The Long Song
Page 29
His breath was faltering, his fingers fidgeting—with the curve of his nails, his marriage band, his cuff—and his head was bowed when he quietly told July that he believed he was her son. He had longed for this day, but feared it would never come, he said. He had thought her dead. But now he wondered if he was, at last, sitting before the woman who had given birth to him. And then, with nervous searching, he looked upon July’s face to seek a response, as he asked if she had once left her pickney upon a stone outside a Baptist manse. It was then that July leaned to one side upon the chair and, for his answer, regurgitated that rich milk to splatter into a pool of curds and whey upon the polished floor.
Yet still my beloved son, Thomas Kinsman, looked upon me kindly. Why, I have never truthfully understood.
But I have lived within my son’s household from that day to this. Our first home was within that house in Falmouth where Lillian, my son’s very young wife, did attend upon both her husband and me with the flurry of a fusspot. It was there that those three mischievous girls, Louise, Corinne and May, were born—and every day of our lives turned suddenly from peace into raucous mayhem.
But the town of Falmouth soon began to wither. For the sugar that fed and fattened that port lessened with every passing year. It slowly starved. So Thomas Kinsman moved us—his cherished family—to Kingston, where he opened a further printing business. And very profitable it is, too. But do not take my word upon it, go ask my son—he will joy to take you upon a tour of his fine works, if you so desire.
But for me, reader, my story is finally at an end. This long song has come full up to date. It is at last complete. So let me now place that final end dot . . .
Reader, alas my son is not yet finished with me. Must an old woman endure this? Thomas Kinsman is shaking his head once more. No, says he, surely this is not where my tale will end? What of the life lived by July upon those backlands at Amity? He wishes to know of those years betwixt July’s stolen pickney and her shuffling starving in upon that courtroom.
So I have just asked him, you wish me to describe how July walked to find those negroes upon the backlands? How she collapsed before them and was tenderly nursed back into this life? Must I show you the trouble that those free negroes had to endure? Should my reader feel the fear of the harassment from planters that came upon that place almost daily? Shall we put out those fires, rebuild the huts, chase mounted white men from out the crops? Would you care to face a loaded pistol with a machete and a hoe? Or perhaps I should enlighten my readers as to how long a little piece of land can last until, lifeless and exhausted, it produces nothing but thistle? Shall I let the earthquakes rattle and the floods pour? Or shall we just sit throughout a drought—parched and dusty as the desiccated earth? Or feel as a fist is pressed into a starving belly so it might be tricked into thinking it is full? Must I find pretty words to describe the yellow fever that took so many? Or perhaps your desire is simply to watch as a large pit is dug for the graves?
All this I asked my son and you know what Thomas Kinsman replied? ‘Yes, Mama, yes. We must know of all of this.’
But why must I dwell upon sorrow? July’s story will have only the happiest of endings and you must take my word upon it. Perhaps, I told my son, upon some other day there may come a person who would wish to tell the chronicle of those times anew. But I am an old-old woman. And, reader, I have not the ink.
AFTERWORD
I TRUST I WILL be forgiven for this further intrusion upon my mama’s story. Although that good woman’s tale is at a close, it has left me, her son, with a quandary with which I hope the readers of this book might assist.
Within my mama’s careful narration you will recall the story of the second child that was born to her character July. Now, any careful reader of these pages will have realised that my mama’s tale, although purporting to be merely a fiction, closely follows the true circumstance of her own life. Therefore the child that was born to July—Emily—was a daughter that my own dear mama did indeed give life to. Emily Goodwin is my half-sister.
However, all trace of Emily Goodwin has been lost. Upon occasion my mama has expressed some curiosity as to what happened to her daughter. She has asked me, for example, whether Emily lives as a white woman in England? Does she reside within a fancy house or is she used as a servant? And upon several occasions my mama has become quite fretful when enquiring of me whether I believe her daughter Emily knows the real circumstances of her birth or remembers her mama? But then the pain of that parting soon causes that dear old woman to put all thought of Emily from out of her mind and feign indifference when any further mention is made of her.
But I have of late been puzzling upon the whereabouts of Emily Goodwin and the situation under which she now lives. Perhaps she is in England, unaware of the strong family connection she has to this island of Jamaica. She may have children of her own, who have no understanding that their grandmama was born a slave.
So here is where I come to my request. If any readers have information regarding Emily Goodwin—her circumstance, her whereabouts—I would be very obliged to them if they could let me know it. A letter to my print works here in Kingston, addressed to Thomas Kinsman, would always find me. And any news that might allow me to know what happened to my sister would be gratefully received. But here I would also give one word of caution to any wishing to eagerly aid me with this request. In England the finding of negro blood within a family is not always met with rejoicing. So please, do not think to approach upon Emily Goodwin too hastily with the details of this story, for its load may prove to be unsettling.
Thomas Kinsman
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I owe a great deal of thanks to many people for the help, advice, and support that I received during the writing of this novel: Olivia Amiel, Maya Mayblin, Albyn Hall, Catherine Hall, Judy Bastyra, Dorothy Kew, Ele Rickham, Marilyn Delevante, Gad Heuman, Jill Russell, Charles Sweeney, Lola Young, Kate Pullinger, Olive Senior, Patricia Duncker and Sheila Duncker. I would also like to say a big thank you to all my friends and family (you know who you are) for being so wonderful when times got tough.
As this story is set in Jamaica during the 19th century I needed the knowledge of a great many other minds to help transport me to that time and place:
• Henry Bleby, Death Struggles of Slavery.
• Compiled and edited by Peter Barbar, Gin and Hell-Fire: Henry Batchelor’s Memoirs of a Working Class Childhood in Crouch End 1823-1837.
• Edited by F. G. Cassidy and R. B. Le Page, Dictionary of Jamaican English.
• Mrs Carmichael, Domestic Manners and Social Customs of the White, Coloured and Negro Populations of the West Indies.
• Roderick Cave, Printing and the Book Trade in the West Indies.
• Bryan Edward, The History, Civil and Commercial of the British Colonies in the West Indies.
• Edited with an Introduction by Moira Ferguson, The History of Mary Prince, A West Indian Slave. Related by herself.
• Catherine Hall, Civilising Subjects; Metropole and Colony in the English Imagination 1830-1867.
• Fernando Henriques, Family and Colour in Jamaica.
• Gad Heuman, Between Black and White: Race Politics and the Free Coloured in Jamaica 1670-1970.
• B. W. Higman, Montpelier Jamaica; A Plantation Community in Slavery and Freedom 1739-1912.
• Matthew Lewis, Journal of a Residence Among the Negroes in the West Indies.
• Edited by Roderick A. MacDonald, Between Slavery and Freedom: Special Magistrate John Anderson’s Journal of St Vincent during Apprenticeship.
• Charles Manby Smith, The Working Man’s Way in the World.
• Montgomery Ward & Co catalogue no 57 1895 (facsimile).
• Lady Nugent, Lady Nugent’s Journal.
• Mrs Seacole (Edited by Ziggi Alexander & Audrey Dewjee), Wonderful Adventures of Mrs Seacole in Many Lands.
• Olive Senior, Encyclopedia of Jamaican Heritage.
• Raymond T. Smith, Kin
ship and Class in the West Indies; A Genealogical Study of Jamaica and Guyana.
• Anthony Trollope, The West Indies and the Spanish Main.
• James Walvin, Black Ivory; A History of British Slavery.
• James Walvin, The Life and Times of Henry Clarke of Jamaica, 1828-1907
. . . And of course, the Internet.
I would also like to thank my agent David Grossman for his constant care and attention, and my UK editor Jane Morpeth for her wisdom. And finally, I am totally indebted to my husband Bill Mayblin not only for being my sensitive and tactful first reader, but also for everything else.