The Pink House at Appleton (6 page)

‘You know nothing,' Barrington told Yvonne.

By the time they got in sight of home, Yvonne was doubled up in pain. She was moaning and holding her stomach, her forehead contorted and sweating.

‘Eating green roseapple,' Melvyna deduced, with a look of sadness. She knew her fate and was resigned to it. She would be blamed for letting the children eat unripe fruit while she was in charge. It was a sacking offence.

Mama put Yvonne to bed and told off Melvyna, mostly with bad looks.

‘But ma'am, but ma'am,' Melvyna protested. She dreaded Papa coming home and finding Yvonne in her wretched state.

Melvyna went to bed early, but not before she begged Mama, almost on bended knees, to let her prepare hot
Cerasee
tea, a special concoction she knew of. Yvonne, the poor chile, would be better in no time. If that didn't work she knew how to make a
Fever Grass
drink, another special concoction. Mama said no. But, Melvyna desperately wanted to know, what about a little
Bissy
tea
,
or
Leaf of Life
tea with nutmeg? Certainly not, Mama told her. Not even a little
Bush
tea
,
ma'am? Melvyna was persistent: Yvonne would be better before you could say
hallelujah, tenk you Jesus
! Mama again told her no. Depressed, she sat up in bed reading her Bible. She and the house were fast asleep when Papa finally arrived well past ten o'clock. So she escaped his wrath that night.

‘Man not made to fly in plane,' Melvyna told them, as she served dinner the following evening. There was a story in the newspapers about rich Jamaicans, especially those from Upper St Andrew, flying regularly to Miami to shop. It was all the rage. Buying clothes at
Couture Jamaique
or
Issa's
was not good enough for them. Melvyna seemed really put out. ‘If God want man to fly he would give him wing, like bird.'

‘You plan to go abroad, Melvyna?' Papa asked.

‘No, sar!' Melvyna exclaimed, astonished. ‘But if ah was to go to Englan' ah would go by boat.'

‘By boat,' Papa smiled. ‘So, that's okay with God?'

‘You can laugh, sar,' Melvyna said, seeing the funny side. ‘When God come we all have to answer, sar.
When the roll is called up yonder ah will be there.'

‘Another Bible woman,' Papa said under his breath when Melvyna returned to the kitchen. ‘Where do they come from?'

‘You should know,' Mama replied, knowing that Papa's contacts at the factory supplied the maids.

‘I have nothing against a Bible-reading person,' Papa mumbled. ‘I just don't want them knocking on the door day after day. We go to church, the
Anglican
church, and read our Bibles, on special Sundays anyway. It's those Pocomania people, y'know, and all that ignorant stuff they come out with that I'm really against. When they get possessed with the spirit you never know what they'll do. Remember Agatha? I don't want them coming here and filling the children's heads with all that ignorance. It's okay for those
dark people
who live in places like Look Behind, Quick Step and Pisgah.'

‘And Lacovia,' Yvonne said.

The next day, after Melvyna had left the dining room, Papa reported something he'd heard at the factory: that she was active in one of the revivalist churches and could be practicing
Obeah
.

‘What?' Mama's hand flew to her lips.

‘What's
Obeah
?' Yvonne didn't look up from her egg custard, which was covered in cinnamon.

‘It's what the Pocomania people do,' Barrington replied. ‘Evil spirits.'

Papa was about to correct him when Melvyna appeared at the door.

‘You call me, sar?' She stood quite still.

‘No,' Papa said, startled.

‘You sure, sar?' Melvyna was unblinking.

‘Yes, yes, go back to your supper.'

‘If you sure, sar.' Melvyna returned to the kitchen.

Papa shook his head, unbelieving. Everyone turned to him and back to the empty space at the door where Melvyna had been, expecting her suddenly to materialise. Not a sound came from the kitchen.

Just after five o'clock the following evening, Papa drove up with Corporal Duncan, a young police officer. They leaped out of the jeep and walked briskly towards Melvyna's room, but Yvonne, standing on the kitchen steps, delayed them.

‘She's in the kitchen,' Yvonne said, pointing.

‘Who?' Papa asked.

‘Melvyna,' Yvonne replied conspiratorially. ‘She's cooking dinner. And Papa, she didn't wash her hands with soap. I saw her.'

‘Go in to Mama,' Papa said, shooing her away and exchanging glances with Corporal Duncan, who seemed a little less commanding without his splendid police horse, the dark tan stallion, Cyrus, but visibly impressed with Yvonne's evaluation. She has a good police brain, his expression said.

No one knew what was found in Melvyna's room, if anything. But it wasn't long before she was summoned before Papa and Corporal Duncan in the pantry. She was suspicious when she saw Corporal Duncan in his splendid police uniform, all red and black and blue, with silver buttons and polished leather. But no one was going to bully her. She had Jehovah on her side. At first she tried to face them down but she couldn't because they didn't look her squarely in the eye, preferring to look at the floor, over her shoulder, or away just before their eyes locked.

‘I want you off the premises,' Boyd heard Papa say.

‘What, sar?'

‘Pack your things and leave now.'

‘Is what wrong, sar?' Melvyna looked from face to face, hoping for some explanation, some urgent apology for a tragic mistake hastily made.

‘You heard me, pack your bag,' Papa repeated.

‘But why, sar?'

‘You know.'

‘Know what, sar? Ah treat the missis with respect. You too, sar, and the children. And ah do me work – '

‘Heh, heh,' Corporal Duncan chuckled. ‘You can do that work somewhere else.'

‘Is what you mean, sar? What you mean?'

‘You heard your employer. Go to your room and pack your bag. Your wages are on the bed. Get going.'

‘But, sar, as God is me witness,' Melvyna began, then stopped as Corporal Duncan moved towards her. She appealed directly to Papa. ‘Call Miss Victoria, sar, call Miss Victoria. She will tell you ah'm a good worker. She said how good ah wash, iron and take care for the children. Ah'm a God-fearing woman, sar.'

Mama entered the room then and was the only one to meet Melvyna's eyes. But she, too, wasn't sure of Melvyna by then. She wasn't sure about
Obeah
Women.
In fact, Melvyna had actually begun to look decidedly satanic since Papa's news that she might be involved in witchcraft. And so, because Mama wasn't sure, she wanted to let events take their course, however unjust it all seemed.

‘Get going,' Corporal Duncan ordered. ‘I don't want to have to arrest you.' He began to look very businesslike.

‘But Miss Victoria, ma'am, is it because ah let the children eat green roseapples, ma'am? Ah warned them, ah told them, ah – '

‘All right,' Papa said gruffly. ‘Enough of this. To your room, now!' Together he and Corporal Duncan forced Melvyna out the door.

As Boyd watched Melvyna backing away, not afraid to face her accusers, he knew that Papa and Corporal Duncan were the villains in the books he read. Melvyna was the wronged heroine who would triumph, but only after a lifetime of pain and suffering.

Melvyna protested till the last.

‘God is me witness!' she cried, pointing skyward, the hot tears wetting her cheeks.

Papa was outraged. He came home in a foul mood and sat on the verandah all evening, smoking hard, flinging half-smoked cigarettes into the garden. Only Mama went near him. She soothed him and she comforted him and relayed the awful news to the children. It seemed that they would not be moving to the pink house after all.

The pink house had been promised to Papa and he had announced it triumphantly at dinner. He had taken Mama to the club to celebrate with the Moodies and bought yellow, red and green hula-hoops for the children, who hula-hooped all day and into the night. Now news reached him that the house was destined for another family, an English family, the Mitchisons, who were living at Monymusk, a sugar estate in Clarendon parish. The Mitchisons were ready to move to Appleton the moment the Maxwell-Smiths left, and the Maxwell-Smiths would be leaving in a matter of days. Everyone was disappointed, even Poppy. He'd been looking forward to running up and down the long driveway and chasing fowls and small birds on the lawn and into the back garden.

‘I'll hand in my notice,' Papa said, face grim, lips set, eyes fierce. He turned towards the factory, a huge mechanical dragon in the distant darkness, hissing steam. Lights flickered in the distillery, in the boiler house, in the chief chemist's office. And he inhaled the beguiling odours that were his life – dunder, molasses, golden boiling sugar, fresh rum, estate vapours – substances for which he had a chemical equation registered in his head.

Mama stroked his arm, gently brushing cigarette ash from his sugar-scented khakis, encouraging restraint. Their future, the children's education, all that to go up in smoke?

‘This could only happen in a blasted colony like Jamaica. A man has no respect in the country of his birth. As long as you work for someone, other than yourself, you are nothing. And these Mitchisons, let me tell you, are only getting the blinking house because they are English, for no other reason. English people come here, take what they want and don't give a shit. This country is racked with prejudice. The sooner we have self-government, the better. You see why I get behind the children, why I give them hell? Without a sound education,
a
sound education
, Victoria, and a professional career, they may as well be slaves in their own country.'

‘But – '

‘But what, woman? Didn't you hear me?'

‘They know you're good at your job,' Mama said calmly. ‘Mr Mason said so himself. It's all he talked about at that little drinks party they invited us to. And you got that letter from the directors in Kingston, thanking you for your work.'

‘What good is that now? It's all planned. They take decisions behind your back. If you're not white you're treated like trash. Gawd.'

‘But you've always said that what matters is your ability.' Mama stroked his arms.

‘Of course. But not everybody sees it that way.'

Mama paused. ‘What did Mr Mason say?'

Undisguised contempt was written all over Papa's face. ‘He's in Kingston at a managers' meeting.' He swallowed. ‘Conveniently.'

‘Oh,' Mama said, feeling a sense of relief. ‘So nothing is certain.'

Papa stared at her with incredulity but did not reply immediately, switching his gaze down into the valley, back to the white lights of the factory. The night was dark and deep, the smell of the sugar, rum and heat pleasant and close. It was a scene, a sensation Papa knew well, scents he loved. He had powerful feelings he could not deny. Most of his life had been lived on sugar estates: Bernard Lodge, Worthy Park and now Appleton. He'd received sugar scholarships and studied in British Honduras and Barbados. He was an estate man to the core.

‘Victoria,' he said, with an air of experience, ‘I know these things. It's how they behave on sugar estates. But, you mark my words, I shall put my foot down. I'll not be walked over. I'm not some ol'
Neaga
from the cane-piece, y'know.'

‘Of course you're not!' Mama scolded him.

‘They don't know who they're dealing with.'

But they knew, because later that week, with much restraint, Papa announced that the pink house was still theirs. The arrival of the Mitchisons had been delayed while a new house was being prepared for them. The estate had dispatched its full complement of carpenters, masons and skilled craftsmen to spruce up the large but unfinished house down the road from the pink house.

Mama stroked Papa's arm and gave him a sweet look. A burden was lifted off the children's shoulders and they too looked at Papa with admiration. But the refurbished house for the Mitchisons interested them. Its dull-white walls could be seen across the valley, partly hidden behind a ridge in the shade of giant poinciana trees.

‘It will be the most modern house on the estate when they're finished with it,' Papa said quietly. ‘It has the new flat roof and I hear they'll put a telephone in there.'

‘A telephone.' Mama did her best to contain herself. The children stopped eating. Next to a car, an English car, or preferably a Land Rover, and a very good maid: a telephone was the most essential thing on a sugar estate. It was what set them apart, the important people from the unimportant. Aside from the status telephones conferred, they were simply necessary for life in the countryside. Those were Papa's very words. At Worthy Park only the top people had telephones.

‘He must be a big shot,' Barrington blurted out.

‘No,' Papa said slowly, picking up a tiny bit of white fish on his fork and placing it carefully into his mouth. ‘Just the assistant general manager. Mason told me today. Everyone thought Mitchison was the new head bookkeeper. He is well qualified, with estate experience in Barbados and at Monymusk. And they say his wife is a live wire; probably the kind of woman who wants to know everybody's business.' Papa shook his head and grimaced. ‘We have enough busybodys on the estate already.'

‘Is there one at the pink house, Papa?' Yvonne asked irreverently. But she was bound to ask since the house was the home of the Maxwell-Smiths, the English family, who were the very opposite of
those people.

‘One what?' Papa didn't look up because he knew what. They all assumed the pink house had one. There had been no telephone at their Worthy Park house and none at their green and cream Appleton house.

‘Telephone, Papa.' Yvonne seemed mystified. A house such as the pink house was bound to have a telephone. They had taken it for granted.

‘I don't think so,' Papa informed her slowly. ‘And if there is one there, I'll ask them to remove it. We don't need a telephone. Everybody wants a telephone. What did we do before there were telephones? Everybody wants this, everybody wants that. And a telephone is at the top of the list. It's a way to show off, to say I am better than you. We don't need it. We Brookes don't need to show off. If the Mitchisons have one, it doesn't mean we must have one as well. People with telephones spend all their time gossiping when they should be doing something useful. I'm not going to lower my principles and ask, or beg, for something like a telephone. Oh no. Other people can do that, not us. We are Brookes, and that means something.' He put his knife and fork down. ‘Who are we?'

‘Brookes,' the children repeated hesitantly, eyes darting about.

Papa said nothing more. They had no idea why he had changed his mind about the telephone. It might have been something to do with
values
and
principles
. Mama seemed to know, though she said not a word.

‘There's a gardener at the house,' Papa told them later. ‘He's worked there since he was a boy and is very good with the orchard and vegetable garden. We're keeping him on. Name's Vincent. He's a very good worker but,' he appeared grave, ‘he has only one eye.'

‘Yechk!' Yvonne said, and stopped eating.

Boyd stopped eating too. ‘But why?' he asked, vaguely tearful.

‘Why what?' Papa turned to him with amused curiosity.

The words would not come out. Boyd could not explain it although it was vivid in his head. A gardener was a gardener, used to gardening with all his gardening skills, good enough to be employed by the Maxwell-Smiths and now by Papa. He could see Vincent in the early warm-cool of morning, pruning, weeding, tending, planting little buds, spraying the beds of dark-brown earth with his watering can while small birds pulled at worms and little yellow butterflies hovered overhead. Such a man as Vincent, making his stitch in the fabric of nature, in tune with the rhythm of time and calmly going about his work in his place in the gardens, was almost as important as the Brookeses. What did the fact that he had
only
one eye have to do with it? Papa was gazing at him impatiently.

‘You should say what you have to say,' Papa said. ‘Don't be shy.'

Boyd felt that he had already said what he had to say to himself. The problem was that he couldn't tell it to anybody else. He couldn't get the words out, could not find the right ones from the multitude crowding his tongue. He glared at his plate, curled his toes tight and felt ready to snap. Mama smiled reassuringly. Papa didn't understand.

‘One more thing,' Papa said, sighing. ‘There's a coolie settlement behind the hill.' He saw Boyd suddenly look up. ‘It's at the bottom of the valley but you can see it from the back of the property. I don't want any of you crossing the fence and going anywhere near there. They probably have yaws and chiggers and God knows what. And there are big bulls and prancing horses in the pasture and on the slope, so keep away from there. And I don't want anybody going near the river. It's not a babbling brook and none of you can swim. People drown in it every year. You hear me, Boyd?'

Papa might have said:
Pocahontas, Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse all live down there in their wigwams. And pretty dark-haired squaws come out at night gazing at the moon and at the pink house, waiting for someone.
Boyd couldn't wait to get to the coolie settlement.

* * *

They moved to the pink house on Friday July 15, 1957. White oleander blossoms flew up from the driveway as the Prefect, with Poppy hanging out the rear side window, roared up it. That evening, Harry Belafonte sang “Jamaica Farewell” on the Mullard radio while the lamps glowed amber in the drawing room. The Maxwell-Smiths had already left for England by BOAC, taking their dog and their maid, Inez, with them. But their smell still lingered in the house, an English smell of flannel and tea. The children discovered interesting articles left behind; binoculars in an old leather case which Boyd claimed, and a blue Lone Ranger pistol with silver bullets for Barrington. They got in the way of the painters during the week it took to paint the house, and grew to love the smell of pastel-coloured green paint which covered the drawing and dining room walls. They befriended the painters in their shapeless overalls, who lounged about at lunchtime with bulging necks and searching eyes, eating sardines and hard white bread and farting. And they met Vincent.

The first time Boyd and Yvonne saw Vincent, their eyes were glued to his face. Mama slapped their hands for being insensitive and rude. But it was because they had never seen anyone with such an eye before. Vincent's eye oozed runny custard, a pale eye that looked but could not see, a fish's eye, flat and wet and dripping. He was standing against the silver water tank by the kitchen with his machete in his hand while Mama conversed with him from halfway up the kitchen steps. Vincent cut a downcast figure and his smell was of underarms and old leather. Boyd didn't want to think it but Vincent was the Hunchback of Notre Dame, ugly and maligned, and he was instinctively drawn to him. Poppy was drawn to Vincent too, circling his ankles, making wonderful growling sounds and perfecting dramatic attacking movements, but holding back at the very last moment.

While they were getting acquainted with Vincent, Papa had driven up, vaulted out of the yellow jeep and walked quickly towards the kitchen steps. He barely acknowledged Vincent and spoke without looking at him.

‘Give it a good wash,' he said, indicating the dusty vehicle. ‘And when you're through, wash and polish the Prefect. And no skylarking!'

A pained expression clouded Vincent's face. Mr Maxwell-Smith had never spoken to him like that in all the years he had worked for him. He turned to Mama for consolation but all he got was an embarrassed smile.

* * *

Boyd wasted little time in exploring the grounds. He wandered along the fence in the back garden where, under the shade of a guava tree, he had a clear view of the brown cows in the fields. Their slow looking, their full titties, their languid presence and the rich gloss of their bodies drew him to the same spot day after day with Poppy at his feet. But the gardens of the pink house always called him away. The pink women were forever there, lying casually in the grass, beckoning, smiling like the
Mona Lisa
, waiting for him.

One day, satiated with adventure from his roaming, Boyd wandered into Mama's bedroom after her bath. He saw how her titties with the dark nipples, her thighs fleshy and her skin smooth and shadowy, were just like the brown cows reclining under the trees in the pasture behind the house. Mama draped her slip about her when she saw him and smiled an awkward smile. But Boyd felt only the warm calm and heard the silent, enquiring voice.

This voice told him that Mama was like the paintings in the
encyclopaedia. Two paintings in particular summed up Mama and the brown cows in the field:
Venus and Cupid on
The Sea,
by someone called Luca Cambiaso, and
Love in the Golden Age
by Paolo Fiammingo. Boyd wanted to touch the ample flesh so real on the page. Another painting,
Lady in her Bath
by Francois Clouet, was of a baby at a woman's breast. A woman stood in the background with what appeared to be a water pitcher. The body of the pitcher seemed like a full breast, glossy and moist, waiting to be grasped and tongued. In the hot afternoons, as he pored over the picture in a kind of rapture, he felt himself sucking his own tongue. His earliest memories were of his puckered lips glued to Mama's nipples, face squashed against her brown titties. That was where life began, where memory started. The cows in their restful poses with their full titties hanging, the nude women and Mama all said the same thing to him. Mama was a lovely brown cow with warm, smooth breasts. At night he had dreams of being cuddled in the grass by these maternal brown cows, his lips at their warm udders, satiated with pleasure.