The Sugar Planter's Daughter (19 page)

I learned to gag that little devil voice.
Get Thee behind me!
I would cry out in silence, mimicking our Lord in the desert, and that stern command was always enough for it to slink away, a dog with its tail between its legs. I lectured myself.
You chose this life because you loved George.
No, not
loved:
LOVE. Love placed you here. Love is your master, love your storeroom of strength. And I would sigh and rise to my feet and walk on, one step at a time. I thought of the other mothers of Albouystown; they too had broods of children, they too got through the day. And they had had no options, whereas I had chosen this life. So who was I to complain? I refused to be that white lady from the white mansions too good for practical work, too proud to raise her own children. No – I would be as good as any Albouystown mother, as strong and resilient and upright in my duties. I would keep going.

Yes, I admit, it was hard work, keeping up with my boys as well as managing their care. Ma helped, of course, but her day was filled with housework and most of it fell to me. I wouldn't have managed, I admit, without hired help – a girl called Cherry who helped in the kitchen, and Efna, who sometimes minded the youngest ones. Both of them were themselves dwellers of Albouystown. They should be working in the more affluent areas of Kingston or Cummingsburg, not for a neighbour. It made me feel privileged, a sense I had been trying to overcome ever since I first fell for George. I had determined to start at the bottom and work my way up. Doing the simple household tasks that kept a family going had brought me down from my fool's paradise of dresses and dances, made of the fluffy-minded dreamer a down-to-earth and practical woman, a mother with hands that knew what to do. But now, with five boys – well, I was grateful for the help. If only I wasn't white and they brown. The differences in our skin colour reinforced the tired old hierarchy of privilege, and that was what caused my guilt. Being an Albouystown resident made it all much worse.

But I was learning to love Albouystown. It was the residents who made the difference. None of this stiff-upper-lip business that characterised the British upper class. Albouystown folk were down to earth. They showed you what they felt. There was no pretence; they wore their hearts on their sleeves. When they were upset, they cried. When they were angry, they yelled. If they hated you, they showed it. And if they loved you – well, I was beginning to be loved by one or two, and it meant the world to me. It meant acceptance. I was beginning to forget the colour of my own skin, forget any difference. Yet I still had no close friends there. Many of the ladies I thought of as ‘gate friends', since we only chatted over the garden gate when I came to collect fruit or peppers or tomatoes from their gardens. But a gate friend was good enough for me; after all, I had Kitty, Eliza, Tilly and Emily.

Though most Albouystown residents were of African descent, there were many Indians, too. The Africans came from former slaves from the sugar fields, the Indians from former indentured servants, all of whom had been freed or turned their backs on plantation life. I suppose my reputation as a rebel against plantation conditions went before me and helped to ease my path. But I was eager to know them better; who were these people who came from far away, who sweated and toiled in the broiling sun for a pittance, to make us British rich?

I learned that there were two kinds of Indians, Muslims and Hindus. You could tell by their names: Muslims had names like Khan and Hussein and Ali. Hindus had names like Ram and Persaud and Nataraj. Muslims did not eat pork; Hindus did not eat beef. It was easy to tell a Hindu home, as they would have clusters of tall thin poles at the front fence bearing raggedy red flags. I wondered at the meaning of these flags, and in conversation with a Hindu housewife, Basmattie, I finally found an answer: the flags are dedicated to the gods Hanuman and Shiva and the goddess Lakshmi. They are prepared at a Hindu prayer service called a jhandi.

Basmattie, in her eagerness to explain to me what they meant, arranged for me to be invited me to a jhandi prayer service at a friend's house. I was most excited at this invitation, for it meant a further step into the heart of my new community, a further opening of my own heart.

I arrived early in the morning, and found all the women of the household cooking in enormous pots in the yard over open fires. Basmattie and her friend were picking flowers and making garlands for the service, and invited me to help; I eagerly did, but my fingers were slow and clumsy and they laughed good-naturedly at my poor attempts at garland-making. They had been learning the art since they were little girls.

Later on the pandit arrived and we all went upstairs. A ceremony followed that I couldn't quite understand; prayers were chanted in a strange language that I later found out was Sanskrit. Various gods and goddesses were worshipped and the flags blessed in their honour, Hanuman receiving one more than Shiva and Lakshmi. Later, when I asked Basmattie about the many gods of Hinduism, she laughed. ‘We have many gods,' she said, ‘but only one God, with a capital G, just like you. And our God is the same as your God, and the Muslim Allah. We all pray and worship in different ways; our gods are our pathways to Him. Jesus is your pathway. But we all are going in the same direction: to love and peace.'

This made perfect sense to me, and I nodded.

At the end of the ceremony the pandit gave some teachings in English about right living. ‘What you do is not important,' he said. ‘No work is more worthwhile than another. It's not what you do that counts; it's how you do it. Do your work with right attitude, and it will be of benefit to you, even if it is lowly. Regard your work as service to God, and do it with dedication, no matter what it is. The motions of work are not important: it is the motions of mind that count. Happiness comes not from the pleasure you can abstract from your work or the world, but from the love you pour into your work and the world.'

I found that teaching most helpful for my life in Albouystown, and determined to try to live by it. And in that way I felt folded even closer into the heart and soul of Albouystown, and learned to live my life there. And I determined that my children would learn all about all religions, because all are meandering paths to a single truth. They were all baptised Catholic, but I hoped that they would grow up to understand that every religion is a pathway to God, and only that: a path, and not the whole truth; and that He favours no particular path, but sees only the sincerity with which it is walked.

T
here were
ways not to have more children. Women spoke of such ways, and so did George, even though he was a Catholic and, officially at least, not allowed to inhibit conception.

‘We have enough,' George said. ‘Let's stop now.'

He said that after Will, and after Charles, and after Leo. It was I who refused.

‘Gabriella Rose,' I said. ‘She is next. Her soul is waiting. I know it, I feel it. One more, George. Just one more and then we'll stop. The next one will be Gabriella Rose.' But it never was. Until now. But this one, this little being beneath my swelling abdomen – this was she. I knew it with every fibre of my being. This was different. I could actually feel her this time – feel her as a companion, invisible but real, so real, beside me every minute of the day, and in my dreams. This had never been the case with any of the boys. This certainty! This
knowing!
This was her. I placed my hands on the tight skin of my belly and sighed, and smiled. Just a few months more, my little love. Just a little while longer.

G
eorge wanted desperately
to get me out of Albouystown. He had worked so hard over the years, and it had paid off: he was now head of the telegraph office, the most senior non-white employee in the entire BG civil service. He had a good salary and, augmented as it was by the profits from Quintessentials, we were doing well financially. But he wasn't happy. George wanted a house. A lovely big family home in a nice location, to where he could transplant us all.

Most evenings after work he would bundle us all into a hired coach and we would drive to the Sea Wall for an afternoon airing. George would wear his Sunday best, a crisp white shirt and a striped tie. He cut a very dapper figure, straight and tall with me on his arm. Up and down the jetty we would stroll, arm in arm, and watch the children play – Humphrey in charge of the little ones digging in the sand, Gordon and Will playing cricket on the beach – and he would dream. A big yard, he wanted, with trees the boys could climb and a gutter of their own that they could fish in. A two-storey house in the middle of it, with a window-fronted gallery and four bedrooms; a lovely white wooden house with Demerara windows and jalousies painted green. Sometimes he rode up and down the desirable areas on his bicycle, looking for available plots. He scoured the city, sending out feelers for our perfect place. I would laugh at him.

‘George, you seem to think the place is already there, with our name on it. Just waiting for you to turn up and identify it!'

He smiled rather sheepishly.

‘That's a bit how I feel. I can almost picture it. I want a mansion, Winnie, not a cottage! You deserve the best.'

‘Oh, stuff and nonsense. A ready-made house will do. Gabriella will need a room of her own – so at least four bedrooms. The boys can share two rooms. A kitchen, a bathroom, a gallery and drawing room – what more do we want?'

‘I want it big. As big as the house you grew up in. Why should your children have less than you did?'

‘Oh
George!
You're such a snob! As long as I have you and the boys and Gabriella I'd be happy living in a dog kennel! And as for the boys – they are happy here in Albouystown. They have their friends here. Why can't we buy a bigger house here, if it has to be?'

A bigger home was, in all honesty, my dream too – what mother does not want the most comfortable nest for her family – but I was too busy with my everyday challenges to think much about it. But it was all George thought about. Every extra penny went into the savings account he had opened for that very goal; and within a year, he said, we would have enough to make a deposit on a piece of land on which we would build our future. The very thought of moving home gave me a headache.

‘The boys would be happy anywhere,' George said, ‘and I want the very best for them. The best home and the best education, the best friends, so that they will go far.'

‘You take care of it, then,' I said wearily. ‘I don't care.'

I sighed and laid my head on his shoulder, hoping to silence him. I placed his hands on my belly, so that he could feel Gabriella Rose and stop thinking about that imaginary house. This house had haunted him ever since my return from Caracas. This idea that our home had to be as wonderful as Promised Land. It never would be – Promised Land was indeed special, but I had put it behind me for ever when I chose George. But George – he seemed haunted.