Freedom

by Catherine Johnson

  “I hear England is a cold place. Pineapple needs sun. Warmth. Care.”

  Missis Palmer harrumphed, a sound like the snort of a cow, and swished back into the house.

  Old Thomas gave me a wide smile. “Folk can bully folk, but nature will do as she pleases.”

  Betsy came though the garden later that morning and told us we were wanted in the house after we’d finished our afternoon duties. Thomas scratched his head but said nothing, even though I had never known this happen before. I wanted to ask him what he thought the master or mistress wanted with us but he just sent me over to the far side of the gardens to check on the young sorrel plants. I worried all afternoon that somehow, some way, someone had seen the thoughts inside my head and knew my plans to run away. Perhaps when I was sleeping I had spoken them aloud, or maybe someone had touched me by accident, and my idea to run away had been transmitted through my skin.

  When I finally managed to ask him, Thomas had no clue what it was about, which did not reassure me at all.

  I imagined the whip, falling hard and fast.

  I was not calm when we were shown through the kitchen to Missis Palmer’s parlour. This was where she kept her books and inventories. This was where she decided who of the household slaves were sold or moved on to the field.

  Then I saw old Mistress Barratt, sitting in Missis Palmer’s armchair, skirts spread out so that it looked as if she had no legs, her hand resting on her polished hardwood stick as if she were some kind of queen. Which I suppose she was. Mr Bird walked across Missis Palmer’s desk, and I could see Missis Palmer curl her lip a little. No one liked that creature save the old mistress. I kept my hands behind my back and prayed that green-feathered monster didn’t come any closer. I reached up and rubbed the back of my head where I had felt the blow of that stick last, thinking the worst. Somehow, they knew I wanted to run away. I looked down at my bare feet, dull with mud.

  “Thomas, Miss Palmer here has told me that there are no fruits on the pineapples.”

  I felt my whole body relax. This was about fruit, not escape.

  “Yess’m, Missis.” Thomas spoke in a low monotone, kept his own eyes fixed down – not the way he spoke to me in the garden. In fact he sounded as if he too was a twelve-year-old boy. This, I knew, was the way you had to speak to white people. If they thought you were simple they were less likely to hit you.

  “We are sailing on Friday. I wish to take some fruit, or failing that some plants.”

  Mr Bird skipped back to the old mistress’s shoulder. She fed it a grape, and Mr Bird held it in its claw and I saw its tongue, black and wizened.

  Thomas shifted a little; I knew it was hard for him to stand still for long with only half a foot.

  Mrs Barratt went on. “Miss Palmer has reminded me that pineapples are not a natural fit with the English climate.”

  “No’m, Missis.”

  Mrs Barrett thumped her stick hard on the ground. Mr Bird flew up, flapped and screeched. Thomas and I fairly jumped.

  “Thomas, is your skull as empty as a glutton’s dinner plate?”

  “No’m, Missis.”

  The stick thumped again and Mr Bird screeched. “I have promised pineapples to the Duke of Mistleton and his wife. And I shall have them. Pack up the plants in readiness for the boat.”

  She got up. Thomas and I stepped back instinctively.

  Missis Palmer coughed a little. Dipped a curtsey. “Thomas said the plants will need care and attention. On the journey, ma’am.”

  Mrs Barratt looked from her to Thomas, and finally to me. I could feel her stone-grey eyes boring into me for the longest time. Outside the wind rattled through the palm trees.

  “Then the boy can attend them.”

  I looked up. She had gone.

  “I can’t!” I hissed to Thomas as Missis Palmer shooed us out. He shushed me and I held my tongue until we were back in the garden.

  “I cannot go to England!” I wailed. “I will not go! I will not!”

  Thomas slapped me across the face. I was stunned with shock.

  “Don’t you realize how lucky you are, Nathaniel Barratt? You stop moaning and moping right now.”

  I sniffed. “But I promised I’d find Mamma and—”

  “Think! She would want this too! She would want you to tek this chance in both your hands. Freedom!” He took me by the shoulders. “She and the pickney, they will manage without you.”

  “I’ll never see them again.” I couldn’t help shuddering.

  Thomas’s voice was steady. “Listen. We all lost people. We all lost everyone. That’s how they mek us live, like we cattle.” I looked at him. “Nathaniel, you pack up those plants and you tek yourself forward. Imagine – this is your chance to hold your head up.”

  He patted my shoulder, ran his hand across my head.

  “Come, Nat. We have a look for some wood. And maybe some glass. Those plants need protection. Like a lot of living things I don’t know if they’ll survive the salt sea.”

  I was still a bit wobbly. All those plans I’d made… But then maybe I could change those plans. It might take longer but perhaps Thomas was right. Maybe I could be free and make my fortune and come back and save Mamma and Martha. I ran to catch Thomas up. He was already heading down the garden path towards the tool shed.

  “How long,” I called, “does it take to sail to England?”

  As the days passed I began to make new plans. Perhaps London was paved with gold like Bets in the kitchen said. I asked Thomas over and over about it and he told me that he doubted anywhere in the world was paved with anything but poor folks’ troubles. He said all he knew was that London was cold and that the rain that fell was also cold. Even if it wasn’t paved with actual gold, there were so many rich people all in one place, I thought there was a good chance some of them would drop money and forget to pick it up.

  On the last morning before the boat set sail, we packed up the pineapple plants and carried them to the wagon. I had helped make the boxes, one for each plant, with sliding glass lids.

  “See?” Old Thomas said as we loaded them up. “These little plants have nice, nice likkle homes. Give them plenty of air and keep them warm if the weather turn, yuh hear?”

  I nodded. I looked at him and thought to myself that here was another face I would have to keep a hold of in my mind.

  “You keep your head up, Nat.”

  “You’re not coming down to the ship?” I said. “See me off?”

  He shook his head. “Can’t say as me and ships get along. That one journey was enough for me.”

  I nodded. Old Thomas reached out and flattened my hair. “Your hair stick up so…”

  I didn’t pull away.

  “You a fine boy,” he said. “Your mamma be proud, proud.” He coughed a little, leant close. “You go to Englan’, Nat. You be free!”

  It felt like there was something hard stuck in my throat and I could not speak. I turned away and climbed up into the wagon, and watched until we turned the corner and I couldn’t see him or Barratt Hall any more.

  I was surprised at how my heart leapt when at last the wagon rolled down the hill into port and I saw thirty or more massive sailing ships, masts striking up into the sky. Even though I felt a deep sadness at leaving Thomas and home, there was excitement rising up in my chest and I could not stop it. Beside me the boxes we’d made, all of them with sliding glass lids, clanked and rattled along. I was going to England. I would be free.

  The houses in Falmouth were new and dripped money, and my eyes fairly popped out seeing even brown-skinned folk wearing good coats and hats. There were traders from everywhere. Watching so many busy people I realised I knew nothing about towns or cities – and wasn’t London the biggest city on earth? How big would that city be? Twice as big as this one? Four times?

  We turned a corner and passed a market: women selling yam, mango and banana, cloth and all sorts of fixings. Then we rolled through another open space and there were sharp-looking white men, some re
d-faced, some with straw hats, most with short canes tucked under their arms – selling something else. They stood naked and chained: rows of men, women and children. All around, the smell of death and the sound of soft sad whimpering. A boy just old enough to walk was holding his mother’s hand, crying and crying as his mother was prodded like a prize cow. Her eyes were full of fear and despair.

  I wanted to do something, stop it, stop them all, put an arrow into every one of those men’s hearts. I felt myself shaking. I was powerless.

  The wagon rolled on, past the marketplace towards the docks.

  I spied the young master on the dockside, his breeches so white they shone, his boots so glossy a man could see his face in them. And there was the old mistress with him, wearing her best bonnet, her face as hard and cold as a stone from the river. Their faces wore the same expressions as those monsters I had seen in the slave market. And I would have to spend weeks with them in a floating wooden world.

  Mr Bird was in a cage, flapping and squawking. The old mistress put some cloth over the cage, which quietened him. I reckoned he was as unhappy to have left the estate as I was. But Mr Bird and the old mistress were said to be the same age, and neither one could leave the other.

  The wagon pulled to a stop. I made sure not to meet their gaze as I helped unload the plant boxes with some of the sailors, but the young master noticed me and swaggered across the quayside, face sour as turned milk.

  “These are the pineapples?”

  The sailors said nothing. I nodded.

  “And you are the boy. Well, I hope you know your work.” He leaned down, closer, smiling like a snake about to strike. “Remember, boy, if these plants die, I will get these sailors to throw you overboard – for the sharks…”

  CHAPTER

  4

  The ship was called The Brave Venture. It had three masts and what seemed to me at first like a thousand sails. In time I learned there were fifteen.

  And I was not thrown overboard. Although there were times, weeks into the crossing, when the sea rolled and rolled and I swore I would rather die then than live through the storm.

  The Barratts kept to their cabin mostly, and Mr Bird stayed in his cage, as the old mistress was worried he might be lost at sea. I made sure to keep out of their way. I noticed they didn’t have much luggage, only one trunk each. Missis Palmer told me they planned on buying fine English goods for their return, as clothes in England were much better quality than anything you could buy on the island. I said nothing, but noted that the old mistress seemed to have left her stick behind at Barratt Hall and gave thanks.

  I learned a lot. The sailors were, like those in the town of Falmouth, men of all colours from across the world, and unlike us slaves, all of them were paid for their labour. I got used to looking some of the white sailors in the eyes when we spoke, especially the mate, Mr Kelsall, who seemed like the saddest man I ever met. He kept me busy with various errands and chores, and it pleased me to think that even though I was a slave I was not kept chained up as Thomas said they were on the journey from Africa.

  And some of the crew even spoke to me as an equal: Ivan the cook, who came from somewhere so far north, he said the sea froze solid half the year (I did not believe him) and Georges a deckhand from Brazil. Then there was the cabin boy, Henry, who looked half my age even though he swore blind he was fourteen, and so older than me by a couple of years. I was surprised when he first sat down beside me, to eat his midday meal.

  “In London,” he explained, “where I am from, there are all sorts of folk.”

  I made sure to seek him out when I had any time between chores.

  I envied Henry’s ease at sea. I watched him climb a rope faster than a rat up a tree and he capered helter-skelter along the yardarm of the main mast as if he were on solid ground. My heart was in my mouth.

  When he came down he was laughing at me. “Your face! You were scared!”

  “Was not,” I lied. “Back home on the estate, I have shinned up palm trees just as fast as you!” I looked him straight in the face then because that bit, at least, was the truth. And I realized it was the very first time I had stared down a white boy. I stared harder. I would not give way.

  Henry shook his head and smiled. “Come up then!” he said. “Come up, Nat, and see. You can look upon the edge of the world. There’s nothing like it.” He took the rope in his hand. I had not moved. “You are scared!”

  “No,” I protested. “I’m not!”

  So up I went after him. And even though he tried to frighten me by making the rope swing and sway, I found it an easy climb. Narrower than a tree trunk, but with plenty of grip to it. I was up before I thought about what I was doing or where I was going. But when I inched over on to the yardarm, the narrow wooden pole from which hung the main mast, and saw the world of water far below reeling and rolling. I felt cold and sick with fear.

  Henry did not seem to notice my unease, only shifted himself along the yardarm.

  “Look!” He pointed out behind the ship. “Dolphins!”

  Henry was sitting on the spar as comfortably as the young master would sit in the deep-sided wicker chair on the veranda at Barratt Hall. I pulled myself into a sitting position beside him. I felt my legs hanging down, loose in the air, and the long nothingness that stretched out underneath. My stomach turned over and I held on tight.

  “Nat, see?” he said, pointing.

  I was gripping the spar I sat on so tightly that my knuckles showed white through my skin. Henry elbowed me and I thought for a moment that I would fall.

  I cannot remember how I made it down, only that I never went up there again and I kept my feet firmly on the deck, even when Henry told me I was missing an unusual cloud formation or school of flying fish. And to be fair Henry did not laugh, he said I had done well for a landlubber – the name for those, like me, who preferred dry land.

  One morning when we were scrubbing the deck I decided to share my story. “You have to promise me, Henry, you won’t tell a soul. If the Barratts find out…” I drew my finger across my throat as if I was cutting it.

  Henry spat on his palm and put it out for me to shake. “I’d never rat on you! Don’t you know that?” He looked at me with a serious expression, and I could see he was sad I didn’t trust him. I glanced round the deck and checked none of the other crew were near. Then I shook his hand hard and told him about my life on the plantation, about Mamma and Martha, and how I planned to return to Jamaica and free my family.

  He said it was a fine thing I was doing, and told me about himself.

  “I grew up in London,” he began. “An innkeeper’s son. I ran to sea after my brother Jacob, who was pressed.”

  “Pressed? What’s that?”

  He stopped. “Have you not heard of the press gang?”

  I shook my head.

  “They take men for the navy. By force.”

  “Like slavery?” I asked.

  Henry shook his head. “Oh, there’s payment,” he said. “But no choice. My brother Jacob was tricked into taking the King’s shilling. He was right sore, but I being only ten years old and having no more wits than an empty cup, went after him of my own accord, thinking to keep him company.”

  Henry told me a merchant ship such as this was a million times better than a navy man o’war he’d been on at first. He said he’d had enough of the Spanish wars and planned to work his way up to mate and make his old man proud.

  I told him I was going to London to seek my freedom and he wished me luck.

  “I’ve seen those slave ships, smelled their foul stink,” he said. “And I’ve seen the schools of sharks following, waiting for an easy meal. I cannot imagine a worse sort of life.”

  We picked up the bucket of dirty water and carried it to the side of the boat. Mr Kelsall the mate was busy close by, looking over some sails for mending.

  Henry and I lifted up the heavy pail and slopped it over the side. The sea swirled green and blue alongside the boat and looking down into i
t I swallowed, anxious.

  “So they do really throw folk to the sharks? Alive?” I said.

  Mr Kelsall looked up when he heard me. “Oh yes. Those sharks don’t follow the ships for nothing. Some Africans try to throw themselves overboard rather than live in chains. Think when they are dead they will float up into the sky and fly back to Africa.” He shook his head.

  “Is this your story again, Mr Kelsall? About the massacre?” Henry said, and nudged me, whispered low. “He would marry my sister, Nancy, and has told her so many tales, all of them sad.”

  Mr Kelsall looked hurt. “Would that it were only a story…”

  “Mr Kelsall worked the trade,” Henry said. “The slave trade.”

  I shuddered. I had heard stories too: men, women and children chained and packed like fish in a barrel.

  The mate nodded. “Never again. Things I’ve seen would make a grown man lose his reason. I’ve seen men turn into monsters on account of money.”

  Henry picked up the empty bucket and his mop but I stopped. I looked at Mr Kelsall. His face was brown with weather and sun and his eyes had almost the same sadness I’d seen in Old Thomas’s.

  “What did you see?” I asked.

  “You heard of the Middle Passage?” he said.

  I nodded. Henry did too.

  “We load up in Liverpool with blankets and buttons, brass goods that shine but cost tuppence to make, then sail to the coast of Africa, buy up as many Africans as we can cram into the hold and sail west.”

  “Why do you pack us so tight?” I said. “It never made sense to me, so many die on the boats…”

  Mr Kelsall shook his head. “The more Africans we carry, the more we sell. If a few die, ten or twenty even, we still make a good bounty.”

  “But the chains?” Henry asked. “Why chain the poor souls up?”

  I said nothing. I was furious just thinking about it.

  “We need the chains. Sometimes there’s only small crew, twenty men or so, and on my last voyage on the Zong, up to four hundred slaves. If they weren’t in chains, and we never had guns, they’d kill us all.”