The Sugar Planter's Daughter (31 page)

W
hen I saw
Yoyo walking towards us, arm in arm with a tall, blond, sunburnt gentleman, my heart skipped a beat.

It wasn't a good beat.

She was smiling, and not in a good way. She looked up at her companion, back at us, back at him; they exchanged a few words. And then they were in front of us.

Winnie, bless her heart, was as naïve as ever. Ever grateful to Yoyo for the gift of Grace, Winnie had conceived the ridiculous idea that Yoyo would want to know and to see how Grace was developing. She had sent her photos. I tried to stop her but she wouldn't hear of it; she just said, ‘Oh
George!
Find some generosity in your heart!'

Winnie in her innocence did not understand one thing: the wounds of the past were deep, and though forgiven, and on the surface healed, I knew how easily the scar could tear. And even the tiniest opening – well, we could do without it.

But this was not to be a tiny opening. Somehow I could sense that. Had had that feeling all along, perhaps from the moment Grace was placed into my hands that Easter Sunday two years ago. And whenever Winnie said we must trust Yoyo, something at the back of my mind screamed no, I don't.

She approached us boldly, smiling. Glancing at Winnie, I saw that she was smiling too, but I know my Winnie and I thought that she was nervous. There was something predatory in Yoyo's smile and Winnie, despite all good intentions, must have felt it. Winnie is naïve, yes, but also extraordinarily sensitive. And sometimes that sensitivity overrides her inborn ability to see the good in others, and to trust. In this case, I felt that flicker of anxiety within her, and squeezed her hand.

‘It's all right,' I said under my breath.

‘How lovely to see you, Winnie!' gushed Yoyo. Turning to me, she said, ‘And you too, George. How are you? A family day, I see!' She spread her arms to include the boys, scattered around the promenade. ‘May I introduce my fiancé. Mr Geoffrey Burton.'

Mr Burton shook our hands and nodded, smiling with his lips but not his eyes. His handshake was stiff, and too firm. It crushed my hand.

Yoyo's gaze turned downwards. Grace was walking before us, pulling along Duckie, her yellow wooden duck on wheels; it was her favourite toy. Yoyo fixed her eyes on Grace. I was watching her features like a hawk and I noticed the moment of transformation. The moment the darkness in Yoyo's soul fled, to be replaced with a deep, sweet tenderness. Love. I witnessed that moment. Grace had once again unwittingly worked her magic.

I reached out in that moment and gathered Grace protectively into my arms, picking up Duckie with my free hand. She protested and struggled.

‘Walk! Walk with Duckie!' she said, and I handed Duckie to her, but it wasn't enough. ‘Walk! I want walk! Put down!'

But I held her tight.

Yoyo's eyes remained fixed on Grace, still wriggling in my arms.

‘Shush, Grace, I'll put you down in a moment,' I said.

‘Grace, look! Here's a nice aunty wanting to say hello!' said Winnie then, and my heart sank. I longed to be able to say to her, ‘Beware, Winnie, beware. Be on your guard! Sharks in the water!'

But Grace heard Winnie's words and turned round and met Yoyo's gaze. She stopped struggling. What did she see in those devouring eyes? What did she feel? Even I, a witness to it all, could feel their power, their hunger, their thirst. Yoyo drank Grace in, pulled her in like a magnet, silenced her, stilled her. I could not see Grace's face but I could imagine those huge dark eyes gazing unerringly back at Yoyo, puzzled, perhaps – who was this lady stranger, why is she looking at me like that – but unable to resist.

At last, Winnie woke up to what was happening and acted.

‘Come, Grace, come to Mummy!' she said, reaching out for her daughter. But Yoyo was faster. She reached inside her handbag and removed a little stuffed dog, which she handed to Grace.

‘Woof-woof!' said Grace, and Yoyo smiled in delight. She held out her arms. ‘Do you want to come to Aunty Yoyo?' she said. Did I detect mockery in that word Aunty, or am I imagining it in retrospect? I cannot tell. I only know it was bad. Because Grace held out her chubby arms to Yoyo and instead of obeying her real mother, Winnie, she almost leapt into Yoyo's arms. Yoyo chuckled in triumph.

‘Oh, she likes me!' she said, and there was definitely mockery in
those
words.

By this time Winnie had finally sensed the malevolence in Yoyo's actions. Why, after all, had she been carrying a little toy in her bag? Yes, she had Georgetown friends who were parents, and she probably gave them presents. But if so, why would the toy be in her bag? What was she doing on the promenade on a Sunday afternoon? Georgetown was small and everyone knew everyone else's business. That we come here every Sunday is common knowledge.

This was planned, and it wasn't a good thing. Yoyo was stretching out feelers towards Grace. Feelers, warm to our golden child, cold to us.

The usual empty small talk followed. Winnie asked Yoyo when she was getting married. Yoyo smiled and said, mysteriously, ‘soon.' Mr Burton said that he would be returning to his parents' home in Louisiana that week, to ‘tie up some loose ends'.

‘After that,' he said, ‘we'll see. We're in no hurry.'

Yoyo handed Grace back to Winnie. She wore an odd expression on her face.

The conversation, stilted as it was, ran out, and the two of them said their goodbyes. After Yoyo and Mr Burton had gone, Winnie and I looked at each other.

‘George – what was that about?' she asked.

‘I've no idea. But I don't like it.'

A
few days
later Winnie telephoned me at work, a thing I had asked her to do only in dire emergencies. Her voice was shrill with panic.

‘George, George, come home! Please come home as soon as you can! She wants Grace back!'

T
he lawyer's
letter was short, and dripped with honey. It thanked Winnie and George effusively for their willingness to foster Yoyo's daughter Mary during her mother's illness. Yoyo, it claimed, had now recovered sufficiently to care for her daughter, and was naturally most eager to do so. Winnie and George were requested to deliver the child to Margaret Smythe-Collingsworth's home by Friday at 4 p.m. Since it was likely that an affectionate relationship had developed between foster-parents and child, Yoyo was more than willing to negotiate a visitation schedule, whereby either Winnie or George (one at a time, please!) would be welcome to visit Mary at Promised Land occasionally. A sentence confirming Yoyo's deep gratitude for the service rendered.

There was one sentence containing a veiled threat. Should the child not be delivered as requested Yoyo would have no option but to seek a judicial order.

And that was it.

I held a weeping Winnie in my arms as we waited for George to arrive.

‘I should have listened to him. I'm such a fool! Why did I trust her? We should have adopted her properly when she was a baby. I'm a fool, Mama, the biggest fool on earth!'

I rubbed her back and said nothing, because there was nothing to say. She was correct. She had acted foolishly, and all in the name of trust. Sometimes Winnie was too kind for her own good, and this was one of those times. Trust Yoyo? Speaking as her own mother, I would rather trust a snake. I had always advised against trusting Yoyo, as had George. But Winnie had insisted that trust was the foundation of all that was meaningful between humans. She wanted to trust her sister. She needed to.

And now this.

George burst through the door.

‘Show me the letter!'

Winnie waved it in his direction, her face buried in my shoulder. George grabbed it, scanned it and bounded to the phone.

‘Who're you calling?'

‘Who do you think? Andrew Stewart, of course. Best lawyer in Georgetown.'

But as it turned out, not even Andrew could save Grace from Yoyo's claws. Winnie and George did not have a leg to stand on. Not even the fact that George was Grace's biological father helped; Clarence's name as the child's father was on the birth certificate – a copy of which was enclosed in the lawyer's letter – and that, it seemed, sufficed. Biology did not count.

But everyone can
see
that Clarence is not the father!' fumed George. ‘Just
look
at her! Everyone
knows
that we…' He glanced at Winnie and left the sentence unfinished.

‘It doesn't matter,' said Andrew, who had rushed over the moment he finished work. We were all sitting in the gallery discussing the way forward. Winnie, thank goodness, had managed to calm herself. Grace herself was out in the backyard with the boys. ‘Clarence was the legal father, as Yoyo's husband. He didn't contest fatherhood, so there's nothing we can do.'

‘But we have raised her for two years!' Winnie wailed. ‘Surely that counts for something!'

‘As foster-parents. Foster-parents know that they are not the real parents and must sooner or later return the child. That's what fostering means.'

‘But she gave Grace to us! Gave, not lent! Mama knows – Mama is the one who tried to persuade Yoyo to keep her!'

‘It's true,' I said. ‘I didn't like the idea from the start. I begged Yoyo to reconsider, to wait a few days. But Yoyo insisted. “Give her to George,” she said.'

‘It's your word against hers,' said Andrew. ‘Yoyo will argue that “give her to George” meant a temporary arrangement. And since nothing is in writing'

‘But we have a witness! Nurse Prema was there – she heard everything. She saw that Yoyo rejected the child.'

‘That was then. The fact of the birth certificate remains. I cannot argue against that. There's nothing I can do, unfortunately.'

‘I'm not handing her over. I'm not.'

And Winnie didn't. It was a declaration of war, and Yoyo responded swiftly with a slash of the sword: early on Saturday morning, someone knocked on the front door.

Humphrey ran to open it and called out: ‘Ma, it's the police!'

We were sitting at the breakfast table; immediately, all the adults leapt to their feet. We hurried towards the front door. Humphrey had already let them in: two police officers, one with a paper in his hand. He looked at George.

‘Court order, sir. We have come to collect the child Mary Smedley-Cox.'

‘Well, you can't have her!' cried Winnie. She turned on her heel and rushed back to the dining table, where she scooped Grace from her high-chair and ran towards the back door.

The next minutes were dreadful, among the worst of my entire life. The staid and thickset policemen proved more agile than they looked. They ran in pursuit of Winnie and cornered her. One of them held her, gently but firmly, and while she writhed and struggled the other pried a shrieking Grace from her clasped arms.

Winnie screamed. George yelled. The boys all cried out their protest; Gordon flung himself against the officer who was gradually winning the fight for Grace and pummelled his back. Will climbed the back of the other officer as if he were a tree. The other boys hopped and yelled and screamed. Even the baby, Freddy, in his downstairs cot next to the table, wailed in terror. As for me – I was the only one not screaming, the only one trying, at least, although failing, to remove the boys from the commotion. I managed to grab the twins, one with each hand, and took them into the kitchen. This was not a thing they should be witnessing. I closed the door and went back for Will and Leo. By this time Grace was in the officer's arms and he was heading for the door with his colleague, Winnie behind him screaming and tearing at his clothes. All in vain.

George, finally, was the one to admit defeat. He pulled Winnie back, held her in his arms, where she broke down in the most heart-rending sobs I have ever heard. Worse than at the loss of Gabriella Rose. Worse than my own sobs at the loss of Edward John.

The boys said nothing; they only stared. I shepherded them away. George simply held Winnie and let her cry, stroking her back.

The last thing I heard as I herded the boys into the kitchen was Winnie's anguished cry: ‘I hate her! Oh, I hate her! I'll
kill
her! I'll
kill
her, I'll
kill
her!'

H
ow we all
got through that week, I'll never know. Grace's absence left a space in our family that immediately filled with a grief so sharp it was almost as if she had died. The more sensitive boys – Humphrey and Will – cried openly every hour or so, while the others palpably held back their tears, trying to be manly, and ended up as stiff ghosts of themselves. Even the twins seemed to feel, if not understand, the tragedy, crying twice as much as usual. Freddy, who hardly ever cried, now did so constantly. Winnie, of course, was the worst affected. She went through the motions of her duties, an empty robot, her tears dried but her soul atrophied. She who had run this household as if she had eight arms and kept it going like clockwork suddenly complained of exhaustion, and retired to bed each day after lunch (this I learned from a concerned Mama). She who literally wouldn't hurt a fly – I had never seen her with a fly-swat in her hand – and never raised a finger against our children, slapped Gordon for one of his many little transgressions; the first time ever, shocking everyone.

To relieve the situation we engaged a children's nurse, a maid and a kitchen-girl. I worried that Winnie had reached her breaking point; that she would never recover, never be her old self again. As for me, my agony was almost more than I could bear. But life went on, and I moved through the week, albeit as if pulled by puppet strings. Thank goodness for Ruth, who moved to Winnie's place at the core of the family and held us all together.

The following Saturday, a week after Grace's departure, I awoke to find the space beside me empty. This in itself was not a problem; Winnie always rose before me. The problem was the note on the pillow. Only three words, followed by a large W:
I'm so sorry
.

I leapt from my bed and raced down the stairs. It was still dark but outside the kiskadees were already heralding the break of dawn. The house itself was as still as death; nobody had stirred. On a normal Saturday Winnie would be up, bustling in the kitchen, preparing the dough for the breakfast bakes, peeling mangoes for some delicious pudding, grating coconuts – all the things she loved to do for us, and more, because it was Saturday and we would spend the day together. Today, though, the kitchen was dead.

Dread filled my being. What exactly was she sorry for? Where could she have gone so early in the day? I ran down the front stairs to the yard – and immediately I knew. The car was gone. And then I remembered the dream. In it I had been preparing to go on a long journey. I did not know where to. ‘Crank the car for me,' I said to Gordon, because he loved cranking. And he had cranked and cranked. ‘That's enough,' I said, but Gordon kept on cranking, and the noise in the dream had been so loud it had almost woken me up, but not quite, and I had gone back to sleep.

The cranking had been real.

I
knew instinctively
where she had gone. The grief that had been eating into my soul all week turned to black dread, a yawning cave in my innards. I raced back up the stairs, up to Mama's room. Banged on her door, yelled for her. A moment later the door opened and Mama stood on the threshold in her green nightie, rubbing the sleep from her eyes.

‘What's the matter, George?'

I was out of breath from my panicked race upstairs, but I managed to pant: ‘Winnie's gone. She's taken the car.'

Mama was immediately wide awake, her voice sharp, urgent.

‘What? No! Where's she gone to?'

‘Where do you think!'

‘No, no, no, she couldn't – she can't drive all that way!'

‘Of course she can. Mama, we have to stop her! She might do – anything!'

Winnie's desperate cries last week, as Grace was torn from her arms, echoed within me. What if – what if… But no. Not Winnie. Winnie wouldn't hurt a fly, much less… Winnie was the quintessence of calm and sensibility. She was highly emotional, true, but she knew how to tame those emotions for the greater good of the family. With Winnie, head and heart were in perfect balance. She wouldn't do anything to jeopardise our lives. She wouldn't. She wouldn't go so far.

Would she?

Was there, perhaps, a wild beast lurking in the recesses of Winnie's soul, a beast, which, when provoked, would lunge forward and do the impossible? Had it been provoked to that extent? Mother animals, when their young are threatened, will fight to the death. Mother-power when provoked is manpower multiplied by infinity.

Could Winnie kill?
Her own
sister
? I pushed the thought away before it was even fully formed.

‘I have to go,' I cried to Ruth. ‘I have to stop her, bring her back, before, before…'

Before it's too late,
I wanted to say, but I couldn't. I would not let myself imagine the worst. Logic tried to argue with my panic. It was all right. Winnie may have driven to Promised Land but she had no outrageous plan to do – to do something terrible. I couldn't even think the words. Not thinking them meant it couldn't happen.

‘Yes, you'd better go,' said Mama. ‘How will you get there?' Her voice was calm, sensible, not panicked. I needed that. I took some deep breaths and tried to think, to plan.

‘I'll ring Andrew. Ask to borrow his car.'

Slowly, rational thought began to claw away the panic. Winnie, it told me, would have planned this thing carefully. She would have aimed to reach the first ferry to Berbice, which was at 6 a.m. It was now just past that time. Probably she was on the ferry right now, the car in the ship's belly, she near the bow gazing at the lightening of the horizon as the sun made its way upwards. I could almost feel into her. Feel the passion driving her forwards, the dastardly sense of revenge and sheer hatred having overtaken all that was good in her soul. Now, being honest with myself, I knew that I had felt it all week.

Provoked enough, Winnie could kill. She would; as a tiger mother would kill to protect her cubs, so could Winnie kill anyone who took a baby from her.

How quickly could I get there? Could I prevent the worst? Was there some way of warning Yoyo?

There wasn't. Telephone lines had not yet reached Berbice. As for telegraphy – well, that was my forte, my domain. We closed at night, but as head of the department I could easily get into the office and send a telegram myself.

But it was no use, because the telegraph office in New Amsterdam would still be closed. It would only open at eight, like the one in Georgetown, and by then it would be too late.

I could drive there myself, but I, too, would arrive too late.

There was nothing I could do except drive after Winnie. Whatever Winnie had planned would take its course. All I could do was arrive after the fact, into whatever mess she had caused.

‘You'll stay, won't you, and look after things here?' I said to Ruth.

‘Yes, yes of course. You just go.'

I turned and walked to the phone, dialled Andrew's number.

I managed, somehow, falling over the words, to get the story told.

‘Of course,' said Andrew. ‘Of course you can have the car. Better yet – I'll drive you.'