The Secret Life of Winnie Cox

by Sharon Maas

  Archie however seems to have a bit of a problem, but he won’t tell me what it is. He is always arguing with his father, but out of reach of my ears. It is some secret they share. I am sure I shall find out in due time.

  Father brought me a wonderful new violin as my wedding present – a Stradivarius! – and I spend many hours playing. There is a beautiful grand piano in the lounge here, and everyone is very impressed with my musical skills. They have all warmed towards me considerably. My English has improved by leaps and bounds, and I am now officially a Christian – yes! I am a convert!

  Chapter Eight

  Sometimes, Lady Fate plays her cards exactly right. That next day, Papa came home at lunchtime; he had news for us.

  ‘Yoyo,’ he said, ‘I believe you are friends with Margaret McInnes? The daughter of my estate manager? She is your age.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Yoyo. ‘Maggie and I are great friends; she’s a very jolly girl. But she goes to school in New Amsterdam, so I hardly ever see her during term time.’

  ‘Well, my dear, that is going to change. Mrs McInnes is expecting another child, and will close down her New Amsterdam house and move back to her husband in the Senior Staff quarters. And Maggie will join you for lessons with Miss Wright. It’s all been decided. I hope you’re pleased!’

  ‘Pleased! Oh Papa, I’m delighted! Hurrah! She and I shall have such fun together!’

  And with that, George, the transatlantic cable, the Morse Code, vanished from Yoyo’s mind. That very afternoon she ran off to visit Maggie at the senior staff quarters, and I was left alone.

  As soon as I could, I picked up my bicycle and almost flew the distance to the post office. As usual, he was sitting at his desk but turned around the moment I walked in as if he were waiting for my footstep. He scraped back his chair, and almost bounded across the room to meet me. His smile seemed to light up everything within me; my whole soul smiled back. I rushed to the counter and we faced each other in silence, joined by this one marvellous smile; words were superfluous.

  ‘Your sister did not come today?’ he said at last.

  ‘No,’ I replied. ‘She’s gone to visit a friend. But I’d like another lesson in Morse, so I came alone.’

  He hesitated just a second too long, and in that second I realised why – was it within the rules of propriety, for me to be alone with him? Yet even to think there might be anything improper in our association was ludicrous. Only we knew what was between us. It might be unusual for a darkie to teach a Sugar Princess, but for anyone to suspect more – well that would be so ridiculous, it was shocking; not on my behalf or George’s but on the person who harboured such a suspicion. George might be a man, but he was a darkie, practically a servant.

  ‘It’s all right,’ I said. ‘Come on over – bring the machine!’

  What a delightful time we spent! George gave me the Morse booklet and a pencil and paper and while he tapped out words I meticulously translated them and wrote them down. Then the other way around: I would look up the code for certain words and tap them into the key. And so we conversed, exchanging simple pleasantries by way of code; and all in complete silence. Soon it began to feel natural to converse in this way, as if I were having a normal conversation with a friend, an equal. The inequalities of our birth simply melted away. The awkwardness I felt at being alone with a man, a man who made me feel like a bud opening in the sunlight, gave way to a sense of rightness and complete calm. He was a teacher, I was his pupil, and perhaps that relationship was the great equalizer, for him as well as for me, for he too appeared more relaxed, more at ease with me, laughing and joking as we conversed in code.

  My name. Then his name.

  ‘Faster!’ said George, and I’d tap again.

  ‘Faster yet!’ and I’d try again, a second speedier.

  ‘You’re really good!’ Admiration was in his voice, and it propelled me to try faster and faster yet. The dots and the dashes in all their combinations began to feel natural, as natural as the letters of the alphabet. I tapped out an entire sentence.

  ‘Do you have brothers and sisters?’

  He took the machine from me.

  ‘I have two sisters,’ he tapped.

  I took back the machine.

  ‘So do I,’ I tapped. I became audacious. Cheeky, even.

  ‘Love,’ I tapped. Over and over again, until I knew it by heart. ‘Marriage,’ That really was mischievous. I looked up as I tapped it, and to my consternation he seemed uncomfortable; his smile had left him and beads of sweat dotted his forehead.

  He took the machine, and hesitated a moment. Then he tapped, slowly, a longer sentence. I wrote down the dots and dashes, deciphered them, and smiled.

  ‘She has such pretty eyes.’

  I blushed, and looked up, meeting his gaze. His eyes were large, dark, luminous – the black forest creeks in the interior, as clear as mirrors; and indeed, I felt myself mirrored in them, as if I could see myself in that gaze, as if that gaze probed deep into my heart, penetrated every little nook and cranny of my soul, saw all there was to see, absorbed my last little secret; and it was good. I could not pull away from that gaze – but he did, with a quick shake of his head as if flinging away the magic, breaking the spell.

  I am happy I met you, he tapped into his machine, which seemed an anti-climax after the intensity of that gaze, but I understood – we had to return to the real and mundane world, and that, for the moment, was this – the tapping out of words on a primitive Morse key. A code, a common link in our so disparate lives.

  And then everything changed. George took the key from me and began tapping, quickly, much too quickly for me to note the dots and dashes and write them down, much less to interpret them. On and on he spoke in the language of Morse, a whole paragraph, a speech. What was he saying?

  ‘George, stop! Stop! I can’t follow! Do it slowly so I can write it down!’

  He stopped his tapping and his shoulders slumped. His face was serious, and somehow sad, when he spoke: ‘Miss Winnie, I don’t want you to understand.’

  There it was again, that obnoxious ‘Miss Winnie’. ‘Don’t call me that!’ I said. ‘Call me Winnie. Please do!’

  He shook his head, and his eyes glistened, perhaps with tears. A sadness had descended upon him and I was at a loss at how to shake it off. The message he had sent me vanished into space, never to be retrieved. What had he said? Was it something he’d never dare to tell me to my face?

  At that moment someone entered the Post Office. There had been one or two interruptions today, and George had left the table to serve his customers, then returned immediately. But this person entered in such a whirlwind of hostility that I looked up. It was a young Indian man, and he bristled with rage. He did not look at me, but stepped in front of the table, arms akimbo.

  ‘You lost your senses, George? What you doin’ with this white girl, the boss’ daughter? You mad or what?’

  George, so happy and confident just a few minutes ago – before his Morse speech, that is – crumbled. ‘Bhim, I – I …’ he began, but the man broke in.

  ‘Get rid of her. Now! I need to talk to you.’

  ‘Win – Miss Winnie, I think you’d better leave …’ George began, but I was already on my feet and on my way to the door, my cheeks burning. I felt as if I had been whipped. I cycled home, in tears. Who was that man, and why was he so rude? And why had George not defended me? Wasn’t it his post office? What had he done wrong?

  I had to find out. I would return the next day, for certain.

  I could not sleep at all that night, and was silent for most of the evening. I listened to Yoyo as she chattered about the wonderful time she had spent with Maggie, and what they had planned for the morrow. My own plans for the morrow were clear. I had to speak to George. He had to answer my questions.

  All night I tossed and turned, going over in my mind the events of the afternoon.

  As always, when my thoughts needed calming, I began to talk internally to Mama, and at once the w
ords began to pour out, tumbling over each other in my need for expression. And so I decided to give them that expression, to write her another letter. How much could I tell her? This time, the answer came clear and strong: Everything! Mama would understand.

  And so I sat myself down at my desk, dipped my pen into the bottle of Quink, and let the words pour out on to the page. Afterwards, I felt lighter, relieved of a burden. Indeed, writing to Mama had helped. And I would have to post it, I realized; tomorrow. I would see George, and ask him face- to-face what had happened. Why he had been so rude to me! I deserved an answer, an explanation. Why had he let this Bhim control him? Why? Why?

  I was practically quivering with anticipation as I walked up the steps to the post office and through the door. George was standing at the counter today, attending to a customer; he looked up as I entered and some strange emotion flitted across his features.

  ‘One minute, please, Miss Winnie!’ he said, and turned back to his customer. I waited at the back of the room. My moment would come. I would not confront him, not accuse him, I had decided. I would tell him of my feelings. There was far too much secrecy between us, too much left unspoken. Then he would tell me of his feelings for me that I was certain he harboured. I had seen it in his eyes, felt it at the touch of his hand. I knew. We would declare our love for each other. It had to be out in the open, no matter what would come of it. And once it was out in the open I would question him about the disastrous end to yesterday’s session. Yes, that was the way to do it.At last, the customer left, and I approached the counter, smiling. But George did not smile back. His eyes met mine, but the warmth and acknowledgment I had seen there on Monday, and on Friday, failed to shine within them. Instead, all that met me was a blank gaze.

  ‘How can I help you, Miss Winnie,’ he said. It wasn’t even a question; it was a statement, as if he did not care about helping me. I was completely thrown. And he had called me Miss Winnie. Again.

  ‘I-I have a letter to p-post,’ I said. I couldn’t control the stutter, or the shyness coursing through me. Thank goodness I did have a letter. Unthinkable the embarrassment had I turned up without a valid excuse!

  The tension between us was excruciating. Debilitating. My knees turned weak, as if they would give way and I would faint, but I held myself together as George dealt with my letter. I had imagined he would have made a joke, about my sending a second letter so quickly on the heels of the first, to the very same recipient, but he made no comment; he simply cut away the required stamp and pasted it on to the envelope without a word, without a glance at me. It was almost rude, considering the intimacy we had shared just two days previously. What on earth was going on? I died several deaths before, at last, he was finished and I could flee. Flee the building and flee him. Oh, the humiliation! The devastation! I grabbed my bicycle and tore home, tears stinging my eyes and my soul ripping to pieces in the wind.

  Mama’s Diary: Norfolk, 1890

  Liebes Tagebuch

  Again, many moons have passed and my suspicions are more than confirmed – our first child is to be born in three months’ time! As you can imagine, I am thrilled beyond measure – we are to be parents!

  I now also know what Archie’s dire secret is. I really don’t know why he is making such a fuss. It seems that the family owns a sugar plantation in Africa or somewhere like that – I can’t remember the exact name of the country – and Archie is to be sent there to manage it, as it is losing money. Archie says the real reason is to get rid of him, to punish him for marrying me (I didn’t know this at first but it seems they had planned a different bride for him, and that alliance would have enriched the family no end, and they are still peeved about that.)

  ‘They are banishing us!’ Archie says. But frankly, I don’t care. Wherever he goes, I shall go too. Isn’t that what my namesake Ruth of the Old Testament says? The circumstances may have been different but the essence of what she says remains. He is my husband, my beloved, and I will follow him to the ends of the earth. I am happy to go wherever he goes. I will give my life to him, love him with all my heart and soul. He is truly the best husband on the world. Not only handsome and charming, but so kind and loving. He adores me. I am his Princess, his Queen! We will go to Africa, then, and reign there! I have told him I am happy to go – as long as we have each other, what does it matter what soil is under our feet!

  And besides, it sounds like a jolly adventure! I love that English word, jolly, and I use it all the time, now. It’s my favourite word! Yes, a jolly adventure I shall have, in Africa, on a sugar plantation! It will surely be all sweetness and light – what else could it be, surrounded by sugar! I shall eat pudding and cake all day and grow fat on sweetness! The plantation is called Promised Land! If that is not a harbinger for wonderful things to come, then what is!

  Chapter Nine

  Early the following morning, long before dawn, a cannon’s boom jolted me out of sleep. I shot up in bed, deafened and dazed. A crack of light, another bang, and I knew: thunder, lightning. The next instant the sky opened and an ocean poured down on to the roof and the whole world roared. The rainy season had arrived. It would mean being confined to the house for weeks on end while the water rose around us, rose and sank as the drainage channels carried it away again, rose and sank, rose and sank. It meant rain. Rain, rain and more rain. Rivers of rain pouring from the sky. How very fitting, I thought. Nature giving expression to my soul.

  British Guiana is a country whose coastal lands lie six feet beneath sea level. Were it not for the Dutch, the strip of coast lapped by the Atlantic would actually be submerged; but the Dutch, who had colonized the country before the British, had converted these Netherlands into arable, liveable, agricultural terrain by a complicated system of canals and kokers, kokers being the sluices that regulated the water in the canals. For the rest, the Courantyne coast was protected from the sea by an inviolable dyke running all the way from the Berbice River to the Courantyne. Westwards from us, down in Demerara, they had the famous seawall, a solid brick wall wide enough to walk upon, running the entire length of the coast between the Demerara and the Berbice. The management of water was what the Dutch did well, and it was only thanks to that nation of dam-and-canal builders that plantations such as Promised Land could exist at all. At high tide in the rainy season, the water rose, converting the area into a lake. At low tide the kokers were opened, the water released, and the water drained off. This was the reason why our houses, all the houses, were raised on stilts.

  As a child I had loved the rainy season; what child would not! We three girls would run out into the rain and scream and spin with joy; when the house became an island trapped in a lake of knee-high water, and the rain let up for an hour or two, we would build rafts and play at pirates; barefoot, bare-legged, our dresses soaked from hem to neckline, we cavorted like three foals let loose in a green pasture; Mama, laughing herself, would watch us sitting on the front stairs, knowing it was useless to bind us.

  Now, I slipped from my bed and repaired to the veranda to watch the water fall from the dry safety of the house: and a waterfall it truly was, cascading all around, enclosing the house in a dry safe bubble.

  I huddled in one of the rattan chairs and wrapped a thin cotton shawl around me; the air was cool and close and very damp. The rain fell in huge flat sheets, like water sloshed from a bucket. No spaces between the drops. Surrounded by a globe of solid water, I let the roar of the downpour drown out every feeling, every thought. Eventually it drew me into itself; I became a part of that roaring, rushing flood, without thought and yet so vibrantly present and alive as never before.

  My skin turned to gooseflesh, like the skin of a plucked chicken; cool on the outside, I nevertheless felt a sweet, melting warmth that came from within, simply by watching the rain. It was as if the noise and the wetness washed through me, draining away the gloom and despair that had filled me the previous evening, and transforming it into a shivery elation, a peculiar sense of gladness. George’s coldness of yest
erday faded into the background, inconsequential.

  I sat there for an age, watching, listening, huddled under my shawl, free of all thought, merged in the downpour. It was bliss. Then I jumped, for someone had touched my shoulder. I looked around and it was Yoyo.

  ‘Winnie!’ she cried. ‘What on earth are you doing here? We’ve been looking for you everywhere! It’s time for breakfast!’

  Her words jolted me back to reality. I sprang to my feet, gathered up my shawl and turned to follow her into the house. Just as I passed the threshold I turned around to look once again into the rain. And that’s the moment when reality truly jolted me awake. One thought:

  What can it be like in the logies?

  I stopped dead in my tracks at the thought. A vision of horror encompassed me. Those muddy tracks between the houses: now open sewers. Those makeshift roofs: as protective as treetops. The wood for their stoves: sodden through. How would they cook? Where would they sleep? What would they use as toilets when all around them, there was only water? Would the plantation management be there for them?

  This much I knew about our coolies: they were our responsibility. The plantation hired them, housed them, paid their wages, looked after their welfare such as it was. They came from India at our bidding, because we needed them. We provided for them for the duration of their contract. Outside of us, they had nothing.

  This much I knew now about plantation management: it didn’t give a fig. And Papa was at the top. Papa was plantation management. I grabbed Yoyo’s arm, pulled her to me, and pointed into the deluge.

  ‘The logies!’ I said. It was enough; she grasped my dismay immediately.

  Her eyes widened. We stared at each other, united again in the awareness that the world did not begin and end at the little doorstep called me; that what little aches and pains we felt were pin-pricks against the gut-wrenching misery that lay beyond our bubble of paradise; that the gilded privilege we took for granted was agonizingly paid for by others. Her eyes mirrored the Weltschmerz that now submerged me, sweeping away every last vestige of yesterday’s heartbreak, every last memory of George. How trivial my own cares and problems in the light of that misery!