Sugar in the Morning (15 page)

CHAPTER TEN

“J
est
you stand still, Miss ’Milla
!
Hold steady
!
D’you ’spect me to do this if you move round all the time?

“I’m sorry,” I said humbly.

Patience relented a little. “You can see hows you lookin’ any time now
!
” she grunted.

I edged hopefully a couple of inches to my left. It was maddening not to be able to see the costume Patience had designed and made for me. But she yanked me back on the end of her thread, frowning her displeasure.

“I’se tellin’ you, Miss ’Milla, we none of us are goin’ to be ready at this rate
!
”

I apologised again, pleased with myself because I had somehow managed to move just enough to be able to see my reflection in the long looking-glass on the door of the wardrobe. I made a fascinating spectacle. She had dressed me as a medieval page-boy, and I had to admit it suited me. The rich coloured tights showed off my long legs to perfection and the deep emerald cloak added a swagger to my walk. I looked every inch a Plantagenet, a well-to-do young man about town with never a care beyond his King’s displeasure. A veritable Bolingbroke, or any of those famous names from the plays of Shakespeare, who broke themselves on the
twin spurs of ambition and the red and white Roses.

“There you be! Perfect!” Patience enthused, looking at my reflection with an equal pride and pleasure. “You looks splendid, Miss ’Milla!”

I hugged her gratefully. “I don’t know what we’
d
do without you
!”
I told her.

She laughed, her great body shaking. “I’m not suggestin’ nothin’!” she roared. She executed a neat dance step that sent the furniture shaking, although, despite her great bulk, she was very light on her feet. “They’re jumpin’! We’se must hurry ourselves along!”

The noise from the street was already unbearable. The day before, I had been astonished by the blaze of colour and the riot of melody, but it had been nothing compared to Shrove Tuesday itself. The whole Island had packed itself into Charlotte Street, or so it seemed to me. They swept back and forth in time to the various bands they were following. The street vendors were out in their hordes offering any delicacy you cared to name, some of them dressed in ludicrous costumes, others in their ordinary clothes which could be almost as colourful as any which had been dreamed up for the occasion.

“What are you wearing?” I asked Patience.

“I’se Plantagenet too,” she answered.

“Daniel is Tudor,” I told her. “He’s following the Harry Tudor Band.”

Her eyes narrowed with curiosity. “Now how would you be knowin’ that?” she asked.

“He told me,” I said.

“Did he now? And who’s Harry Tudor? He’s not going places! You’se a sight better with the Plantagenets!”

She hurried off, to come back in a few minutes fully dressed as a Plantagenet lady, her wimple framing her chocolate brown face and lending it the austere beauty of a medieval print.

“What you think?” she demanded, revolving in front of me.

“I think you look quite lovely!” I said sincerely. She bridled with pleasure and whispered that I looked
quite lovely myself and hurried me down the stairs to where my uncle and cousins were waiting for us. They looked remarkably handsome, I thought. I was suddenly proud to be an Ironside and one of them. Patience dropped them a neat little curtsey and they laughed and bowed to her, but a page-boy doesn’t curtsey and I felt it would be foolish to bow, so I stood awkwardly beside them, waiting for them to notice me.

The music outside came to a crashing crescendo, followed by an instant’s silence, then a single steel drum began to play a strange, compulsive rhythm which was slowly taken up by the others, distorted, changed, complete with counterpoint and melody, coming back again to the first simple tune and the single leading drum who had begun it all.

“Come on!” Cuthbert hurried us. “We don’t want to miss the Carnival King, do we?”

My cousins each took one of my hands and pulled me out of the door and along the street, darting between elaborately costumed groups of people, until we caught up with the main band, the one that had been elected the best of all those submitted that year.

I saw the Playing Cards that I had seen the day before and then our own group, band and followers all dressed as Plantagenets, came into sight and we were sucked into their wake as though we had no wills of our own and I found myself cavorting to an odd rhythmic tune while Wilfred and Cuthbert shouted the words of our particular calypso into my ear, so loudly that I thought my ear-drums would burst.

“Sing it!” Cuthbert commanded. I joined in weakly at the next chorus, but the strong Caribbean accent made it almost unintelligible to me. I had to try when I wanted to get the full meaning of some of their broader terms. I mean, who would suspect that a term that sounded like Tilwybonce could mean “until we
bounce into each other again?” Apt as it was in the midst of this frenetic crowd moving in psychedelic swirls through the streets.

The tourists crammed themselves on to the edges of the pavements, their cameras at the ready, their red faces betraying their recent arrival. I wondered if they took me for a Trinidadian, bo
rn
and bred, or whether they guessed that I was almost as strange as they in an island gone crazy in a glorious fantasy of feverish colour and sound.

“W’appen now?” shouted our leader to the group in front.

“
Don’t mash me, brother! They’re holding ground higher up!”

We came to an abrupt halt. I took the opportunity to catch my breath and to take a good look about me. There was no sign of the Tudors anywhere and I was conscious of a quick prickle of disappointment. But I was given no time to indulge any feeling at all, for a second later we were charging down the street again towards the Savannah at a breakneck speed.

“Sing now!” my cousins instructed me fiercely and, surprisingly, they still had breath to chant out our calypso at the top of their voices whenever another group came anywhere near our band.

We reached the Savannah with the speed and vigour of a cork coming out of a bottle, spreading out across the new-mown grass like lava coining down the slopes of a volcano.

I saw Aaron, his crinkly hair covered by a golden wig, wearing no more than a loincloth made of golden cloth and with his whole body painted to match. Truly magnificent, but what could he be? Nothing less than Apollo himself, I thought. I couldn’t help laughing to think he was a bank manager and such a respectable
citizen, and then—wow, he could dress like that! But that was Carnival, and I loved it!

I caught sight of the Tudors then, on the other side of the Trojans who seemed to be mounting a full-scale battle with the Greeks and some Chinese Mandarins, resplendent in silk and dignity. The Tudors looked rather like court cards, every one of them either Henry VIII or Elizabeth I. Most of the men seemed to be having some difficulty with their paper ruffs and I was longing to see how Daniel was getting along with his,
but of him there was no sign.

“I don’t think he’s got here yet,” I said to Patience.

She didn’t have to ask who I meant. She just shook her head sadly. “Not yet, Mill ‘Milla, but he’s a coming, you can be sure of that!”

“You’re never looking out for our revered cousin, are you Camilla?” Wilfred asked me with such a superior expression that I had to laugh.

“I thought he was with the Tudors,” I explained.

“He is,” Wilfred retorted dryly. “Didn’t you know that the Tudors managed to get
both
the roses into their symbol?”

“It was the end of the Wars of the Roses,” I said
l
ightly.

Wilfred sighed. ‘There was peace in the land,” he agreed, “but on Tudor terms, with Tudor men in all the best jobs making money like mad! Well, I ask you, can you imagine Daniel as anything but a Tudor man?
”

I refused to answer. I looked anxiously over at the Tudor group again, aware this time of the bitter look in Wilfred’s eyes as he watched me. Then, to my relief, I saw Daniel at last, standing a little aloof from the others and looking so magnificent that for a moment I was quite overcome with the sheer startling beauty of his costume, with its fine slashed sleeves and shining doublet, which was set
o
ff to perfection by his dark
hair and the arrogant stance that came so naturally to him.

He must have seen me at about the same time, for he waved an elegant handkerchief in my direction and sauntered over towards us. “Hey there, page, I need you to carry my sword!” he announced loftily when he got within earshot.

“Certainly not!” I retorted.

He
looked me up and down with appreciative eyes. “Am I to understand that the uniform is entirely ornamental?” he drawled.

“
It certainly doesn’t mean I’m going to carry your sword!” I said carefully, not wanting to antagonise him after all.

“An adver
tis
ement for stockings?” he enquired audaciously.

I looked down at my silk-clad legs and grinned. At least I could say that I had the legs for
that
! “
Why not?” I
agreed mildly. I think he had been expecting me to rise angrily to his remarks, but I was not going to give him any such satisfaction.

We were overtaken by Suleiman the Magnificent and his Janissaries, all marching in step, a magnificent body of men who so far had scorned to encumber themselves with any women, but now, as they were pushed forwards by the crowd behind, it looked as if their iron discipline might break and instinctively I drew nearer to Daniel before I was swept away in the rush. His arm went round me and he led me into the dance—any dance, what did it matter?—and I found myself dancing as I had never danced before until I was exhausted, but even then we couldn’t stop. If this was going on until the small hours of the next morning, I couldn’t bear it, but the music went on crashing in our ears and the laughter and the gaiety grew wilder, rather than less, and we were sobbing from lack of breath and could
think of nothing, only hear the physical beat of the music in our whole bodies.

Cuthbert forced me away from Daniel, his face like thunder.

“I thought you
understood
,”
he shouted in my ear.

“Understood what?”

He shrugged his shoulders. “It’s fraternising with the enemy!” he insisted. “Can’t you get it into your head that you’re a Plantagenet? There are standards to be kept up. You can’t go Tudor on us!”

“But I was only dancing with him,” I objected.

“Only!” he repeated scornfully. “Traitor! Don’t you know yet that you’re an Ironside?”

I sighed. “Does it matter? It’s Carnival. Do we have to indulge our grudges now?”

“So that’s the way you really think!” he exclaimed. “I thought you’d learned something over this sugar business!”

“I have,” I said drily. “I’ve learned that we have to get along with one another if the place is to be made to pay. Without Daniel, all we can possibly make is a big fat loss
!”

“Did he tell you that?”

I shook my head. “Aaron did.”

Cuthbert looked at me, his eyes widening with dismay. “He’s
bought
you!” he declared.

“Maybe,” I said.

“And what do you think Wilfred will have to say to that?” he demanded.

I looked up at him thoughtfully. “Do you know, I really don’t care what he says—”

“He’ll think you’ve sold out to the enemy!”

“He can think what he pleases!” I retorted, now as angry as my cousin.

Cuthbert recovered himself with difficulty. “I don’t
see why everything always has to depend on
him
!”
he said.

“Nor do I,” I agreed sheepishly. “But it does.”

My uncle and Wilfred joined us just then. It was the first time I had ever seen Wilfred completely at home with his surroundings. He looked every inch the Plantagenet King he portrayed, his hair just curling beneath the coronet that shone as if it were real gold. My uncle looked rather less happy in his costume, but then he had probably not chosen for himself or overseen the sewing of every stitch as Wilfred had with his.

“This is the life!” Wilfred said now. “Can you imagine anything quite like it anywhere else in the world? The Savannah, the music, and the glory of it all? How can people bear to leave it?”

Uncle Philip winced away from the noise. “Speaking for myself, I’m longing for the quiet of the south,” he said.

Wilfred said nothing. I wondered if he had told his father that he was not coming to help work the sugar estate. It was not my business to do it for him, but the words came rushing up and I only swallowed them back when I saw the expression in Wilfred’s eyes.

“Can’t we even forget about sugar for one day?” he asked wearily.

“Of course we can
!”
I said with a good deal more heartiness than I was feeling.

“We’ve come for the Carnival, so let’s ‘play mas’ while we can,” Cuthbert added.

My uncle pulled his cloak about him as if he were suddenly cold. “You must do as you please,” he said wryly. He turned and left us, edging through the crowds back towards Charlotte Street and home.

“It’s a shame to let him go like that,” I said.

Wilfred laughed harshly. “He hates Carnival. Don’t
worry about him, Camilla. You can’t please us all, you know
!”

That I was beginning to learn. I longed to get away from them and looked hopefully about, seeking the Tudors with my eyes, but without much hope of finding them. There were so many bands and their followers, flocking in and out of the crowds, and the Tudors were not a big group to be seen at once like some of the others.

Another convulsive shove from the rear pushed us further into the park. Patience, who had never ceased to dance from the first instant her feet had touched the pavement outside the house, glowered at a young man who had trodden on her toes. “Don’t you mash me, young man
!
” she screamed at him.

“You’re tick-tock!” he roared back.

Patience, furious that she should be called mad, advanced and beat him over the head.

“All you’re fit for is to play sticks!” he laughed at her.

“I’ll teach you respect!” she yelled.

“You will?” He laughed in her face and kissed her cheek. Patience softened as if by magic and the young man strutted away with a swagger that made me laugh.

“And what’s it you laughin’ at?” Patience glared at me.

“N-nothing,” I assured her hastily.

She shook her head at me, her eyes dancing with knowledgeable amusement. “Your turn’s a-comin’!” she warned me.

“What do you mean?” I asked immediately.

“I’se not tellin’! I’se too busy laughin’!” She turned away and began to dance again. My cousins too seemed to have found themselves girls to dance with and I knew no one else from the Plantagenet band. Everybody had a partner. Everybody was having fun. The full-throated laughter came streaming from a dozen different throats, some black as bitter chocolate, others that would have been white except for the sun-tan that they never lost in these islands. Everybody was having fun except me!

I thought I saw the Tudors, but Daniel was not with them. The Plantagenets had started singing their song again and I joined in the chorus dutifully for the last time. I secretly thought some of the other calypsos were better, more pointed and better sung, and I wanted to hear them better. I slipped away from our own steel band and walked down the avenue of little stalls, all selling food, that had sprouted in the park overnight. A great smell of cooking assaulted my nostrils, of curry and newly baked bread, of hot-dogs and mustard, of eastern spices and western collations, all beautifully set out and arranged to tempt the passer-by.

The sun beat down on the crowds and although we were out in the open air, the atmosphere was stuffy from the sheer press of people who had gathered on the Savannah. I found the shade of a tree and sat down there, fanning myself with the edge of my cloak.