The Sugar Planter's Daughter

O
ur wedding was a quiet one
, and small. On my side sat the family: sisters, aunts, uncles, cousins, nieces, nephews, friends – and my disapproving parents. ‘You can't trust them white people,' Ma had said. ‘Especially the ladies. They got claws.' Ma knew all about white ladies. She had worked as a maid for three of them when we were small. She said they were all high and mighty, and stabbed you in the back.

But it didn't turn out that way. It was the other way round: me holding the knife. This is the story of how that happened. I'm telling it not to excuse myself. There is no excuse. It's my confession. I must bare my soul, before Winnie, before God. Maybe that way I will find forgiveness. And redemption. Absolution. There's an ugly stain on my soul, and I must wash it clean. Winnie, if you're reading this: I hand this stain to you. I put it in your hands. Wash me clean. I will tell all, right from the beginning, even things you already know, because that is what a confession is about. You start at the beginning, when all was good, all was perfect.

Winnie was solid gold, I told Ma when she said those things about her. And we would marry and all would be good; I knew it from the bottom of my heart. She and I would conquer the world. We already had. That we were standing there at the altar was proof of it. That's what I thought on my wedding day, the proudest man in the world.

W
e married
at the small Roman Catholic Church in Albouystown, the same church where I had been baptised. Winnie wore white, and she was beautiful. Her father was in prison, so she walked up the aisle alone. She had few guests. Just her sister, Yoyo, and her mother. Yoyo hated me. I already knew that. She disappeared immediately after the wedding, and I was glad to see her go. That ridiculous hat! But her mother, whom I already called Mama, took us out to lunch at the Tower Hotel, Winnie still in her bridal gown, and tried to put me at ease. So that was a second good white woman.

And then I took Winnie home to Ma and Pa, home to Albouysoun. I was a bit ashamed, at first. How could I take my bride home to a tiny Albouystown cottage on rickety legs? She, who had grown up in a sugar palace, on her daddy's plantation, in splendour, a princess? How could I pull her down so low? But she told me not to worry. She already knew about small cottages. She had lived with Aunty Dolly, whose cottage was even smaller. Aunty Dolly had taken her in as a silly sixteen-year-old runaway. Aunty Dolly had taught that sugar princess how to pluck a fowl, and brought her down to earth. I forgot to say: Aunty Dolly came to the wedding too. Aunty Dolly and her daughters, sitting on my side of the aisle. Aunty Dolly would put her hand in fire for my Winnie. She already had, but that's another story. Aunty Dolly had made Winnie's beautiful wedding dress, and her brother, a tailor, had made my suit. The smartest suit in Albouystown, with tails down to my knees. That suit made me stand tall. It made me almost feel worthy of my bride.

There was just the two of us and Ma and Pa, because my sisters had moved out, married and gone. They came to the wedding too. Grudgingly. They thought the same as Ma. That Winnie would stab me in the back, like all white women. And they too were wrong. We would be the happiest couple in the whole colony. It's what I promised her. What she promised me.

B
ut first
, we had a honeymoon. I could never have afforded a honeymoon, but Uncle Jim gave us the honeymoon. Jim Booker, my mentor and the renegade white man from the powerful Booker clan; the black sheep of the Bookers, because he was on our side, the underdog side. Helping the revolution to come. When people say all white men are evil I point to Uncle Jim. There are good white men and Uncle Jim is one of them; as far as I know, the only one. But if there is one there can be many, because goodness is in the heart and it is a choice. Anyone can be good if they choose to be.

The honeymoon was his wedding present to us. Uncle Jim had a house down the coast, to the west, in the wild Essequibo district. It was an empty house because nobody lived there, but he sent people to clean it up for us and we went there for a week. I could not get more than a week's holiday, and unpaid; as a lowly postman that's what I got. But a week was enough. I had my Winnie all to myself, and it was a week spent in heaven. And then we came home to Albouystown. I keep mentioning Albouystown because I think that worried me more than the cottage. How could I bring my bride to Albouystown?

A
lbouystown
, the poorest part of Georgetown. Albouystown is in the south, bounded by the Sussex Street trench on the north and the Punt Trench Dam on the south. The Le Repentir cemetery adjoins it, which only adds to its reputation – people are scared of ghosts and jumbies and bad spirits. I myself have experienced this. I once went to the wake of a neighbour in a yard down the road. In the middle of the Bible reading something stirred in the middle of the crowd, a commotion, and a man started talking and shouting some sort of gibberish. He then threw himself to the ground, stood on his head and danced around on his head. It was a quiet man, Mr Gibb, a coach driver, who had never behaved strangely before. Somebody threw a bucket of water over him, which made him fall on his back. A few minutes later he got up and couldn't remember a thing. And everybody said afterwards he'd been possessed by an evil spirit from Le Repentir cemetery. That's the kind of place I was taking my Winnie to.

We lived on Butcher Street, which was one of the richer streets, with separate cottages in big yards full of fruit trees. It was probably named after Mr Khan, who had his butcher shop up near the north. Other streets in Albouystown were full of long buildings called ranges, tenements where several families lived together sharing the space. So we were actually lucky. But when I took Winnie there I didn't feel lucky. I felt ashamed.

Everyone here was struggling, and everyone here was coloured, either African or Indian. Except my bride. She would be the only white lady in the whole of Albouystown. People would stare. They would shun her. They would be afraid of her, just like they were afraid of all white people. I don't want to say it, because saying things sometimes makes them happen, but there were people in Albouystown who might wish her ill. Who might do her wrong. But when I told that to Winnie, she only stroked my cheek and smiled and said, ‘George, George, don't worry about a thing. I can take care of myself.' And she did.

W
innie
, if you are reading this – do you remember those first days, weeks? After the wedding, when I brought you home? I carried you over the threshold into that cottage. I felt bad about that, because I did not have a house of my own to offer you, but only a bedroom in my parents' home. But you said you did not mind, and maybe you really didn't. You laughed when I swept you up into my arms and carried you over the threshold; your veil caught on a nail in the door and because the veil was attached to your hairdo, all your hair was pulled away and it hung loose and when I set you down it was all over your shoulders, and you were laughing, laughing; and then you changed out of your wedding gown and we went off on our honeymoon, and then I brought you back home to Albouystown and our married life began in earnest.

Ma and Pa were in awe of her; all they saw was her skin, and in spite of what Ma had said, about white women stabbing you in the back, the truth was her upbringing reneged on all that and awe overcame suspicion. And now she was their daughter-in-law. White people had to be catered to, but you don't cater to a daughter-in-law, do you? You're supposed to be in authority, as her elder; they didn't know what to do.

I
put Winnie down
, careful that she should land on her own two feet. She was still laughing, grabbing her loose hair and pulling it back, and she stumbled, knocking over the little hall table. Ma heard the commotion and came out of the kitchen, drying her hands on her apron. She saw Winnie, and
curtsied.
I couldn't believe it. Ma curtsied! It was terrible, but Winnie handled it with grace; she opened her arms to Ma and gathered her into an embrace that was as genuine as it was touching, so that it looked as if there had been no curtsy at all; it looked as if Winnie had not noticed, even though she had.

‘Where's Pa?' I asked. I was still dying of embarrassment because of that curtsy and I had to do something to distract from it, though of course Winnie already had, and in fact, Ma was still in Winnie's arms and Winnie was smiling at her and Ma was smiling back. But I still asked, ‘Where's Pa?'

‘Where you think? At Bernie's.'

And again I almost died of embarrassment.

‘On my wedding day?' How could Pa go off to Bernie's, today of all days? Just an hour ago he was at the reception in the church hall. Just a small reception, the same people who had been at the wedding. But of course Albouystown folk were curious. They had gathered on the road outside trying to get a glimpse of the bride. Winnie must have been the only white lady who had ever stepped into Albouystown, and word had spread and people wanted to get a glimpse of her. You can't blame them. Everyone loves a wedding, a bride, and especially such an unusual one. I didn't blame them at all, for standing outside the church and then the church hall to ogle my Winnie.