The Secret Life of Winnie Cox

by Sharon Maas

  My second telegram of the day was to Mama in Salzburg, and it was a long one.

  PAPA KILLED INDIAN LABOURER ON TRIAL FOR MURDER STOP I WAS WITNESS MUST TESTIFY STOP HUGE COMMOTION IN BG STOP I LOVE NEGRO MAN STOP NEED YOU DESPERATELY AT HOME STOP IF PAPA CONVICTED YOYO AND I ALONE STOP MAMA COME BACK WE NEED YOU STOP PLEASE MAMA PLEASE COME HOME YOU ARE OUR MOTHER COME HOME STOP WILL STAY PARK HOTEL GEORGETOWN REPLY THERE STOP

  In my lunch break I walked to the West Indian Line booking office and booked my passage back to British Guiana, two weeks hence. After my lunch break, I handed in my notice.

  Chapter Thirty

  They all came to the dock to see me off: Sibille, Max, Oskar and Ivan, Valerie and Amy, Johnny, Richard and Paul. In the last two weeks it seemed to me that some major shift had taken place within the group; as if they had all made a collective internal shuffle to make room for me. As if I was now enclosed in one big shared heart belonging to them all. Without words, only with gestures and looks and smiles, I felt their support and their final acceptance. I was one of them. One by one they hugged me before I boarded. Sibille accompanied me on board, carrying my suitcase in one hand and my violin case in the other.

  Uncle Don and Aunt Jane did not come to see me off; but then, I had not told them I was leaving. As my guardians they could have prevented my journey; but thank the Lord, the shipping company did not ask for signed parental permission. If they had I would have forged it.

  Nobody in Georgetown knew I was coming, and so on arrival I took a hackney carriage out to Kitty, where I surprised Aunty Dolly in the process of hemming a frock. She frowned as she looked up.

  ‘Eh-eh! Is what you doing here?’ No smile of welcome, no hug for me. I did not care. I smiled and hugged her and asked if I could stay, at least for one night until I could find other accommodation. Myrtle had arrived on the scene by now. The two of them exchanged a covert look. Neither of them smiled, neither showed the least sign of pleasure on seeing me. Though I understood, my heart cramped as if in the grip of giant claws.

  ‘It’s all right,’ I whispered. ‘I’m on your side. I’ll make it all good.’ And they let me stay.

  Early, very early the next morning, I made my way to the Kitty Police Station. I spoke with an officer for a few minutes, after which he set me in a carriage that took me to a house in Kingston. I walked up the stairs and knocked on the door. After a while, an Indian woman, still in a nightgown but with a hastily thrown-over shawl across her shoulders, opened it.

  ‘Mrs Bhattacharya?’ I asked. She nodded. ‘May I speak to your husband, please?’

  Mr Bhattacharya, the Crown Prosecutor, came out in his dressing gown, and interviewed me just as he was. Afterwards, Mrs Bhattacharya offered me breakfast, and I accepted, though I felt little hunger and ate no more than half a slice of bread with a thin spread of butter. Mr Bhattacharya, now bathed and dressed, joined us, and very dapper he was too in his black trousers, crisp white shirt and dark blue tie. I had never seen an Indian dressed so smartly. To match his spruce outfit he spoke with an accent straight out of a London University, his enunciation cleaner than my own by far. A brown peer, who might have walked straight out of the House of Lords. He was tall and lanky, his hair jet black and shiny, thin lips beneath a neatly combed moustache, and sharp searching eyes that seemed to probe into the deepest corner of my mind. It wouldn’t do to have this man on the other side. My poor Papa.

  After breakfast, a hansom cab picked us up and carried us to the Victoria High Court. The crowd was already thick on High Street as we approached. People were chanting; an angry, passionate chant, but I could not make out the words. The signs people waved told me more: Justice for Bhim!Down with racist trials!‘Guilty! Murderer! When I got out of the carriage someone recognised me.

  ‘Is Cox daughter!’ went the cry, and I was treated to a roar of fury. I bowed my head. Mr Bhattacharya held up his hand, put a protective arm around me; the crowd grew silent and parted to let us through, and then took up its chant again.

  As we reached the other end a single voice reached me. ‘Winnie?’

  I looked up. George was standing right in front of me. I did not answer; I just stopped and we stared at each other for a while, and then I nodded slightly and Mr Bhattacharya and I walked on.

  ‘Wait here until you’re called,’ said Mr Bhattacharya, gesturing to a bench in the corridor outside the courtroom. ‘I’m going to speak to your father.’ He walked away down the corridor, turned a corner, and disappeared.

  I sat on the bench, stiff-backed and somehow very calm within. A man in uniform stood guard before the open courtroom door. People began to arrive. They all stopped to stare at me. Yoyo came, and Miss Wright, and Miss Yorke, and some of the ladies form the Main Street houses. They all stopped and stared and Yoyo tried to speak to me but the guard gestured to her to move on. Uncle Jim approached, and stopped when he saw me.

  ‘Winnie?’

  I looked up, and met his eyes.

  ‘What’s going on, Winnie? What you doin’ sittin’ here?’

  I opened my mouth to speak but only a croak emerged, and the guard pushed him on too.

  I waited. Time crept forward. A clock on the wall ticked far too loudly. The corridor had emptied long ago; everyone was in the courtroom, waiting. I could hear their breathing, their shuffling, their anxious murmuring, through the open door.

  After what seemed an eternity, Mr Bhattacharya returned.

  ‘Miss Cox,’ he said to me, ‘you may speak to him now. Come with me.’

  ‘Oh!’ I exclaimed, and the anxiety must have shown in his eyes. We had not planned this. I did not want to see my father face to face. What I was doing, what I had told Mr Bhattacharya was bad enough. Seeing him in the dock would be bad enough. But Mr Bhattacharya held out his hand, gesturing to me to get up. He even smiled, for the first time since we’d met.

  ‘Don’t worry!’ he said, ‘it will be fine.’

  I rose to my feet and followed him back the way he’d come.

  Another door, this one closed. Another guard. Mr Bhattacharya nodded to him and he opened the door. He made a gesture towards me, rather, towards the handbag and I handed it over immediately.

  ‘Please raise your …’ but Mr Bhattarachrya stopped him mid-sentence.

  ‘No need to search her,’ he said. ‘She’s unarmed.’

  I entered the room. It was a small, shabby and sordid enclosure, its wooden walls covered in scuffed and peeling grey paint, and divided into two by a wall of metal bars with a padlocked door set into it, making a jail of the far portion. Inside that jail sat Papa, slumped on a chair drawn up to the bars. A broken man. A caged man.

  Pictures ran through my mind. I saw us all, Mama, Papa, we three girls, in the drawing room at Promised Land; we girls clapping while Mama and Papa swirled laughing to the Blue Danube sung by Mama. There was Papa, a younger, kinder Papa, sitting on his favourite chair and we three little girls climbing all over him, giggling and pulling his moustache; he tickling us and hugging us and being all a Papa should be. Papa, dancing with us one by one, teaching us all to waltz while Mama played the piano. Papa, my hero, my god, my father. Reduced to this: a prisoner in a cage.

  Papa looked up as I entered, and a half-smile moved his lips. His moustache was turned down, limp and unkempt as was his hair, which had obviously not been cut in months and hung over his forehead and onto his collar. He wore prison clothes: a weary blue-grey ensemble with a number stitched into the shirt pocket. Papa, an abject soul, lost. Involuntarily, a lump rose to my throat. I stood looking at him, unsure of what to do, what to say.

  Another man, on my side of the cage, stood up as I entered and introduced himself now as Mr Harper, Papa’s lawyer. He offered me his chair, the only chair on this side, and I sat down.

  ‘You may leave now, Mr Harper’ said Papa to him, and he tried to protest, but Papa only roared at him. ‘This is my daughter! Leave, I tell you!’

  He left, and silence followed. Papa and I sat looking
at each other.

  ‘Papa,’ I said eventually.

  ‘Winnie,’ he replied, and stood up. For a few seconds we simply stood, staring at each other, and then I sat down and so did he. I could not find words to speak, but at last he did.

  ‘So it is true,’ he said. ‘You are on their side. You will tell your story.’

  Something in me that had been turning soft hardened. ‘I will tell the truth,’ I said. ‘Papa, you know it is the truth.’

  More pictures flooded my mind. A different Papa. His face distorted with hatred, whipping an Indian labourer. Papa, using ugly forbidden words to speak of the man I loved. Papa, drawing a pistol and pointing it at Bhim. And Bhim. One hand raised and holding a flame. Bhim’s face, wide-eyed with fear, screaming words I could not hear. His other hand, empty, an open palm, held out towards Papa.

  Papa slumped forward, resting his elbows on his knees, his head on his hands.

  ‘Yes, he said eventually. ‘I know you speak the truth. I cannot blame you for that. You always spoke the truth. Always, always. It was what I always loved most about you: so candid. Never devious, as Yoyo was. And your kind heart. Always for the Poor Unfortunate. Just like your mother.’

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Like Mama. That’s what she taught me, Papa. The best person I have ever known. The best person, probably, that you have ever known. A kind, compassionate woman, full of light and joy, full of love for all of us, until you destroyed her. You turned her against yourself, didn’t you. You turned her away. With your cruelty. And then you sent her away. Even though you knew we needed her, you sent her away.’

  Papa hammered his thigh and glared at me. ‘I sent her away because she was a tramp! Your mother is no saint! You have no idea!’

  ‘Yes, I do, Papa. I read her diary. I know – I know everything! I know about Edward John! But still you should not have sent her away! She was our mother! We needed her! At the very least you could have let her stay in Georgetown. But no – she had to go so that you could keep on being the monster you turned into!’

  Papa leapt to his feet, grabbed the rails of cage. I was glad they were there – would he have attacked me in his rage?

  ‘Monster! How dare you! How – how …’

  And then, as suddenly as he had leapt up, he fell back into his chair, a broken man. Broken with sobs, sobs that horrified me as much as, somehow, they moved me. How is it possible to keep a hardened heart when the object of that hardness is weeping in contrition?

  ‘Yes. I sent her away. I could not have her in my house, knowing what she had done. She begged to stay, because of you, Winnie, and Yoyo. Begged on bended knees. She’d given him up, years before, she said; it was over, over at Edward John’s death. She promised to change, to wake out of her darkness, if only she could stay. Promised even to leave Promised Land and live in Georgetown if I could not have her in my house. But no. I could not have her in the country. How could I bear it? I sent her away, Winnie. Ostensibly to accompany Kathleen, to avoid scandal – but she had no choice. She had to go. I threw her out in my rage and jealousy. Yes. You have me to blame for that as well, for sending your mother away. You can hate me even more. Go on. Just hate me. I deserve it. I am a cruel man. A bad man. She was good, too good for me, and I drove her into his arms and then I drove her away. She was all I ever loved. I was a broken man, Winnie; I couldn’t take losing her love. I am a broken man. A criminal. A – a murderer. But it was her fault! She betrayed me! Adultery! How could I keep her after that! She had to go, Winnie. I had to do it. I banished her. Sent her into exile … I lost her. My most precious …’

  On and on he rambled. The words tumbled out from his lips in a torrent, confession following accusation, blame riding on the back of self-reproach; recriminations, excuses, explanations, all spilling from his lips in an uncontrolled frenzy, a temporary madness, Perhaps, too, a release. My own mind reeled as I listened in stunned silence, but at those last words I broke in.

  ‘You didn’t have to lose her!’ I cried. I was parched inside. I longed for a glass of water. ‘You could have changed. You could have forgiven her and changed – because you know very well why she did what she did! You could have put things right – loved her again, become a good man again! Let her show you a way of love, and kindness.’

  ‘Love! Kindness! You’re a dreamer, Winnie, you always were! I had an estate to run!’ Papa roared. ‘You cannot run an estate on kindness! That was the first thing Mr McInnes told me! You have to show the coolies who is master! But once you start, it takes hold of you – drives you to do things – terrible things – brings out the worst in you … the evil … I …’

  And then, once again, he switched. Fury flared again in his eyes, and he pointed a finger at me. ‘You, Winnie, you! You betrayed me too! You! You little sneaky slut! Throwing yourself at a nigger! You ran to that rat, that Booker rat, that mad Booker traitor! You took sides against your own father! Him, of all people! Him! That rat! That bloody nigger-lover! Him of all people! Just like your mother! Yes, just like her – nigger-lover!’

  I stared. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Not the shocking words so much, but the meaning behind them. The hidden meaning. Could it be true? Or was I misinterpreting?

  ‘Papa – Jim Booker – Mama – was he the – the man who …’

  ‘YES!’ Papa roared. ‘Of course he was! Who else! Who else would she run to but a nigger-lover like herself! You both – both of you! Behind my back! Traitors both!’

  Now I was the one to slump. I tried to say something but nothing came; I could not say a word for the lump in my throat blocked all speech. Uncle Jim! He was the man Mama had loved! The father of Edward John! No wonder – no wonder … my mind stumbled through the past, trying to fit together the jigsaw pieces, but I couldn’t. A thousand questions rose into my mind, all needing answers I could not find. Uncle Jim! It must have happened between wives; after Gladys’s death, before Bhoomie. Uncle Jim seemed to favour women of all races. But of all people, Uncle Jim! I had assumed Mama’s lover was the Troublemaker. Uncle Jim! That explained so much! My mind reeled. Meanwhile, Papa raged on.

  ‘Of all people, him! Him and her, and then him and you! What about me! What about me! Her husband, your father! Why, why, why!’

  That’s when I finally found the words. ‘Because, Papa, you were no longer that man we loved. You became a monster. You drove us away. You drove us to him. Uncle Jim is a father to me, the father you weren’t.’

  Papa stared at me, and than, for the second time, he broke.

  ‘Yes. I drove you away. I lost you. I lost you both. Two of the four people I love most in the world. I lost you, and I have only myself to blame. You are right. I became a monster. How could she love me. How could she love a monster? My fault. I drove her away.’

  ‘That was it, wasn’t it?’ I said. ‘The reason for her darkness.. She discovered, just as I did, what sort of man you were. A cruel, ruthless man. A monster. What sort of man you are.’

  ‘No. Past tense, Winnie. I am no longer that man. You are right. There was a monster living in me. You saw. You know. She saw, and she knew, and yes, you are right, it drove her away, turned her against me. Destroyed her love. Turned it into hatred. Drove her away. Drove her to him. I could not take it. I couldn’t take the reproach in her eyes. I could not take her knowing I was a monster. I could not take her infidelity; that she could find a better man than me.’

  He stopped speaking. Papa sat upright again, looking straight into my eyes. ‘Winnie,’ he said. ‘Ah, Winnie. My little girl. You are so like your mother. That’s why I love you so much. Yes, I still love you. Even though you betray me.’

  ‘Then, Papa, if you still love me – don’t make me do this! Don’t make me stand up there in court! Please, Papa! We both know the truth. We both know what happened. For Mama’s sake, Papa – tell the truth! It will save you. It will save us all.’

  Right on cue, there was a sharp rap on the door, and it opened slightly. I looked around; Mr Bhattacharya stoo
d just outside. He pointed at his watch.

  ‘Miss Cox? Are you nearly finished? Time’s running – the court is waiting …’

  ‘We’re nearly finished,’ I said, though in fact we had only just begun. So much still unsaid. A lifetime of errors to be put right, here and now.

  ‘Papa,’ I said. ‘What now?’

  ‘I am a broken man,’ he said simply. ‘It is all over. I have lost everything – everything of any value to me. I lost her, and you, my daughter. Winnie, I – I …’ He stopped. And then he said, ‘Winnie, call in Mr Bhattacharya.’

  I stood up, and stepped to the door, slightly lightheaded and still unstable from the distress of the conversation. I opened it. Mr Bhattacharya, sitting on a chair just outside, jumped to his feet.

  ‘Please come in,’ I said to him. He entered the room. Papa was standing in his cage.

  ‘Mr Bhattacharya,’ he said. ‘I wish to make a confession.’

  An usher escorted me into the packed courtroom. There were no seats left, just standing room at the back. Black people stood there. Several faces turned as I entered, white faces, black faces, frowning faces, puzzled faces. A hum of murmuring filled the room as people nudged each other and looked at me and looked away. Was I a friend, an enemy? No one could tell; what they did know was that I had held up the process and was thus, in some way, significant.

  The room was divided into two; on one side sat the people who looked like me. On the other side sat those who looked like George. White people, black people. My people, his people; but to me, just people, and I belonged nowhere. Where was George? I scanned the backs of heads, looking for him, and in that moment he turned around and our eyes met across the room. He was on a bench near the front, as I had guessed, but even at that great distance I could feel it, that spark of connection that never failed when I was in his presence. I quietly moved to stand at the back, with the black people. I knew my place.