The Sugar Planter's Daughter Page 15

  Even if I get the job, it will still be a long time before we can afford a new house. But already I am dreaming. As I ride through town on my bicycle I look at the nicer homes – not the Main Street mansions of course; I do know my limits – and imagine Winnie living in one of them, our children playing in the garden. Winnie at the window, waving to me as I wheel my bicycle through the gate, home from work in my white shirt and tie. No more postman’s uniform for me! A boy and a girl leaping at me as I walk up the stairs, calling out ‘Papa! Papa! Papa!’ And Winnie with a baby in her arms, smiling for me as I walk through the door, falling into my embrace. I am determined to make this happen.

  But that is in the far distant future. The telegraph job is to start on the first of January. I still have December, and the dreadful Christmas season, to endure. Not that the Christmas season is dreadful in itself, but it will be dreadful without Winnie. But most of all, it will be dreadful because I must spend it at Promised Land. Yes – I dread Christmas week as I have dreaded nothing in my life. My instinct tells me nothing good can come of it. But Winnie insists, and I have promised her I will go.

  Christmas and Boxing Day, both public holidays, happen to fall on a Friday and Saturday, so I have only taken one unpaid day’s holiday on the Thursday, Christmas Eve, for travelling up, and will return home on Sunday. That is ordeal enough.

  I was called for an interview in mid-November. Interviewing me was the head of the telegraph department, Mr Talbot, a white man, though I would call him more ruddy than white. He possessed a large white handkerchief, with which he kept wiping the sweat from his face – he did seem to have a lot of it. Some of the English never adjust to our climate, and I wondered what kept them here. However, Mr Talbot didn’t give me much time to wonder, for he plunged right into the core of the matter.

  ‘I liked what you did,’ he said. ‘Wrote out the whole application in dits and dots. Original thinking, that! Your application stood out from the rest – shows initiative. You say you taught yourself Morse?’

  ‘Yes, sir!’ I said, ‘and I built myself a Morse machine – I’ve brought it along – here it is.’ I plunged my hand into the cloth bag I had brought with me and removed the little wooden apparatus I had made myself, at the age of nineteen. It was a primitive thing, of course, consisting of levers and springs I had salvaged from various discarded machines and things, with a small wooden base. But it worked, and I was immensely proud of it. I placed it on the table and tapped out a quick SOS.

  Mr Talbot leaned forward and took my machine in his hands, turned it round, tapped out a few words himself.

  ‘My goodness!’ he said. ‘I would say this is almost a work of genius, for a young man of limited means. You say you made this all by yourself? How did you…’

  ‘Well, I was at Queen’s College and we were learning about telegraphy and we had a picture of a real Morse key, and so I just – well, I just figured it out myself. And then I kept practising and practising until I could send messages with my eyes shut. Look!’

  I shut my eyes then, and tapped out a quick message:

  PLEASE GIVE ME THE JOB STOP I AM THE MAN YOU ARE LOOKING FOR STOP

  Mr Talbot threw back his head and roared with laughter.

  ‘Well, Mr Quint, you have certainly made an impression – I like you! We do have a few more applicants to interview – the job is in demand – but if it were up to me… well, it’s not my decision to make. I have to consult with the board. We will let you know in a week or two.’

  My heart sank to my shoes. I knew what those words meant. There were bound to be a few coloured middle class chaps who had applied, and even English chaps whose fathers knew how to pull strings. I knew I had won over Mr Talbot himself, but what about this mysterious board? Why would they accept me, a humble postman? I had walked in to that office with my head high, confident and smiling. I walked out with a slump. I knew what would happen. It was hard for a fellow of my standing and my colour to rise up in the world.

  And yet, just as Mr Talbot had said, a week later an official-looking letter arrived. I tore open the envelope and scanned the single page, and at the very first words my heart leapt up to the heavens: We are delighted to inform you that… It was signed by Mr Talbot. Somehow, he had won over the board, and around town there would be several coloured middle class and maybe even one or two English boys wondering what had happened, and why the strings they had pulled had snapped. The job was mine! I hastened to write to Winnie with the good news. This would mean a significant rise in salary – we could start saving for a new house. A home of our very own. Now there was just the ordeal of Christmas to put behind me.

  I should have trusted my instincts, which had told me quite clearly that Christmas at Promised Land would be a mistake. That instinct was confirmed almost the moment I walked in the door. Yes, it was true that Yoyo’s attitude towards me had changed enormously in the past year – ever since our last visit, before Humph’s birth, in fact – but this time she was practically fawning over me. I was not the only house-guest – her friend Margaret Smythe-Collingsworth and her husband had been invited for the week – but I was the only one treated as if I were guest of honour. It was downright embarrassing, her George Darling this, and Darling George that. I wanted to tell her to stop – but how, without making an ass of myself, and earning not only a rebuke but perhaps even a tantrum? Everyone knew that to upset Yoyo, to contravene her plans or contradict her in any way, was to play with fire. And anyway, I had promised Winnie to do my best. To be nice. And so I acquiesced, accepted her graciousness with an awkward smile and walked directly into her trap.

  She showed me up to my room herself. This was properly the task of a servant but no, Yoyo had to take my hand and lead, almost drag, me up the stairs. I threw my mother-in-law a desperate glance over my shoulder – a call for help – but she only shrugged and made a gesture of helplessness with her hands.

  Yoyo led me to the same room I had shared with Winnie on my last visit – it had once been Winnie’s own room, I understood – with its two east-facing sash windows. The bed was a four-poster, with a mosquito net bundled over the top.

  ‘Mavis will come in to tuck in the net before dinner,’ said Yoyo. ‘I think you’ll be very comfortable here.’

  She winked at me. I took a step back.

  ‘If there’s anything at all you want – anything – just give me a call,’ she said. ‘I sleep in the room next door. Alone. Clarence has his own room across the hallway.’

  Why was she telling me this?

  She winked again.

  There was something sly, something lustful even, in her eyes. I hoped I was mistaken. I hoped against hope that what I was seeing was my own too-vivid imagination. I hoped – no, it could not be! But I hoped this sense of dread, this hollowness in my belly, was based on nothing real, nothing emanating from her. Because, if it were real, how would I deal with it? I only wanted to run. Run back to New Amsterdam, cross the Berbice River, grab the train and run home to Albouystown. I ached for Winnie to be there. But, of course, she wasn’t.

  Yoyo left me so that I could change for dinner. I stayed in my room until the gong rang out, and then cautiously descended the stairs. I had hoped that Margaret and her husband would absorb Yoyo’s attention during the meal, and allow me to engage with my mother-in-law, but, of course, no such luck. Yoyo seemed determined to make sure I was a part of every single conversation she held with her friend – quite the opposite of her treatment of me a year ago. Then, she had rudely ignored me, sometimes even turning away when etiquette called for a polite greeting. Now, she turned to me after almost every sentence. Her eyes held a gleam, and when they landed on me I instinctively recoiled. Hopefully it did not show; I could not afford to anger Yoyo, and instinct told me that rejection would anger her.

  ‘Margaret, George has such wonderful news – he is to be congratulated on two counts!’ were her very first words as we took our seats.

  ‘Oh, really? Do tell, George!’ Mrs Smythe-Coll
ingsworth turned beady eyes on me. She was in an advanced stage of pregnancy by this time, and had gained so much weight all round that her eyes seemed hidden deep within her face. There was something mocking in her voice, and in her stare. In her presence I always felt like a museum exhibit, or a rabbit to be experimented on. I did not like her even a little bit. But then, I had not liked her father, Mr McInnes, the cruellest estate manager on the Corentyne Coast. No one did. I wondered how Yoyo had managed to maintain the friendship with his daughter after dismissing the father; but it was not my business.

  I did not answer right away. I did not care to talk of personal matters with virtual strangers; but Yoyo had simply plunged in and put me forward as an object of interest.

  ‘Go on George!’ she prompted after a moment of my silence. ‘Tell her!’

  Her prompt only made me hesitate further. I shook my head vaguely and looked up at Mavis, at my side, placing a leg of roast chicken on my plate. I felt grateful for her presence. In this house I felt more comfortable among the servants than among the masters. Yoyo would say I knew my place. And still she enjoyed her little pinpricks of provocation. And, as always, her goads were more in the way she said something than in what she said.

  ‘Well, since his tongue seems to be tied, I will tell you myself. He is to be a father again! And furthermore, he has received a promotion. Winnie has told us all about it.’

  ‘Oh, well done, George!’ said Mrs Smythe-Collingsworth. ‘Another baby! What fun our little ones shall have together. Won’t they, Yoyo?’

  ‘They are hoping for a girl this time,’ said Yoyo. ‘And they have even chosen a name! Gabriella Rose.’

  I definitely wasn’t imagining things – there was a jeer in that voice. The way she said my precious daughter’s name! A shudder of annoyance went through me, not at Yoyo – who after all was just being Yoyo – but at Winnie, for divulging such private matters to her sister. Really, Winnie needed to learn discretion, especially where Yoyo was concerned.

  ‘What a pretty name!’ said her friend. ‘We of course are hoping for a boy. A boy should always come first, don’t you agree, Yoyo? And don’t worry – yours will come in due time!’

  Yoyo scowled slightly at those last words; any reference to her childlessness invariably evoked annoyance, and sometimes a sharp reprimand. Winnie and I no longer mentioned it, but we did know that she wanted children, but for some reason they were not forthcoming. Could the separate bedrooms she had referred to earlier be the problem? The chill that seemed to hover between her and her husband? But of course it was none of my business to speculate, and Yoyo made sure it would not become a topic by deftly turning the conversation back to my affairs.

  ‘I should think the main concern is that the child is healthy, whether it is a boy or a girl,’ she said. ‘What a shame about little Humphrey.’

  ‘Yes – but he is being treated, surely.’

  Yoyo shook her head sadly.

  ‘But he will always be a cripple.’

  At that word I had to speak up.

  ‘Humphrey is not a cripple!’ I said, my voice somewhat louder than table manners dictated. ‘He is a perfectly healthy child. Don’t call him that.’

  ‘Ssshhh, George, no need to shout! Nobody here is deaf. All right, I won’t call him a cripple again – but still, let’s all hope that the next child has no such deformities – I mean, problems. I mean, it’s not just the foot, is it? He’s also a half-caste. A half-caste crip oh, sorry. But let’s face it; the poor child is twice cursed. Poor little thing. I feel so sorry for it.’

  She laughed, and her eyes narrowed in mockery. I seethed. I wanted to say something, but no words came and anyway, I feared anything I said would come out wrong. I’m not a good speaker – not when I am agitated. I knew she was waiting for me to react and that it amused her. So I kept silent, and after a while Yoyo continued to speak.

  ‘I do hope Winnie will be able to cope. She’s such a little kitten, isn’t she? Sweet and tame. A little too tame, I fear.’

  My blood boiled. But I managed to keep the rage to myself and said as mildly as I could:

  ‘Winnie is by no means a kitten!’

  I wanted to say more but I was afraid of saying too much. Yoyo had no such fears. She laughed.

  ‘Oh, I know she fancies herself as a bit of a revolutionary. A communist or something like that – running around with the underdogs, defending them in court, that sort of thing. And of course running off to marry one of them. But be honest, George – she’s not really up to it, is she? Winnie is as mild as… as a gentle mountain brook. Whereas I’m a wild-water river. Have you ever seen one of those, George? Papa once took us on a boat trip up the Essequibo River, where the water tumbles over rocks, white and rushing. That’s me. But I suppose your taste is more for the gentle brook? Some people can’t handle the white-water wildness.’

  She turned to her guest. ‘George is so charmingly protective of his family, isn’t he? He’s so sweet!’ And she placed a hand on my wrist, and squeezed it, and looked up at me with wide open eyes, and pressed her reddened lips forward into a pout. I glanced at her, then away, and my eyes met Mama’s across the table.

  Mama was so different from Yoyo. I truly had grown to love her, but I wished she were more dominant in this household. She spoke so little, and allowed Yoyo to hold the reins of conversation. Now, as her eyes caught mine, I saw sympathy there, and understanding. She could read me in an instant. She knew exactly what was going on, yet said nothing. She knew her daughter well. Did I read a warning in her gaze? Beyond sympathy it was hard to tell what went on in her mind. She was an enigma. But I knew she was on my side, and that helped.

  Yoyo now deftly turned the conversation around to speak about my promotion, and then about our living conditions, and if we would all fit into the cottage, and how, each question more embarrassing than the last. It was excruciating.

  After dinner we all retired to the gallery, where Mavis served us our rum-laced Moonlight Mixes. All the windows were open and the sea breeze swept through, cool and soothing. The choir of night creatures screeched out their cacophonous symphony, and light thrown from the flickering lanterns chased shadows on the walls and the floorboards. It would have been a relaxing end to the day if not for the discomfort Yoyo’s presence made me feel. Yet now she was curiously silent, allowing Margaret Smythe-Collingsworth to take centre stage with various stories of her friends and relations in Georgetown – gossip, for the most part, and I suppose amusing, though not so to me. Her husband and Clarence guffawed now and then, as they knew the persons concerned, and provided some anecdotes of their own. I listened with only half an ear, glad that Yoyo’s attention was no longer on me.

  The Christmas weekend stretched before me as a chore to be accomplished. I would have to avoid Yoyo as much as possible, and my thoughts jumped to Uncle Jim. I would certainly visit him, and some of my old friends from the village. I had not seen them since long before the wedding; at the trial, as a matter of fact. I wondered how my friends would react to me; I had after all changed sides to become a part of the Cox family. The sugar kings were generally hated – but of course Winnie was different, and so was her mother.

  Uncle Jim, of course, would be the same as ever. I had last seen him at the trial: he had stood on the street with us protestors, holding a placard and chanting with the rest of us. Now he was an estate manager, in a position of authority over the very labourers with whom he had once plotted and marched. How times changed! Uncle Jim may have superficially changed sides, just as I had, but his heart would have stayed firmly anchored in solidarity. Uncle Jim was not a man who whipped with the wind, out only for his own advantage. Of that I could be certain.

  I determined to visit him early the next day, and spend as much of the weekend with him as politely possible. Uncle Jim would advise me, as well, on how to deal with Yoyo and her extraordinary behaviour. He knew women better than I did; he was much older and wiser than I was, and been married twice; and he worked with
Yoyo day after day and certainly knew her well. Relief flooded through me as I thought about it. Yes, Uncle Jim would help me find my footing in the precarious territory I walked through.

  I was glad when, after only about fifteen minutes, Yoyo rose to her feet and placed her glass on the central table.

  ‘I have rather a bad headache,’ she said. ‘I’m off to bed. I’ll see you all in the morning.’

  ‘Toodle-oo, darling!’ said Margaret. ‘Hope you feel better tomorrow! It’s Christmas after all – we can’t have you ill in bed!’

  ‘No, I’ll be fine,’ Yoyo assured her friend. ‘It’s just the excitement, I suppose. I just need some sleep.’

  Everyone said good night and she swept past me towards the stairs. She did not glance at me, and I took this as a sign of waning interest. Everyone knew of Yoyo’s moods – she could move from hot to cold in the wink of an eye. Once she had gone I could relax, and my breathing, which I now realised had been stiff and shallow, returned to normal.

  The conversation, led now by the men, turned to cricket, and this time I was able to join in. At Queen’s College I had been in the cricket team and, though I hadn’t played myself for several years, I often attended the local matches, and I knew the players they now mentioned. They, of course, had places in the pavilions of the Georgetown Cricket Club in Queenstown, whereas I stood with the crowds behind the barrier downstairs. Which was somewhat better than the free seats on the trees outside the grounds, invariably filled with young boys who could not afford a ticket. Once, I had been one of those boys. Yes, I had moved up in the world – but not very far. I would never enter the pavilion. The only coloured men in there were those in white uniforms serving rum and cucumber sandwiches. But here tonight we – the men at least – all loved cricket and that united us, and so the rest of the evening was spent pleasantly, and when we all said our final good nights and retired to our rooms my mood – so nervous at the start of the night – had been restored to normal and I looked forward to my bed and sleep and the coming day, which I would spend, hopefully, with Uncle Jim.