My Name's Not Friday (20 page)

Gerald glares at her. ‘He believed in paying a living wage to a man for his work. He believed a man was worth at least that, regardless of his colour.’

Mrs Allen shakes her head as though she is tired of it all. ‘Your daddy would never have done the things he liked to talk about, Gerald. He was interested in the ideas. That’s all. It was all just words. He was never gonna do it.’

‘We’ve got to free the slaves, Mother, and we’ve got to do it now.’

‘Do you intend us all to starve?’

‘Of course not, but—’

‘Your father died fighting the same people who want to rob us of our property. They want the riches that God bestowed upon us for themselves. Are you saying you’d simply lie down and give everything to ’em? Why, he’d be as ashamed of you as I am!’

‘Daddy knew what was right!’

‘Yes, he did.’ Mrs Allen walks to the door. ‘I’ve had enough of this. Now please go to your room.’

‘Mother, you can’t just send me to—’

‘Go to your room now, or so help me God I’ll fetch your father’s belt.’

‘Mrs Allen,’ I interrupt, ‘the Yankees’ll be here soon. Everyone says so. And once they’re here, there won’t be no slavery. Not any more. So you’ve got nothing to lose. By letting us go, you might just be able to keep us.’

Gerald pauses in the doorway as Mrs Allen looks at me with a kind of horror. ‘Friday’s right,’ he says. ‘If we do the right thing now, they might stay. I’m sure they will, Mother. They’ll stay and work for us.’

‘I told you to go to your room.’ She points her finger towards the stairs. ‘Don’t think you’re too old,’ she warns him.

Gerald slinks out of the door, accepting it’s useless to argue any longer, and I can hear his shoes upon the staircase as he goes upstairs.

Mrs Allen turns back to deal with me and I fear the worst. All the confidence I had is gone, and suddenly I ain’t a soldier of the Lord at all, I’m a little boy who’s been caught out and I wonder where it is that God has got to, cos He seemed so close when we were down by the fire, He seemed like He was right there with me, but now He’s gone.

‘I’m disappointed in you.’

I wait, not knowing whether she means to hit me too, but she stands aside from the door and indicates that I should leave. Then, as I walk past her, she says, ‘Ask Hubbard to have the wagon ready for me in the morning. I need to visit the auction house. I imagine Mr Wickham will have the clearest idea how best to be rid of you.’

Mrs Allen left for town the next morning, just as she had promised, and though she was back at the house by the afternoon, we heard no news of what had occurred with Mr Wickham. In the evening she comes down to the cabins as usual, reciting the Lord’s Prayer, then giving us a speech about faithfulness and loyalty. She does not mention the previous evening and we do not bring it up ourselves.

‘I don’t like it,’ mutters Lizzie as we watch her go back up to the house. ‘I don’t like it at all.’

Sicely pulls on my arm, taking me to one side so we have some privacy. ‘I got a message from Master Gerald. He says Peighton has agreed to take you to Alabama and sell you at auction. He’s gonna leave in a week’s time and take his own slaves with him.’ She grips my arms as though I might be about to fall. ‘Oh, Friday, I’m so scared. What are you going to do?’

She’s got tears at the edge of her eyes, and I feel called upon to comfort her instead of worrying for myself. ‘It’ll be all right, Sicely,’ I tell her. ‘I ain’t going nowhere. I’ll talk to Gerald. I belong to him by rights and he won’t let her sell me.’

But Sicely shakes her head. ‘You can’t do that. Master Gerald’s been confined to the house till you’ve gone. You won’t get to see him, and anyway he can’t do anything about it. He told me so himself, said she’s got the right to manage you as she pleases. He said for you to run away. That was his advice. He told me to say goodbye.’ She hugs me so hard I find it hard to breathe. ‘What are you gonna do, Friday? I been so worried thinking ’bout it.’

I manage to stay calm. ‘I’ll think on it, Sicely. I’ve still got some time to think it through.’

Sicely goes back to the house, and once she’s gone I tell Hubbard the whole thing. We’re standing out on the porch and the sound of distant thunder comes in across the fields as it did the night before. ‘I got to get away, Hubbard. I can’t go to Alabama with Peighton – I just can’t.’

‘Don’t worry,’ the big man tells me. ‘You won’t be going to Alabama.’ Another boom from the skies makes me look up, expecting rain. ‘That ain’t thunder,’ says Hubbard. ‘Those are cannon and mortar. Least I think so. I heard there are boats on the river shelling a town only ten miles away. There’s rumours of an army too, a whole load of Yankees walking through to meet ’em from the east.’

I cock my head and listen again to the distant rumble. ‘You mean that’s actually the Yankees? They’re really that close?’ I’m amazed that Connie’s promises are coming true, just as he said they would.

Hubbard nods. ‘It won’t be long now.’ He walks back to the door, dragging his chains with him across the porch. ‘Why don’t you come on in and we can talk some more?’

As we go inside I notice Hubbard is limping. He walks across to the hearth and sits down.

‘Let me take a look at those for you.’ I take the lamp
from the table, light it and kneel before his feet. Taking hold of the shackles, I ease the edge away from his skin and his legs look like the trees that we girdle out in the wood, with a circle of blood around the top of the irons. ‘We should put some rags around the top of those.’ I tell him. ‘It might stop ’em chafing.’

‘There’s no room.’ Hubbard winces and takes his leg away. ‘It’s not for long. I’ll be all right.’

‘Then you should have ointment on it. I’ll go and see the missus tomorrow, first thing. I’ll tell her you need it.’

Hubbard pours us both a cup of water from the bucket. ‘Now you listen to me. You can’t go running off by yourself. Do you hear me? It ain’t safe.’

‘I’ll be all right,’ I lie.

‘Just hold on, Samuel. You got to slow down and think it through. Sicely told you Peighton would be leaving in a week. Is that right?’

It makes me smile to hear him use my name again, but I ain’t giving in. ‘I’ve got to go while I still can. What if Peighton brings a set of chains for me tomorrow? What if he leaves for Alabama early? I’d rather go now, Hubbard. I’ll be on my own so I got a good chance of not being seen if I’m careful.’

‘Whoa! Hold on there.’ Hubbard shakes his head as though it’s out of the question. ‘You’re not going anywhere without me. Do you hear?’

‘You mean you’re leaving too? Where are you going, Hubbard? Do you have a plan?’ He looks embarrassed and turns to the hearth to prod at the embers, his shackles scraping on the wooden floor. ‘Are you going after your family? Is that what you’re trying to tell me? You are, aren’t you? You know where she is!’

Hubbard smiles. I don’t think he means to but he can’t help it. It’s only a little smile that itches at the corner of his lips, but then it breaks out across his face.

‘See! You do know! Are they safe already? They must be or you wouldn’t be smiling like that. Hubbard! Stop laughing at me. This ain’t funny.’

A woman’s voice takes me by surprise. ‘I never thought freedom would be anything like this.’ It comes from somewhere behind me and I spin round in my chair, expecting her to be standing right there but the space is still completely empty.

Hubbard thinks that’s hilarious. And I can hear another laugh too – I’m sure I can – the giggle of a little girl.

Hubbard turns to face the back wall. ‘Don’t just laugh at the poor boy! Why don’t you say hello, Celia?’

Another giggle. And then the woman speaks again. ‘Hello, Samuel,’ she says. ‘I’m glad we’ve finally been properly introduced.’

She sounds far away and yet very close, and I walk out into the middle of the cabin, looking for their hiding place, but there’s nothing there, there’s nowhere
to
hide, and I stand bewildered.

The little girl giggles again and Hubbard shakes his head. ‘They’re playing games with you.’ He gets up and walks to the back wall of the cabin. ‘Come here, Samuel. Come and meet my daughter.’ He beckons and I go to him, still unsure of what is going on.

A girl says, ‘Hello.’ Her voice came from the wall – I’m sure it did – and I put my ear against the wood.

‘Her name is Sarah,’ Hubbard tells me.

I say, ‘Hello, Sarah,’ and a finger appears from a notch in the wood, just under my chin, a little girl’s finger, with a
twisted braid of grass for a ring. It reminds me of Joshua when he said goodbye to me in the privy, and I take hold and shake it politely. ‘It’s nice to meet you, Sarah.’ Then suddenly I laugh out loud. ‘All this time I’ve been thinking you was a mouse!’

She laughs so loud that Hubbard has to quiet us down. ‘Shhh, you two. We still got to be careful, remember. We ain’t there yet.’

I ain’t never seen Hubbard as happy as he is right now. He looks like a little kid at Christmas and I have a hundred questions for him – about how he got ’em in there, how long it’s been and how they got food and where they slept – but he won’t answer any of ’em. He puts a hand on my shoulder and walks me back into the middle of the room. ‘We’ve got a few days till Peighton leaves. That gives us enough time to plan our escape, and the closer those Yankees get to us, the less dangerous it’ll be when we leave.’ He nods at my mattress.

‘I think we all ought to get some sleep and see how things look in the morning. That goes for you two as well,’ he says to the wall. I lay my mattress on the floor and sneak in under the blanket, wondering whether they’re watching me from behind the wall. Hubbard turns out the lamp and finds the way to his mattress in the dark, the chains all clinking together as he arranges his legs to be comfortable as he sleeps. I lie there listening for sounds from the back wall, wondering how much room they have and whether they have food or blankets and what they do if they need to visit the latrine. But I don’t hear another sound from ’em.

That night I ask the Lord to deliver us to freedom and keep us all safe in the face of such misfortune. Yes. I say amen to that.

I stand at the fire pit with Lizzie. It’s dawn and we’re still rubbing the sleep from our eyes when a Yankee soldier rides through the plantation on a black horse. We see him soon as he trots past the trees from the direction of the house, all calm as you like, as though he’s out for a morning stroll.

‘Do you see that?’ I ask Lizzie.

‘I do.’

She takes hold of my hand. ‘At least he looks like he’s on his own.’

The soldier comes down to the fire and stops his horse to take a look at us. We look back at him. He don’t appear much different to the rebel soldiers I’ve seen in town, and all of ’em would look better for a plate of food and a shave. We don’t have a word to say to each other, not him to us or us to him, but once he’s got the measure of us he kicks the flanks of his horse and rides away in the direction of the river.

‘The Yankees are here!’ Sicely comes running down from the house, hollering her alarm. ‘The Yankees are coming!’

Lizzie takes her daughter by the arm. ‘We saw him, Sicely. Now you calm down and tell us what happened at the house.’

Sicely is all out of breath. ‘There was one of ’em on a horse. He rode up the driveway and through the yard. The missus reckons he’s looking for things to steal, but where there’s one of ’em there’ll be more. She said you can be sure of that. She’s already taken Gerald with her in the cart. They’re going into town to get help. She says Peighton ought to know that we’re here alone and in peril.’

Hubbard has gone out to the field already and I go to find him, shouting to him as soon as I see him there on the
back of the cart. ‘Hubbard!’ I run to him. ‘There’s a Yankee soldier!’

‘I saw him too. He just came by. Probably a scout, I reckon.’

‘Ain’t you worried?’

Hubbard looks out along the river. ‘It’s good news, ain’t it? If the Yankees are this close maybe we don’t need to run after all. Maybe they’ve already come to us.’

‘Sicely said the missus has gone into town. What do you think we should do?’

Hubbard thinks about it. ‘We don’t do anything just yet. We’ll keep our eyes and ears open but be ready to go if we need to.’

I look at the chains on his ankles. ‘How you gonna go like that?’

‘Don’t you worry about these.’ Hubbard climbs down from the cart. ‘There’s tools in the shed that’ll take these off in an instant.’

The two of us come back to the cabins and join the others at the fire pit. ‘What should we do?’ Levi asks of Hubbard. ‘Should we be working or not?’

‘I don’t know. I suppose so. We should do everything the same as we usually do.’

We go down to the field and gather up our tools, but then we stand around, unable to put our minds to it. We send George to look down the river and tell us what he sees but he comes back looking blank – says everything looks the same as it ever did.

An hour or so later the distant boom of the mortar and cannon starts up again. Out of all of us, Lizzie looks the most nervous. ‘What’ll you do when the Yankees arrive?’ I ask her. ‘Will you go and find Milly?’

She shakes her head. ‘I’ll stay put right here. That way she knows where to find me.’

Later, when Mrs Allen returns from town, she gathers us together in the field to tell us that the northern hordes are at our doorstep and we should pray to the Lord for our deliverance and for the safety of the brave boys who are laying down their lives in an effort to defend us.

‘Will the town send soldiers to protect us?’ asks Lizzie.

‘There’s no one there to help us.’ The missus rolls the sleeves of her black dress up to her elbows. ‘Mr Wickham said we’d have to take our chances.’ She puts her hands on her hips and looks over the plantation. ‘We got to hide anything that can be stolen. Hubbard, you should go to the woods and find a place to bury the food. Levi and George, you two go with him. Be sure to take the barrels of pork from the barn. The rest of us will take care of the fields and the house.’

I spend the morning with Lizzie and Gil, hauling wood into the fields and bringing kindle from the barn so we can set a fire to destroy the crops if we need to. We choose a dozen or so plants that are upwind, then we lay the wood in pyramids around the roots and stems. The missus orders a small fire to be lit on the bordering path and some torches to be made, so it’s ready and waiting. She chooses me to sit and feed the fire. ‘Look out for Yankees coming into the plantation from along the river,’ she tells me. ‘Can I trust you to do that? I’ll be nearby, so if you see anything you only got to holler.’

I walk around the field and sit in a place where I can see the path that comes into the plantation from that side, but nothing moves ’cept for red butterflies that flit their way across the sheet of white cotton. I hear the plop of fish
catching flies out in the river. I don’t know if I’d be glad to see soldiers on the path or not. It’s that peaceful here in the field I find it difficult to believe there’s even a war on, and if it weren’t for the distant guns, I’d think that none of this were true.

When the Yankees come into view there’s about eight or ten of ’em, walking casually along the path with packs on their backs and rifles slung over their shoulders. I watch ’em till they turn from the river and choose the path that cuts along the far side of the field, the dark blue of their uniforms standing out against the white cotton, so there’s no mistaking ’em, and I duck down out of sight. I look back towards the cabins, wondering whether I should be hollering, and that’s when I spot Peighton with four of his men. They’re crouching down behind a clump of trees, waiting to ambush the Yankees.

I don’t want to go anywhere near ’em. If the missus wants to set a fire, she better do it herself cos I’m getting out of here.

I run crouching into the field, flitting between the roots of bushes till I reach the middle of the cotton where the cover is thick and I lie flat on the ground, panting, hoping I can stay out of sight till the gunfight’s over.

The first shot makes me jump like a rabbit and it scatters the Yankees into the field. I hear voices shouting orders and then there’s a silence, followed by three or four more shots, all in quick succession. I stay where I am, trying to gauge what might be happening, but nothing moves or makes a sound for a long time, almost long enough for me to think it might be over.

A second round of shooting comes from the left of me and some more from the right. Quiet again. Above me the
cotton waves like little white flags in a bright blue sky that is silent and still. I raise myself slowly to my knees, bending back the top of the bushes with a nervous hand to see what’s happening. Peighton has moved along the line of the trees and is firing into the cotton field to the left of me.