Island Songs (36 page)

When I was twelve years of age and living in a children's home in a quiet corner of Surrey, I wanted to know about the circumstances that had led me to living in care since I was four. At the time I didn't know my parents full names or even what nationality they were. My housemother informed me that for a reading of my file, my social worker had to be present. I waited a week and when that huge file was opened, thick as two hardback copies of
War and Peace
, the most startling thing that I learned was that I had four older sisters and one brother, all on my mother's side. Unfortunately, the file didn't say where they were.

I went to my bed that night asking one question: how could my mother love and care for her other children but not me? The question stayed with me for years and years, and as I went through the journey of my life, I discovered that this question is not just posed by people who grew up in council care. I have met people from all walks of life and have found that a son may feel that his father has no time for him but adores his sister, or a daughter can be convinced that her mother doesn't love her but loves her brother.

I explored this theme in my novel
East of Acre Lane
but I wanted to examine it further in
Island Songs.
Of course, great authors before me have written about this subject matter.
East of Eden
by John Steinbeck and
The Thorn Birds
by Coleen McCulloch are just two examples.

It was when I made a pilgrimage to Bob Marley's birthplace, a tiny village called Nine Mile in the garden parish of Jamaica, St Anne, that I found I had my setting for my ‘big love epic'. The rich green colours, the still jackfruit trees, perfect sky and the beautiful hills just demanded for someone to set a story there.

When I sat down to sketch the characters, I had in my mind two brothers who would be the main protagonists. I decided they would have a Cain and Abel-like relationship with one favoured and adored by the father and the other despised. What changed my mind was Jamaican women. Within my own family, the women are full of life, colour, complexity, feistiness and great spirit. In my opinion it is the Jamaican women who keep families together, Jamaican women who have made the greater sacrifices. With that in mind, Augustine and Clement came to be Hortense and Jenny. It was also handy because it allowed me to revive these characters from
East of Acre Lane
.

Most of my research involved me talking to my two aunts, Hermine and Lilleth. They made me roar with laughter as they described childhood scenes of them living in the ‘bush'. What made it even more entertaining and fascinating was the turn of phrase they used with their thick Jamaican accents. I felt that the beautiful way they spoke had to be included in the dialogue and hoped that readers would get a sense of that as they read the book. For me, the way Jamaican women speak is an essential element of their character.

One of the first scenes I wrote for
Island Songs
was the Atlantic passage: Hortense, Cilbert, Jacob and Jenny's journey to England from Jamaica. It was my father, Alfred, who offered his memories and insights for this piece during a long-distance telephone call from his home in Jamaica. He himself had a similar trip when he first came to England in 1954, and it was his recollections about stowaways and how they jumped overboard moments before the ship reached port that caught my imagination. Even more entertaining were my father's memories about seeing central London for the first time. If I'm ever accused of being a plagiarist then I will only hold my hand up if my father is pointing the finger!

With all the characters assembled I had a crisis of confidence. How could a man get inside the minds of two women? I have trouble understanding just one. So before I set pen to paper I talked to as many women as I could. The stories I collected seemed
to be concentrated on one theme: the man I decided to go for turned out to be a bastard. ‘He was always a bit of a rogue but I thought I could change him.' This fascinated me. Why are women always attracted to men with danger signals on them? Why do many women take for granted the kind of man who would treat them like a queen and never break their heart? Many women say this isn't true but let me put forward some evidence. Sean Connery's portrayal of James Bond is often voted as the best and sexiest Bond. His portrayal of Bond also treated women appallingly, yet women love it. Whilst George Lazenby, who offered a more vulnerable James Bond, displaying Bond falling in love, is often voted the worst Bond ever. Why is this?

It's for the reason above that I sketched Cilbert, another character that I parachuted in from
East of Acre Lane
, as a bit of a rogue, yet Almyna, Hortense and even Jenny lust after him. Of course, Jacob, although he is devoted to Jenny and would never willingly hurt her in any way, is betrayed. You might think this is unfair, but I ask a question to you women out there if you have finished the book: if you had to choose between wayward Cilbert and God-fearing Jacob for a wild night out, full of promise and passion, who would you choose? Be honest now!

Religion has always been a central part of Jamaican family life and I didn't see how I could write a Jamaican ‘epic' that didn't include it. When I visit the countryside of Jamaica there is no more beautiful sight than a Sunday morning when families, dressed in their Sunday best, walk from their homes through the bush to their immaculately kept church. But deep-held beliefs with Jamaican folk has its contradictions. For example, living in Brixton in the late 1970s and early 1980s, I witnessed many friends being forced out of their homes because they had decided to follow rastafarian doctrine and had dreadlocked their hair. Some parents saw it as blasphemy. I wanted to explore where this rasta phenomenon first took hold, and that is why I introduced Levi. To sketch his character I talked to rasta elders in Jamaica and Brixton.

Also, I wanted to examine loss of faith. It is something I have
experienced when I was a child and it affected me deeply. I remember, feeling at my lowest ebb when I was about thirteen, I went to see my local Catholic priest. Naively, I asked him if I could live in the church because living in a children's home was a hell for me. He smiled and blessed me. An hour later he called the relevant authorities and I was taken back to the children's home. I never returned to any church again until the christening of my first son. It wasn't a Catholic church.

People have different reactions when they have faced tragedy. Some embrace religion as it gives them comfort in their darkest hour. But some, like Hortense in
Island Songs,
utterly reject it, just like I did. My struggle still continues to this day. Seeing so many bad things happening in the world makes me ask: why, if there really is an all powerful good God, does He allow so much tragedy to happen?

For someone who didn't know what it was like to grow up in a family, observing family life was a fascination for me. When I left the children's home and headed for Brixton in 1977, I always wanted to be invited by my new friends to their homes just to see how they interacted, fell out, made up with each other, and how mothers would show their love or fathers display to their sons how to be a man. Of course, I never revealed to my friends what I was up to, but I discovered that some parents were not even aware that one of their offspring felt they were being neglected, unloved or biased against.
Island Songs
and
East of Acre Lane
are, I guess, the study paper of all my watching and listening.

Alex Wheatle
South London, November 2005

Books that influenced the writing of
Island Songs

East of Eden
, John Steinbeck

The Thorn Birds
, Colleen McCulloch

Sula
, Toni Morrison

The Color Purple
, Alice Walker

Catch A Fire – The Life and Times Of Bob Marley
, Timothy White

Music Artists listened to while writing
Island Songs

(I find it impossible to write without a musical backdrop)

Bob Marley & The Wailers,
The Studio One Sessions

Leroy Sibbles & The Heptones,
At Studio One

Alton Ellis,
The Rock Steady Hits

The Skatellites,
Perfect Ska
– the best instrumental band ever to come out of Jamaica

Curtis Mayfield & The Impressions,
The Early Years

Slim Smith,
At Studio One

Pat Kelly & The Techniques,
At Treasure Isle/Duke Reid

Great People born in St Anne

Bob Marley

Burning Spear

Marcus Garvey

Names

Hortense – named after the great Jamaican vocalist
Hortense Ellis.

Jenny – the name of one of my partner’s aunts.

Cilbert – a friend I used to play cricket with – an excellent batsman.

Almyna – Myna, my mother’s nickname, used by those who know her very well.

Hubert – there are about three or four Huberts and Herberts in my family on my father’s side.

Amy – An aunt on my father’s side. She looked after me so well on my first trip to Jamaica in 1987.

Carmesha – a student who lodged at my aunt Lilleth’s home in Kingston while studying at the University of the West Indies. On 
my 2001 trip to Jamaica, Carmesha spent hours braiding my son’s hair and took him out dancing, showing him the dancehalls of Kingston.

Odd Fact

In
Island Songs
, my Claremont Valley is fictional, based on the bountiful lands surrounding Nine Mile. But there is a real Claremont in the parish of St Anne that I passed through one day on a country bus. So my apologies to the real Claremontonians if you feel that I have taken liberties with the geography of your area.

A
LEX
W
HEATLE
was born in South London. He is currently working with Booktrust to introduce literature to the dispossessed. He organises and holds workshops in prisons and young adult institutions. He is the author of four previous novels:
The Seven Sisters
,
East of Acre Lane
,
Brixton Rock
and
Checkers
(co-written with Mark Parham).