Olga - A Daughter's Tale (3 page)

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“
Mon Repose”
: I still can’t quite believe the news that greeted Martha and me when we got off the boat at Kingston. There was Lucy standing on the dockside heavily pregnant. It came as such a shock because she hadn’t mentioned it in any of her letters.

“I wanted it to be a surprise” she said. It was certainly that.

The long journey to “Mon Repose” was in a horse drawn buggy, very uncomfortable because of the rough roads, but scenically beautiful and at times a frightening experience up steep hills, past towering coca palms with their feathery plumes waving in the breeze, around sudden sharp bends with waterfalls cascading down the side of the mountain.

The house is wonderful, spacious and cool with mahogany wood panelling in most rooms and windows that go from the highly polished floor to the ceiling and left open all day to let the mountain breeze run through the house.

Lucy has been busy sketching and the house is full of pencil drawings and watercolours of exotic flowers, and ferns, as well as brightly coloured parrots, hummingbirds and the mockingbird. Coming from Paddington, it’s taking me some time to get used to seeing such a richness of scenery that thrives under a sun that shines constantly in a cloudless clear blue sky.

John and Lucy are a popular couple on Kingston’s social circuit and Lucy tells us that new arrivals, even if they are only staying a short time, always attract interest, curiosity and lots of invitations to different social and sporting occasions abound. A garden party at Winchester Park, a concert at Port Antonio, a picnic on the beach, the theatre and an invitation to Kingston Races, are just a few of the invitations we’ve received. I haven’t the stamina to accept all the invitations but Martha is making the most of the social life here which is why she sleeps late every morning.

But in spite of all that is new to us, there are some things that are very familiar about this island. Britain’s habit of colonising a country in its own image has not escaped here. Jamaica, the exotic “land of wood and water” is divided into three counties of Middlesex, Surrey and Cornwall. The English settlers brought with them their recreations and pastimes. Horseracing is very popular with everyone and race meetings are held in several parts of the island. John says there’s a cricket club in virtually every major town for the well off Jamaican, and just about every open space has become a cricket pitch for poor blacks who seem to have developed a passion for the game and would use an oil tin for the wickets and the rib of a palm leaf for a bat. All the best hotels have tennis courts and fallow fields have been turned into polo fields.

Yesterday was one of the strangest days I’ve experienced. It started innocently enough with Lucy and I having breakfast on the veranda overlooking their plantain field. A plantain is almost exactly like a banana and grows in enormous bunches just the way bananas do, but they are bigger and green, not yellow.

From the verandah I could see John at the entrance to a field listening intently to a wizened old man. Standing next to the old man was a small black boy who carried a large basket.

“Who is the old man” I asked Lucy

“He’s an Obeah man and he’s going to dress the garden”

“What on earth are you talking about, Lucy?”

Then she explained Obeah was a form of witchcraft and that an Obeah man or woman is the person, or practitioner, as they like to be called, who controls the supernatural world using spirits to harm people with techniques passed down in secret from one generation to another. I was fascinated and wanted to hear more.

“There could be many reasons why someone might want the services of an Obeah man. It may be for a medical reason, if someone is ill in which case the patient would be given a bottle of something to take or they would have to follow certain instructions. But often it’s to do with getting revenge on someone who has caused you harm in some way; maybe you wanted to discover a thief or sometimes it’s for more romantic reasons - you want to make a particular person fall in love with you or you might want to win at gambling.”

“But do you and John believe in it, Lucy?”

“We don’t, but many white Jamaicans do and John is certainly prepared to indulge in it if it is to his advantage.”

“We’re being robbed of six or seven bunches of plantain every week in spite of employing extra men to watch the fields and that’s why we’ve arranged for an Obeah man to solve the problem for us” she said.

“There could be something in it, Becky, if for no other reason than the Obeah man’s knowledge of poisons is far beyond that of the European druggists. Most practitioners learned how to use herbs for cures. The practitioners knowledge of the roots and herbs brought over from Africa remained with them since most of the same plants grew in the tropical climate of Jamaica and so the customs and practices were passed down from generation to generation.”

The old man took the basket from the boy and went into the field where there were rows and rows of plantain trees. He took out from his basket different sized bottles, which had some sort of liquid inside them. Then, he walked up and down the rows of plantains and tied a bottle on to some of the fruit, at the same time muttering some sort of incantation. When he had done that he would wave his arms over the plantain and genuflect. Once that was done he would move on to another row of plantain and perform the whole ceremony over again and continue to do that until he’d done the whole field.

After that he produced, from his basket, a tiny little black wooden coffin which, with great pomp and circumstance, he placed in the branches of a big old cotton tree. Then he took a saucer from his basket and put some water in it and dropped some egg shells in the water and then put the saucer on top of the coffin in the cotton tree. The old man walked right round the field again waving his arms all over the place, still muttering and went over to John who gave the old man some money and he and the boy then left the field.

“And that little exhibition is known as “dressing the garden” and, hopefully, that will be the end of the thieving now” Lucy said .

She continued, “Once word gets around that the Obeah man has been in the field people will believe he has put a curse on anyone entering it. They will be convinced that terrible things will happen to them if they do.”

According to John the Government made Obeah illegal and it was hoped that after emancipation, with the missionaries bringing Christianity to the freed slaves, Obeah would be wiped out – but it just continued in secret, pretty much the same as now. It’s deep rooted in the black and coloured Jamaican’s heritage and culture and even though you might come across a family that is both Christian and well educated, the likelihood is that someone in it will be dabbling in Obeah.

It strikes me that emancipation hasn’t changed much in Jamaica, her present is still very much tied to her past.

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Becky and Martha spend a lot of time in Kingston doing different things. Becky likes to go to the many markets there are around the city where women and children come down from the hillside, virtually every day, sometimes with donkeys and mules but more often, carrying baskets on their heads, laden with vegetables, sugar, tobacco, coffee, cocoa, pimento, annatto, honey, bananas, ackee, spices, ropes of tobacco and whatever else they have grown and set themselves up with a stall and sell their provisions to the local people. Martha likes to go to the Constant Spring Hotel where I suspect she’s taken a fancy to James McTavis, the manager.

It has been good to have them both here. Martha’s demeanour has changed since she has been in Jamaica probably because she is happy and has been enjoying herself. I think she is considering settling here and it is understandable, Martha has seen that she can have a standard of living and a way of life she cannot equal in London and her skills with a needle will help her find employment on the island so, who knows, it may work well for her.

Last night
: News reached me that Becky and Martha were returning to “Mon Repose” after visiting friends at Mount James and involved in an accident with the horse and buggy they were travelling in. One of the horses slipped under the trace whilst going down the hill and the hind legs of the horse, nearest to the edge of a precipice, slid down the descent and pulled the other horse and buggy down the precipice also. Neither Becky, Martha or the driver had any time to get out of the buggy and they too went, about 36 feet, down the cliff.

Some people, who lived nearby, saw the accident occur and gave the alarm with the result that help was soon on the scene and the girls and driver were rescued. The two horses were uninjured but the buggy was completely smashed up. Becky and Martha and the driver were taken to a house nearby which was owned by a Mrs Nutall and who very kindly arranged for her buggy to bring the girls back to “Mon Repose”. Although they have not sustained any life threatening injuries, they were severely battered, bruised and are in a state of shock. Our doctor will visit them this evening.

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Telegram from Lucy Sinclair, “Mon Repose”, Jamaica

to

Samuel and Harriet Ross, Droop Street, Paddington, London

BECKY AND MARTHA INVOLVED IN BUGGY ACCIDENT. NO LIFE THREATENING INJURIES. DOCTOR ADVISES GIRLS DO NOT UNDERTAKE JOURNEY BACK TO ENGLAND UNTIL THEY ARE FEELING BETTER. PLEASE ADVISE THEATRE ROYAL, DRURY LANE, MARTHA’S RETURN DELAYED. LOVE LUCY.

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Strange Folklore
: Lucy and John have a baby boy and they’ve named him Bobbie. Lucy say’s it was the shock of hearing about our recent accident that hastened his arrival. I’m amazed that Lucy wasn’t attended by her own doctor but instead by a black woman called Ernestine who has no nursing qualifications although is well know in the area for having delivered scores of babies, black, white and coloured.

“I was in good hands Becky. Ernestine gave me some herbs which helped me relax and, believe me Becky, I’ve been long enough in Jamaica to know that old women like her understand how and when to use herbs that grow naturally in Jamaica and I was happy to take whatever medicine she prescribed”.

According to Lucy it was a straightforward birth, long and painful, but bearable and both Lucy and little Bobbie are fine. I’ve learnt a lot about Jamaica’s history and culture in a short space of time, but Rosa, one of Lucy’s servants, gave me a severe shock a few days after Bobbie was born.

I was lying on the lawn in the back garden, enjoying the warmth of the sun on my body, inhaling the heady scent of the flowers and listening to the hum of the bees as they flew between the flowers when, suddenly, Rosa came running into the garden shattering the stillness of the afternoon and I noticed that she was holding something.

Whatever it was Rosa wasn’t very happy about it, running with her arms outstretched and holding her head back and tilted to one side – looking like she wanted to be as far away as possible from what she was carrying. I got up and went towards her and as I did so I saw Rosa was carrying a brown paper parcel and asked her what she was holding.

“I got the plenta thing and string!”

“Ernestine give it to me and tell me bury it in the garden for the new baby tree”.

Rosa put the parcel on the ground and with the tips of her fingers gingerly pulled back the brown paper to reveal a bloodstained cloth. Then she slowly pulled back each corner of the cloth carefully as if she didn’t want to disturb what was in there until finally she revealed Bobbie’s three day old baby placenta and umbilical cord in all its gruesome glory.

“In the country the placenta and umbilical cord are kept for three days after a baby is born and then buried in the ground. A young tree will be planted in the same spot and the tree would be known as the baby tree. It’s our custom” Rosa told me.

“We been doing it this way in the country for hundreds of years. It bring good luck for the new baby.”

Later, I told Lucy the story and asked if she known about this particular custom.

“Of course not” she replied, “what’s more the thought of keeping a three day old placenta is disgusting and Bobbie will have to manage without his own baby tree.

But it’s amazing,” she said, “just when I thought I’d learnt everything there was to know about Jamaican customs and traditions, up pops a really bizarre one.”

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Constant Spring Hotel:
Becky left “Mon Repose” very early this morning leaving a note asking Martha and me to meet her at the hotel in the afternoon as she had something to tell us.

Both girls had recovered from their accident surprisingly quickly but had been reluctant to rebook their passage home to England. Martha is considering staying on in Jamaica and opening a dress salon, but is hesitant about taking such a big step. She has struck up a friendship with Thomas Bonnett who owns a large department store on Harbour Street. Apparently he was very impressed when she told him she worked at the Theatre Royal in Drury Lane and he realised she had skills he could make use of. Thomas suggested she stayed on in Jamaica and work for him, until she felt the time was right to start up on her own, or returned to England, whichever she decided to do. Since Becky’s recovery I hadn’t seen too much of her either. Bobbie keeps me busy and Becky’s always been self-sufficient and can amuse herself. Sometimes she takes a boat to Port Royal, the train to Montego Bay or Port Antonio.