAMPLIGHTER:
The rich man comes from down below
CHORUS:
Yo ho, yo ho
LAMPLIGHTER:
What he comes for I guess I know
CHORUS:
Long time ago
LAMPLIGHTER:
He comes to take his slave girl
CHORUS:
Yo ho, yo ho
LAMPLIGHTER:
The mistress pretend she don’t know
CHORUS:
Long time ago.
FX:
(Quay.)
MARY:
She stood on those cobbles and was sold for eighty pounds.
She was sold to the plantation.
We call her The Lamplighter.
LAMPLIGHTER:
I imagined I could see light on water,
A tall house with light
Guiding me to shore
CONSTANCE:
I imagined one day I would find my daughter,
A small girl,
With dark curly hair.
LAMPLIGHTER:
I carried the light from the day
You lost her.
A bright light across the deep dark sea.
CONSTANCE:
I carried a light for my sons, my daughters. One day
I’d find the wings to fly away.
LAMPLIGHTER:
I carried the light to light the lamps
The lamps across the wide dark sea
CONSTANCE:
I carried the lamp inside me,
And it was glowing deeply
LAMPLIGHTER:
I never did ever part
With that constant flame
Not even when they broke my heart.
CONSTANCE:
I protected it from wind and rain;
I’d see my children one more time.
LAMPLIGHTER: