Strange Music (23 page)

Untidy. Overgrown, Leah's hair's sprinkled with burrs; grass heads heavy with seeds are woven into curls. Standing naked and tall in hut's dark light, ‘Me heard yu sick,' she say.

Heard from who?
me want to ask but shock of pain from all that's happened surges into me belly; a dull agony throbs in me head, through me heart a deep ache.

Leah's long flat fingers fumble along shelves feeling fe candles. Half she face hidden by hair, a steady gaze she have, putting a candlestick to a rush-light flame's dying burst.

‘Wot bring yu ere so late, Sheba?' she ask.

I'm wanting to say,
How yu do know me name?
but me lips get stuck again. Looking hard at me, Leah's African eye holds power like she sees what's sucking soul out-a me, sees into dawn, and beyond. ‘Yu suffer sickness every morning? No, dis did yesterday end.' Leah lights two more beeswax candles from de flickering rush-light flame. Moving about she shed, Leah coils cloth she lay beneath about bony pointed shoulders, flat belly, waist. ‘Yu have pain in yu back? Chest? Bad dream stay in yu head?' she asks. ‘Yu do waan dis wot yu carry?'

‘No. Yes. Me not know,' is all me find to say.
It's wot? Cyaan be chile. Chile grow fram love. Dis a bad curse? Or Isaac's heart beats on in me belly? One seed of happiness grown fram me own Isaac soon to be lost?

‘Is only buckra do dem ting,' Leah murmurs. ‘Yu betta off widout dis chile.' Flat stone slab she's pointing at sits behind open hardwood door. ‘Yu move rass rakstone?' she asks. She shoves stone slab against door bottom to keep it shut. Leah murmurs again, ‘It no more dan wandring duppy.' A smile crosses she face, narrow nose widening as she lips go thin, showing cracked teeth. ‘Sit, chile,' she say.

Dirt floor me sit on feels chilly. ‘Sit,' Leah's snapping she fingers at me then at she sleeping mat.

Woven rush mat's harsh, cold, till me find Leah's warm sleeping patch. Locking arms round knees at last me ask, ‘Dis chile fram Isaac?'

Leah's eye traps me with its heavy grasp. Rarely now do me not feel scared but this fear's different. Terrified by strength in Leah's face and believing me said something wrong all me can move's me eye, awkwardly, me seek a hiding place. In a jar beside me on mat's edge a dry shrivelled snakeskin curls, empty, hungry, wanting a body. Glass beads glint in a shell bowl. Lizards croak on woven wild-cane walls bound to corner posts with withes. Gecko, catching night flies, dart over feathery bundles, under goombay drums, across sacks overflowing pigeon peas, along a hollow reed flute, slithering into Leah's upturned basket of limes.

Shaking a calabash, drawing closer, still Leah don't answer. But she will summon Loa, me know, a link to we spirit world. Me feel Leah's mind work. She drops into me lap a rattling calabash filled with seeds, wound in a pretty web of clay beads painted blue, green.

‘Sheba, Loa tek pickney fram yu belly,' Leah say.

Hot tears sting me eye. ‘It does know it'll die?'

‘Chile's a gift,' Leah say thoughtfully. ‘It don't die.'

But sharp she words slice me insides, and me lie wen me say, ‘Me know.'
A gift? Dis thing grating in me belly, gnawing at me guts?

‘Me cyaan swear spirit'll go now, understand? Buckra pickney spirit can be strong. But if e do come to be born mek sure yu kill im. Kill im. Keep im fram suffering in we world. Kill im. Kill im,' Leah say coldly. She eye makes four with mine. ‘Yu be sure yu understand yu have two choices. Pickney go back to spirit world now, or day afta eighth day of him birth yu kill im fram dis earth. Me give me word so hear me, till ninth day after birth it just like a wandring duppy returning to duppy world.'

But me now feel it a monster me carry, wriggling, squirming, half made. Leah looks far into me mind. ‘Yu must mek all thoughts go,' she say. ‘Be strong like hurricane.'
Isaac's chile? Cyaan be. How to get up, get out, move, if me buried already?
‘Sheba, yu cyaan hear? Together we reach across, put wandring spirit back. It's still a spirit after birth, lang as yu understand dis, yu free. But first,' Leah say, ‘yu must know how much spirit chile worth.'

‘Priceless,' me say.

‘A-good.'

Shaking Leah's calabash me follow to shed's back door. Me mind ask,
Wot's spirit chile worth?

From doorway Leah's calling spirit priest by blowing breath between two fingers jammed into she mouth to make a piercing whistling screech. Turning to me, ‘Yu come to no harm,' she say. ‘Wot me do cyaan hurt. Osun, spirit of healing streams, will walk ere beside yu. Osun will guide yu.' More of she deafening whistles pitch deep into night.

Moonlight falls coolly over Leah's sandy back yard. She yard's no church but a place fe spirits, souls, together. Together we meet in yard middle where creepers climb wrinkled bark of sacred spirit-filled tree, that we salute together. To protect we, Leah draws a cross in blue-black air – not Jesus cross but obeah. Bending low she kisses sandy swept earth, fe from earth all things have death, all things have birth. She then shouts, ‘Hee-yu, hee-yu,' again calling spirit priest.

Clouds, arching over moon's path, glimmer dimly as great house white marble and stroke Leah's smooth-skinned calabash rattle. Sprinkling cornmeal from she hand, Leah draws another cross on sand. She lips touch where two lines meet – a sacred place between life, between death. Me lips meet dark bark on spirit-filled tree, then me eye goes into cornmeal cross, fixing on its heart, where future stems from what's past.

Leah shouts, ‘Hee-yu, hee-yu,' once more fe calling spirit priest. From far away a goombay drum thunders. Waving she hands in night air, Leah's inviting gods. ‘Protect we chillun,' she sings. Feet thud, leaping round obeah cross. Seeds rattle in calabash as me shake.

Dressed beggar-like, a priest man comes running, wrinkly knees poking through osnaburg trousers, coat trimmings flapping behind. He carries two chickens, one black, one white, upside down by scrawny legs, with goombay drums clamped under an arm.

Drums sound loudly in Leah's yard each beat tying we together. Priest bows to Leah. He pushes me onto me knees, swings screeching chickens high above me head, shoulders, bent body, legs.

Dancing, flame-like, at full speed, Leah's twisting, twirling. Never did me see man or woman move so quick. Priest holds both chickens' heads down to Leah's cornmeal cross. Fiercely chickens peck grain but priest works swiftly, breaking chickens' legs and wings.

Priest swings we offering across me belly. Feathers flying, black chicken bashes night-black air with broken wings. Screwing its neck round, black chicken's life he gives to Loa.

Twisting white chicken's neck, priest makes Life cross into Death, fast, so they become One. No blood spills on earth from living sacrifice. Clouds cross de moon. Hunched up, shouting, Leah dances faster than John Canoe dancer; mouth gaping, eyes bulging dangerously. Will of Loa's spirit mounts Leah's back. Priest beats goombay drums. Calabash seeds rattling, me heart beating faster, faster, me cyaan see spirit rider. Leah's soul fights, shaking terribly, as Loa enters she body. Mouth twisting into a snarl, what Leah utters comes from we God. Long flat feet stamp. She falls. She have left she body, Loa makes it move now, she all shake-shivering legs, arms stretched across sandy ground.

Moonbeams light Loa's old wrinkled face. Leaping onto long flat feet, Loa rises, and with great steps, circles spirit-filled tree. Priest's dancing too, swinging dead chickens, offering carcasses up, offering floppy heads up to Loa. Loa's head slants back, she jaw drops, mouth-water dribbles a little from she chin. Leaping round obeah cross, moonlight jumping on withered skin, when wearily Loa falls back, Leah leaps in. Slowly Loa disappears like a queer dream ending.

Blue-grey fingers of light reach across Leah's yard from a dawn-patched sky. Me want to ask Leah,
What now?
Will she walk with me to shack village? Will she walk down mountain sides? But feel too lonely, too foolish, too small.

Silver-grey sun streaks glance between trees, and me check back over me shoulder fe thick red blanket of flowers crawling across Leah's shingle-roofed shed. All me belly pain gone. Fear turns its face from me.

Bad spirits shrink behind star-apple trees and sweet-scented tamarind and cinnamon trees, and mountain path me make a way down feels moss-springy to tired feet. Spirits creep over boulders vanishing into riverbeds.

‘Sheba! Sheba! Where yu bin?' Lickle Phoebe's voice cuts sharp round market track before shack village. She presses me to explain, carrying on she head a roll of woven banana-trash sleeping mats.

Me fumble fe words. ‘Market get put fram me mind,' me say.

Lickle Phoebe wears an outgrown blue dress me passed on to she. Cloth clings close to she body like me own stretching belly skin. But Phoebe's skin's shrunk hard against bone. She arms, small pickney hands screwed up with cuts and scratches, hoists banana-trash rolls down from she cotta. ‘Me in-a hurry,' Lickle Phoebe say. ‘Gotta mek ready fe Barrett Town Sunday market. Yu look betta. Yu bin see Leah?'

‘A-good me feel a-good,' but me throat tightens. Cyaan talk more fe feelings come swooping suddenly as if from dawn light, or from Lickle Phoebe's small bony startled face; what's past returns to me, not as memories but as impossible feelings. Misery.

Legs clumsy, bruised body heavy-footed following a flow of dips and hollows in sugar-valley paths, pointing past pumpkin patches and towards shack village. ‘Sheba, come back!' Phoebe shouts but me feet keep on down hill.

Chapter Nine

I open decorated box brought by Mister Sam from London. Pulling out shimmery silk stockings, struggling to put them on, in case no other chance to wear stockings come; buttoning lace-collared dress, pink beaded gloves, I'm dashed about by anger storms. I'm needing so much more than wretched English flannel clothes, too hot for Jamaica, too big for me. ‘Mere trinkets,' he'd said, but they'll sell easy when free slaves pass on plantation path after crop-over.

Down narrow creaking ladder rungs – heading for Mister Sam's chamber. Wood panels rubbed with orange peel shine with morning sunlight. From stairwell windows I see tall canes' uncut blades curve under gentle winds.

Opening bedchamber door I don't look at Mister Sam – a sweating bundle twisting its head. I know how him body moves. Pan and towel I've brought for him. He vomits pickney-weak on them.

Chamber door squeaks open. Into dust-swirling sunlight Sibyl's voice comes. ‘Mister Sam dying?' She eyes dart round bedchamber. ‘Dat why yu wear fine clodes?' Sibyl lifts linen basket balanced on she head up from cotta and lowers it down to yacca floor. Soiled bed shirts, trousers, sheets, topple over basket rim. Mister Sam watches deathly still. He taught me to despise, to wear contempt, bear hurt – but these things I don't know how to put into words. ‘Lard God punish im,' Sibyl says. Like she can smell my thoughts. ‘Wot yu wantin fram im?' Together we stoop but Sibyl's fingers strain to reach dirty linen bundles, for she pickney bulge never shrink. Friday, she last pickney after May, left she belly bloated big as pumpkin after rain. Joy surges in my belly where life forms from Mister Sam's seed – but only briefly. Bubbles burst when stranded by sea on sandy bay's shoreline – joy bursts sameway. Thinking ahead to another lonely birth sad thoughts begin. Can't bear losing another pickney.

‘Afta me do wid washin me miss market an me need something. Yu can go fe me?' Sibyl asks.

‘Yu give me money,' I say, ‘an me'll go.'

Sibyl roots in skirt-cloth for bitts, searches out a pocket-knot. ‘Bring tubs fe washin.' Warm bitts she presses in me hand. ‘Coconut oil,' she adds.

‘Me must dig up cassava,' I tell she.

Four-poster bed casts long shadows across yacca floor. Grief falls over Mister Sam's face. He sighs deeply. Lids close like he never seen me before.

Sibyl props she shoulder against chamber door. Yawning, she say, ‘Why yu busy when she a-come?'

‘Oo did come?' I ask. Sameway as clam Sibyl's mouth slams shut. Like she made a theft from me. ‘Oo did come?'

‘Mama Laslie.'

‘Yu seen she? Mama Laslie come ere an me don't know? Me mama? Me miss Mama? Why yu don't call me?'

‘Lard have mercy. Yu tellin me to do tings me cyaan do.' Sibyl's eye drops down. Like she heard my thoughts speak. ‘She tell me where she live.'

‘So?'

‘Tek market track. Turn up hill wen yu pass forest.'

‘Ow'll me know wen me dere?'

‘Flame-heart trees roun she house.' Sibyl arranges cotta straight, bends, firmly sets linen basket atop she head. She walks through doorway. ‘Me a-go an wait fe Junius by provision store.' She eye snaps, winking at me.

‘Yu look afta Mary Ann fe me?' I shout at she back.

Over she shoulder, ‘Ax Old Simeon,' Sibyl say.

I shout after Sibyl, ‘Eh? Old Simeon foot bottom broke.' My gut twists round on itself. I run to stairwell.

Mary Ann's curled up on floor below hall stairs. She rolls over, she face still pretty when asleep. She used to skip-play about Cinnamon Hill, happy, before Mister Sam came. Or I'd catch she climbing backwards down sweeping staircase; planting sheself beneath stairwell she'd sit watching she toes wiggling, dreamily.

Halfway I come down stairs. Turning, I'm looking through doorway to Mister Sam. All joy dies, passing into memory – Mary Ann uncurls, crust-sealed eyes unlock, she stretches arms, straightens out folded knees; skirt-cloth works its way up shins notched and scarred from a flogging. Dawn sunlight bleeds livid red across brown skin. Bloated purple stubbornly stripes Mary Ann's leg backs. Eyes closed, she falls back into deep slumber. Perhaps she have bad dreams.