by Andrea Levy
When she awoke, it was nearly dark. The commotion that roused her was made by Byron and Elias returning from town. They unharnessed the horse from the carriage with so much squabbling that July was sure Byron was once again drunk upon rum. July called out to Molly. When there came no reply, she walked to the kitchen.
But the kitchen was empty. The stove was unlit. The jalousies were closed. When Elias mounted the steps on to the veranda, July was upon him. She grabbed him at the shoulders, ‘You see Miss Molly?’
And Elias answered, ‘Yes.’
‘Then where she be?’
Elias, shaking himself from out July’s grasp looked puzzled on her as he replied, ‘She be gone to England with the missus.’
July had to wait a moment for her breath to return before she asked, ‘Did she have pickney?’
‘Oh yes,’ Elias told her, ‘She carried the massa’s pickney with her.’
And July roared upon Elias, strong and commanding, telling him to run to Byron—the cart must be got up, a pony harnessed. She must be taken into town and she must be taken now, for she must find her pickney. Now. Quickly. What did he wait upon? Now!
When Elias just stood looking confused upon her, she bashed him about his ear, nearly knocking him down. ‘But the boat be sailed,’ he told her. ‘Me did watch it. Five did sail upon the tide. One big-big sight them sails flapping, and them calling out and . . .’ Elias stopped in his musing as July gaped upon him. ‘No fear, Miss July,’ he went on with a pride intended to calm her, ‘it be the massa and missus be taking the pickney to England.’ And when July suddenly dropped to sit upon the floor in front of him, he gently asked her, ‘But what, Miss July, did you wan’ keep that little pickney for your own?’
PART 5
CHAPTER 34
ONLY HIS MAMA CAN rouse my son, Thomas, to quarrel. Let me place you as a guest at our Sunday table so you might find evidence for this judgement. See before you a white cotton cloth upon which sits, between knives and forks, the porcelain dinner plates decorated with delicate pink and canary roses, that Lillian does only allow to escape her display cupboard upon Sunday afternoons.
To your left is Miss May, my son’s youngest daughter. Be sure that she is fidgeting—playing with a piece of braid within her fingers, pushing back her chair to look upon her new patent-tipped button shoes, tapping her hand upon the table as she stares through the window. Her sister, Miss Corinne, sits beside her with folded arms and her full mouth drooping with sulk. While across the table Miss Louise, the middle child and quite the darkest of the three, sits making ugly faces at her sisters—widening her black eyes and sticking out her tongue when their mama Lillian, who sits at the other end of the table, is engaged looking elsewhere.
My son Thomas is seated at this table’s head—probably still reading some pamphlet or perhaps grinning upon his wife. While your storyteller, who is beside Miss Louise, sits wishing that just this once she might remain peaceful as she waits for the eating to commence, but is forced, as at every meal within this household, to quell the mischief of these three naughty girls by saying, ‘Sit still—stop that—be quiet at the table.’ Reprimands that their mama and papa should be composing but, alas, never do.
See now, as Miss Essie, our housekeeper, cook and busybody, arrives from the kitchen bearing the food upon a wooden platter. Be sure that what she will serve will be pork . . . again, but do not place your blame with her. Your storyteller did tell Lillian many times that the hog she decide to slay was too big for this family alone.
Reader, you must know as well as I that, if a pig is slaughtered upon this tropical island it must be eaten up soon before the meat does turn renk and wriggle with so many tiny living things that it might journey from the kitchen to your plate without aid. Wait, I tell Lillian, until she has an occasion where more mouths can be fed by that enormous sow. You think she heed me—an old woman? Her husband must suck on pig’s foot, she tell me. Her husband desire to chew a pig’s cheek. She must boil this pig’s bones so her husband might drink his favourite soup. Some was pickled and cured, but it is still five days that we have been eating pork at every meal.
So let us watch now as my son gently commands his family to start nyam. See him place some of the meat within his mouth. Then let us wait while the hot-hot pepper of the scotch bonnet that Miss Essie must use to spice-up this meat so no rancid taste does remain, sucks all his breath from out him. See his chest? Watch it jump with hiccup. Then listen as each one of his three daughters start whining with complaint that this meat be too fiery for them to swallow. Even his own mama begins to weep; for I do not have teeth enough to chew meat and must chase this burning substance around my tongue until I might chance to spear it upon those molars that are left. Yet still my son does not think to chastise his wife for the torment we are all suffering. He just hold up his hands and command that it is for Lillian to decide upon these matters.
But let me now arrive at the point of this diversion, for I have very little paper left. Come, on two occasions my son promised to restore my supply with a quarter ream of ‘superfine white wove’ or some such. Paper is paper, I tell him. And on two occasions, while his hand slapped hard against his forehead, he tell me it was forgot! However, that is not my concern here.
My tale, reader, was at last complete. My pen placed an end dot next to the final word and was laid down to rest. I dozed within my chair for the whole afternoon until the setting sun gradually dusted the room deep pink, without one of my thoughts straying fretful to our July. I even allowed my weary breast to bound with a little excitement, for soon my son would set this tale to printing and I would have not flimsy remembrance but a book to hold.
The last pages of my story I handed to my son, Thomas, when we were both sitting quietly upon the veranda in the place where the sweet orange tree’s branches do offer their fruit to any seated there like a gift. Of course Miss May did then run to her papa, fling herself in his lap and pull gently upon his ears until he made promise that—(reader, please pay attention, for I will write these words but have little understanding of them)—the scenery for a photograph likeness that the three girls were to have made in a studio within the town would show them before the ruined castle, and not before the table containing a vase of flowers.
My son who, at first, struggled to remain stern, was soon chuckling like a tickled babe before he cried, ‘Yes.’ Once Miss May had fled to trouble someone else and all was quiet as it could be within this raucous household, my son was at last free carefully to peruse my ending. Here below, reader, are the very words that my son read that day:
And so our July did have to leave the great house at Amity, which was locked and boarded for the next owner to find. She packed up her belongings into a cloth bag and walked in upon the town. And there she did rent for herself a fine shop. Oh yes. This was not some broken-down stall upon the side of the road from which Miss Clara had once been obliged to hawk her wares. The door to July’s shop could be closed and locked. And it was from behind those doors that our July did cook up some of the finest jams and pickles to be found anywhere upon this island. They did not rival Miss Clara’s, for Miss Clara’s were quite forgot. ‘Miss Clara’s guava jelly? No. Bring me Miss July’s naseberry preserve and do not forget to fill a jug with more of her hot-pepper pickle,’ was demanded from this island’s whites, coloureds and negroes alike—for all craved them.
And our July did grow so rich and old and happy upon her wit, that she did purchase a little boarding house. Miss Clara’s lodging was nearly put from business once Miss July’s guest house opened for trade. Naval men and their families and travellers of the highest ranking did lodge with her when visiting within the town. And so often did these good guests return, that her reputation roamed the world and beyond without her. An English gentleman, who did write plenty fine books in England, did tell of Miss July’s clean and comfortable boarding house in a small volume. This gentleman (whose name does here escape me), did urge his readers to visit Miss July’s
establishment should they ever find themselves in closeness to it.
So reader, do not feel pity for the plight of our July, for my tale did not set forth to see her so wounded. And though other books and volumes (wrapped in leather and stamped in gold) might wish you to view her life as worthless, I trust you have walked with her too long and too far to heed that foolishness when it is belched upon you. No. July’s tale has the happiest of endings—and you may take my word upon it.
Once my son had completed his reading of the fine style and clever sentiment that you have also perused, he first stared aghast upon me, like his mama had just floated in through the window upon the devil’s tail and then he start to laugh. So long did I have to endure his merriment that I had time enough to notice that some of his hair was indeed lost to him, for it was so light and grey upon his head as to appear thin as dust settled upon a table top.
But now, reader, now is the time you must recall those three ill-disciplined girls and Lillian’s entirely ignored nasty peppered pork. Then you might have heart enough to grasp the injury your storyteller did feel when my son—finally summoning a scolding spirit—told his old-old mama, ‘But this is no good. This will not do. No, no, you must do this again.’ For as I did tell earlier, only I can rouse my son to quarrel.
‘What be wrong?’ asked I.
‘Mama, this is not written in truth,’ says he.
‘It is so true,’ says I.
‘No, it is not,’ replies he.
I will not here repeat the length of this yes-it-is, no-it-is-not argument that was provoked. But know this, if your storyteller had had sufficient paper you, reader, would now be turning, one, two, three, four pages with nothing but my son’s back-chat written upon the leaves. There is not a writer in England that must endure such troublesome meddling . . . there is not!
‘Mama,’ my son finally said, ‘You wish your readers to know that after Miss July’s baby had been cruelly seized from her by Robert and Caroline Goodwin and taken to England, that she then went on to manage a shop within the town entirely untroubled, and there grew old making first, preserves and pickles, before becoming the mistress of a lodging house?’
‘Old and happy, yes,’ I told him.
‘Then, mama,’ and here he did grin upon me—not with kindness but crafty, like he would soon prick me with reason, as he said, ‘Then can you perhaps tell me who was that woman—that half-starved woman—with the stolen chicken under her clothes?’
I had always prayed that my son would never speak of her again. Bewildered by the insolence of this plain chat, I could do nothing but stare wordlessly upon him, while he silently watched me. And we may have stayed within that sullen muteness for another three pages if it was not for Miss Louise. For she did suddenly run in upon the garden, screaming like a flogged runaway, ‘Papa, tell her . . . Papa tell her she must not . . . Papa, tell her,’ while Miss Corinne chased after her waving a large, hairy-brown, flapping moth within her hand.
One of us, my son or me, did have to warn those two girls sternly that if their skirts got ripped within this horseplay they would have to stitch them themselves. One of us did have to scold them to keep their Sunday petticoats from out the dirt. But I will let my readers guess which of us, my son or me, was finally impelled to break that terrible silence.
So I am at my desk, resting my elbow upon a short pile of ‘superfine white wove’ paper that my son did eventually remember to supply. My pen—loaded and dripping with ink—is poised above these empty sheets, ready once more to seek out July. My lamp has been trimmed and is no longer smoking. And my tea has been poured. As long as the wind does not disturb me with its howling—for my jalousie does permit any breeze to screech through it as if it be a reed pipe—I will here endeavour to yet again write the final chapter of my tale. But let me first begin by informing my reader that, where you will hear of one fowl flapping within the next part of this tale, your storyteller must share with you a secret—it was, in-matter-of-fact, two stolen fowls. And you may take my word upon it.
CHAPTER 35
THE JUDGE, PINK OF face and quite sagging with perspiration, had been wiping his sweating brow with a once cooling, but now warm damp cloth for several snatched minutes. The courthouse within the town was so hot upon that day that one of his men of law, fresh from England and dressed entirely in the thick black of justice, had slipped from his chair to collapse in a faint upon the floor to be roused with the splashing of water and the fanning of legal documents. When this judge finally looked up to find our July standing within the dock waiting for her ‘larceny of a domestic hen’ to be announced, he slowly leaned over to the clerk beside him and said in a loud whisper, ‘Is that a woman?’
For this judge believed he was gazing upon no more than a pillar of foul rags. Come, if he had been near enough to whiff the stench of her or close enough to mark the flies that girded her to feed upon her filth, he may have declared her simply shit walking.
Reader, you may recognise a sunlit courthouse room with its pale-blue walls studded with earnest plaques and flags, its wooden panels, benches and tables, bewigged white men in black and important jurors sitting stiffly to attention, but you do not know the July that stands before them in this stifling room. For we have travelled fast to be within this courtroom—perhaps thirty years has passed, or maybe more, since last we met July.
So, please forget the young woman with neat braided hair always wrapped within a clean coloured kerchief. Think not of her mouth with its mischievous turn at the corners where a wry tale or tall-tall truth looked always about to escape it. And do not search for her spirited black eyes. It is time to put that younger July from your mind for another has just walked in. And her face, if the grime was wiped from it, or she was commanded to lift her head, is so pinched with starvation that death’s bony skull can be glimpsed beneath it; her skin is as tanned, wrinkled and care-worn as a neglected hide; her hair so matted that it stands in stiff locks; and her gait so stooped that the flimsy tattered rags of the dress she wears appear like a weight for her to carry.
And no seat is offered, so she clings her fingers to the wood of the dock that she might lean against its bulk. A bible is thrust before her. What must she do? Take it? No, she must place her hand upon it as she speaks her name. For that man—the white man within that big soft chair—must know the name she goes by. But not so hushed. He requires it spoken louder. Yet still he cannot hear when all her breath is used to pronounce it.
The man commanded to listen at her mouth tilts his head so close to hers that she can see white flakes of dead skin entangled within his hair. As he straightens away from her, he puffs out the breath he held so her stench did not overwhelm him and pronounces her name. July, says he. But July who? July who? The big-big man must now know. Again his breath is held as scaly-head man leans forward, but he hears no surname. Red as a goat’s testicle his face becomes, waiting for July to respond. But she has not uttered the name Goodwin for too many years and will not speak it now. The accused knows no other name, this gasping man is finally forced to expel.
Then there be a fat-bellied, bewhiskered white man standing erect about the other side of this room behind a desk. He says that she, that negro—and his fleshy finger points steadily across at July—was a squatter upon Unity land.
‘Are you living unlawfully upon the land?’
What? She could not hear him.
‘Do you live within the boundary of the estate?’
What? How could she reply if she could not hear him?
‘Oh, no matter, carry on.’
She has been living upon that land since its ownership passed from Amity to Unity and the boundaries were redrawn, begins this fat man. She was slave to John Howarth who owned Amity, then to his sister Caroline Mortimer. Mrs Mortimer married a Robert Goodwin and the estate was subsequently sold. England is where they now reside, my lord, in England.
Many, many years, the accused has lived upon those backlands. She lives amongst several other of the
negroes who used to work the plantation at Amity. Never has she paid any rent, according to the attorney. It is true it is unlevel rough and spent land, useless for cultivation, yet still within the boundary of the estate. But those negroes would not be moved.
This one (and again the fleshy finger points), declares she has no other home but this. Says she had been living upon Amity for all her life. That it was the place of her birth, where her kindreds’ bones were rested . . . et cetera, et cetera. She believes, as many of the negroes do in their child-like way, my lord, that there is no other world.
How many negroes lived there? Quite a few at first. It was the whole of the negro village from the Amity plantation. They were a blight. And, oh yes, there were several attempts made to have them moved on. The attorney at Unity—a Mr Fielding, my lord, he runs several of the estates in the parish for Sir Salisbury Edwards of Bristol, England, who bought Amity and combined the lands—said that much effort was made to reclaim the area. But never did he use unwarranted brutality, he wishes this court to know, like some Baptist ministers have implied within the press here. Never.
The attorney felt that, at the time, he was within his rights to see the negroes put beyond the land’s boundary. But he did not order the lands to be cleared with fire. Those fires were started by the negroes who did not realise how tindered the land had become during the drought of that time. And the militia were sent in only to apprehend those that took part in the prison incident in town.
