My Name's Not Friday (11 page)

I go to take it back. ‘You don’t have to teach me. I think can figure it out on my own if I have the book.’

But Gerald shakes his head. ‘No, Friday. That ain’t gonna work.’ He lays the book on the ground between us. ‘It takes
a lot of effort at first. You got to learn all the letters. There’s twenty-six of ’em in total. Then you got to learn how they go together to make sounds. It ain’t as easy as it looks, and anyway you may not be able to learn it at all on account of being a Negro.’ He must see me bristle cos he quickly adds, ‘Leastways, that’s what I been told. I’ve never heard of a Negro who could read before; that’s all I meant.’

‘I knew a Negro who could read. I saw him do it myself. Heard him read from the Bible.’

Gerald pulls at the Confederate cap on his head. ‘Well, that’s good then, isn’t it? If he could do it, then so can you.’ He touches my arm. ‘I didn’t mean no harm, Friday. It’s just what people say.’ He closes the book and thrusts it back at me. ‘You’ll have to work hard though. It’s more difficult than swimming.’

‘Can you let me borrow the book in between? That way I can practise it in my own time. I’ll keep it secret – I won’t let nobody know ’bout it.’

Gerald bites at his bottom lip. ‘If my mother finds you with it, she’d have you whipped for stealing. I know she would.’

‘But I won’t let her. I’ll hide it so well that no one can find it.’ I open up the book and point to the picture. ‘I want to know ’bout that dog. Come on and tell me what it says ’bout the dog.’

‘Here.’ Gerald takes hold of my finger and places it on the letter
D
. ‘That there’s a
D
. Sounds like
duh
. And you use it for
DOG
. You hear that?
DOG
.’ He runs my finger along the line of words. ‘
THE DOG RAN
. That’s what it says. That’s the words, and there’s a picture there to help you. Go on. You say it.’

I repeat the words slowly back to him, making ’em sound
like they are difficult and new, making me sound like I don’t know a thing.

‘Now, listen, we’re running ahead of ourselves here.’ Gerald turns to the alphabet page and shows me all the letters, laid out from
A
to
Z
. ‘This is where it all starts. This is the beginning. See the shape of these? Well, this is the alphabet written out as ordinary letters, but you can have the same letters looking different if they’re capitals. Like the
D
for dog. Do you see that? That’s because it’s the start of a sentence, and every new sentence has to begin with a capital letter and end with a full stop.’

He makes it sound so hard I start to doubt that I already know what he’s telling me, but that only helps with the pretence. ‘I ain’t sure I understand. A capital letter’s taller than the rest. Is that right?’

Gerald breaks into a smile. ‘You learned something already.’ He ain’t a bad teacher, though not as good as me.

When we’re finished with the lesson we ease ourselves into the river, on account of my bruised leg, and I float on my back, do it all by myself and I don’t need his help when I put my head in the water either.

I wonder if I can hear the engines of the Yankee boats that I know are coming up the river on their way to free me. I can’t hear a thing – but now I don’t mind so much if they take their time.

It ain’t easy to look natural when you got a book all up inside your shirt or tucked into the top of your breeches. I got the primer hidden about me like a dirty secret and I ain’t used to lying to people, so I go the long way back to the
cabins, hoping I won’t meet a soul. When I see Albert, I have to head for the latrines and I sit in there a long time, so he’ll be gone once I come back outside.

Father Mosely used to always say that if something makes you feel bad then you’re definitely sinning. Well, I feel bad about this. I don’t like sneaking around behind Mrs Allen’s back and I don’t like lying to Gerald either. I’m getting him to thieve for me and I’m treating him like a fool.

But God wants me to do it. It’s all in His name. It’s all about doing His good works – though right now it don’t feel so good.

I tell myself that slavery ain’t good. Treating people like they’re no better than a mule, that’s a much bigger wrong than stealing a book, and anyway Mrs Allen’s got no need for it. She’ll have it right back on her shelf once we’re finished and she won’t even know it has gone. So really it ain’t stealing at all – it’s only borrowing.

Lizzie’s alone in the cabin when I get there and we sit at the table with the book in front of us. We don’t open it. We just sit there looking at it. ‘It’s a primer, Lizzie,’ I say eventually. ‘It’s a book for teaching reading and writing.’

That might be what it is for me, but it ain’t for Lizzie. For her that book is a whole new world of opportunity and it could be a whole heap of trouble too. Either way, she’s too scared to touch it and she keeps her hands folded on the tabletop in front of her. ‘Where’d you get a thing like that?’

‘It’s from the house. Gerald got it for me.’

Lizzie stands up from her chair, all alarmed. ‘Why’d he do that? That’s no good, Friday! He’ll tell on us! He’s bound to!’

‘No, he won’t, Lizzie. It’s all right. C’mon and sit down. Gerald don’t know about the rest of you learning. He thinks
he’s teaching me to read and he’s doing it cos he wants to be my friend. He won’t tell Mrs Allen.’

‘What if you both get caught?’

‘Then it’ll be me who takes the blame. C’mon and sit down. C’mon and let me show you.’

Lizzie sits back down but she’s shaking her head. ‘There’s no point showing
me
. It won’t mean anything to
me
.’

I open the book anyway. I take hold of her finger and put it on the page, but she pulls it back. ‘No … I don’t want to touch it.’ She puts the knuckle to her teeth. ‘It don’t look the same as other books I seen.’ She points a finger. ‘What word is that one there?’

‘Oh, that ain’t a word, Lizzie. I been misleading you. This here’s the alphabet page. It’s got all the letters you might need to make a word.’ I flick through a few pages. ‘See here? These are words. That one there says
pillow
.’

‘It does?’

‘Yes, it does.’

‘Is that a difficult word?’

‘I’d say about average. There’s some that are shorter and others that are longer. You see how these words here are grouped together? That’s a sentence. And then there are paragraphs. That’s where all the sentences fit together, like verses in the Bible, but this book ain’t so advanced that it’s got paragraphs.’

Lizzie shakes her head and closes up the book. ‘There’s too much to learn,’ she says.

‘It gets easier once you got a few things to build on. And you won’t need to worry. I’m a good teacher. I can teach you how to do it.’

‘Uh-uh!’ Lizzie’s mouth makes the shape of an
O
. ‘It’s not for me! I never meant for it to be for me! I meant it for
my kids. I want you to teach Gil. Sicely too, if she’ll do it, though she may not.’

‘Sicely ought to do it.’

‘She don’t like to do things that the missus don’t allow.’

‘I know that. Do you think she’ll tell Mrs Allen?’

Lizzie shakes her head. ‘Even Sicely ain’t so proud she’d see her own brother flogged.’ I’ll have to take her word on that. ‘Anyway,’ she continues, ‘what I’m saying is that this is something for the kids.’

She fetches Henry and he sits for a while, turning the pages without saying a word, then all of a sudden he’s got a plan. ‘We’ll do it on a Thursday night and a Sunday after the missus has said our prayers. I’ll send Benjamin, Lily and Charles to join Gil. You should be able to begin as soon as Hubbard leaves.’

That reminds me that Hubbard has a wife and daughter over on the Hope plantation and he has a pass to see ’em on those days. He’s gone for most of the night, getting back before dawn for the next day’s work.

So that’s how we begin – with me teaching the kids.

We wait till Hubbard leaves, and when Henry gives the all-clear they come around to Lizzie’s and I sit ’em on the floor to start the lesson. They all got their own grease lamp, so they can see the words of the book when it’s passed to ’em, and all the time Henry keeps a watch outside in case anyone should come by and see the light. One night, when were finished and he came back inside, he told me that our cabin glowed in the night like a little star of learning. That’s what he said – it really was.

After two weeks of lessons Henry sends along his eldest, Mary, and George comes along too, on account of the two of ’em being inseparable. I put ’em in a row of
their own behind the little ones, to show ’em some respect.

I teach the alphabet the way we used to do it at the orphanage, by singing the letters to a tune so it gets inside your brain and stays there. I have ’em humming that tune before they go to sleep and when they get up. I get ’em humming it out on the swing, knowing they got to say the letters in their head so no one can hear ’em. It ain’t long before they know the sounds of all the letters and some of the words that you can make with ’em.

‘Anyone know a word beginning with F?’ I ask one night, but all they do is giggle and laugh. I don’t know why it’s funny.

One time, Joshua said to me, ‘I know more swearwords than you.’

We were sitting in the orphanage yard, our backs to the privy on a hot afternoon and I swatted away a fly. ‘That ain’t nothing to be proud of.’

‘You just saying that cos you don’t know ’em. I can do a whole alphabet of swearing. Billy’s been teaching me. Bet you ain’t even got one for
A
.’

‘Don’t be an ass.’ I smiled at him, all sarcastic. ‘Everyone knows how to cuss, Joshua. It don’t mean you’re clever.’

‘Huh-oh! You said
ass
.’ Joshua put a hand across his mouth. ‘Now you’re gonna have to burn in hell with me.’

‘I was only saying it to prove you wrong. Everyone knows that word. It’s no big deal.’

‘I got another one for
A
.’

‘No, you ain’t. There ain’t another one.’

‘Adventuress. It’s another word for prostitute.’

Well, I could not believe my ears. ‘Stop it now! Do you hear me?’

‘I got three for
B
.’

‘No, you haven’t. And if you do I don’t want to hear ’em.’

‘Boat-licker, blazes and bastard. Billy told me I’m a little bastard. He says I got to be.’

‘If he says it again, you come and tell me and I’ll take him to Father Mosely’s office. That boy’s no good for you, Joshua. You hear me? He ain’t no good at all.’

‘Cockchafer!’

‘Stop it.’

‘Drafted!’

I walked away from him. I told him I didn’t want to hear another word of it or God would surely strike him down.

But all the time I was trying to think of a word that might begin with an E.

Gerald lies back on the grassy bank to dry himself off. ‘You’re doing good with your swimming.’

I shake the water off my legs and sit beside him. ‘Now I’m treading water I reckon I’ll learn real fast.’

‘Reckon you’re right,’ he tells me. ‘Your reading’s coming on good too. You must be practising it a lot on your own.’

‘I do.’

‘How’d you find the time?’

‘You wanna know a secret? I read it on the latrine.’ Gerald makes a face like that’s about the most disgusting thing he’s ever heard. ‘Fifteen minutes in the morning and the same every evening. I’m as regular as clockwork.’

‘Don’t you have people knocking on the door?’

‘I might be getting a reputation, that’s true enough, but the way I see it, it’s worth it.’

Gerald shrieks with laughter. ‘Ooh! They must think your guts are something rotten!’

‘Some people’ve been steering clear of me, that’s for sure.’

I’m laughing along with him and I don’t remember when it became so easy for me to lie. ‘Say, Gerald?’

‘Yeah?’

‘What about the writing? You gonna teach me how to write as well? It ain’t no good me reading if I don’t know how to write.’

The next time we meet he brings a piece of slate and some chalk so I can write the letters out. He tells me I can keep it like I knew he would, and I get my class to pass it around and write out the first letter of their own names.

And then something new happens. I start to hear the adults humming my alphabet tune when we’re in the field and I begin to wonder whether they doing the letters in their heads. I ask Albert straight out. ‘Hey, Albert, you humming my tune?’

Well, he gives me a little
ABC
, whispers it in my ear when we’re bent down sawing at the trunk of a tree. Turns out George has been teaching him and he can go all the way to
J
. He says he’ll know the whole thing come Sunday. A few days later Lizzie and Henry tell me they want to learn too and so I arrange for the parents to sit in the back of the cabin and soon enough I’m giving ’em their own class for an hour after the little ones have finished and gone off to bed.

Today I taught Lizzie to read the word
Jesus
.

I taught George how to write in sentences and he even remembered to use a capital letter and a full stop.

See! I’m doing it, God! I’m doing just what you asked me to. And that’s all you can ask for any day, to keep my brother safe.

It’s Sicely who brings us the bad news, same as it always is, when she comes running to the fire pit, shouting out that Mrs Allen can’t sell our cotton.

Mr Wickham had turned the missus away from the market only this morning on account of an embargo issued by Jefferson Davis himself. ‘They won’t let us sell our cotton,’ Sicely tells us, all breathless and wide-eyed. ‘They reckon it’s unpatriotic and we should hold onto it so the English don’t have a choice ’cept to join the war and break the blockade. Wickham said we ain’t gonna give ’em any cotton till they beg for it.’

She has other news too. Tells us she saw a train pull into town full of the wounded and dead from the war. She says the hospital is full of broken men looking sorry for themselves, and there weren’t enough wagons to carry all the coffins from the train, there were that many. That’s what she tells us.

Lizzie shakes her head and sucks at her teeth. ‘Things’ll get a lot worse before they get any better, that’s for sure.’

In Connie’s cabin they got a different view. ‘I told you they were losing the war.’ Connie smiles broadly and leans
back into his chair like he’s sitting in rays of warm sunshine.

Antoinne lights a grease lamp so we can see ourselves more clearly. ‘I’ll be gone soon. You wait and see if I ain’t.’

‘You’ll be dead soon.’ Connie taps his pipe on the table and takes a pinch of fresh tobacco. ‘That’s what you’ll be if you can’t wait. I told you before and you oughta have the sense to control yourself. It won’t be long now.’

Antoinne paces about the room, unable to stay still. ‘All I got to do is get behind those Yankee lines and there ain’t nothing they can do about it. I’ll be a free man and I’ll have my rights.’

‘And how you gonna do that? This is the most dangerous time to go. They’ll be strung out along the river waiting …’ Connie looks crossly at me. ‘You still itching to get away as well?’

‘I ain’t exactly itching.’ The truth of it is I ain’t thought of leaving here for quite a while.

‘Good. Least someone here has got some sense.’

‘What happens if the Yankees lose the war?’

Connie clears his nose. ‘They won’t lose no war. I heard they passed Baton Rouge already and they got gunships coming up to Vicksburg. There ain’t no way they can lose. Just you wait and see.’

‘They’ll lose if they ain’t got the men to fight.’ Antoinne interrupts us angrily. ‘We got to fight for the right to be free. We can’t sit about waiting for some white folks from the North to do it all for us. We got to do it for ourselves.’

Connie snorts at him. ‘I heard they won’t even let you carry arms. I heard they’ll have you digging ditches for ’em, same as if you would if you were still a slave.’

‘Don’t you worry about that.’ Antoinne sits back down at the table, but he keeps his fists clenched. ‘I’ll be
fighting for the right to be free. Don’t you worry ’bout that.’

The two of ’em take to arguing about how many soldiers each side has and the size of the gunboats. They argue about who’s the better general – is it Grant or is it Lee? – and I listen carefully to ’em, all the time wondering which side God’s on and why He doesn’t hurry up and get it over and done with.

At dusk, Mrs Allen comes to the cabins with Gerald and she gathers us around the fire pit. She confirms everything Sicely told us but says she has a plan to store the cotton till it can be sold. ‘Come the spring, we’ll only plant half the amount of cotton and turn the rest over to corn or another crop that will feed us till the embargo is lifted. It’ll be hard work to make ends meet,’ she tells us. ‘You’ll have to put wood aside in the fields too, Hubbard, just in case those Yankees come up the river. I’d rather burn the whole crop than see ’em get a cent of my hard work, I swear to God I would.’

So there it is. Now we’ve heard it from the horse’s mouth, so to speak, no rudeness to Mrs Allen intended.

She goes on to read to us from the Bible, reciting the story of how Abraham gave up his own son as a sacrifice to the Lord. She leads us in prayer and we each put our hands together and lower our eyes as she remembers those brave Confederate soldiers who are away from their loved ones, fighting for their right to be free.

When she’s finished praying Mrs Allen still won’t let us go and she turns up the wick on her oil lamp so we can see her face clearly. ‘I want you to remember that we’re likely to have less food than we’ve enjoyed till now and we’re going to have to work twice as hard to see us through the winter. Now I know you ain’t gonna like this, but I’ve decided
there will be no more leave from the plantation until further notice.’

A murmur of disbelief rises up around us and when I look to see what Gerald thinks, he won’t meet my eye.

‘Hubbard, would you fetch the passes that you have in your cabin and bring them here to me?’

Hubbard hesitates but he does it, coming back outside with the signed passes and handing ’em over to the missus for her to count and make sure she’s got all of ’em.

Henry steps out into the circle as our spokesman. ‘But, ma’am, we can’t work every hour God sends. We gotta have some time of our own.’

The missus shakes her head. ‘I hope it won’t be for long, but that’s exactly what we gotta do, Henry. If we ain’t working every hour God sends then we might not prevail, and I won’t let that happen, not with my husband away from home and putting his life on the line for everyone. I hope you’ll see the sense of it in time.’

‘But, miss …’

Mrs Allen puts her hand out to stop him. ‘This ain’t up for discussion, Henry. Now goodnight to all of you.’ She takes Gerald by the hand and starts up the path to the house, while Winnie and Sicely follow on behind with the lamps.

Hubbard goes back inside his cabin and shuts the door firmly, but the rest of us stay put at the fireside. ‘She can’t do that,’ Antoinne complains. ‘A man’s gotta have some freedom. It don’t matter if he
is
a slave.’

Isaac’s angry too and he empties his pipe onto the ground and runs his thumb around the bowl. ‘How am I going to meet a girl if I’m stuck here the whole time? I tell you, she ain’t got the right.’

‘No. It’s us ain’t got the rights.’ Antoinne’s got a face like thunder. ‘This is the last straw.’

Connie puts a hand on his shoulder. ‘Come on inside.’ He walks Antoinne to the cabin and shuts the door behind ’em and I put my own arm around little Gil’s shoulders and follow Lizzie back to ours. I light a grease lamp and fetch the primer from under the floorboard. ‘Time for ten minutes more before bed.’

‘I don’t want to.’ Gil takes his mattress from the wall and lays it down.

‘Don’t give me any of your cheek,’ I scold him. ‘It doesn’t matter if you want to or not. You got to do it anyway.’

‘Let him be.’ Lizzie looks at me, annoyed. ‘We got enough to be thinking of without you opening up your books.’

So I put it away, replacing the piece of board in the floor so it won’t be found.

Come the morning, Antoinne and Isaac are gone. I ask Connie where they are as we walk out to the fields, expecting him to say they’re down at the latrine or been sent on an errand. ‘They’ve gone,’ he tells me. ‘Least I expect so. Their stuff’s gone too.’

‘Have they gone to meet the boats?’

Connie shrugs. ‘They didn’t tell me. I expect they’ve gone north. Now don’t you go talking about ’em to anyone. Do you hear me? The more time they have to put some distance between us and them the better. Chances are they’ll turn up later, and when they do, they can answer to Hubbard themselves.’

I nod in agreement. I tell him I won’t say a word. So we don’t say no more about it. We go out onto the field, same as we always do and Hubbard is already there, same as he always is. He’s pulled the cart into place and has positioned
the tall baskets where we can empty out our sacks. The missus has taken the horse for herself today, but Hubbard’s still big on his feet and he stands on the cart, looking back up the path to see who’s coming.

When everyone’s out in the field and working the line, our sacks slung over our shoulders, Hubbard comes across to Connie. ‘Where’s Antoinne and Isaac? Why aren’t they here?’

Connie straightens himself up, looking over the field towards the cabins. ‘They were coming this morning. I know they were. Perhaps the missus asked ’em for something.’

We go right on back to picking and Hubbard walks along our line, having a quiet word here and there with some of the others if he thinks they aren’t doing something right. Everyone relaxes when we see him walk in the direction of the house. Even that George stops picking so fast.

‘Where are those boys, Connie?’ Henry calls out. ‘I saw ’em sneaking about in the night. Have they run off? They sure looked up to no good. They have, ain’t they? They’ve gone and bolted. That Antoinne was itching to join up. I know he was.’

Connie wipes the back of his hand across his face and speaks quietly. ‘I think they’ve gone, but I don’t know. Not for sure. If they have left, then they don’t have much of a head start and they hadn’t made a plan, least not one I knew about.’

Lizzie straightens up and looks out to where the river runs through the fields. ‘They shoulda planned it first,’ she says quietly, before we move away from one another, shuffling back into line to bend low and pick the cotton from the base of the plants so we don’t show our troubled faces, though we all fear the worst.

I don’t see Hubbard come back into the field. I just hear
him call out Connie’s name and hear the lash of his whip. The first blow catches Connie across the shoulders as he rises. He puts his arm to his face and the second lash meets his forearm and the tip curls around to sting the edge of his eye.

‘Don’t you lie to me again. Do you hear me?’ Hubbard walks away down the line, his whip held high in his hand as a show of force to the rest of us, and we all pick faster than we did before. Everyone ’cept Connie, who stands and watches Hubbard walk away before he bends back over his stem and picks them bolls the way he always picks ’em, all slow and steady. He don’t do nothing different.

That evening we go down to the woods to pray and I read to ’em from the Bible. Afterwards Henry tells me I oughta take more of a role in leading the ceremony cos I got more knowledge than anyone else here and I’m pleased he asked me and I feel all warm inside as we come back towards the cabins.

Connie’s the only one at the edge of the fire pit so I go and sit with him as the others take themselves inside.

‘Hey, Connie, guess what? Henry told me I could lead the prayers next time we meet. He said it makes sense for me to do it since I’ve spent more time in a proper chapel than anyone else here.’

Connie takes a long drag of his pipe and blows the smoke up into the night and I can see he’s got a face as long as a horse. He don’t even want to look at me. ‘Do you think God’ll save you when they catch you teaching slaves to read? Do you think He’s gonna suddenly appear when they discover you been leading slaves in prayer?’ He turns to meet my eye. ‘They’ll beat you till you’re black and blue. Probably put you in the cotton gin and close the lid on you. I don’t imagine you’ll feel so good then.’

‘God won’t let that happen.’ I shake my head. ‘Not while I’m doing His good works. He’ll keep all of us safe from harm.’

Connie spits down into the dirt. ‘God don’t help people like us. He never has.’

‘You don’t believe that.’

He turns away from me.

‘Connie?’

But he won’t answer me. Just shuffles his feet with his back to me.

‘Why you being like this?’ He stands up to leave and I stand up too. ‘Don’t ignore me, Connie! I know you ain’t as mean as this. Have you been drinking? I bet you have, cos this ain’t you.’

I’m expecting him to shout at me, to have a go like he did in the cabin when I saw his back – but when he turns on me he’s got a blank expression and I don’t know how he feels at all. ‘Everyone’s got two faces, Friday.’ He’s breathing heavily through his broken nose. ‘Sometime you ought to take a proper look at mine.’

He walks back to his cabin without even saying goodnight, and I let him go cos I know there’ll be no talking sense to him tonight, and anyway he’ll feel different in the morning. He’ll be the Connie with a big heart that likes to look out for me.

I walk back around the fire pit, intending to relieve myself before I turn in. When it’s dark like this, I use the clump of bushes on the far side of the cabins, same as everyone else, and I go there now, creeping past Hubbard’s cabin, where light creeps out from under his door. I wonder if he’s still awake and then I notice a hole in the wall, ’bout the size of a walnut – a golden nugget of light that winks to me as
I pass, sure as if it were sitting on a riverbed, urging me to pick it up.

I ignore it and go behind the bushes, but as I stand there wetting the leaves I can still see that tiny hole of light and I’m gripped with an urge to put my eye to it and see what Hubbard’s doing. I don’t know why. Chances are that whatever I see ain’t going to be worth the risk of getting caught, and yet the more I think about it the more I want to do it and so I step up to the edge of his cabin, daring myself to take a look.

I can’t hear a thing – not from inside the cabin or here outside. Everything is still. Everything is quiet. So I step closer, put my hands either side of that hole, put my eye to the nugget of light and I see Hubbard instantly. He’s sitting in a chair over by the fire and he has his back to me. He’s very still and I think he might be asleep, but then he moves, lifting up the hand that I can’t see and transferring a book to the hand I can.

A book! It really is a book. Hubbard has an open book in his hand and I can see it clear as if it’s daylight, a slim volume, from which he reads.

I blink and look again. Hubbard’s reading. He really is.

I take my eye from the wall and look back over my shoulder, checking that I’m still alone, and then I look again.

Hubbard turns a page. He puts a finger up to the words so he can make ’em out, the way I do when I read the primer to the kids in Lizzie’s cabin.

So Hubbard can read.

Well, I weren’t expecting that.