The Secret Life of Winnie Cox Page 17

  I confess that I am a little frightened about the long sea voyage. But not as frightened as I was when Archie left me. But God is with me and prayer shall sustain me.

  Chapter Twelve

  I cried out in anguish. My fingers closed into a fist around the paper, and crushed the note into a ball. With blurred eyes I looked up and around – where was Mad Jim? He was nowhere to be seen; only little Freddie still sat on the floor diligently cracking, opening, sucking and spitting. ‘Mr Booker!’ I called as I leapt to my feet. ‘Mr Booker!’ Mad Jim emerged from a room at the back, presumably the kitchen. I rushed up to him.

  ‘Why?’ I cried, my voice shrill with panic. ‘Why did he do this? Where is he? Why? Why?’ My fists, still clasping the crushed note, rose up as if to pummel his chest. He placed steady hands around them.

  ‘Hol’ on, Miss Cox. Come, leh’ we go and sit down and talk.’

  He led me back to the gallery and to the chair I’d been sitting on. I dropped into it, suddenly limp. He sat down on the chair opposite, and leaned forward. His eyes gazed into mine. They were as calm as a rock. He seemed to see into my soul, and by the very act of seeing brought back a sense of ground within me. The abyss closed up. My breath returned to normal.

  ‘Why?’ I said again. My voice seemed far away, to me, like the voice of another. The red-hot panic had left me, to be replaced by grey despair. I slumped in my chair. I dropped the note to the floor and pressed my face into my hands. Mad Jim waited a while before speaking. I finally lowered my hands and looked at him, ready to hear what he had to say.

  ‘First of all, this: he had to go. His work in Berbice done. He went back because Mr Perkins returned from New Amsterdam sprightly as a young goat and wanted his job back – bored with retirement. So George had to go back to his old job. George wrote you the note and asked me to get it to you. He’s an old, old friend – me first wife Gladys and he distantly related.’

  His first wife? Ah, that explained what I had wondered about. His first wife had been a darkie. Bhoomie, his new wife, was Indian. I wondered what had happened to Gladys.

  ‘But he didn’t have to write that horrible note! We love each other! Why does he think he insulted me? Even if he’s in Georgetown, we could …’

  ‘If he’s in Georgetown and you up here it’s easier for you to forget each other.’

  ‘But I don’t want to forget him! I love him! I’ll wait forever for him!’

  Mad Jim shook his head, slowly. ‘I told him to go,’ he said. ‘Blame me. I told him he got to put an end to it. I told him I’d talk to you, explain.’

  ‘I just don’t understand,’ I said weakly. ‘I thought – I thought …’

  ‘You thought he loved you?’

  I nodded.

  ‘And it’s true,’ said Mad Jim. Gradually his language changed as he spoke – I felt he was making the effort to speak in King’s English, just for me. ‘But George is a dreamer. And so are you. You need to nip this thing in the bud. Before it’s too late. For both of you, it’s puppy love. It will pass.’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘Never.’

  ‘Miss Cox,’ he said, his voice slow with contrived patience, ‘I know what you feel. Your face, Miss Cox! Your eyes! You remember the day, before the rains, when you met him in the post office, and you ran out and bumped into me? Your face was radiant! Your eyes! The eyes of a young girl in love. The same the other day, when I found you at the table in the post office. Such shining eyes! I’m an old man, Miss Cox, and I’ve seen a lot. I know the signs. But any fool could read your face and know you’re in love.’

  ‘My sister Yoyo can’t!’

  ‘Ah, but she’s too young, too involved in herself. It would-a have to be written all over you in bold letters for her to know.’

  ‘Well then! If that is so, you know we belong together.’

  He sighed. ‘You’re so naïve!’

  ‘Mr Booker! I’m not naïve! I know about love! I …’

  ‘Call me Jim, Uncle Jim. I don’ like that Mr Booker title too much.’

  I swallowed, and tried it out. In spite of everything I liked him; he was kind, and seemed to truly care.

  ‘Uncle Jim …’

  ‘That’s better.’

  ‘We love each other. I know it will be difficult, because he’s a darkie, but … ’

  ‘Do you know how patronizing that word is?’

  ‘Oh! I didn’t … ’

  ‘See? That’s just a small example of how ignorant you are. How completely unaware of the great harm you do – we do, we whites – in this country. You live in a dream world, Miss Cox. This love of yours can’t survive in the real world. You have no idea!’

  Tears pricked my eyes. ‘But it can! If we are strong and hold on to it and …’

  He reached out and grasped my upper arms; I thought he was going to shake me, and maybe that was his intention; but he thought better of it and let go, and sighed.

  ‘Anyway, George understands. He’s gone, Miss Cox. Grasp that, and get over it. George knows it’s impossible, even if you don’t.’

  The tears escaped and ran down my cheeks. I wiped them away with my sleeve, furiously.

  ‘I can’t believe he gave up so easily! That he just ran away from me like that!’ I clicked my fingers and glared at Uncle Jim. ‘I thought his love was real, and true! But he’s so fickle! He just runs away because you tell him it’s too difficult! I wouldn’t run away! I would fight for him, wait for him, anything!’

  He buried his face in his palms for a silent few seconds, as if gathering patience to deal with my stubbornness. Then he looked up. ‘George isn’t fickle, Miss Cox. He was in agony. But he knows there’s no other way. There’s no future for this love of yours.’

  ‘There is! Why not? If we stay strong and wait … I don’t want him to …’

  Uncle Jim leaned forward and took my two hands; his huge paws closed around them. He looked down and mused.

  ‘Like two li’l birds, these hands!’ he said, then raised his head and, now serious as ever, gazed into my eyes. I held his gaze. ‘Because he got to,’ he said. ‘He got to forget you, just as you got to forget him.’

  I pulled my hands from his and leapt to my feet again. ‘Never!’ I cried. ‘How dare you say that? He told me he loves me and if it is true then I must find him and tell him I was not insulted! I must tell him I love him! He has to know! He has to!’ I ran to the window and glared back at him. I wanted to pummel him; and yes, he really was mad or something similar. How could he play with me this way? First reassuring me that George loved me, explaining why he had written the note, filling my heart with hope and confidence – only to shatter it again with words of such finality? Even now, he seemed unmoved by my outburst.

  ‘Sit down, Miss Cox,’ he said, and there was not a single note of sympathy or understanding in his voice. Yet I obeyed.

  ‘You don’t understand,’ I said. ‘We love each other. I know we do. I have to tell him I love him – he has to know!’

  ‘What do you know of love!’

  ‘What do you know!’ I cried. ‘You don’t know what I feel! Who are you to judge!’

  ‘Ha!’ he said, and his chuckle once again was most unfeeling. He produced a large handkerchief and passed it to me. I patted my eyes dry. ‘See, Miss Cox, what you call love ain’t nothing but sentimental mush. And the same goes for him. I had to hear it from him, too, this nonsense of I-will-love-her-forever and she’s-the-only-one.’

  I looked up. ‘He said that?’

  He nodded. ‘Yes. And I told him the same like I’m goin’ to tell you now: get over it. What you call love might feel like the real thing now, but it isn’t. True, it could grow into the real thing but you must not let it. You can’t afford to let it. You need to root it out now, while it’s small and young. A little plant. Before it grows too big and strong to handle. Before it grows roots and takes over you whole life and destroys you both.’

  ‘But it’s not tiny! It’s strong already! And grand and wonderful
and …’ I looked at him and did my best to put some authority into my voice. ‘Love is … the grandest, strongest thing there is. I know we’ll have problems but our love will give us the strength to overcome them. Love is all we need; it will see us through.’

  Uncle Jim only rolled his eyes. ‘Heard it all before,’ he said. ‘Rose petals floating down from heaven, violins in the sky, a whole orchestra. Oh, I know. Don’t think I don’t know. But I know something else too.’ He leaned forward and looked at me steadily and earnestly. There was no mocking in that gaze now, no scorn or pity. I met it as calmly as I could, and nodded.

  ‘It cannot be, Miss Cox. This love, if it’s real, is doomed from the start. You cannot encourage it. You cannot let it grow. You need to pluck it out by the roots. Now, while it is still young and fresh. Anything else is sheer madness. How can you ever marry George! Do you know what would happen, were you to ever make this infatuation of yours public?’

  ‘I don’t care!’ I cried. ‘I know it’s going to be difficult. But I don’t care! I know I can do it. I know my love is strong enough. I’m ready for anything. I can face all hardship. I know I can. Just because I’m young, you can’t just dismiss me like that!’

  ‘How do you know? You can’t know till you been there; till you walked through the fire and come out the other side intact and your love stronger than ever. You can’t know when the fire is still in front of you. Nobody can know. See, you don’t even know George. You don’t know if his love is of that calibre. All you both can really know is that you’ve fallen in love and it’s wonderful and beautiful but is it enough?’

  ‘I know it! I feel it!’

  ‘Excuse me, Miss Cox. You don’t. You feel the emotion but you don’t know the reality of what you would face if you do not uproot this thing right now, while you still have the opportunity. You’re too young.’

  ‘How can you know how strong my love is? How can you judge me? And George? You don’t know!’

  He chuckled. ‘True enough, I don’t know if your love – if that’s what it is – can survive the trials ahead of you, if you pursue it. But don’t tell me I don’t know the trials, because I do. I was young once too, you know. Young and in love. And I do know this much: you can’t judge the quality of love by the strength of that first hurricane.’

  ‘But it’s not just a hurricane!’ I cried. ‘It’s deep, and true, and lasting!’

  ‘There’s only one way to know if it is lasting,’ he replied, ‘and that’s for it to last. To last the test of time. To outlast the battering. The hammering. The insults. The humiliation. The rejection … child, you have no idea.’

  ‘Don’t call me child!’

  ‘Then stop behaving like a child, and listen.’

  ‘I’ve heard everything you said.’

  ‘Hearing is not the same as listening. And I’m not finished. I haven’t told you what I brought you here to tell you. I haven’t even started. And that’s because you’re not listening.’

  ‘I am listening.’

  ‘No, you’re not. You’ve put up a wall, and you’re hiding behind it.’

  ‘How do you know that? You can’t see into me.’

  ‘I can see more than you think. You don’t speak only with words, you know. You’re easy to read.’

  That’s what Papa always said about me. And Yoyo. They said my face was an open book. These last few weeks I thought I had changed; that I had learned the art of keeping secrets and subterfuge. Mad Jim – Mr Booker – Uncle Jim – whatever his name was, he seemed to think differently. But then, he had information the others didn’t.

  His own face, which till now had revealed a touch of mocking, teasing humour, turned strict and serious. He stood up and walked to the window, where he stood looking out. His back still turned to me, he said, ‘You don’t know. You can’t know. I don’t want you to find out – at your age – no. And not George either. You’re too young, too naïve – it would break you. Spoil you for your whole life. Ruin you for love. Wreck your soul. Miss Cox …’ He swung round then, and his eyes seemed to blaze with some violent passion as he spoke.

  ‘They’ll kick you, spit on you, call you the most despicable names. They’ll drag you through the mud. They’ll tar and feather you. They’ll put you in the stocks, brand you. They’ll skin you alive. The way they used to do with the slaves. You know about slavery, of course.’

  His outburst had come out of nowhere and laid me flat. So much vehemence in those words, so much rage!

  ‘And always, it’s the women they go after. Somehow, the women are the ones they hang up to dry. My first wife Gladys – do you know the names they called her? The so-called civilized race, I mean. Your race, and mine. I won’t repeat those words. They say sticks and stone can break your bones but words don’t hurt. But they do. They tried to break her. They tried to break us. They kicked us out of their world, threw us to the wolves. And then they killed her. Burned down our Georgetown house while she was in it. Luckily the children were at school, except one. The youngest one died too. Oh, I won’t go into the details. That’s not the point. But I’ll say this much: what they did was criminal. Criminal, criminal. Gladys and I, we tried. We braved the storm and only one of us came out on the other side alive and intact. That’s why I can only laugh at your use of the word love. You have no idea. You think love is a walk through a garden. A dance on the beach. It’s not! It’s only when you’ve walked over the burning coals and you’re still holding hands on the other side; it’s only when you can look into each other’s eyes and know and say, ‘we have survived it’, that it’s worthy of the name. Through thick and through thin. That’s love. It’s an after state. The before state is still infatuation.’

  ‘I … ’ I couldn’t find the words to continue. Jim was still staring at me, staring into me, as if he could read every single thought passing through my mind.

  ‘And for you, it will be worse. It’s always worse the other way around. A white man with a black woman – well, that’s allowed as long as he’s just her whore – excuse my language. The trouble only starts when he marries her, elevates her to his status, as they like to put it. Because the black person and the woman are down there.’ He pointed to the ground. ‘The man elevates the woman, the white man elevates the black. According to their way of thinking, that is.

  ‘In your case – I can’t even begin to imagine it. I can’t think of another example in this whole country – if it ever happened, then it was kept secret. But if you were to marry George. Do you know what the consequences would be?’

  I shook my head. There was a lump in my throat. My eyes bristled with unshed tears. My face must have been red as a tomato. I felt sick.

  ‘Your family: they’ll disown you. Your own father will throw you out. Your sister will turn away. Your mother – well, your mother’s different. A gentle lady, a real lady. And she’s gone, so I’ll leave her out. But your people, your friends: they’ll cast you out. White society will treat you like a leper. You’ll be on your own, with only George as a companion, because black people won’t accept you either. You’ll make them uncomfortable. They might not insult you to your face, but they’ll turn away from you. Because they know you’re not really one of them. You’re still from that other world, the world of privilege and status, and you cannot know, you cannot possibly know, what it is to live in another’s skin. As for what they’ll do to George …’

  He paused. The silence grew long. When he spoke again his voice was quieter, and the fire in his eyes had abated.

  ‘But that’s why, Miss Cox, I’m advising you, just like I advised George, to put this thing away. Don’t let it grow. I know what you’re going through and I know you think it’s impossible but it’s not. You can do it. You’re young, and resilient, and there are so many young men your age and rank just waiting for a pretty girl like you. Forget George.’

  Now it was my turn to be silent. My breath grew still as I listened to what my heart would say, and when the words came it seemed as if it w
as not I that was speaking them, but another being deep within me. ‘Mr Booker,’ I said, for I could no longer call him Uncle, ‘If someone – someone well-meaning, like yourself, had told you this at the beginning of your love of Gladys, would you have backed away from it?’ He did not answer, and that was my answer. I stood up.

  ‘Thank you, Mr Booker, for your concern. I will think about what you said. But for now, I need to get back home. Freddie …’

  We all three stood up. My composure had returned to me. And so I said the thing that had been preying on me right from the beginning. ‘Mr Booker – that little speech of yours was really quite unnecessary. I don’t know why you brought me here. I don’t know why you’re interfering in my affairs. You’re quite the busybody, aren’t you, to lecture me about my private life at our very first meeting. It’s not terribly polite, is it!’

  He laughed out loud. ‘Politeness was never a quality I’ve been known for. Straight talking, honesty, truth – that’s my way.’

  ‘Well, then, you’ve made a mistake with me. You don’t know me at all!’

  He shrugged. ‘I know you got mettle. I know you don’t fold at the first obstacle. I like that.’

  ‘Unlike George, who ran back to town the moment you gave him the same treatment. The coward!’

  He stopped laughing immediately. ‘Don’t you – don’t you dare call George a coward!’ His eyes were fiercely glaring, and for a moment I even felt fear. ‘You little, white, pampered, cosseted princess! Do you know what it cost him to give you up! He did it for you! He did it because he would not put you through the ordeal he knows would follow if you should pursue this – this madness! He did it because giving you up is the only way to protect you. George is anything but a coward – but you could not possibly know about real courage, could you? How could you, living in your fairy palace!’

  We glared at each other. Then, as suddenly as he had flared up, he relaxed, smiled, shrugged.

  We did not speak again. We trooped down the front stairs, and walked in silence to the gate. He opened it and let us out. We stood facing one another over the gate.