Strange Music (26 page)

Market's a hot jostle of naked pickney screaming. Stench of unwashed bodies, clothes, leaves my belly reeling. I'm shrinking, shouldering past trays balanced on gay shawls tied round women's heads. Stale stench from foul slurry flowing in open gutters I'm leaping over, mixed with high reek of rotting meat. Passing pens crammed with bleeting goats, barking dogs, squealing pigs, I find a stall for Sibyl's shopping. ‘Me waan coconut oil,' I say to stallholder.

One nigger-black slave woman canters, dog-like, around stall where I'm standing. We eyes, like paths, cross. Who she is? A bunch of lilies she carries draws my gaze. Flowers for what? I'm thinking. To celebrate crazy life? Death? Birth?

From stallholder's mouth filth rolls out, waving brass-ringed fingers, clinking bangles jangling. Bottom rolling, she shouts, ‘Wots wrong wid de red nigger girl?' She a field-slave, me think, for she tiredness disappears on Sundays.

Nigger-black slave woman stands stone still. Can't see thoughts behind she gaze. What stands between nigger-black slave and me? Air? A sea of confusion? Mister Sam moves between two worlds, England and Jamaica. Islands can drift together, but I don't move. She eyes search urgently. Like I must listen to some suffering. Listen to she wanting. In my head I'm following. Following an urge to reach out.

Wrapped in some terrible secret, she does nothing but stare. Slave's mouthing my name. A hint of remembering –
Sheba
, my head-tongue says,
yu a field-slave fram Cinnamon Hill plantation
– she face's stayed sameway. We eyes still crossed, I cannot speak. My feeling of wanting, to touch, to pull my hand from my chest is so strong. All my life. All my worth. All of what I am like dead blossoms wilts to nothing.

Gold light from a cloud streams, sunlit eyes search mine. Sunbeams offer a halo but Sheba's no angel. Can't see wings. Scent of lilies hovers above rancid smell of market, of decayed flesh. I peer over basket rim; three bitts left; one guava; one hand of bananas. Sibyl's bitt must've fallen with fruit and yam and without me down Rebecca Laslie's hill, or Rebecca Laslie stole it. Two bitts I throw to Sheba. Cheap glory come from small bitty-money, I know.

‘Kaydia! Wot yu did do?' Charles' eye dismember me body but him voice stays proud. Can't bear him in my sight. Can't swallow, throat's too tight. Can't breathe, air's too hot. But my head turns back to a world I know.

Pushing through growing market, growing heat, I slide sideways, mingle with pickneys flocking behind nigger man on fine bay buckra horse. He swigs long from brindled goat-hide water flask then, head down, twists him moist beard between finger and thumb. Charles' narrow face I'm looking up at. Charles looks down on me, cold brown eyes hatred-filled, seething.

Mister Sam tugs on my mind. ‘Wot news yu have?' I ask.

‘Ride. Me a-ride to Mo'bay, den on fe a-work in Spanish Town. Mister Sam fever badda dan ever. No good.' Bay horse Charles' perched on stamps, tossing its head, tail swiping flies. ‘Kaydia, come, yu cyaan save im. Come, move away fram Cinnamon Hill wid Mary Ann an me. Is betta Doctor Demar tek on all im care.' Market heat's stronger. Slanting forward, Charles reins horse back.

‘Wot yu doin on Mister Sam horse? Eh? Ow come?'

‘Mary Ann's where?' Charles asks. ‘Wot yu done wid she?'

‘Is yu oo touch she,' I say; I feel a guilty sense of glory. Mister Sam's baby's snug, safe inside my belly. ‘Don't yu touch Mary Ann again,' I say.

Charles bellows, ‘Is betta fe Doctor Demar come.'

Leave Cinnamon Hill? Go? Where?
Sickness in my belly swells from unborn pickney.
If Mister Sam's uncle's me pa, an this new pickney's Mister Sam's – it's too too white-skinned. Me know Charles'll know whose new pickney is. Me cyaan leave Cinnamon Hill with him
.

Striking out, Charles' heel cuts into my belly. My body disappears in spikes of pain. Pickney around we stop chattering. All eyes turn sharply on me. Pickney crowd's backing off. What's become of my baby? Charles' foot stabs horse's ribs. Charles lets one tear escape. Gathering slack from reins he says, ‘Me wi see yu on Chewsday. It tree, no two day times. Yu cyaan live no more in de great house.' Mister Sam's horse walks swiftly away. Ripping inside me don't stop. Sealed off, Charles rides on. Thick with fury my tears come.

I'm shrinking from sun's brightness shouldering past women bartering jerked pork for fresh cow's milk, past grain stalls with sacks empty and folded from low rainfall.

‘Sum kawn fe me?' I ask a woman's humped back. She rests against piles of pigeon-pea sacks. Smoothing oily wet hair, twisting round, Leah's skin's taut sameway like bulging bag draped over she arm. Splitting me apart she says, ‘Yu wid chile yet?' She questioning eyes gleam, like I'm a known enemy. ‘Me eye say yu owe me money to keep pickney dere, or it born dead, or born as black dog.'

‘Say wa? Only one bitt left,' I say.

‘Yu cun give dat an yu crop an gloves an hat.' Leah pulls me closer by she low growling voice. ‘Yu waan black pickney-dog?'

Leah's black dog scuttle-hops up to me, one paw won't touch stony ground. Dog's belly sags like empty corn sack swinging from its scrawny back. Coromantee's long sad notes twist from a black reed flute played by Leah's nose blowing down its hollow body. Thinking black dog must be Myal man, Rebecca Laslie or Mister Sam's pickney flopping along, backing from snarling, bristling, dog I realize no, him laugh at me. Laughing. Laughing. Laughing.

I drop my last bitt into Leah's hand. ‘Mek me give yu all me money. Guava. Banana.' Then scattering squawking chickens across old men's skittles games me run away from market place.

Rebecca Laslie's humming flows into tamarind forest, following as I run. Birds singing free beautiful notes. Deep inside my belly aches. One thought only circles in my head.
Mister Sam
. Past flame trees I run, through fierce and fiery sunlight. Branches' crooked fingers point and scratch savagely.

By coopers on plantation path I meet Sibyl, Friday and Mary Ann. Skin beneath Sibyl's eyebrows sags, hanging in heavy folds near temples at she eye corners, giving each eye a slanted look.
Look like life hard as we make it
.

‘Coconut oil? Tubs fe washing?' Sibyl asks.
Is she face always haggard this way?
‘Yu did see Mama Laslie?'

I say, ‘Mama says yu have me money.' Sibyl says she gotta protect sheself from people like me.
Who to believe? Who not?
I say, ‘Yu're half. Me half, dat way we should share.'
Because he feel shame fe it Pa won't speak to me?

‘Yu have coconut oil, tubs fe washin?' Sibyl asks.

‘A fe me money,' I say. Clutching rattling tin, Mary Ann reaches up to my face. ‘Junius give yu dat? Nutten in-a dat. It full-a rakstone.'

Rapping my chest with rattling tin Mary Ann bawls, ‘Yu cyaan come back widout tings fe we.' She headbutts my neck, tin knuckles beat my grey skirt; fists hammer my chest. My breast holds no comfort for Mary Ann – Rebecca Laslie milked me dry of comfort. Of love.

‘Yu have Junius' jackass tobacco rope?' Sibyl asks.

I shrug. ‘Junius put cramp in me head.'

‘Kaydia,' Sibyl says, ‘lass night de cockerel crow, an hens a-cacklin afore dawn. It tell me something cyaan be rite. Tell me yu a-curse. Sand an rice me must sprinkle outside an roun me sack tonite. But yu cyaan lose me bitt, fe true. Yu pay it me. Yu a-bad curse.'

I'm making to punch Sibyl's floppy belly, bawling, ‘Mama Laslie give yu me money! Me she dawta too!'

Friday sneaks behind Sibyl's bulky body. Sibyl's viewing me through narrowed eyes. Like I'm mad.
Yu don't know what's wrong till yu done it
. Mary Ann clings, Sibyl peels my daughter from my skirt. Walking on up plantation path they go, shadows slither behind them drawn long by a setting sun.

Bursting into Mister Sam's chamber I run.

Stretched across four-poster bed, arm's flung out sameway as washed-up starfish, ‘Papa,' Mister Sam whimpers. ‘What have I done? My dear, poor Papa.'

‘Yu fadda in heaven won't spare yu,' I say, levering open jalousie blinds. Only calm thing I see's blue salt water; inside me an ocean roars. ‘Wen minister come yu must repent of yu sin, Mister Sam, or be stuck in hellfiah.'

Mouth hanging open, throwing himself forward, dead crab stink in Mister Sam's wet breath, ‘Is he not come to pray with me?' he pleads. Sinking into pillows again Mister Sam's throaty voice whispers, ‘Is he not come to pray?'

Drying mouth corners I say, ‘Soon me a-come, mek me go to do kitchen stove an me a-carry fe yu cool water.'

Window grids forged from cast-iron bars form a wall from ceiling rafters to kitchen flagstone floor. Old Simeon lurches down great-house track, him shape fits one small iron square. Red streaks hover as a doctor-bird flits across another square. Long scissor-tail feathers a-quiver – colours shrieking with light disappear into flower heads threaded through wood trellis outside.

Stuffing a pipe with tobacco, Old Simeon hobbles up to kitchen doorway. My toes crawl into golden sand spread across flagstones by evening breezes.

‘Fe wot yu look at me like dat?' Old Simeon asks me. ‘If put on Kingstan freak show yu bring in big money.' Hobbling across kitchen, ‘Wen yu gonna cook?' he adds.

Emptying oven ash into bushes I'm glimpsing Old Simeon over my shoulder. ‘Why yu don't shut yu mouth?' I shout back.

‘No church service bring Mister Sam back,' he returns. He lifts night lantern from kitchen shelf, him one good eye glitters spitefully; other eye's clouded milky-white. ‘We have funeral afore minister rive ere.' Leaning back, Old Simeon scratches him crooked spine against iron window grid sameway like old mule shoulder-scrubs a post.

‘Mister Sam not buried yet,' I say.

Old Simeon's pipe's lit. White whiffs of smoke he breathes into dark sky-blue dusk. Smoke weaves round him aged face, and ears big like crinkled conch shell's rim.

Sweeping hearths I breathe out despair, lost in feelings for what's in my belly. Filling iron kettle from stone water jar, a terrible face something like Mama's peers up from dark water. I hear Rebecca Laslie's voice.
Me cyaan find a name bad enough fe she
.

I go by gentle smell from sleek horses sweating, slow-mixing with wood-nut smell of stable-block hay. Why I must search for Mary Ann, I'm thinking, I passed she on plantation path? But my eyes search front garden, follow plantation path sweeping round and down past sugar works' red-tiled roofs to smooth blue stretching sea.

‘Mary Ann hide in Mister Sam's chamber?'

Old Simeon chuckles, ‘Mary Ann hide ere in kitchen block.'

‘Yu a-crazy ass. Yu a-case,' I snap back.

Old Simeon pauses from lantern lighting. Crossly he glances at me. ‘Me no case, no trunk, no box!' Old Simeon's tongue clicks sharply. ‘Yu rage wound yu pa's heart. Minister, e not clebber but e know everything bout Mister Sam settin fiah to slave shacks. E know bout yu stealin. An what yu carry in yu belly.'

‘Ow minister know? Yu telled im an Charles an Pa?'

Old Simeon sucks on him pipe. He draws in again, breathing out only air. Chuckle-coughing, he shrugs, taps burnt tobacco flakes into a cupped palm, dusts tobacco from him hand. He shuffles with lighted lantern to kennels to let out Mister Sam's dogs.

Mary Ann whines, ‘Me waan candle.'

Wedged between stove side and empty rum barrels, I see Mary Ann. ‘Yu go fetch a-candle. Git to yu chores.'

Sawdust trickles from she fist, drowning a rat-bat dead. Rat-bat's flapping its cloak-like wings in dying circles on flagstone floor. Mary Ann's face uplifts to mine. ‘Me cyaan,' she says. ‘Me cyaan go now, me busy. Don't ax me.'

‘Yu must see yu Mister Sam?' I ask mockingly. ‘No! Yu go now.'

Minister's voice finds me, shouting, ‘Kaydia! Kaydia!' till again I'm going back on my step. Black gown fluttering about ankles, minister strides towards kitchen block.

Smoothly Jancra circles naseberry tree. Anger comes like ropes tightening round my neck, shivers run up my spine. Sameway as cold air creeps through cracked and crumbling stone walls, under doors, round cotton tree. Trailed by hungry dogs, Old Simeon goes to a bench below cotton tree. I follow minister to Mister Sam's chamber.

‘I spoke with your, you, your . . . Charles on the coast road from Montego Bay,' minister says.

‘Me know.'

‘Kaydia, why is Charles so deeply perturbed? He is beside himself, I mean I . . . As you, I am sure, are aware the leaf hasn't turned over, so to speak, but is there anything else? Anything I should know?'

‘Me don't know, sir.'

‘I think Charles thinks you are with child.'

‘Me?'

‘Then you must tell him. No, I will go to him. I'll tell him this isn't so.' Swiping at air minister says, ‘There's a mosquito in here. For goodness' sake close the shutters, anyone would think you were trying to kill him.' Desire flickers, flaring into fierce yearning. Like he have funny thoughts a little smile crosses minister's lips. I raise Mister Sam higher on lace pillows. ‘Stay with your master all night,' minister says.

Mister Sam's trembling hand yellow-white as chicken feet reaches out to minister. Clasping arms round minister's neck Mister Sam draws minister to him, kisses him hands; eyes brimming, tears leaking.

Mister Sam's words to minister come soft, bitter, clipped. ‘Please . . . You must . . . write to my father. Please, tell him everything. Should I die, write to my sister, Henrietta. Send her my endless love.' Mister Sam falls back again sighing and snivelling.