by Andrea Levy
July knew every stone, bush, hole and curve on the winding path that led to the overseer’s dwelling. In dry weather it was eight hundred steps from the spreading tamarind tree at the great house to the sweet orange tree that shaded the wooden steps that led into his door. But when she was forced to walk it in a storm—when the wind gusted so that she had to fasten herself to a trunk of a tree and crawl to hide within the refuge of a rock lest she be blown away to England; when she did slip and slide in filthy mud, then wade through rain water that did gush from the hill to eddy around her knees like the tide of a swelling river, then July lost all count of her stride.
July looked from her missus to the window, where the deluge of rain was obscuring the view sure as muslin curtaining. ‘Me can go to the overseer when the rain stops,’ July said.
But her missus replied, ‘Oh, it’s only little rain, go now.’
Free. Cha! What change had free brought that July might seize?
By the time July reached Robert Goodwin’s house that day, she was bedraggled and sodden as a mound of rotten trash. Her white cotton blouse, the one with the lace trim at the neck, clung to her tight as skin. She had to wring out her blue skirt as she ascended the steps, for the heavy rainwater hobbled her tread. And even when under the shelter of the eaves, her red head kerchief continued to trickle a tide of water down her face as if a sly cloud had pursued her into the house so it might continue its drizzling.
Upon entering the long room of the overseer’s quarters, a turmoil assailed July. In the centre of the room, Robert Goodwin, his shirt dangling loose and untied over his breeches, was prancing lightly upon his toes, while first waving his arms, then pointing here, then pointing there, before clapping his hands at four negro boys who were upon their knees about the room. These boys, in an attempt to obey the overseer’s tangled directions, were fussing in corners, peering at the base of the wainscot, pouncing at cracks in the boards of the floor, throwing chairs aside, scuttling under the table, and generally rushing from this side to that, as the overseer bellowed upon them, ‘Look, look over there. There were some in that corner! Here is one, here is one, Elias! Horatio, look to here boy!’
The overseer had never before been within his house when July had had to call—she usually left her missus’s messages with his house boy, Elias. And always she had to repeat those missives several times, for that rude boy just stared entranced upon the rise of her two breasts as she spoke. At other times, when even his house boy could not be chanced, she was obliged to seek an audience with his man servant, Joseph, a skinny man of five and thirty who always giggled like a being of thirty years younger, before anything and everything he said.
July, observing this new overseer, was struggling to understand the task he was engaged upon. For this young white man so gracefully stepping lightly, skipping, turning, stepping lightly, skipping, turning, could have been dancing a quadrille, not tasking scruffy boys. And his exertion was producing such perspiration upon him, that his hair clung damp to his neck in black curly lines, and his white shirt was blemished with dark stains about the armpits.
When the overseer did at last behold July within the doorway, he held up his finger in quick acknowledgment for her to wait, before turning away again. But then, just as hastily, he turned back to her. And the overseer began to gaze upon July with the same captivity as Elias staring upon her breasts. From the soaking wet kerchief upon her head to the mud dragging at the bottom of her skirt, his eyes attentively perused her. It was only a boy calling, ‘Come, massa, look here,’ that drew his attention away. He held his hand up to July once more saying, ‘One moment. I will be there in one moment,’ before turning to pay heed to the crouching boy.
‘Me have some, massa!’ the boy cried as he held up something within his two hands for the overseer to look upon.
The overseer saying, ‘Good, good, excellent . . .’ began retreating. But the boy just followed, as if obeying this partner in a dance. The man almost tripped over an upturned chair in his prancing to avoid the boy’s proffer. ‘Good, yes, yes, just carry on,’ the overseer commanded. ‘I must just . . . I must just see to . . .’
July was what he ‘must just see to’ and, ‘You’re very wet,’ was what he presently said to her. July opened her mouth to begin her message, but was stopped when the overseer said, ‘I think I can see steam rising from you,’ and smiled. But then a dark frown swiftly replaced that grin. ‘Did your mistress send you out with a message for me in this storm?’ he asked. There was such agitation in his tone that July, well practised to deny anything pronounced with passion, nearly yelled ‘no’.
‘I cannot believe,’ he carried on, ‘that even she would require you to step out into this weather.’
This overseer then commenced to blast aspersions at her missus’s character with eagerness. What could possibly be so important? he wondered. He had never known anyone make so many demands, he said. Why did she have so many messages to give? He had only seen her early this morning, what could be so urgent now?
Soon the air grew so thick with these reproaches that July began to feel a curious concern for her missus. Come, July feared that soon she might defend her fat-batty missus and announce that Mrs Caroline Mortimer was not so villainous. Luckily he left her mouth no opening, for he spoke rapid as hail upon a roof.
‘My father,’ he went on, ‘always taught me that even servants should be treated with respect and not ordered here and there at a whim. But I fear Jamaican planters have learned over the years to behave another way.’
And then he stopped to sit down hard upon his chair. With his arms folded and his lips pressed firmly together, he glowered at the desk in front of him—searching it with intent, as if some mislaid fortitude were scattered there.
July was now finally free to deliver her message and would have, if it were not for two large brown dogs that chose that moment to rush in upon the room. Ungainly bounding, slipping and scraping on the wooden floor, they knocked into July and stumbled her against the overseer’s desk. These barking, playful dogs immediately brought the negro boys to their feet as they ran to shoo them. The overseer cried, ‘Wait, wait,’ as the boys ran gleefully out of the room after the hounds. He then sighed forlornly and slumped lower within his chair. Only Elias remained.
July was about to deliver her message again when Elias arrived at the overseer’s desk and set down before him a box. This wooden box, which was no bigger than a serving plate, held within it an ugly squabble of floundering black cockroaches. Some dead, some crushed, some crawling for release, some being crawled over, some upon their back with their legs flailing the air, some with their armoured shells and fidgeting feelers scratching their distress upon the wood of the box as they writhed within it. Elias had run off as soon as he had laid down the item. He took little notice of the overseer, who at once sat up within his chair, and called out after him, ‘Elias, don’t leave this here!’ His houseboy’s voice was small and very far away when it came back saying, ‘Soon come, massa.’
And at once July knew the nature of this fuss—the overseer was trying to rid his house of the hundreds and thousands of cockroaches that lived with him there.
Casting a hasty glance to July, who still stared down upon him, the overseer coughed into his hand, then purposefully moved an ink stand, a pen, and a blue and white patterned side plate—with the drying pips of an orange upon it—a little way away from the bug-a-bug box. He then swallowed hard, sat back upon his chair, folded his arms, took a breath of composure, and said to July, ‘You have a message for me?’
At last.
‘Me missus,’ July began, ‘wan’ to know . . .’ But this overseer’s eyes would not stay upon her. Gradually they returned their gaze to the restless creatures within the box. ‘She has beef,’ July said, hoping a greedy stomach might wrest back his attention.
‘Beef . . .’ he repeated, heedless.
‘Me missus say—you wan’ come to eat beef for dinner? Heifer be killed in the pen and me missus
. . .’
‘Heifer . . .’ he said.
July thought to yell, ‘A tiger be gnawing the missus and a monkey be wearing her petticoat!’ Tiger . . . monkey . . . softly spoken would surely be this man’s careless reply, for his focus rested so fast upon that box. When one brave cockroach hooked its scabrous legs over the rim while calling on all who were still alive below to follow in this escape, the overseer slowly began to push his chair away from the desk.
‘So what shall me tell me missus?’ July carried on.
But the overseer just yelled out, ‘Elias, come and take this wretched box away!’
Raising himself swiftly from his seat he rushed to the door to shout, ‘I pay you to catch them and take them away. Come back here now! I demand you come back here now, boy.’
Elias soon appeared before him, grinning as only mischievous negro boys do. ‘Me find plenty more, massa. You wan’ come see?’ he said.
‘Just take that box away. Get rid of them. And do not leave them on the veranda, like last time. Take them far away. Do you understand? Kill them and take them far away.’
Elias, grabbing the box, soon noticed July’s two breasts and, for a moment, stopped to stare upon them before saying, ‘Me find plenty more roach-bug, you wan’ see? Me can show you, Miss July.’ July did not actually slap Elias’s head, nor command him with harsh words to, ‘Take it now or me bash your ears till them ring all day.’ She just gave him one look, then stamped her foot down hard—and this did say and do it all for her. Elias carried out the odious box as if walking with a tray of precious jewels across a swamp, for none must spill to scurry home, past his fuss-fuss massa.
The overseer sat down at his desk, then looking to July said, ‘I am so very sorry. Could you please repeat your mistress’s message?’
As July opened her mouth—to talk again of the heifer and the beef and the dinner—the biggest, blackest, monstrous beetle you ever did see, fell from a beam in the ceiling on to the desk, right in front of the overseer. This miscreated creature was surely the colossus of the cockroach dominion; for so immense was it that the blue and white plate that it landed upon seemed to crack under the bug’s hard shell and the little pips of orange that were scattered upon the dish bounced into the air like jumping beans.
Now. That the overseer jolted upon his seat, then stood up in fright upon seeing the creature land, is certain. That he leaped from his chair, somersaulted three times backwards away from the desk to arrive at the other side of the room with his legs wobbling beneath him like a newborn calf’s while pulling upon his hair and shrieking wild as missus gone mad, may be hard for my readers to believe, but that is how July remembers it. The white man was terrified—tears of fear soaked his face as he flapped before July, frenzied as a moth caught within a net.
July was quick to snatch this ugly bug from the plate and dash it hard on to the floor. But this well-defended creature hit the ground clattering like a propelled stone, then merely flipped itself over and commenced to walk away. July had to stamp upon it with her heel. Its shell then shattered with the snap and splatter of a rotten coconut bursting.
The overseer fixed a gaze of wonderment upon July—he was speechless. Until slowly, upon an exhaled breath, he stuttered, ‘Thank you.’ Then he began to awaken back into this life, ‘There are just so many cockroaches in this house,’ he sighed. ‘They are simply everywhere. There was one on my pillow yesterday. As I was going to bed, I pulled back my sheet to find it sitting there.’
‘But them just be bug-a-bugs,’ July replied. ‘Plenty ’pon this island, massa, them have no harm in them. Me is no feared of them.’
‘No? Well, you now know that your master is very feared of them,’ he said. ‘And you may laugh at me now all you wish. Who could blame you? You may tell everyone you meet how ridiculous the new overseer is when there are cockroaches anywhere near him. I cannot hide it now, can I?’
Then, as he sat back down upon the chair at his desk, he said, ‘Look at this! It’s made a crack in this plate.’ He handed the blue and white plate to July. Now, July knew that the cockroach did not make the crack in the plate, but as she took it from him she stared upon the pattern, for it was one she recognised. And he asked her, ‘Do you like it?’
‘Oh yes,’ she said. And, before she knew, she was telling him, ‘See upon this plate there be a tale. There be birds flying and the river has a likkle bridge that . . .’ But feeling him staring upon her intently, listening to her fool-fool reverie, July suddenly forgot all she was thinking and stopped. She held out the plate for him to take it back.
‘Keep it,’ he said.
July, sure she had not heard correctly, held the plate a little closer to him. But he shook his head. ‘Take the plate, if you like it. Keep it as payment for saving my life.’
Never before had July been given something so precious by a white man. It was now her turn for words to leave her. But then when he asked, ‘Tell me something, what is your name? Your mistress calls you Marguerite, but Elias called you . . .’ July interrupted to say clearly, ‘Miss July.’
‘Miss July? Then why does your mistress call you Marguerite?’
‘Her t’ink that pretty name to call a slave. Now her can say no other.’
‘Well,’ the overseer said, ‘May I call you Miss July?’
‘Surely, massa, for that be me true name.’
‘Then, Miss July, what is your message?’
July had almost forgotten the reason why she was standing before this man. ‘Oh yes,’ she began, ‘Me missus wan’ you come to dinner, for her has beef that must be eat up.’
‘Beef! I haven’t had beef in a while. Beef. Now that leaves me with a dilemma.’ Suddenly this man leaned back upon his chair to call out over his shoulder, ‘Joseph, what is it you are preparing for my dinner tonight?’
There came a little giggle from the kitchen before his man-servant yelled, ‘Godammies, massa.’
‘What on earth did he say?’ the overseer asked July.
‘Him say, godammies.’
‘And what is that?’
‘That be fish, massa.’
‘Fish! Oh, fish again. I think beef sounds much better—do not you think, Miss July? Please tell your mistress that I gratefully accept her invitation. I would like very much to eat beef . . . in her company, of course.’
And, as a broad smile lit upon his face, July realised then that, for once, her missus was right—he surely did have the bluest eyes.
CHAPTER 22
AT THE EDGE OF the town, upon a quiet street that is arid and dusty as a flour barrel, walks our July. Her task within the town upon this hot-hot and parched day is the purchase of some bright-yellow kid gloves for her missus—‘With a Bolton thumb, Marguerite, if they can be found.’ For now Caroline Mortimer has often to entertain a guest at her table, all her many pairs of gloves are just too mucky to wear.
Walking along the street, July passes a group of negro men wilting within the shade of a veranda and smoking upon pipes. One drowsily calls her name. And she, straining to recognise the caller under the shadow of the eaves, soon raises her hand to wave; it is Ebo Cornwall, that rascal African who often supplies her candles and earthenware. A ragged old negro woman fussing with a weary donkey that refuses to move, sits down upon the road fanning herself with a banana leaf before turning to stare with hungry eyes upon July. Two pigs start a little squabble at the corner that disturbs the crows into squawking and flapping upon the roofs above her. A dog raises itself in anticipation of a chasing but then, upon a second thought, merely stretches its legs in turn before curling back to sleep. A young negro man sitting at an open window wipes a wet cloth around his neck as he calls out, ‘Hey, miss, miss, pretty miss,’ but July certainly does not notice him. For a cart being pushed recklessly by a running boy passes her and its wobbling wheels churn up the dust to such a fog that it catches at her throat.
As July wiped the stinging grit from her eyes that day, there came from out of the dirty haze a startling
apparition. From the other end of the street appeared a tall woman. A tall, graceful woman. A tall, graceful, coloured woman dressed entirely in white. She walked . . . no . . . she glided—for no heel nor toe of this golden beauty did seem to touch the solid earth—towards July. Atop her head she wore a white turban adorned with a long feather that pointed so high-high it did tickle the chin of God. The sleeves upon her muslin dress billowed like soft sunny day clouds. The cloth of the lavish skirt gushed from the band at her tiny waist to cascade like foaming water to the ground. And the hem of this glorious garment was so festooned with embroidered flowers that this lovely surely had walked through the garden of Eden and all that was pretty had attached itself there. Even the fringed parasol this fair-skinned maiden twirled could rival the sun for brightness.
No adjusting of July’s red kerchief upon her head made her feel worthy to linger within the wake of this fair-skinned beauty. In her ugly grey skirt, with the rip at the knee that was stitched so badly in black, her yellowing blouse with no button left upon the fraying cuffs, and her skin, of course, so nasty dark, July was shameful as a field nigger. But then as July, with her head bowed, stepped to pass that elegant miss upon that shabby street, she heard, ‘Ah, Miss July, you walking to town this day?’
It was with revulsion that July at once realised this coloured woman she was glorifying was Miss Clara. Come, if July had recognised her haughty figure before, there would have been no meeting. For our July would have dived into the cover of near bush, or stood skinny behind the pillar of a house, so Miss Clara could not find her.
