The Sugar Planter's Daughter Read online

  ‘How you know that?’ Eliza scolded, ‘you ever see him without the mask?’

  ‘No – but I got a sixth sense for handsome men!’

  ‘Oh, you! Is time you got married!’

  I smiled to myself. I longed to tell them the truth – that yes indeed, Theo X was very handsome; and that I shared his table, his bed, his home. I was his wife! My heart swelled with pride. One day, I would share my secret with these ladies. They would be my first friends in my new life. Kitty, Tilly and Eliza.

  Tilly turned to me. ‘Are you married?’

  I nodded. ‘Yes,’ I said.

  ‘And your husband allowed you to come? All by yourself?’

  ‘He – he couldn’t come himself,’ I said. ‘But he supports the cause.’

  ‘A white man supports the cause? That don’t make sense! You – we know about you and why you did it.’

  ‘You weren’t married then!’ said Eliza ‘I remember! You were Miss Cox.’

  ‘It’s true – I only married recently.’

  ‘So then, you’re not Winnie Cox any more!’ said Eliza. ‘What’s your name now?’

  ‘Quint,’ I said. ‘Winnie Quint.’

  I began to sweat. I was getting dangerously close to breaking my promise to George.

  Kitty wrinkled her forehead. ‘Quint? I know a Miss Bernice Quint. She brings clothes for my mother to sew. My mother’s a seamstress,’ she added for my benefit. ‘Bernice – she lives in Lacytown, near Bourda Market. A coloured woman. Any relation to your husband?’

  All three ladies stared at me, curiosity in their eyes, but also accusation. The truth was, I had indeed heard George mention Aunty Bernice. I thought she was a cousin of his mother. I hadn’t met her yet; she hadn’t come to the wedding. And I still found it hard to lie.

  I was saved by the megaphone.

  ‘Ladies and gentlemen!’ a voice boomed out above our heads, ‘thank you all for coming. We shall begin.’

  12

  George

  I had told Winnie I would pick her up after the meeting; to meet me at the entrance to the sports pavilion. I would pick her up and take her home the way I had brought her, on the crossbar of my bicycle. I prayed she had waited for me. At least thirty minutes had passed since I had fled the stage, and people would have started heading for home immediately – my talk was always the last on the programme, the finishing touch. I was the one the crowds came for, my leaders had told me. We want you to speak last, so that they will stay.

  I ran to the pavilion and, indeed, there was Winnie, just as we had agreed, waiting for me. The panic in my heart subsided.

  She was not alone. Three women stood with her. I stopped running and strode up to her, my hands stretched out.

  ‘Where were you?’ she asked. ‘I’ve been waiting ages!’

  ‘I’m sorry – I’m so sorry! I’ll explain!’

  I would – but not in front of these strangers. Who were they?

  ‘These are my new friends,’ said Winnie, and one by one she introduced them: ‘Kitty MacGonigal. Eliza Woodcock. Tilly Barnett.’

  ‘You need to take better care of your wife, Mr Theo X!’ said Tilly as I shook her hand.

  ‘How you could leave her out here in the dark? You forget she or what?’ That was Eliza.

  ‘Is a good thing she got friends. Bad men out there you know!’ Kitty said.

  ‘I know, I know, I’m sorry. Winnie, you coming? Let’s go home!’

  I practically prised Winnie away from those women. Of course they were right, but I certainly wasn’t going to explain myself to them in the middle of the night. I grabbed Winnie’s hand and turned to go. Winnie, though, was reluctant. She turned back to the women.

  ‘Tomorrow, then? Two o’clock?’

  ‘Yes! You can find the house?’

  ‘I’ll find it,’ Winnie called back, and then she turned to me. ‘What’s going on, George? Where did you run off to? What happened? Why did you’

  ‘I’ll explain. I promise. Let’s just find my bicycle.’

  We found it, leaning against the fence where I had left it. Winnie eased herself onto the crossbar and I rode off, towards Albouystown. Annoyance was practically oozing from her body, and with good reason. What I had done was unforgivable – but she would forgive me, I thought. Surely she would forgive me when she knew.

  But would she? Winnie revered Theo X. He was one of the reasons she had married me. Tonight I had discarded the persona of Theo X. He was no more – a skin I had cast off. Underneath that skin was me – plain old George. Would she love me just as much? It was a test we should have done before our wedding. But how could I have known? Theo X had not pre-announced his demise. He had simply dropped dead.

  We quarrelled all the way home – our first quarrel. She was vexed with me for killing Theo X, and for being late, and, most of all, for not telling her of my plan; for Winnie loved Theo X. And that was precisely why I had killed him.

  ‘But why – why? Theo was – he is – magnificent! Everybody loves Theo! I love Theo!’

  ‘Exactly!’ I said. ‘You love Theo, not George. Winnie – Theo isn’t a real person. He’s a construction. I don’t want you to love him. I want you to love me!’

  ‘But I do – I do! Theo is part of you, part of what I so love about you – that passion, that resolve! Remember what you told me once? It’s not about you and me, it’s bigger than us – it’s about the movement! The people!’

  ‘I changed my mind – there are more ways than one to serve the people. My family comes first. You come first. If you are in love with this made-up revolutionary called Theo the two of us can’t have a marriage. I want a real marriage, a good marriage.’

  ‘How can we have a good marriage when you forget my existence and leave me to wait hours for you to come and pick me up – in the night? How?’

  She was right. I should not have forgotten her.

  ‘I’m sorry, all right? It was wrong. I admit it. It won’t ever happen again.’

  ‘It better not, George Quint! I won’t forgive you so quickly next time!’

  I should have left it at that – after all, she said she had forgiven me. But I had to have my say: I was vexed with her for revealing to those ladies that I was Theo X, and told her so.

  ‘Well, what does it matter, if Theo X is finished anyway!’

  ‘It’s still confidential. What if the British find out that I used to be him? I’d lose my job. You women don’t know how to keep a secret!’

  ‘What? I was the one who spied in my father’s house for two whole years. Keeping you a secret and keeping the whole worker rebellion a secret. Uncle Jim said I was the most discreet person he’d ever known, man or woman!’

  She was right about that. Winnie had worked for us, secretly; listening at doors, rummaging in her father’s desk for news, and reporting it all to Uncle Jim. All while pretending to be a sweet naïve planter’s daughter who wouldn’t hurt a fly. Winnie had kept her lips tight for the longest time. But still: ‘You can’t just go blurting out my identity to any stranger you meet on the road!’

  ‘They aren’t some strangers I met on the road! They’re my friends!’

  ‘You only just met them!’

  ‘I make friends quickly. I’m friendly! And – and… George, I’m lonely!’

  When she said that my heart just burst. I pulled on the brake handles so sharply the bicycle jolted and she almost fell off, but I leapt off the seat and caught her in time, and I held on to her, squeezed her to me, kissed her cheeks.

  ‘Oh Winnie, Winnie – I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I should have thought . All alone in that house, with my mother, no friends. I’m sorry my darling. You can have as many friends as you want. Go and visit them – or bring them home. I want you to be happy. If that’s what makes you happy.’

  ‘You make me happy,’ she murmured into my collar, and squeezed my waist.

  It was such a relief to make up with her. Loving Winnie felt like a clear sun-drenched sky with not a singl
e cloud. Quarrelling with her was as if a heavy black raincloud had drifted across that sky, covering it completely, so that all the light was gone. Unbearable! Now, it was as if a black cloud fled from my mind. That, I realised, was marriage: noticing when the clouds came and returning to the original love, the original clear sky. Because the clear sky was real – the clouds weren’t. The clouds were alien things – dark emotions that separated us into two so that we no longer shared the infinite expanse of Love. I harboured that thought so that I could share it with her later, when we lay in bed, wrapped in each other’s arms, breathing in each other’s substance. Winnie would like that idea, that imagery. It was something she might have come up with herself. Winnie – so sensitive, so aware of the movements of the heart, so wise for her age. I squeezed her again, lifted her back on to the crossbar, and we wheeled away.

  That was the night I learned what it meant to return to Love. Love is an act, a conscious decision, a constant call back to itself. I put aside the clamour and vexation of my own little self, and here I was, happy again. Home again.

  Months passed, and more and more Winnie adapted to life in Albouystown. I was away at work all day, so I didn’t see much of the process, but I did see the results. The biggest result was Ma’s complete turnaround regarding her daughter-in-law. She who had rejected Winnie sight unseen, now loved her with a startling and unconditional love – and it was all Winnie’s doing. Winnie had decided that she loved to cook, and that Ma was the best teacher on earth. She threw herself into the daily task, and Pa and I were the beneficiaries, for every evening we came home to some new creation concocted by the two of them. Cow-heel soup, pepperpot, cook-up rice – all these delicacies served up at the end of a long day, and everyone happy and satisfied afterwards. Ma and Pa always went to bed soon after dinner. Winnie and I would wash the wares by the light of the kerosene lamp, and then we would sit in the gallery and play cards and chat about the past day until we too felt the urge for bed.

  Winnie soon began to expand her talents. Little side dishes would appear on the table: mango chutney, lime pickle, pepper sauce. ‘To spice things up,’ Winnie said, and they were good, so good. After she had perfected her recipes Winnie began to make larger quantities and, just as she had done with the guava jelly, fill up jars and sell it in the shop. Once a week she made coconut oil. She’d buy a donkey cart full of mature coconuts, dumped in the front garden. Crack them open with a cutlass – Winnie could wield a cutlass as well as any water-coconut vendor. Remove the hard white coconut meat, grate it, squeeze it to produce the milk, let it stand for a day, then scoop away the curd to reveal the oil. Bottle the oil, and sell it in the market.

  And she had won over the people of Albouystown. Winnie has a natural charm, a winning smile and a warmth that others, once they open up just a crack, cannot resist. It all happened so naturally. The cottages in Albouytoun might be small, but the yards they stood in were spacious and verdant, full of trees and bushes. Winnie would peer over the fences and, if what she saw looked promising, she would enter the yard, climb the stairs to the front door and ask the woman of the house if she had anything to sell. Guavas, mangoes, peppers, limes: Winnie took all that was on offer, and paid a good price. She would chat to the lady, ask after her children, talk about cooking and husbands and mothers-in-law. She would walk with the women into the backyard and they would point to whatever they had that was beyond their own needs, and Winnie would buy it. Before long she knew the first names of all the women in the street. By the end of the first month they were smiling at her when they passed her on the street, waving to her from their front windows, calling out to her as she passed by. Mistrust melted, Albouystown opened its arms and Winnie stepped into them.

  But the biggest change of all came after only four months.

  After dinner she and I sat ourselves down in the gallery as usual, and I opened the top drawer in the gallery table to remove the cards, but Winnie placed a hand on mine.

  ‘Not tonight, George,’ she said. I looked up in surprise. Winnie’s face, caught in the flickering light of the lamp, beamed back at me. Her eyes sparkled, and her smile was the most radiant I had ever seen.

  ‘George – we’re going to have a baby!’ she said.

  13

  Yoyo

  Winnie wrote to say they were coming to visit, she and George. I couldn’t imagine what for – the last time I had seen Winnie, we had parted on less than cordial terms. But I supposed she wanted to see her mother. I almost wrote back to say she should come, but not to bring George. It was going to be most awkward. George, who was once our postboy on the estate, now living in the house as part of the family! Most inappropriate. It’s not that I was a snob. I just felt it would lead to disrespect – not only on his part, but on the part of the servants.

  Mama, of course, was delighted that they were coming. It was scandalous, how openly she showed her preference for Winnie. Though most of Mama’s behaviour was scandalous anyway. Mama thought nothing of fraternising not only with the house servants but with the labourers as well. She was wielding far too much power around the plantation – I should never have taken her advice and employed that Mad Jim Booker as estate manager. Yes, it had been necessary to dismiss Mr McInnes, but we should have waited until we found an appropriate replacement.

  Mr Booker was anything but appropriate, the way he ran around with that bushy beard and those faded old clothes! I had to admit, though, that he was a good manager; the coolies worked well for him – better, even, than under Mr McInnes – even though he was far too gentle with them. But perhaps it was indeed true what he said – the carrot was better than the stick.

  I just didn’t like the way he and Mama were undermining my authority. It’s not that I necessarily disagreed with this approach – if it increased production, who was I to protest – but they needed to know who was actually running the plantation, and that was I. But the fact remained that I was better at figures than at people, and they were the ones out there giving directions whereas I was the one bent over the books. This was confusing for the coolies.

  Coolies are simple people, like children, really, and they would never understand that in the end everything came down to me. That I was the boss. It was I who approved the plan to build new lodgings for them on the back-dam. We would have to sacrifice an entire cane field for this – would the coolies be able to grasp the significance of that? No! Of course not. They would think of us as soft, as giving in to their demands.

  I had always said that change had to come from above – that was the only way to maintain authority. We could not be seen as having caved in as a result of their strikes and protests – but that was exactly what would happen. Once you gave them a hand they would take the whole arm – what would be the next demand? But it was not the coolies now who were making demands – it was that Mad Jim, hand-in-glove with Mama. Better pay, shorter hours, more free days, schools for the coolie children, a dispensary with a resident nurse, maternity leave, old age pensions – what would be next?

  There was a time when I too had dreamt such unrealistic dreams. But I was only fourteen at the time, my heart softened by witnessing the atrocious conditions my beloved Nanny had lived and died in. I saw myself, back then, as some kind of saviour – a benefactress, bestowing blessings on my underlings. It wasn’t a bad thing to be. Doing good makes one feel good. I understood that much. But now I had a plantation to run and you can’t do that on kindliness and generosity. So I had to harden my heart and make myself more like a man. Rough and tough. That’s the only way I could succeed.

  Mama didn’t understand that – she was all woman, kind and caring, and she had no business mixing herself into plantation business. Papa always said that women didn’t have the head for business, and I could see that with Mama. Too kind by far. And now Winnie was coming. With George. Frankly, it was a catastrophe.

  They arrived the following week; I had offered to send Poole down with the car to fetch them from Georgetown, but Winnie sent a cabl
e back saying no, they preferred to come by train, but that we could send Poole to New Amsterdam to collect them.

  They arrived in time for dinner. Mama, of course, flew at the car and flung her arms round both Winnie and George. I gave them a more circumspect greeting – I hugged Winnie, of course, and I gave George a polite and reserved handshake. It was an awkward thing, and once again I was reminded how very inappropriate this marriage was. This time, as I was at home, I didn’t have a big hat to wear to show my disapproval, but I would wear a frown and a distant demeanour. Brother-in-law or not, George needed to know his place inside my home.

  I sent them up to their room to change out of their limp and bedraggled travelling clothes, and sent the boy up behind them with their luggage. Their room. The biggest travesty of all. My sister, sharing a bed with the black postboy. It was beyond disgusting.

  They came down again all washed and tidy. I couldn’t help noticing that, although Winnie’s clothes were clean, they were rather plain. As a young girl Winnie had loved fashionable attire – how could she bear living in Albouystown with a poor husband who couldn’t afford to keep her in beautiful frocks? I was curious, and over the next few days I hoped to prise all the details out of her. A white lady in Albouystown! It was actually quite intriguing. And this husband of hers. Well, I intended to thoroughly size him up – discreetly, of course. What on earth did she see in him? She had pursued him relentlessly, running away at least twice to meet him secretly, when she could have had her pick of any number of appropriate young suitors.

  According to Uncle Don, Papa’s younger brother with an estate in Barbados, she actually turned down just such a young man on the island. And of course she could have had my Clarence, and been mistress of Promised Land. Yet she chose the darkie postboy, this George. It was extraordinary. I mean, I knew that George wasn’t an ordinary darkie. He was quite clever, for a start, and I suddenly remembered the first time we had met him – I had been quite impressed at his knowledge of telegraphy and Morse code, and indeed I had found him rather interesting, for a darkie.