Olga - A Daughter's Tale (11 page)

There is rioting on the streets of Kingston and I have forbidden the girls to go outside unless they are accompanied by Boysie.

No cargo has been unloaded from the ships in the harbour for days. The dock workers in Kingston and the sugar workers in Westmoreland and Clarendon have all gone on strike for better wages and working conditions. Everywhere on the island, workers are asking for jobs, higher wages and better living conditions. From early yesterday morning thousands of men and women marched in procession through the streets of Kingston visiting public offices and stopping at the various wharves and forcing work to stop at Myer’s Sugar Wharf where some labourers had broken the strike.

The owners of the businesses have threatened that if a solution is not found soon, they will close their businesses down altogether and move off the island By all accounts it was an ugly scene. The security forces are everywhere eyeball to eyeball with Alexander Bustamante, who is organising the labourers now. Mobs are forcing shops to put up their shutters and molesting people in cars, sometimes robbing them of their money. Mobs are pulling people off the trams and buses and forcing the drivers to take the vehicles off the road.

Later on I stood on the veranda upstairs and watched an enormous crowd gather at the end of King Street and then march up the street headed by a large negro with a big drum which he was beating vigorously. Right in the middle of King Street the crowd was met by a line of police all armed with batons. Behind them were a line of police with rifles. The mob was stopped and cleared right off the street with hardly a blow made.

That same night dozens of cars full of “special constables” armed with any and every kind of weapon patrolled the streets of Kingston and St Andrews. Stones and bricks were hurled at them from all sides, but they chased people off the streets and beat up those who resisted. These are frightening times in Jamaica.

Later that evening Sydney came to see me, the first time I’ve seen him since our quarrel because he is concerned for our welfare and safety. We talked, rather uncomfortably at first, and Sydney explained at some length what I had failed to realise. That his business is also feeling the economic downturn just like most others in Kingston. He has agreed to resume helping me financially providing I agree to move to a smaller house.

We talked about Olga wanting to go to England and I have told Sydney I think she should have the opportunity. He agreed that with all the unrest on the island and the bicycle business being quieter these days, it would be good for Olga to go now particularly as the threat of Britain going to war has receded since Neville Chamberlain secured Adolf Hitler’s promise that he will not invade Europe further. Sydney has agreed to pay Olga’s fare, providing she only stays six months. We both feel this unrest cannot continue for much longer and he is keen that Olga should continue doing his business accounts.

As Sydney was leaving he bent down and picked up an envelope with my name on and had been slipped under the front door. In the envelope was a note from Henry and a newspaper cutting.

Reported Incident by P C

Mother and Daughter suspected of practising Obeah

At about 8 pm last Saturday, P C Roberts and myself saw two women, one a young pretty girl and the other a much older woman, approach the grave of Carlton Puyatt. They lingered near the grave and pretended to inspect it. While the younger one remained a few feet away the older woman stamped the soft earth on the grave with her heel to make a hole and then knelt beside the grave as if in prayer. I saw her remove a small bottle from a satchel she was carrying and put it into the hole in the grave. The young girl then took something out of her bag and passed it to the older woman who buried that too with the bottle.

At this point I realised I was witnessing some sort of Obeah ritual and called out to the women to stop immediately. The older woman rapidly covered the hole with the earth and rose quickly to her feet and joined her friend and they fled the cemetery.

P C Roberts and I took chase and caught both women. When asked they gave their names as Ambrosine and Sara Williams and were taken to Kingston Police Station suspected of practising Obeah.

I later returned to the graveside to remove the contents from the hole Ambrosine Williams had made and retrieved the bottle. In it was some light brown liquid, which when I smelt it, had the aroma of rum, and there was also some bark and a few needles in the bottle. The other items were two limes each cut in half with a penny inserted between each half. The idea being that as the limes rot, so would the person or persons whose name was called out as the limes were put in the ground.

I believe that my swift action in calling out had stopped Ambrosine Williams from calling out the name of the person she was taking revenge on and thus I have saved some poor person from the agonies of a lingering death.”

******

Henry wrote that the top half of the newspaper was missing so there was no way of knowing how old the article was.

I decided not to send it to Vivie as she is well and happy in America so why stir up bad memories. But it demonstrates the power of suggestion. Vivie thought she was obeahed and suffered genuinely as a result, but here is proof that the act was thwarted, so is Obeah all in the mind?

I have always thought so.

I know my sojourns into Obeah are of great concern to Father Butler but there is a method to my madness which I have not confided in him because I know he would disapprove.

I believe that psychologically Obeah is very powerful and I learnt from Lucy and John to use Obeah to get the results I want. I knew that once cook heard I’d been to Annie Harvey, she would change her tune and encourage Sydney to be reconciled with us.

******

Olga’s Diary

Dear Diary

Christmas Eve:
Ruby, Dolly, Pearl and me went to midnight mass at the Holy Trinity Cathedral. Mammie never forces us to go to church and we can choose whether we want to. I always want to go, I like the feeling of peace when I’m in Church. The Cathedral bells always start ringing half an hour before midnight and as they died away the Holy Trinity Choir sang “Adeste Fideles”.

Father Butler preached the sermon and talked about the true meaning and spirit of Christmas and that it was a season of love and we should love one another and live happily and peacefully together. Father Butler knows my family well and I’m sure he wrote that sermon just for the Browney family. It certainly felt like it.

Christmas is a special time in Jamaica and we celebrate it in a big way. I love it, there is always so

much happening and it’s one of the few times, apart from family crisis, a wedding or a funeral, when my family is together.

******

Christmas Day
: Today is such a beautiful day, warm with a little breeze and Mammie is sitting in her favourite rocking chair on the back veranda, pretending she’s dozing, but I know she is watching to make sure Cassie and me decorate the dining table for Christmas lunch.

We nearly always eat in the garden and Cassie and I are laying up the huge mahogany table that’s been moved from the dining room onto the lawn and has been in the family as long as I can remember. Mammie had it specially made years ago and told the craftsman it had to be big enough to hold at least twenty people because she was going to have lots of children.

Cassie and I have done a good job with the table, even if I say so myself. At each end there is a large bowl of fruit overflowing with mangoes, oranges, figs, papaw, bananas, star apples, dates, pineapple, naseberry and tamarind. Down the centre we’ve put sprays of green maiden hair fern with white Christmas blossoms and lots of deep crimson roses. Each place setting has been laid up with a crystal wine glass and Mammie’s best silver cutlery, a Xmas cracker and a crisp white folded linen serviette in the shape of a water lily and placed in the middle of each setting. As an extra touch I’ve put a few tiny silver dishes of sweets, raisins and nuts on the table.

We have a real feast on Christmas Day, lots of different things to choose from. Rice and peas, cod fish and ackee, which grows in pods on a large tree, as well as the usual Christmas lunch of roast turkey, roasted plantain, sweet potatoes, calalue, cassada and yams. For pudding we’ll be having boiled Jamaica plum pudding with wine sauce as well and mince pies. Oh, I do love my food. Mammie says my eyes are bigger than my belly. I have a big scar on my upper arm where Dolly threw hot porridge at me one morning at breakfast.

I remember when I was little the family were sitting down to breakfast one morning and we normally had porridge and there was a sideboard where the porridge was laid out in dishes. I usually examined them all to see which was the biggest one. Dolly was standing beside me and I picked up the biggest one and she picked up hers and she threw it at me and said

“
Here you take this too” and the porridge hit me on my right upper arm.

I’ve still got the burn mark all these years later. Mammie was furious with Dolly and she got smacked and Mammie took me to the bathroom and put bicarbonate of soda on it. It stung like anything. I cried a little bit because it hurt and then Mammie took me back down to breakfast.

After that we got ready for school and Mammie gave us a coconut cake. She made them every day for us. I can see Dolly, Ruby and myself, three little tots, going off to school, crying and hugging each other all the way. We made friends quickly and never kept malice. We were always together and did everything together, went to school together, played together and when we were very little we even slept in the same bed together.

Mammie is lovely, you know, we only have to say we have a headache and she’ll cuddle you.

Next to the chairs which have been stacked ready to be placed around the Christmas table is a big wicker basket which will soon be full of Christmas presents.

We have a custom at Christmas where we put everyone’s name in a hat and then you pick a name from the hat and have to buy a present for that person, costing no more than 1/-. It takes a lot of imagination sometimes to find the right present for the right person.

******

John Canoe
: In the distance I can hear the music from the John Canoe celebrations which we’ll all go and join up with after lunch. John Canoe parades date back to slavery when Christmas was the only extended holiday the slaves had and it was a very special holiday for them. Some people say John Canoe was a great African chief and loved so much by his people that in his honour a festival is held every year. Men wear “John Canoe faces” which are masks worn by the performers.

One performer will wear a sort of house on his head, some wear a cow’s head, one or two of them wear the head of a horse, some of the men dress in women’s clothes and all are dancing in the streets accompanied by drums, tambourines, banjos, flutes or homemade musical instruments and there is lots of noise and dancing in the streets.

The Devil carries a pitchfork and wears a cowbell attached to his backside. On his head is a cardboard cylinder which rests on a flat square piece of cardboard and his entire costume is black. He pokes people with his pitchfork and frightens, not only children, but grown ups as well, me included sometimes.

Another performer plays Belly Woman, a pregnant lady who makes her belly move in time to the music. She is very funny and another character, Pitchy-Patchy, has the most colourful costume of all, with layered strips of brightly coloured cloth. He is very energetic doing handstands and cartwheels all the time

In the evening most of us will go to Winchester Park which will be just one mass of people, young and old, rich and poor, all determined to have a good time.

At the entrance to the park last year was a thirty foot Christmas tree brilliantly lit and flooded with coloured lights from a gigantic searchlight and there were different booths, some designed to look like English cottages and others had comic cartoons painted on them. In each booth there are usually games of chance and lots of ways of winning prizes.

There is always a special exhibition in the flower booth where the floral creations of school children are on display and when the Browney children were small, it was our custom to display our floral designs there. It’s one of my favourite booths and Maurice has told me that his floral design is on display this year. Dear Maurice, I can’t wait to see it.

But the booth I’ll head for first is the one with the fortune teller. I’m off to England soon, so I must find out what’s in store for me.

******

Telegram from Rebecca Browney, Kingston, Jamaica

to

Martha Ross, Paddington, England

OLGA SAILING ON S.S JAMAICA PROGRESS ARRIVING LONDON 1ST APRIL 1939. PLEASE MEET HER. BECKY.

******

Dear Diary

On my way:
On a crystal clear morning, the S.S Jamaica Progress steams slowly out of Kingston Harbour into the blue waters of the Caribbean, past small fishing boats with the fringe of the coconut palms that front the Blue Mountains gradually disappearing from view.