Strange Music (12 page)

‘Only lesson we learn's cheat, steal, punish wid violent deed,' Sylvia say.

‘We swear,' Big Robert pleads. ‘We swear to minister nebber again we show anger. Whip's bin we teacher, true, but whatebber buckra do we cyaan go back on we werd.'

Windsor's eyes roll back in him head. ‘Robert, dem a-cheat. Dem a-cheat we.'

‘If it wasn't fe de rain all we shacks'd be in flames,' me say. ‘Buckra mek dis into war village. Betta we live dan die. Break away to Maroon Town. Break away to Mountain People.'

‘Amen. Amen,' Sylvia say. ‘But sometime Maroons betray we people.'

‘Shsh!' say Windsor.

Silence rings in me ear, broken by a deep growling coming from village edge leading to cane piece.

‘Yu sleep wid we tonite,' Sylvia whispers to me. ‘Don't go back to Isaac's empty shack.' Sharply Sylvia's voice turns on Eleanor's dawta, ‘Phoebe, fetch wood fram yard stack, feed up cook-fiah.'

‘Shsh!' say Windsor. ‘Wot's dat?'

We listen. Harsh gasps stab smoke-flooded air.

Lickle Phoebe unties she old ash-dusted head rag, scratches flattened hair. Then she just stands, stone-like, eye-searching fe she mama, Eleanor. ‘Me cyaan see far,' she say, ‘me eye not good. Most ting far away turn soft an blur.'

Sylvia's raising a fist to clout Lickle Phoebe. ‘Chile, yu cyaan ear? Phoebe, fetch wood fram yard stack, feed up cook-fiah!'

‘No. No,' me say to Sylvia. ‘Mek Lickle Phoebe run to rum shop, fetch white rum fe Eleanor, tell Uncle Ned me pay im.'

Eleanor's yard backs onto Sylvia's. Burnt-out windows of Eleanor's still smoking shack watch Sylvia plod heavily round shack back and towards she yard.

Me eye, then feet, follow de path Lickle Phoebe's stare made. It leads me into grasses rooted on shack-village edge. Palms stand high above, huge fern-like fronds shuffling and swaying in warm winds, black against a blue-black sky. Grasses feel up all around tickling me legs. From grasses rises a sound, a humming, not ‘Hi! de buckra, hi!' but a new lonelier song, a song me think me don't know before now, like rasping sound of sand on metal or stone. Me eye and ear keep hunting fe danger making this growling tune. Grassy patches twitch-shiver. Darkly a shape moves. Tough to me ears this tune torments me, fe deep inside me can tell it's one me do know.

‘Eleanor,' me call softly. ‘Eleanor.' Snarling growl steadily comes louder, clearer, but just as strange. Like a mill grinding corn on a silent afternoon it cuts, torments, this rasping scrunch scrunch scrunch grating sound filling me with fear. Me keep trying to find where this coarse singing comes from. Behind, gnarling de tune, me hear a rhythmic murmur.

Crouched down, Eleanor's body me find in a quivering nest of hip-high grasses. Reaching onto hands, knees, Eleanor's blind to me; shaking she head, fingers digging sharp into cracked earth. Me shiver, knowing what this music must be. Lying on she belly, Eleanor presses she wide nose and proud face flat in dirt.

‘Where's we God?' she wails.

Me only have one answer, ‘Dere's no God ere,' me say.

Softly Eleanor moans, ‘So fear of God don't touch me.' Squatting down by Eleanor me hand reaches out to feel she ash-sprinkled hair. ‘Don't touch!' Eleanor shouts, and at last she head twists to me, tears streaming down cheeks, into mouth corners. Panic grips me. She looks at me but doesn't seem to know who me is.

Kneeling at she side, ‘Wot yu say?' me ask, and wipe tears with skirt cloth from she cheeks, nose. But she weary face won't come settled. Cyaan wipe we past away cyaan wipe we past away.

Through rustling grass walks Lickle Phoebe. ‘Phoebe! Over ere,' me shout. Lickle Phoebe hands me rum bottle she's carried from Uncle Ned's. Eleanor puts rum bottle to she lips and, supping and swallowing, shudders, fe Ned's white rum must bite she throat fe it strong like buckra's paint stripper.

‘All dat's left me sack, Eleanor's sack de blaze caught,' me say to Lickle Phoebe.

Lickle Phoebe looks at me blankly. Then she head swings round fe grasses rustle again as gentle-slow Big Robert strolls up.

Peeling rum bottle from Eleanor's grasp, ‘Dis won't elp,' Big Robert say bluntly, thrusting bottle back into Lickle Phoebe's hands. He prises Eleanor up off folded knees. She don't resist. Lifting Eleanor bodily, he locks she into forceful arms and, going limp – legs flopping like a sleepy pickney's – she looks smaller than she did. With thoughtful movements Big Robert short-steps, careful as chicken searching fe grain in tall grasses, past palms, past Eleanor's ash-stained shack and cook-fiah Sylvia's laid in she yard. Tenderly, so she don't hit wood planks hard, he releases Eleanor onto Sylvia's verandah.

Curling before fiah me just want to sink down into roots of mountains, into land, dirt, be part earth again. All we shack village fallen quiet. Sameway as hate, something strong have risen up, hot like flames. But Eleanor cyaan take no more uprisings since losing Isaac, she younger son, and all we drenched in a dreadful knowledge that whatever we do – even though we have freedom – we cyaan gain, cyaan win. All we numbed into a new silence fe though no one can say it, Eleanor's teeth crunched dirt, eating dirt that one day soon will wrap all we so we disappear forever in its warm clutch. And all she want – all we want's that day to hurry up and come.

Windsor's shack faces Sylvia's. Windsor shuffles from him doorway, across front yard to Sylvia's verandah, hunched over with weight of a prize kid goat he carries slung across shoulders by its hooves. Folding himself down beside Eleanor, Windsor say, ‘Big feed tonite, Mama.' Neatly Windsor's cane-scarred hands slide pig-knife from creeper-rope belt. Skilfully he plunges knife blade into goat flesh, screwing up him eyes, face. He peels back tough lithe goatskin.

‘Phoebe, fetch wood fram yard stack, feed up cook-fiah,' Sylvia say.

Peering out from Sylvia's doorway, Lickle Phoebe beckons me to follow. Over yard sand and into burnt-out shack she heads.

Eleanor's yard's just that. One yard square. She shack – a one-chamber shed – holds little room to move. No chair. No table. No window. No bed. Just remains of one ragged charred sleeping sack. Air inside's sliced and tainted by strong smoke strands. Wattle walls Isaac and me clay-plastered and whitewashed with lime we dug from riverbanks where soft limestone rises, all scorched black, branded with charcoal-chip burns. Bunch-grass clumps have fallen on sodden breadnut-tree board flooring. Stars glint between shack's roof-beam shell.

Tiny love marks Isaac and me scratched into clay walls first night Isaac kissed me, gone.

‘Phoebe! Sheba!' Sylvia shouts. ‘Come out-a dere!' Sylvia's still shaking she head when we peer round Eleanor's doorway.

Cook-fires leap in each yard, sparks jump from whining flames into softly falling rain. Yard-dogs draw in on firesides. Fat moon now lights yards blue. Squatting beside Sylvia, rocking on heels, Windsor fondles a tobacco pipe silently, and a picture of what yard was comes back to me. Yard's a place on fine nights fe gossip, storytelling; a place we group around gambling fe buttons, tobacco, rum. When flames burst me see you. Me see you tall. Standing proud. Me miss you arm round me shoulder. Dappled with dancing light you features flow into each other – a beautiful shimmer of black skin – as you face fattens with laughter. Isaac, me watch till me cyaan watch no more.

‘Phoebe!' Sylvia's shouting. ‘Fetch sack fulla peas fe shelling.'

Up Lickle Phoebe gets and disappears behind fruit sacks slung over hardwood beams of Sylvia's room.

Smoke sighs long, threading its grey curls between pimento leaves arrayed over cook-fire. Slowly yard returns to a place of warmth. Humping pea sack up on verandah rail, Lickle Phoebe sings out to Windsor, ‘Goat dun yet?'

Wiping hands on trousers, Windsor strolls around goat pelt pegged out to dry and cure before it's tanned fe jerkin. Crouching, he prods ribs, goat flank, shin, roasting over flames. Rising, he levers fat steaks out with poking sticks. Squatting back on heels, fanning heat, Windsor drives smoke from him face like swatting flies away. He hands best bits – goat liver, heart – to Eleanor, him mama, first. Shuffling, curving aside snake-like, Eleanor coils back from she son's hand offering goat meat.

Me move over to Windsor, whisper what me have to tell. Brow crinkling, Windsor's head shakes, nods. He passes Trouble-Too-Much and Lickle Phoebe best goat meat wrapped in palm fronds, then forces a fatty slab into him own mouth, bulging jaw muscles working. Eleanor takes on pea sack and shelling. Lickle Phoebe's teeth tear goat flesh.

‘Phoebe, yu so hungry yu eat goat raw?' Trouble-Too-Much jokes. Phoebe looks at him blankly, munches meat chunks, swallows hard. Waiting fe meat to cool, Trouble sucks on him pipe, watching me through curling tobacco smoke. ‘Elp me,' Trouble say to me, ‘carry drinking water fram Charles' well by boiler-house.'

Deep gazing into firelight me answer Trouble-Too-Much, ‘Also me tek back rum bottle an give money to Uncle Ned.'

So, after we finish feeding, me go beside Trouble down moonlit paths, passing below great house, by overseer's house, by sugar works, to fetch boiler-house water, then me head off, pay fe rum and wander back alone through grasses and along beaten track towards shack village. Footfalls reach me ear, padding soft like a stray dog following scent trails.
Is yu, Isaac, come back? No, sounds too solid fe yu tread
. And then me think me hear many feet tramping paths leading to shacks. Like hurricane rips leaves from a trembling tree till it's blown flat, me feel fear strip me, rush up me back, fe me cyaan suffer no more, me crave calm, peace, me hunger fe you, Isaac – soft soft curve of you lips.

Thundering from nowhere and everywhere buckra boots make de stiff sound of men running. Scorching fast through tall grass like a horse-team suddenly let loose, stampeding behind me. Veering off trash-house path, leaping into waist-deep grass, me head fe provision grounds, darting through pools of moonlight, arms, legs branch-scratched. Tearing along cane-piece track, what flashes through me mind's how did me reach cane rows so quickly? Sprinting faster than spirit winds me feet dash into ratoon rows, bound through rippling knee-high cane.

But they're ahead of me – cane swirling water-like round legs – and behind, herding me towards cane-piece heart, bringing me stumbling onto knees, tumbling down on hard night-cooled earth.

Men shouting across me fallen crumpled body: ‘Richard!'

‘Over here! I'm here!'

‘Where's Richard Barrett?' another shout ask.

Cyaan heave meself up. Night sky opens, heavily dropping its insides till me crushed crushed crushed.

Sea of sugar killed me? Pure darkness comes. How to move, get up, get out, escape from a sea of hurt inside?

Yanking me arm's Lickle Phoebe.
Buckra's face lives in me head. Me clawed de pit of him back; skin, flesh. Flattened into earth, forced down by raw shafts of pain; in me blood buckra's runs, slippery red between me legs, me belly-guts ripped savagely
.

Sky spits on me face
. Woken again by Lickle Phoebe me wanting to ask,
Me drowned and buried already?
but words don't surface. Inside me swells like a large sea face – unthinking, unfeeling but moving.

‘W'appen?' Phoebe asks, as heavily more rains come.

Me told Phoebe? No, me cyaan, fe this happened too many times fe me to talk. Words and arms drag me up, hold me, crutch-like. Clinging to Lickle Phoebe, blundering past spirits whirling round trees, me feet search fe a path to wattle-shack village and Sylvia's yard.

‘Tek off she clothes,' Sylvia's voice say.
Rasp of cloth tearing. Peeled petticoat over me head
.

‘She don't have no clothes left,' Phoebe say. ‘Skin's caked in mud.'

‘Well, wrap she in someting.'

All me feel's one endless ache as Sylvia and Phoebe lay me down.

‘Eleanor an Sheba cun say w'appen to dem at Mo'bay courtroom,' me see Trouble's lips say to me.

Violently me laugh. Trouble-Too-Much's lantern-lit face charges towards me, him flashing eyes hold loathing. No cure come fe me laughter, and loss of clear thought.

Towering above like a dark tree in shack doorway, Trouble shifts from foot to foot. Shoulders rolling, he leans against rotten wood.

But Windsor have kind eyes, gentle voice fe him stand further back. ‘It don't matter oo does go. Yu know buckra don't know one nigger fram anodder.'

‘True,' say Sylvia.

Memories fade when me think of revenge.
Smashup everyting? Fight buckra laws? Cyaan fight fe justice in dis lawless place
. Me head's thudding, heart's hammering, sickness's a blister spreading out from me belly, out from between legs. Hurt's beyond me now, so is rage.

Chapter Six

Raising him head low from soft pillows, ‘Is it Sunday yet?' asks Mister Sam.

‘Sunday come tomorrow,' I say, and turn to open jalousie blinds. How I find it within me to speak gently, I don't know.

Hens cackle below bedchamber, rooting around clutches of eggs. Friday lies in Mister Sam's hammock, slung between two cottonwood trees. Stretching arms skyward, he yawns sleepily. Dawn glows golden orange. Blue hills. Blue sea.

‘Yu must mek yu will, Mister Sam,' I say.

He flinches horribly. ‘Kaydie, Kaydie, help me,' he moans. ‘Is it heaven awaits me?'

‘Church minister e can ansa yu dat.'

‘Are they coming, my cousin, Demar and Carey?'

Hall clock strikes six. Cold blue eyes stare straight through me. How to slip from what's past, from what is, from what will be? Can't nurse you night and day, I'm thinking. Can't do this heavy job. Mister Sam's eyes close to escape my accusing face. Feeling bruised and beaten I'm searching for quill pen, inkwell, nibs, fighting back strong emotions. Can't fight memories. Can't ever be rid of Sunday. Sunday crashes through bedchamber, smashing in Sunday comes. Sunday storms into my head, that Sunday when I first wished Mister Sam dead.