The Austin Clarke Library
Page 2
“That Sunday, we had the usual food after Church. Me and Ma. Dry-peas and rice. The peas was prepared as doved-peas. The rice cooked with a lil salt beef boil-down-in-it, to add flavour.
“Yes, that Sunday afternoon, after we left the Church Yard and Mr. Bellfeels, we ate roast chicken, doved-peas, and some sweet potatoes that Ma had-stole from the very North Field, the Friday afternoon; one-or-two potatoes, hide-way in her crocus bag apron. We had to steal from the Plantation, to make-do.
“‘I borrow these offa the Plantation,’ she told me the Friday, smiling and happy. ‘In other words, I steal them, Mary-girl!
’ “Constable, you don’t know those days! Lucky you! Days of hardships. But days of great joy and spirit, nevertheless. The joy of a tough life. Cutting and contriving. If you didn’t have it, you found a way to get it. Or a neighbour would come to your rescue.
“Or you steal it. All of us, regardless to position, place, complexion, the Ten Commandments, we-all exacted something from the Plantation. A head of eddoes pull-up outta the ground; you brek-off a piece of cane and suck it, to bring up the gas outta your stomach; pull-off a few red-tomatoes offa the vine in the Plantation kitchen garden; and hide them in a crocus bag.
“Every last man-jack, all of us, devout Christian-minded men and women attending Sin-Davids Anglican Church, three times a Sunday, going to Mothers Union every Wednesday night as God send, we all extracted our due from the Plantation.
“But we paid. We paid dear. With our lives. Every-last-one-of-us!
“Well, you shouldn’t be a stranger to this history. You were bred and born right here, in this Village, in this Island of Bimshire. You see? Here I go, wandering-off again . . .”
“I learning a lot o’ history from you, ma’am. My mother and my gran-mother tell me some o’ the history of here.”
“You remember Clotelle, then? Clotelle who leff-back three nice lil girl-thrildren, when death grab her sudden, and unaware?
“Clotelle, who was always dress in black. From head to foot, mourning like a N’Eyetalian-’snora, as if mourning for a dead husband? Only thing, Clotelle never had one.
“But the Sunday morning, just before Matins, they found Clotelle henging from the tamarind tree in the Plantation Yard? And nobody didn’t know how she got there? And it was Ma who Mr. Bellfeels ordered to cut down Clotelle, cause the Plantation-people was too ashamed and embarrass, and too scornful to touch a dead-body? And how, following after all the fuss that Clotelle mother made over the sudden death of her only child, they held the attopsy. And lo and behold, the attopsy disclose that Clotelle was five months’ heavy, in the family-way! But it didn’t take tummuch for the whole Village to know who the father was? And . . .”
“I hear this from my gran-mother. They made a calypso on Clotelle.”
“It climb to number one on the hit parade. It was a sweet calypso, too. It lasted one week . . .
“Ma tell me she was sixteen when that sad tragedy happened to Clotelle. Ma tell me that she saw Clotelle laying down in the canebrake, with her face washed in tears; and bleeding; and that it was later the same night, in all the rain, that Clotelle climbed up the tamarind tree; and how Clotelle had-use pieces of cloth that she rip-off from her own dress, with all the blood and all the man’s semen staining it; and how Clotelle make a rope outta her own dress, and wrap-it-round the highest branch she could reach in the tamarind tree, and the rest you know. Yes. The rest you know. The ironies of history and of life, as Wilberforce like to say. Henging from the tamarind tree, in broad daylight the next day Sunday morning, they found Clotelle, just as Mr. Darnley Alexander Randall Bellfeels, and Mistress Bellfeels, and the two girl-thrildren, Miss Euralie and Miss Emonie, was stepping down the verandah of the Plantation Main House, to cross the gravel path, to get in the Austin-Healey motor-car, the chauffeur holding the door open for them to get in, to be driven to attend Matins at Sin-Davids Anglican Church, ’leven-o’clock-in-the-morning; butting and bounding the schoolhouse building where you went to Elementary School.”
There is total deep silence. It seems as if the room descends also into darkness. Silence and darkness. And when the darkness rises, and the silence is broken, it is her voice humming the chorus of the calypso that remembers Clotelle’s tragedy, that made the hit parade.
“‘Who full she up,
And tie she up,
Could cut she down.’
“Golbourne, now . . .”
“I remember the whole song,” the Constable says. “My gran-mother tell me that the tamarind tree in the Plantation Yard that Clotelle henged herself from is a famous tree. One day, during slavery, my gran-mother say, they henged a slave, after they give him forty lashes, with a balata, for stealing a fowl; and they henged him from the same tamarind tree as Clotelle was henging from; and following ever-since from that day, all the tamarinds that this tamarind tree bear, have seeds the shape of a man’s head. The head of the slave that they flogged and afterwards henged. Right here in Bimshire.”
“You have a good memory. You are going to make a proper detective, following in the footsteps of Sargeant. Yes. Your gran knew the history of this Island backwards.”
“Concerning the calypso, the part you just sang, that is the chorus . . .”
“You have the memory of a barster-at-Law.”
“I used to sing it!”
“Golbourne, now . . . as I was saying, is a different story. Today, anybody who was to rest his two eyes on Golbourne, walking-’bout Flagstaff Village, with his goadies bulging through his pants, meaning his two enlarge testicles, the size of two breadfruits, wobbling-’ bout inside his oversize pants, built specially by the tailor to commodate Golbourne’s two things, anybody who see Golbourne in his present state would conclude that Golbourne born so. Not at all, Constable! Golbourne wasn’t born with this disfiguration, looking like the Frenchman-fellow Wilberforce talks about, the man who used to ring the bells of Notre Dame Cathedral Church, somewhere in Paris-France. The Hunchback! Oh, no! Golbourne was a model of manhood. One of the most masculine men to ever walk this earth! Golbourne was such a man, in his prime, that I-myself . . .
“But that night, twenty, twenty-something years ago, walkingcross the gap leading from the Plantation to the Village, holding hands with the nursemaid to the Plantation thrildren, walking her home, his bicycle in his next hand, Lord! Mr. Bellfeels two motorcar headlights picked them out, as he was returning from seeing a movie at the Empire Theatre. Those two high-beam lights picked Golbourne out before Golbourne could jump in the gutter to safety, and hide. That was the night-before. The Saturday. And Mr. Bellfeels lay-wait for Golbourne the following night, the Sunday, to see if he was going walk-home the nursemaid.
“That tragic night was a dark night. Mr. Bellfeels was in the canes of that section of the North Field, hiding. The canes were tall and green. And when Mr. Bellfeels stop beating Golbourne with his riding-crop, followed-up with kicks from his brown leather.Wellingtons, in Golbourne’s two groins, what you see today, in respect of the sameness in posture with the Hunchback of Notre Dame, is the direct result of the venom in the beating administered by Mr. Bellfeels on Golbourne.
“Mr. Bellfeels, that avaricious man, had his hand buried inside Golbourne’s pot. All this came out in the wash. Mr. Bellfeels had-wanted everything for himself. A man with such needs and wishes, my God!”
“My gran-mother tell me that Golbourne was the fastest bodyline fast-bowler the Island o’ Bimshire ever produce,” says the Constable. “Appearing for the Flagstaff First Eleven Cricket Team, Golbourne, my gran-mother tell me, was more faster than Voss, the great Australian fast-bowler. Golbourne was like a freight train, with the new ball. Men uses to tremble when they had to face Golbourne, opening the bowling from the Plantation End, whiching is the north end, near the North Field. Men uses to wet their pants . . . I beg your pardon, ma’am . . . when the captain send them out to face Golbourne.”
“Yes, opening from the North Field, with the new ball!”
“But the worst was Pounce,” Mary-Mathilda says. “Pounce never trouble a living-soul..Well-mannered? Would doff his cloth hat to the littlest, most humble person; and likewise, to the most lofty. Saying, ‘Good morning, my-lady,’ to every woman. ‘Good evening, sir!’ to child and adult-man alike. But won’t enter a church if yuh gave him a jimmy-john full of the strongest Mount Gay dark rum. But never a Sunday pass that you didn’t see Pounce stanning-up at the same church window, outside; but in full view of the pulpit, for Passover, for Easter and for Christmas. And there Pounce would be; listening to every word that drop from the lips of Revern James, Pastor of the Church of the Nazarene, just down Reservoir Lane, by the West Field.
“Pounce came from a poor family, but decent. And it was only for a few sweet potatoes, and pulp-eddoes, you hear me, Constable? Not even a whole hole of potatoes, then. I counted them myself. Cause Mr. Bellfeels had the lack of decency to bring the same pulp-eddoes and sweet potatoes that he shoot Pounce for, injuring him with a gun loaded with course-salt, to Ma; and ask Ma to cook them in the pigeon-pea soup she was making for his dinner. That son-of-a-bitch! Pardon my French, Constable . . .”
“I didn’t hear you use no bad-words, ma’am. My two ears close!”
“Ma was working inside the Plantation Main House, by this time, as nursemaid, following the consequences to Golbourne’s former girlfriend, who died all of a sudden, one Monday night. From the pining and a broken heart, appears. There were three sweet potatoes and four pulp-eddoes Pounce tried to steal. I counted them myself. One, two, three. Three. And one, two, three, four. Four. They didn’t even weigh much more than one pound! From the North Field. I was now leading a gang of slightly older women, weeding the sweet potato slips, of that North Field . . .
“Constable, I am rambling again! I don’t know what got-me-off on this topic, talking about the history of this place. But this Plantation touch all of we. All our lives was branded by this Plantation. You see it there, with its tall chimney belching smoke from the Factory grinding canes at this time of year, Crop-Season; and with the smell of cane-juice boiling; and the noise of the Factory itself, the machineries that is always brekking-down. And this sweet, sickening smell, a smell that sticks to your clothes, and to your mind, like the rawness and the scales from fish, from a piece of shark that many a evening I watched Ma scale in the kitchen of that same Plantation Main House, when she was promoted from being a field hand, to combination nursemaid; later, to Chief Maid. The position was nothing more than chief-cook-and-bottlewasher! I am talking now about the War-days, the First World War, Ma’s days. Nevertheless, the times I am now talking about is World War Two, when it look as if a real World War was taking place right-here-in-Bimshire. We didn’t have no concentration camps. The people living in this Village wasn’t put behind no barbed wire, such as what Wilberforce tell me was the treatment of many, Jews and non-Jews, and people called Gypsies . . . Constable, I always thought that a Gypsy was the name for a woman with a lovely voice! Those bad things happened in the outside-world; in Europe. But in this part of the universe, the Wessindies, nobody didn’t torture nobody, nor squeeze nobody balls, by applying pliers, or lectricity to anybody testicles to pull the truth from outta him. Nobody down here suffer-so. Nor behave brutal-so. But, according to the ironies of life, as Wilberforce would say, it was the same suffering, historically speaking, between living on this Plantation and living-through the War in Europe. Much of a muchness. When you think of it. The same War. The same taking of prisoners. The same bloodshed. And the same not taking of no prisoners. So, in the eyes of Europe, we couldda been the same as Jews. It was war, and the ironies of war. It was war, Constable.
“Lord, I remember these things as if it was yesterday. The Friday evening before the Sunday in the Church Yard, when Mr. Bellfeels passed his riding-crop, as if it was his hand, all over my body . . . round four or five the Friday evening . . .
“A lorry had just crawl-over the hill, in low gear, right in front our house; and that lorry was packed to overflowing, with canes; so much so that the lorry driver had to slow down, and change from low gear into the jewel gear, to get over the hill, poor fellow. The weight of the canes, the age of the lorry, the smoke and the exhaust from the engine was almost burying Mr. Broomes the lorry driver; poor soul; and when he back-down, back into the jewel gear, in order to get over the crest of the hill, Mr. Broomes, poor fellow, was almost buried alive in all this smoke and exhaust; and then, this pullet. A Bardrock hen. The stupid fowl decide at this very same minute, whether she got blind by the smoke and the exhaust, or else was thinking that day had turn-into night, through the smoke from the old lorry engine, decided to cross the road; and blam! Mr. Broomes tried his best to slam-on the brakes— Scrrrrrrreeeenk!—but too late. The pullet lay fluttering. Mr. Broomes, poor fellow, couldn’t extricate himself from outta the cab of the lorry fast-enough; or in time to rescue the Bardrock; or, put it in the cab and carry it home to his wife; nor could he stop the lorry. It was still on the incline of the hill. And a minute later, the whole lorry of canes start backing-back, by itself, back down the hill; and as Mr. Broomes was occupied with the safety of the lorry, and the load of canes, he couldn’t think about laying claim to the pullet; plus, all the feathers was now joining-in with the clouds of exhaust smoke. I was looking out the window seeing all this, when Ma in the kitchen, hearing the screeling of the brakes, and the racket from the fowl, start screaming.
“‘Take it! Take it!’ Ma say. ‘Take it, before somebody-else! Quick, before anybody see you taking it!’
“Ma had just come home, carrying her crocus bag apron full with sweet potatoes, in one hand, and her weekly wages, in the other.
“‘Quick, Mary-girl, before anybody see!’
“Well, I tell you, Constable, that that Friday evening was the day I committed my first act of sin.
“But, I tell you also, that that Bardrock pullet was put in warm water with lil salt and lime juice, to draw it, Friday evening and all Saturday; and on the Sunday morning, into the iron buck-pot with some eschalots, fresh thyme, lard-oil and hot nigger-peppers. And it grace our table the next day, Sunday, the same Sunday that after Church, I came face-to-face the first time, with Mr. Bellfeels.
“We had that chicken with doved-peas, as I told you. I am relating these foolish things to you, at a time like this, when I should be giving you a Statement of my deeds and misdeeds, in this stage of my life. But . . .”
“Better late than never, ma’am,” the Constable says.
“This is my history in confession, better late than never, which in your police work is a Statement. And I wonder, as I sit here this Sunday evening, why I am giving you this history of my personal life, and the history of this Island of Bimshire, altogether, wrap-up in one?”
“Ma served me the part of that Bardrock hen that has the wishbone, and . . .”
“Did you break-it-off, for luck?”
“‘Wish,’ Ma tell me, whilst she was sucking-out the two eyes from the chicken head. ‘Wish, Mary-girl! Wish for the whirl. For the stars! You may be a poor, only-child of a poor, confuse mother . . . but the wish you wish, can still be rich! And big! Wish big! God will bring your wish to fruitions, and make you a powerful woman, on this very Plantation. So, wish big, Mary-girl! Wish!’
“Ma’s hand, slippery from holding the chicken head, slip-off the wishbone, so the whole wishbone remain inside my fingers, whole. Was it my fate?
“Well, Constable, I carried that wishbone for years; hoeing in the North Field with it; tending elementary school with it, pin-tomy-dress; everywhere. I would sit in Sunday School and run my hand over it, and dream as I followed the words in the Bible story of Daniel in the lions den; and the flight of the Israelites walking miles and mil
es over the hard, scorch earth, crossing the Arabian Desert . . . is it the Arabian Desert, or the Sahara . . . crossing the Sahara; and all those rock-stones and cracks in the ground and in their feet, just like how the ground here in Bimshire gets hard and dry when the sun come out following a downpour of rain. And I would catch myself in these daydreams and fantasies, far-far from that little Sunday School classroom, at the back of the church, travelling miles and miles away from this Island of Bimshire. Picturing myself in foreign countries, in Europe and in Germany— even during the War—in Rome-Italy, living like a N’Eyetalian countessa, dress in a white gown, a robe edged in silver and gold piping; and with goblets of wine, and bowls of grapes and olives, laid out before me; and I am reclining, as I see Eyetalian countessas nowadays, in some of the magazines my son subscribes to, recline.
“I had some fantastic daydreams and fantasies, in those days, Constable!
“And sometimes at night, sitting down here in this front-house studying my head; and listening to Wilberforce talk about his travels, the Danube, the river, so blue; crossing the Alps in a aeroplane coming from Rome-Italy, the place which made him think of ‘The Ride of the Valkyries’; Austria and Vienna, where they can dance the waltz, and the polka in Poland, so nice; and throughout the whole night! Englund and even Scotland, after which I got my name, Mary, from one of their mad Queens. All those places I visited in my dreams and fantasies, while studying, while listening to my son, Wilberforce.