The Long Song (28 page)

But now upon that hot-hot day within the shabby dusty street, Miss Clara was once more peering down her slender up-turned nose and pinning her disdain upon the top of July’s head. July felt it land heavy as a firm hand. Soon those green eyes and that delicate mouth would conspire to sneer pitifully upon her, until July would feel the ugliest thing that coloured woman would encounter that parched morning.

‘Good day to you, Miss Clara,’ July said with the hope of moving quickly on.

But Miss Clara caught July’s arm to bind her in conversation. July did not notice the four gold rings upon Miss Clara’s fingers. Four! Two with green stones that clicked together—big as swollen knuckles, yet July did not see them. Nor did she regard the delicate ruby beads mounted like pin pricks of blood within a striking gold chain which laced about her throat.

‘You have no parasol this day, Miss July? You be get very dark,’ Miss Clara said.

July did have a parasol—a hand-down from her missus—but Molly did recently sit upon it and bust two spokes, so it hung like a broken bird wing. When she returned to Amity she must remember to once more punch Molly for the nuisance of that misdeed.

‘So, Miss July, you still working ’pon Amity for that broad missus?’ Miss Clara asked from upon high.

‘It be so, Miss Clara, although me missus be no longer so broad,’ July responded.

‘Not what I have heard,’ Miss Clara said before carrying on, ‘I could not abide to still be upon a plantation. Me upon a plantation!’ And how Miss Clara did laugh. She raised her hand to cover her mouth as little puffs of mirth were discharged within it. Then, composing herself, she gravely shook her head to say, ‘The wife of a white man upon a plantation,’ before a sweet titter again escaped her at such a ludicrous affront. ‘Me husband would never allow it.’

Husband! Oh yes, July had heard the chat-chat of Miss Clara’s husband. Come, the whole parish knew how Mr William Walker the attorney at Friendship plantation had paid for her dance and bought her hand. Her husband! That fat-bellied, peel-headed, ugly old white man had a wife and five children in England. There was never any marriage ceremony—at least none that a crowd could stand within a church to witness. Miss Clara just clasped this rich Englishman’s shrivelled private parts and now led him around by them.

‘He buy me a lodging house, me husband,’ Miss Clara carried on. ‘You know it? It be the big white house ’pon the corner of Trelawny Street, near to me shop.’ She airily waved her hand around in the general direction of that nearby corner before turning her devilish green eyes full upon July to glory delightedly within her envy.

But July would let not a muscle, nor a hair, stir to admit jealousy of Miss Clara. Come, a gutted fish upon a slab did speak its thoughts more tellingly.

‘You did not know of me lodging house?’ Miss Clara went on, ‘I believed everyone did hear of it. But wait.’ She felt within a small, white satin pouch that dangled from her wrist and produced a calling card. She held out the card to July. But just as July inclined to take it, Miss Clara withdrew it saying, ‘Oh, but me forget plantation slaves cannot read.’

July soon snatched it from her saying, ‘We be slaves no more, Miss Clara. Me nor you.’ And holding up the card to her eye, July began loud and clear to read, ‘Miss Clara’s boarding house, for the con . . . the con . . .’ July stumbled over the word convenience for she had never before seen it. So many letters, but none made the sound of sense within her head.

‘Oh, your missus let you read a little now,’ Miss Clara said.

There was something upon this card written about military men and families, gentlemen and ladies’ finest, clean lodging house etc., which July could read at a glance—but, to her vexation, she was still struggling with that word convenience, when a cart rode into the street. Both women stepped away to let pony and cart pass at a distance, for they required no more dust to churn up and choke them. But then a man’s voice, shouting, ‘Hello there, hello there,’ made them both turn their heads to find the caller.

And there, sitting alone atop the cart, dressed in a brown cutaway jacket with a panama hat upon his head was Robert Goodwin. The spirited smile that excited the overseer’s eyes as he said, ‘Good day to you,’ had the gladness of someone addressing a dear old friend. July turned to observe Miss Clara’s response, for she felt sure this white man must be greeting her. But then he said, ‘Are you on an errand for your mistress today, Miss July?’ And even though Miss Clara twirled upon her parasol so its brightness could entice even a blind creature to her, Robert Goodwin kept his eyes firmly upon July.

‘Surely be, massa,’ July said.

‘Then may I drive with you back to Amity? I’ve finished my business here and I am returning,’ he asked her.

Now July was, as matter-of-fact, walking in upon the town and had not yet searched for those yellow kid gloves that her missus so required. But only she knew this. And what did her missus need with another pair of gloves? Bolton thumbs, cha—how was she to find Bolton thumbs? There were no yellow kid gloves with Bolton thumbs within this town—July became sure of it. For travelling off alone within a pony cart with a white man, while Miss Clara stood looking on, had now become July’s only purpose that day.

‘Yes. Thanking you,’ July said to Mr Goodwin. Then, handing Miss Clara back her calling card, July said, ‘Good day to you, Miss Clara.’

Miss Clara told her that she may keep it to give it to this white man. And July replied that he had no need of it and that she should take it back. All this was spoken without a word sounding between them. That mute message was conveyed with the slight motions and tiny tics of a silent language learned from dread of white people’s intrusion—and even the fair Miss Clara still knew how to speak it.

As Robert Goodwin jumped down from the cart to help July board it—like she was some dainty white miss—Miss Clara stepped forward to hand the card to Mr Goodwin herself. But he, with a curt rudeness that no white woman would ever witness from a gentleman, waved it away without even a glance to her.

Then, as the cart proceeded along the street, July, sitting atop it thought, what a shame Miss Clara did not consider that gutted fish upon a slab; for July was able to read every one of Miss Clara’s feelings within the gaping expression upon her face.

 

 

 

 

T
HE CART WAS STILL within that parched street, not yet out of Miss Clara’s gaze. Come, it had not even reached to pass by Ebo Cornwall, yet July—while telling this young overseer for the third time that, ‘Yes, yes, she be quite comfortable,’—began to wonder what style of dress she would desire to wear if she, like Miss Clara, could catch a white man for a ‘husband’.

So when Robert Goodwin, with a slight frown of hesitation, flicked his head toward where Miss Clara stood and asked, ‘Miss July, is that woman a friend of yours?’ our July, quite tingling with the notion that this tender young man might be caught, was keen to impress him.

‘Oh, yes. Miss Clara be me good-good friend, good-good friend, since long time. We always do chat upon the road when we does meet, for we be so friendly. Oh yes, Miss Clara be me good friend,’ July answered. For she was sure that this white man would be beguiled to see that such a lowly, dark-skinned mulatto house servant as she, did enjoy the close society of a quadroon as fine, beautiful and fair-skinned as Miss Clara.

But when she turned to him to bask within his approval, she found his cheeks slightly reddening, his chest rising with a heavy breath and his lips pinching into a tight line. Now, English people can be hard to read, for they do believe that a firm face with no sentiment upon it is a virtue. But July was an expert in all their guiles and knew without hesitation that she had delivered this man the wrong answer. But for what reason, our July had yet to grasp.

When he at once said, ‘Really? You are friends,’ July was quick to respond, ‘Me not be that friendly since she has been within the town, for me does hardly see her. No, we not be such friends . . .’ but was sorely troubled when he interrupted to ask, ‘Do you attend her dances at the assembly rooms?’

Would a ‘yes’ or a ‘no’ secure this man’s favour? July was now confused. A ‘yes’ might hear him gladly say, ‘Then it would be my honour to accompany you next time, Miss July.’ For maybe he enjoyed to trip and spin within this company; white men from all across the parish did delight in attending those dances and he was a white man. And the truth within a ‘no’ would prove her an outcast—too dark and ugly for those fair occasions. Yet although July always feared telling the truth to a white person (for her fictions were often better understood), something within his manner—a furrow in his brow? his hand too tight upon the reins? his foot tapping upon the board? (she could not tell you what)—implored her to say, ‘No’.

What a breath July did exhale when he said, ‘I am so glad to hear it, Miss July.’ And when, with peevish disdain, he went on saying, ‘Those dances are not a place that a Christian person should attend,’ July all at once supposed she was beginning to understand this particular white man.

‘No,’ she said, ‘me prefer to rest at home.’ And then, in a moment of sweet inspiration added, ‘Me does like to stay home to read me Bible.’

His face lit with such clear delight that some in England might have thought him disloyal for letting such obvious pleasure glow upon it. ‘Your Bible. You enjoy to read the Bible, Miss July?’ he asked.

‘Oh yes,’ she carried on.

‘Do you have a favourite story from that good book?’

‘Yes,’ July said without hesitation. ‘Me like the story of how the whole world did be made best of all.’

In truth, there was no indecision within July for this was the
only
story she knew from that holy book. When Caroline Mortimer was teaching July her letters she at first used that big, heavy, dusty tome for July’s instruction. But the little print was so hard for July to read or construe, that the missus began to drift into dozing long before God rested from his labours upon the seventh day. Her missus then swapped the book from which July was to recite, for one where two silly sisters—white women who were required to do no work—did spend their days fretting and crying over the finding of husbands. The missus’s Bible was now used only for the wayward to place their hand upon it to swear they speak in truth (come, Molly did have to slap it so often she thought it a drum), but rarely did it open for stories to escape it.

‘Are there any other passages you enjoy?’ Robert Goodwin continued. July raised up her eyes, as if to ponder upon his question. ‘The story of the Good Samaritan, perhaps?’ he asked.

‘Oh yes, me like it very much,’ said July.

‘And what about Moses parting the Red Sea?’

‘That is a very good tale.’

‘Or perhaps the story of the three little pigs?’ he wondered.

‘Me does like them all,’ July told him. ‘But the resting ’pon the seventh day tale be me favoured.’ And he, glancing at her sideways, did grin so wide a smile upon her that she feared she may have amused him in some way.

So July decided she would speak no more unless he continued to press her. The beat of the pony’s hooves clopping upon the road and the rhythm within the squeaking and creaking wooden cart made a queer sort of music as they travelled. And although July was wishing to appear as demure as a white lady touring within a carriage as she sat with her hands resting together upon her lap, she was mightily aware that the overseer’s leg was pressing hard against her own. She could feel it tensing stiff as he held himself steady with the effort of guiding the cart and pony. Once a tricky movement was complete she felt the strong muscle of his thigh ease and relax. His jacket sleeves were rolled up about his elbows and exposed the tiny black hairs upon his bare forearms to quiver with the breeze of his motion; while his hands, gripping the reins, were held dainty as if leading a woman to dance. And July did sniff a sweet scent of wood-smoke drifting from him.

But as she craftily glanced upon his face and beheld his eyelashes—which were so dark and lush as to appear like a silk fringe upon his lids—she was at once aware that if she was noticing all about him, then would not he be slyly assessing her; the badly stitched tear in her ugly grey skirt, the tatty red kerchief upon her head hiding her picky-picky hair, her still-too-broad nose, her dull-brown eyes and, of course, her black skin? July became rigid with unease as the cart bumped upon the road and gently threw them together—sometimes her against him and sometimes him against her.

When the watchman’s stone hut at the gate of Amity appeared in the near distance, July longed to assure this white man, before they parted, that she was not a rough negro. No. She was a mulatto. Even though he may see her skin to be a shade too dusky, she wished him the comfort of knowing that she was not a nigger’s pickney, but a white man’s child. So she breached that silence she had so hard determined to keep by saying, ‘Massa, you ever been Scotch Land?’