The Sugar Planter's Daughter (26 page)

‘I don't want'

‘It's time to stop doing what you want and start doing what is right. The two don't always go together.'

‘But, Mama! She hates me already – she won't listen, she'll'

‘Johanna! Stop making excuses and just do it! You and I will return to town today. You will go to Winnie in hospital and you will tell her exactly what you told me last night. You must do this.'

‘How can I look her in the eye?'

‘You will. You must. That will make you truly strong. Your pride, your arrogance, is your weakness, Yoyo. Your honest confession will give you strength. It will make you clean.'

W
e drove
to town in separate cars, for I intended to stay there longer; Winnie had hopefully moved on to the next stage of grief, or would soon. Sooner or later she would need me, and I wanted to be near her when that moment came. I was a veteran of grief, an expert. I knew it inside out. At my time of grieving there was no one at my side, no mother, only an unrepentant Archie long alienated from me. I had been alone; I had to make sure that Winnie wasn't.

Since Yoyo was heading for the hospital, I told Poole to drive me to Albouystown, to George. But George wasn't at home. He was back at work.

‘Dey drop de investigation,' his mother told me, smiling broadly. ‘Dey in't got no evidence and no proof.'

I sighed with relief. ‘Thank goodness! Of course they have no proof because no rape happened.' I told her briefly of my conversation with Yoyo.

‘It turns out the mysterious witness was Margaret Smythe-Collingsworth,' I said. ‘Trying to protect her own reputation.'

Once Yoyo had explained, it all made perfect sense. Yoyo had been Margaret's guest; they were best friends. She had confessed a certain illicit attraction to George, and Margaret had goaded her on. She could never prise George away from Winnie, Margaret had taunted; George was far too devoted to his wife. Yoyo had taken up the challenge. She could. Of course she could! George would be a pushover. She had tried, and failed, that Christmas Eve so long ago. That failure had gnawed at her over the years. Then came Andrew's party, and a second chance. But it all went dreadfully wrong. After the disaster, Margaret saw it as her duty to rescue Yoyo, and herself, from an impossible predicament.

For Yoyo to have voluntarily dallied sexually with George, a black man, a
married
black man, a black man married to her own
sister
, would mean social ruin. Yoyo would never be able to hold her head up in society again. She was now a scarlet woman, a slut. That's what people would call her. And as her best friend, that ruin would reflect on Margaret herself. They would both become outcasts. When Yoyo went home to her that night Margaret had explained all this to her, but Yoyo didn't care; Margaret did, though. The Smythe-Collingsworths were BG's elite. Even knowing Yoyo was playing with fire for Margaret; this scandal would be catastrophic.

The only way for Margaret to save her own skin was for Yoyo to have been raped. She had tried to convince Yoyo to press charges before leaving town but Yoyo had brushed her off –
that
kind of a lie was anathema to her. She had rushed back to Promised Land the next day, leaving Margaret to pick up the pieces, never guessing what would come next.

Margaret had not wasted time: she made up a story of rape, and had run to the authorities to ensure that
that
was the fiction being spread in Georgetown, that
that
rumour should take root. Proving that she was every bit as vile as her father.

‘She's a she-devil!' said Ma.

‘Indeed!' I replied. ‘But Yoyo refused to go along with it – she does have
some
integrity.'

‘Hmmmph!' snorted Ma.

‘She's gone to the hospital. She's going to talk to Winnie. Tell her what really happened.'

‘Hmmmmph!'

‘Hopefully, this will mend things between Winnie and George. Yoyo's explanation is better than George's.'

‘Dat girl is a slut!'

I immediately withdrew my smile of goodwill.

‘That girl is my daughter and I would thank you not to call her names. She has made a dreadful mistake and hopefully she can put things right.'

Mrs Quint sniffed and turned away. ‘She can't bring back dat dead baby though!'

She was right, of course. I didn't want to quarrel with Mrs Quint, who was rightly appalled at what had happened. Yoyo's ‘dreadful mistake' had led to the death of a much-wanted baby girl and of course she would not be easily forgiven by that baby's other grandmother. My tone had been haughty; my reprimand uncalled for. Ma was a mother too and had had to support George through this terrible time. Of course she was furious at Yoyo; of course she would call her names.

I hurried up to her.

‘Mrs Quint!' I cried. ‘I'm sorry for my tone just now. It was rude. And I'm here to help. How are the boys coping? How are
you
coping? How is George?'

She gave me a searching look, as if checking to see if I was sincere, and I must have passed muster because her features relaxed and she said, ‘Everything all right. George took de boys to play cricket on de beach yesterday. And he helped with de babies too. Dem girls you engaged – dey a bit lazy. Dey don't know one thing about babies.'

‘Well, I'm here now so we can dismiss them, and hopefully Winnie will be back from hospital soon. Yoyo's with her now.'

She looked at me, startled. ‘Yoyo gone to Winnie?'

‘Yes,' I said. ‘She went to tell Winnie the whole story: to confess and say she's sorry. That won't bring back the baby, I know, but at least it might heal things between Winnie and George. If Winnie knows that George – well, George is only a man. Few men can resist a woman like Yoyo, if she turns on the seduction.'

That won a smile from Mrs Quint. ‘Men!' she said, ‘when de willy talk de mind gone. Men is slave to dey willy. No brain! An' still dey tink dey strong!'

‘Oh, you can tell me that again! I can tell you a story or two…'

And I did; and she and I laughed and joked over men-stories as we cared for the babies and by the end of the morning we had found a new rapport; and then Yoyo's car drove up and a pale and visibly distraught Yoyo stood in the doorway.

‘Mama,' she said, ‘that was the hardest thing I've ever done in my life. But I did it.'

‘How did Winnie take it? Did she accept your explanation? How is she?'

‘What do you expect? She's still crying. She didn't want to see me. But I forced myself on her and I forced her to listen. I'm good at forcing people.'

I smiled at her irony. ‘And sometimes it's the right thing to do,' I said. ‘So she listened? Did she say anything?'

‘Well, you can ask her yourself. She's coming home tomorrow. And I'm going home. I did what you wanted. It was the right thing to do. Now, I won't be back in town for a long time. Town does bad things to me.'

And she was off.

T
hose three days
I refuse to relive. I won't speak of them.

But on the fourth day, Yoyo appeared at my bedside and forced me out of my hole.

‘Go away.'

‘No. I need to tell you something.'

‘I don't want to hear it.'

‘You must.'

How dare she! How dare she come to my bedside to stand there and gloat! I used to adore Yoyo, as everyone did. Though she was younger than me, she had been my idol: always so confident, so self-assured, so strong. Not just strong but
heads
trong, it was true, and sometimes Yoyo had needed me, as a boring but sensible elder sister, to stop her from barging her way into situations only to make them worse. Yoyo could never see consequences; I could. It made me tiresome to her; she mocked me for it, looked down on me. Disrespected me.

Now she had barged her way into my life with her red dress and her perfume and her powers of seduction, the very ones I lacked. She was still young, and beautiful, her body unspoilt by childbirth, whereas I – well, after five births I lacked the flush of youth, and I was often so very tired at night. No wonder I couldn't keep hold of George.

How I had envied her, in the past! Boys, men, had always been charmed by Yoyo, and well she knew it. She could twist them round her little finger with a pursing of her lips, a tilting of her head, a wink, a word, a sway. Simply by breathing. They fell at her feet, and she so careless with their adoration. Now George, my George, had fallen too. Into her web. I could not bear to look at her. I no longer envied her. She repulsed me. I abhorred her. She made me sick.

‘Go away!' I cried it out loud, I screamed it at her. ‘Go away, go away, go away! What are you doing here!'

But she stood her ground. Yoyo always stood her ground. Or, to be precise, she sat her ground, drawing up a chair to my bedside and plonking herself down on it.

‘Winnie, you must listen to me. Please! Just let me talk. Just listen!'

‘I don't want to hear anything you say! I just want you to go!'

I reached for the bell-pull to call a nurse but she grabbed my wrist before I could get there.

‘Let me go! How dare you!'

We wrestled for a moment; but I was weak and she was strong.

‘I'm not going until you hear me out!'

‘I hate you, I hate you, I hate you!'

‘I know you do and I deserve it. Listen, Winnie: I hate me too!' Her voice was hesitant, as if it were a struggle to speak the words – but her eyes were steady, locking on mine, and pleading.

‘No you don't. You're in love with yourself. Always have been. You don't care about anyone else.'

‘I do and I came to say I'm sorry and – and to explain.'

‘I don't want any explanation. I know what happened. I saw. And I saw your face afterwards. Laughing. You enjoyed it. You're not sorry, Yoyo.'

‘I am now. I came to tell you that and to – to apologise.'

‘I don't want your apology. It's not going to bring my baby back.'

At those words the howling started again. The abject, desperate howling that sometimes had overtaken me during the last three days. Howling like some pathetic animal that had been wounded and left to die. A wolf maybe, or a jaguar. Because I had been wounded to the death.

‘Don't,' said Yoyo. ‘Don't. Don't. Don't. Don't.'

And then the impossible happened. She too burst into tears.

Yoyo crying was so rare, so astonishing, that it immediately stopped my howling. I could only remember seeing her cry once in my life, and that was when Nanny had gone. She never even cried when Mama left us so long ago. And now here she was, bent forward so that her upper body rested on the bed, her face buried in the sheet, and sobbing as if her heart would break. Heaving and spluttering, her fingers grasping the sheet and the mattress like a drowning man grasping at flotsam.

I couldn't help it: I have a soft heart. I cannot bear to see another creature suffer. I reached out and placed a comforting hand on her back. Immediately she grabbed that hand and clung to it, and then looked up.

‘I'm truly, truly sorry, Winnie. Let me confess. Please, let me confess.'

How could I remain hard?

‘All right then,' I said. And I let her talk, and I listened. She told me everything. She did not spare herself. She did not sugar-coat her behaviour. She did not make excuses. It was all her fault, she said. George had said
no,
clearly and repeatedly, but she had been determined to overcome that no. She had – practically – forced him into compliance. George was a good, sweet man, she said. Too naïve for his own good. Unschooled in the wiles of women, the wiles she knew so well and had bombarded him with. George was innocent, even if his body was guilty. She had known how to make his body react the way it did, and she had used that knowledge. It's the power of a woman, our only power, perhaps, over a man. And she had used it, unashamedly. It was a power I knew little of; I had been a young girl when I met George, seduced only by the romance of it all.

‘But
why,
Yoyo? Why did you do it? I don't understand
why.'

‘Because he loves you. He loves you so much. And nobody loves me.'

And she burst into tears again.

Y
oyo stayed
at my bedside all afternoon. We talked. It was the longest conversation we had ever had, and the deepest. It was a conversation that equalised us; she repentant, I forgiving, we reached out for each other in a way we had never done before. Because never had there been such necessity, never such pain between us, never such a mountain to climb. But we climbed it, hand in hand. Yoyo, I discovered, had depths I had never imagined; once she had left the shallow shores of personal pride and ventured into the risky waters of introspection and self-examination she began to find her feet and, even, to revel in honesty, and in confession.

‘I envied you, Winnie. I did. You were always so mature and Mama loved you more.'

‘Oh, but she didn't, Yoyo! She really didn't. She and I are very much alike but when you were small you were Mama's pride and joy – so clever, so quick, so pretty! I remember when I was about six and you were four how jealous I was of you because you could speak so quickly and so well, and I had to mull over every word, and I stuttered a bit, and you would make people laugh because you were so witty, and Mama used to delight in the things you said and nobody ever laughed at what I said – I was the boring one and you, everyone doted on you, including Mama!'

‘But you could speak German, fluently, with Mama. You read German books with her, poetry and novels, and sang those boring Schubert
Lieder,
in German! And you played the violin and she loved that you were musical. And the two of you would play duets and it was as if you were one entity, lost in your music, and I didn't understand music and I was just about tone deaf'

‘Just like Papa! You were Papa's little girl and I envied you so much! Every girl wants to be Papa's darling and I wasn't, I definitely wasn't. You were prettier and wittier so he loved you more – I swear you learned to flirt with Papa!'

She blushed. ‘Maybe I did,' she admitted. ‘It's true I had Papa twisted round my little finger. But look where Papa ended up.' She stopped to reflect. ‘And now it's Mama who has brought us together at last. It was touch and go, you know. I nearly didn't make it. My pride, Winnie. Pride is such a terrible thing. And envy. I envied you so much! You had everything I wanted. A husband who loves you. Sons. Those are the things I want. And up to now I always got what I wanted, but I couldn't get those. It made me so furious! I like to be in control, you know, and if I'm not I get angry and do stupid things. And for the first time in my life I wasn't in control. It was as if my pride was behind me with a whip, spurring me on to do things I knew were naughty, and I just didn't care. I wanted what I wanted and nothing else mattered. Pride is not a good master! It's led me into the most terrible messes in the past, but this is by far the worst.'

She chuckled. ‘The seven deadly sins. Remember Pastor Pearson's sermons? How he used to go on about them! Vainglory is my worst, I think. Wrath. Envy.'

‘Lust?' That seemed to me the most obvious in this case, but she shook her head. ‘Not in my case. Actually, I used the lust of
others
to get my own way – so, greed more than lust.' She looked at me mournfully. ‘I didn't really want George, Winnie. I didn't lust after him. It was more a game – more to see if I could win him, somehow. I so envied the way he loves you. I'm sorry.'

‘I don't understand. You have Clarence. You have a husband of your own. Why don't you try to love him? Doesn't he love you?'

‘Hah! Clarence? You must be joking, right? Don't you remember how we joked about Clarence when he first came to BG? And you thought I was mad to marry him. You don't really think there's love in my marriage, do you? It's a marriage of convenience. I told you that long ago.'

‘I know. I'm just confused. You always said you didn't want love, you didn't believe in love; it's all romantic nonsense. And yet'

‘And yet, seeing the way George looks at you… well, it did something to me. It made me jealous. I couldn't help it. But – but what I did was unforgivable.'

‘I – I think I can forgive you, Yoyo. You're my sister. Of course I can forgive you.'

‘You must forgive him too, Winnie. You must go to him and tell him that he is forgiven. Please. Go to him.'

‘I will.'

‘Today?'

I nodded. ‘You promise?'

I nodded again. Her voice was small and humble.

‘Another thing, Winnie.' She stopped and started again. ‘I know that the worst of it all is your baby and I can't bring her back and it's all my fault. I will always feel terrible about that. I know you can't ever forgive me.'

‘But I do, Yoyo. I know you didn't mean for me to fall. It's – it's just a consequence; it wasn't deliberate. I don't think we should be pointing fingers of blame here. I'm not going to.'

‘Still I want you to forgive me. Say it, Winnie.'

I wanted to tell her that she had to forgive herself. That she had lost herself for a while but now she had found her way back to who she truly was; that there was no value in looking backwards to that lost person but that she must stay here, in the present, the new Yoyo right here holding my hand and looking at me with pleading eyes, begging for absolution. I knew she wanted to hear certain words from me and so I spoke them, and I meant them with all my heart.

‘Yes, Yoyo, I forgive you.'

She was silent for a while, and then: ‘Thank you, Winnie.'

I opened my arms and she fell into them, and I lay back on my pillow and she lay with me, and so we lay together and I fell asleep, and when I woke up again she was gone, and I knew I had to go to George.