The Sugar Planter's Daughter (33 page)

‘You monster!' Winnie dropped her open handbag and flew at Yoyo. Something silver, metallic, flashed. To his horror, George saw a knife in Winnie's hand. ‘No!' he yelled. He lunged at Winnie, grabbed her round the waist. He yelled: ‘Jim! Jim, come quickly!'

Winnie fought George with a strength he had never guessed she had.

‘I'll kill her, I'll kill her!' she kept yelling. ‘Let me kill her!'

Her hand still held the knife; George reached for it, but holding her and grabbing the knife seemed impossible. He wrestled her to the ground and finally managed to prise the knife from her grasp. He flung it far away, but Winnie fought on, scrambling to her feet the moment George loosened his grip, her hands reaching out towards Yoyo as if she would grab her throat, strangle her. She wept and shouted all at once; incoherent words now, words of hatred and loathing and unconstrained rage. This was a Winnie no one had ever seen or even guessed existed; a beast once caged in darkness, now let loose. The maid stood watching, screaming.

‘Run outside – bring Jim!' yelled George to her.

Yoyo, paralysed at first, now cowered backwards, arms stretched out, and fell backwards into a Morris chair.

But then, simultaneously, two things happened. Uncle Jim, who had been waiting outside, crashed through the unlocked front door.

‘Fire! Fire!' he screamed. ‘Upstairs! The curtains – upstairs!'

And another scream. The scream of a baby. A scream of utter terror, primal, raw, visceral. A scream that chilled the blood of every single person present, and stopped the fighting immediately.

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they all rehearsed their roles, they could not have acted faster.

‘Mary!' screamed Yoyo.

‘Grace!' screamed Winnie. And these two mothers both lunged towards the stairs. But George was faster. Letting go of Winnie, in two strides he was on the stairs and bounding up. Jim, quick as a flash, as if he had anticipated the women's moves, bounded from the doorway straight to the foot of the stairs after George, nimble as a deer. And there he stayed. Solid as a rock as he stood there, one hand on the newel cap and the other on the wall, blocking the way with his solid bulk, back to the room. A fraction of a second later both women were on him, pummelling his back, trying to prise his arms away, shrieking. Jim just stood there, absorbing the attack. The maid ran out from the kitchen, screaming ‘Fire! Fire! Fire!' as if nobody had noticed.

‘Get a bucket of water!' yelled Jim, and she ran back into the kitchen.

A yell came from upstairs. It was George, staggering to the top of the stairs. In his arms he carried a wailing bundle wrapped in a blanket. As quickly as he had raced up he leapt down, two or three stairs at a time. Smoke, presumably from an open doorway further down the landing, billowed behind him.

‘Good God!' cried Jim. George, reaching the foot of the stairs, collapsed into his arms. Holding him aloft with one arm, Jim took the wriggling, screaming bundle from him and flung it to Yoyo, who caught it deftly and ran to the gallery, Winnie in close pursuit, crying, ‘Is she all right? Is she all right?'

George collapsed into Jim's arms.

The maid ran from the kitchen with a slopping-over pail of water, the red fire pail always held in readiness in these wooden houses. She headed for the stairs, but Jim raised a hand.

‘No!' he said. ‘No use. We can't fight the fire. Everybody – downstairs. Outside. Quick!'

Yoyo and her bundle, Winnie and the maid ran for the still-open front door. Jim hoisted the collapsed George over his shoulder, then he too ran for the door. In a trice they were all out of the house, on the front drive.

‘We need to get to hospital,' said Winnie, in an instant transformed into a figure of calm. The Winnie of old was back, the crazed beast laid to rest. She laid an arm round Yoyo, who was weeping over the bundled shape of Grace.

‘Sssh,' said Winnie to Yoyo. ‘She's all right. Hear her crying! That means she's all right.'

‘The candle!' Yoyo wailed. ‘I must have knocked over the candle! It was on the windowsill! It's all my fault!'

‘We need to get her and George to hospital,' Winnie repeated, turning to Jim. But Jim was already at George's car, opening the back door, shoving George into the back seat. He ran round to the front, removed the crank, shoved it into place.

‘Take the other car! No room for you both in this one,' he cried to Winnie as he cranked the car. George's car was an almost-new one. The engine turned just once, and began to purr. Jim strode to the driver's door and got in. He turned to Winnie. ‘Yoyo's hysterical. You need to go with her and hold the baby. Or drive yourself. Can you manage?'

Winnie took a deep breath to calm her panic. ‘But George! I need to be with George!'

‘You need to be with Yoyo and the baby,' said Jim, and Winnie nodded.

The watchman appeared out of the darkness.

‘Crank the mistress's car!' yelled Jim out of the window as he drove off, wheels crunching on the gravel.

The watchman obeyed, ran to Yoyo's car. The car coughed and spluttered, shuddered and groaned, the lazy old motor reluctant to start. Winnie opened the driver's door.

‘Yoyo. Can you drive? Or shall I?'

‘I can't! I can't! I have to hold my baby!' wailed Yoyo.

‘All right then. I'll drive,' said Winnie nervously.

The watchman cranked at the bonnet. The car juddered, but nothing happened.

‘Come on!' wept Yoyo. ‘Start! Start! Start!'

Winnie turned to the maid.

‘You come too – get in the back. What's your name?'

‘Mabel, miss!'

‘Good. Sit next to the mistress and try to calm her down.'

Mabel got into the back seat just as the motor turned over, coughed and finally growled into action. The watchman backed away. Already George's car was out of sight. Yoyo's much older car shuddered, almost stopped, coughed again in protest as Winnie turned it to face the gate. She wasn't an experienced driver and had never driven fast. That was Yoyo's forte. But Yoyo was a bawling, spluttering mess, clinging to the equally bawling baby she held in her arms. Winnie said a silent prayer and pressed her foot down on the accelerator, as far as it would go. The car protested, but crept forward, after Jim.

It took two hours to reach the New Amsterdam hospital. George's car was parked outside, empty. The three women, Yoyo still weeping and holding the baby, rushed into the emergency entrance, where they were met by an attendant in white who was waiting for them. He prised Grace from Yoyo's arms, laid her on a bare rusty gurney and wheeled her away, two nurses running beside him, Yoyo at the rear. Winnie closed her eyes and prayed again. She took a deep breath. A nurse approached her and placed a hand on her back.

‘Are you all right, madam? Were you injured?'

‘No – no, I'm fine. but – my husband. George. Where is he?'

‘Oh – the man they brought in earlier. He's got a burn on his arm. And smoke poisoning. They took him to the Burn Unit, madam.'

‘Where's the Burn Unit?'

‘Come with me.'

The nurse led her outside, pointed to a wooden building across the courtyard.

‘That's the Burn Unit. Lots of fires in this country, madam.'

‘Thank you.'

‘I hope he'll be all right!' the nurse cried after her. ‘I'll pray for him!'

Winnie walked across towards the building the nurse had pointed out. She walked slowly, wearily, as if she dreaded reaching it, as if she sensed the worst. A few paces before she arrived Jim emerged from the door. His face was unfathomable. He was struggling to hold back the tears: tears of relief, or tears of pain? Winnie couldn't tell. He said nothing. He simply opened his arms and Winnie fell into them.

And at last she was able to sob, into Jim's broad chest, his mighty arms round her, holding her, offering a comfort that would never be enough.

As for the final outcome: I'll let Yoyo's letter explain.