The Lamplighter
Page 7
BLACK HARRIOT:
Eyes steady
MARY:
Mouth open
CONSTANCE:
Words ready
ANNIWAA:
To be spoken
BLACK HARRIOT:
This is not the end
LAMPLIGHTER:
Only when I turned and faced her,
Standing there like that,
Could I begin to tell this story.
ANNIWAA:
I am a girl. I am in the dark. I don’t know how long I’ve been kept in the dark. High above me, there is a tiny crack of light. Last time I counted, I was eleven, nearly twelve.
CONSTANCE:
Eventually I got my freedom.
I had to work to buy my shack,
Had to pay them back for
My own work!
I became Aunty to all the children.
All children are my grandchildren.
Sometimes I tell them the stories.
Sometimes, I sit quiet.
I’m just hearing where the breeze is coming from.
MARY:
You know the funny thing?
Big Man is dead. Houselady dead.
The driver is dead. The overseer man passed
Away last autumn. And me Mary
Who hardly ate a thing
And was beaten till
An inch of my life.
I survived! Trust in Jesus!
I survived them all.
LAMPLIGHTER:
Nobody told my story.
ANNIWAA:
I don’t know how long I’ll be kept in the dark.
ALL:
HushShhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.
MACBEAN:
She never said a word.
LAMPLIGHTER:
This is my story.
ANNIWAA:
I am a girl.
CONSTANCE:
One day I would like to tell my grandchildren.
If I could find them; I would tell them.
BLACK HARRIOT:
This sure as hell is my story!
MARY:
This happened to me, the Lord knows it’s the truth.
ANNIWAA:
Once upon a time, I lived in a house with a cone-shaped roof, in a big compound. My mother grew okra and pumpkin in her yard. My father shaped woods and metals.
USEFUL SOURCES & FURTHER READING
Quobna Ottobah Cugoano: Thoughts and Sentiments on the Evil of Slavery (Penguin Classics)
Olaudah Equiano: The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano: Written by Himself (Wilder Publications)
The Narrative of Sojourner Truth Dictated by Sojourner Truth (Penguin Classics)
The History of Mary Prince: A West Indian Slave related by Herself (Wilder Publications)
Afua Cooper: The Hanging of Angelique: the untold story of Canadian Slavery (University of Georgia Press)
Hugh Thomas: The Slave Trade: The History of the Atlantic Slave Trade (Simon & Schuster)
Adam Hochschild: Bury the Chains (Houghton Mifflin)
C.L.R. James: The Black Jacobins: Toussaint L’Ouverture and the San Domingo Revolution (Vintage)
Eric Williams: Capitalism and Slavery (Cambridge University Press)
James Walvin: Britain’s Slave Empire (Wiley-Blackwell)
James Walvin: Black Ivory: History of British Slavery (Fontana)
Robin Blackburn: The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery 1776-1848 (Verso)
Hilary Beckles: Natural Rebels: A Social History of Enslaved Black Women in Barbados (Rutgers University Press)
Lucille Mathurin Mair, Hilary Beckles & Verene A. Shepherd: Historical Study of Women in Jamaica, 1655-1844 (University of West Indies Press)
Catherine Hall: White, Male, and Middle Class: Explorations in Feminism and History (Polity Press)
Joseph Opala: The Gullah: Rice, slavery and the Sierra Leone-American connection (USIS)
Nigel Pocock: Liverpool Boom, People and Places Connected with Slavery in Liverpool and Lancaster (Soma Books Ltd)
S.D. Smith: Slavery, Family, and Gentry Capitalism in the British Atlantic (Cambridge University Press)
Madge Dresser: Slavery Obscured: The Social History of the Slave Trade in an English Provincial Port (Continuum International Publishing Group)
S.I. Martin: Britain’s Slave Trade (Channel 4 Books)
Guy Grannum: Tracing Your West Indian Ancestors (Public Record Office Publications)
Pam Fraser Solomon: Enslavement a Timeline
Simon Schama: Rough Crossings: Britain, the Slaves and the American Revolution (Eco)
Trade and Empire: Remembering Slavery (Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester), curators Su Andi, Kevin R.U. Dalton-Johnson, Emma Poulter and Dr Alan Rice
WEBSITES
BBC History: http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/abolition/
Museum in Dockland: London, Sugar & Slavery: http://www.museumindocklands.org.uk
Bryan Mawer, Sugar Refiners & Sugarbakers: http://www.mawer.clara.net/intro.html
Lifeline: The March of the Abolitionist: http://www.lifelineexpedition.co.uk/mota/index.htm
Anti-Slavery International: Rendezvous of Victory: http://www.antislavery.org/
Mia Morris: http://www.black-history-month.co.uk/
International Slavery Museum, Liverpool: http://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/ism/
English Heritage: Slavery and Justice Exhibition at Kenwood House: http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/server/show/ConWebDoc.13404
UNESCO: Breaking the Silence – The ASPnet Transatlantic Slave Trade Project: http://portal.unesco.org/education/
About the Author
Jackie Kay was born in Edinburgh. She is the third modern Makar, the Scottish poet laureate. A poet, novelist and writer of short stories, she has enjoyed great acclaim for her work for both adults and children. Her novel Trumpet won the Guardian Fiction Prize. She is also the author of collections of stories with Picador, Why Don’t You Stop Talking, Wish I Was Here, and Reality, Reality; poetry collections Fiere and Bantam; and a memoir, Red Dust Road. She is Professor of Creative Writing at Newcastle University, and lives in Manchester, where she is currently Chancellor of the University of Salford.
ALSO BY JACKIE KAY
Poetry
Fiere
Darling
Life Mask
Off Colour
Other Lovers
The Adoption Papers
Bantam
Fiction
Reality, Reality
Wish I Was Here
Why Don’t You Stop Talking
Trumpet
Non-fiction
Red Dust Road
First published 2008 by Bloodaxe Books
Highgreen, Tarset, Northumberland
First published by Picador 2020
This electronic edition published 2020 by Picador
an imprint of Pan Macmillan
The Smithson, 6 Briset Street, London EC1M 5NR
Associated companies throughout the world
www.panmacmillan.com
ISBN 978-1-5290-3986-3
Copyright © Jackie Kay 2007, 2008
Introduction © Jackie Kay 2020
Audio recording copyright © BBC 2007: A BBC Radio
Programme licensed by the BBC
FICTION
Cover Images Hayden Verry / Arcangel Images and Mansell / Getty Images
A version of ‘Missing Faces’ was originally published in the Guardian on 24 March 2007.
The right of Jackie Kay to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
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