The Day I Fell Off My Island Read online

  Four months before my eleventh birthday, I was sitting with Patricia in a small pasture by our house. We were plaiting the supple green leaves of two grass plants, pretending they were dolls, when I felt as though I’d wet myself. I stood up and a trickle of blood escaped down one of my legs. I ran, weeping, to my grandma, certain I was about to face my worst fear: death.

  ‘Erna, yuh is fine, pretty gal,’ she said, and she showed me the practicalities of how to take care of myself, before adding, ‘Erna, yuh is woman now. Jus nuh come home with belly.’

  I was finally starting to understand.

  It was much later, though, that I learned of my own conception – long after leaving my island, and long after Grandma was no longer with us.

  The full story of how I came into this world was told to me by my Auntie Madge, when she considered that I was grown-up enough to hear it. Auntie Madge was the second oldest of my grandparents’ children and had been the first to leave for England, several years before my mother. Although my mother was a bright girl, her parents’ finances didn’t stretch beyond trying to educate their sons and their two oldest daughters. By the time she was twelve years old, school stopped for Miss Violet, and she spent most of her time after that at home, helping her parents to care for her four younger siblings.

  She was only thirteen when my grandfather personally delivered her to her first employers. They were a married couple named Mr and Mrs Dee who had three young children and who both worked as teachers in one of the well-known technical colleges on the other side of the island. With no close family of their own, they were in need of reliable help. Mrs Dee was also offering the right girl a chance to learn a trade in dressmaking. My grandparents had heard about the Dees’ search for a helper from a travelling tinker man.

  ‘Wi not happy to see yuh go soh young,’ my grandfather said to my mother, ‘but de way tings is it will mean wi ave one less mout to feed.’

  They told her that her work would be to look after Mr and Mrs Dee’s children, as well as help out with jobs around the house.

  ‘De same kind of tings yuh do here wit yuh brothers and sisters dem,’ my grandmother added, by way of reassurance.

  My mother had felt fearful and excited all at the same time. She liked the idea of earning her own money. She had four siblings younger than herself, for whom she had to take a lot of responsibility, and she felt that one less child to drag out of bed every morning, and force to have a wash and brush their teeth, followed by the nightmare of helping them to get dressed, seemed a much more manageable proposition. Yet she was worried – she had only ever left her village to walk the short distance to the school in the next village, where some girls were sent to learn the basics of reading and writing, or when she went to hunt for mangoes in Poros. As far as she was concerned, these other villages were just bolted on to her own, with the only difference being that one had a little school and the other a few more varieties of mango trees. She had really only known life in Little Hammon, with her parents, brothers and sisters, various aunts and uncles, and too many cousins to count. She had never seen a bus or a car, much less travelled in one, and now she was to be packed off across the island to work for strangers. My mother never found a way to ask her parents why it was that all of her brothers were either in school or had left the village to pursue further studies, while, apart from her second oldest sister, Madge, all her other sisters had left the village to go to work as domestic helpers. She knew that one of her big boy cousins had become a barrister (whatever a barrister was), because he went to school for a very long time and then attended all kinds of colleges in faraway places. He would sometimes return to the village for short visits, dressed in smart clothes and with lots of paper money in his pocket. Still, she had accepted that that was how things were and held on to her dream of one day having enough money to buy the material for a real fine church dress.

  There was a storm brewing on the day my mother and my grandfather set out to meet her employers. She sat on the rickety bus watching the trees as they sped by, humming quietly every church song she could remember and even reciting the odd psalm. Throughout the journey, she held tightly to the little notebook in which was written the exact place where the driver had to set them down, and where Mr and Mrs Dee would be waiting. After what seemed like an age, the bus driver called out, ‘Violet James! One stop!’ Violet jumped up, her heart pounding, grabbed the battered brown grip my grandmother had put her few things in, and climbed off the bus. Grandpa stepped off behind her. She immediately warmed to the kindly looking couple standing by the overgrown mango tree, their three children making busy around them. It didn’t feel to her like the family were strangers, and she felt that everything would be all right. Grandfather greeted the couple and spent a long time talking to them about her.

  ‘Mi daughta is a pickney gal who know what hard work mean. She hanest and mannerable. An she kyan cook good, yuh jus ave to encourage har wit de seasoning. She kyan wash, iron and clean good. An she ave a good way wit de younger pickney dem.’

  Formalities out of the way, Grandpa Sippa told the Dees, ‘Mi an har grandmada grateful yuh could tek Violet in. She is a helpful chile and wi sure yuh wi look after har good.’

  Mr Dee walked to the roadside where an old dusty black pickup was parked. He must be really rich to have a car, my mother thought.

  ‘Violet, you can climb into the back,’ he said. There didn’t seem to be enough room for everyone inside. ‘You will be comfortable there. The cushion and blanket will help with the bumps.’

  Mrs Dee bundled the three children into the back seat. Mr Dee was already in the cab revving up the engine, which took a little time to splutter into life, when Mrs Dee climbed in next to her husband. The vehicle made a few more spluttering noises and pulled off. My mother waved bravely to her father, who quickly disappeared from view.

  The drive to the family’s house took nearly an hour. My mother loved the drive, especially when Mr Dee started driving alongside the first river she had ever seen. She was intrigued by the way it meandered away from the road and then a few minutes later appeared again. The river had lots of white and grey stones, some large and some small, and the rapid flow of the water over the rocks fascinated her.

  ‘Is how de water so clean and pretty even doah it a run pon de ground?’ she wondered. When the car got close to the river, she could hear the swishing noise it made, even over the noise of the pickup engine. She wanted more than anything for Mr Dee to stop, even for a moment – to let her put her bare feet into the glistening water.

  Life with the Dees was a lot easier for my mother than life back in the village. It took her no time at all to settle into her new family. Mr and Mrs Dee treated her well, almost as if she was their eldest child. She certainly had the normal duties of an eldest child. She ate with the family and had her own tiny room next to the children’s. She liked that Benjamin, Lucas and Juanita all had good manners; the boys were good at getting things done for themselves, so Juanita was the only one who needed her help, as she always managed to put on most of her clothing back to front, and even her shoes often got put on the wrong feet. The Dees drove the boys to their school, which was right next to the technical college where they both taught. One of Violet’s jobs was to walk Juanita to the local village school. She loved skipping along each morning with this pretty, talkative girl. The Dees had their own water tank, so my mother didn’t have to fetch water, and they had a lovely big iron stove. Once a week, the wood was brought to the house by the Dees’ yard boy, who chopped it into the neat pieces needed for the iron stove. Violet did the cooking on weekdays, following all of Mrs Dee’s instructions. On weekends, Mrs Dee would take over the majority of the household tasks, leaving my mother free to play and have fun with the children. Sometimes on Saturdays, the Dees would take her into town to help with the shopping, and at other times she remained at home with the children. Every Sunday, without fail, she attended church with the family. Mother loved going to church as it gave her t
he opportunity to wear the two new church dresses she had assisted Mrs Dee in making – delighted to have fulfilled her promise to herself of spending her first earnings on materials for new church clothes. All in all, Violet loved her life with the Dees, and everything seemed set to continue happily like this without interruption.

  When she was suddenly returned to my grandparents, heavily pregnant and without a husband, they had wondered whether Mr Dee had taken advantage of their daughter. Violet had, however, protested her employer’s innocence and confided in Auntie Madge that on her way to run errands, a gentleman who rode a horse and carried a shotgun had waylaid her. On a previous occasion when this happened, she’d managed to run to safety, but this time the man had appeared directly in her path and threatened her with his gun. He used his horse and the butt of his shotgun to direct her off the path, pushing her deeper and deeper into the dense cane field that lined both sides of the path. Then he dismounted his horse and pointed his gun at her, ordering her to remove her old brown work dress, followed by her under slip and, finally, her panties. Horrified at her nakedness in front of the stranger, my mother attempted to cover her prominent breasts with one hand and her private parts with the other. The man grinned at her, the veins on his forehead swollen and protruding, before hurriedly removing his trousers and undergarments. She let out a stifled scream at the sight of the stranger’s fully erect manhood. Closing her eyes tightly, she waited for whatever was to be her fate.

  The next thing she knew, she was being held firmly by the wrists on the ground, the sharp leaves of broken sugar cane plants cutting into her back and the force of the stranger’s manhood inside her, seemingly ripping her apart. The last thing she remembered was the heavy stench of tobacco from his breath as he heaved himself up and down on top of her. When she opened her eyes, the man, his horse and gun were nowhere to be seen. Her legs were splayed apart and the tops of her thighs covered in a thick white mucus.

  Looking around for her clothes, she saw they were close by and pulled herself up slowly, but immediately began vomiting as though she had been poisoned. She allowed her stomach to empty itself of its contents before gathering her clothing. Then she hauled on her dress, tucked her underslip and panties into her pocket and ran as fast as her legs could carry her to the nearby river. On reaching it, Violet leapt headlong into the cold, slow-moving water, even though she couldn’t swim. Fortunately, the river was shallow and she emerged distraught and still feeling dirty, despite scrubbing her entire body until the more sensitive parts were red raw.

  When her monthly failed to arrive, Violet knew she was with child. In her tiny room, she silently wept a whole years’ worth of tears. She had little idea what she could or should do. Her only hope, she concluded, when she felt as though she had run out of tears, was to pay a visit to the ‘Obeah man’. Every village had one, and it was said he could use magic to make anything happen. Fortunately, my mother knew exactly where the Obeah man lived. His was the little thatched cottage at the very end of the village that children ran past in terror, fearful that he would catch them and work his Obeah on them. Rotted fruit covered the area around his cottage as no one dared to steal from the Obeah man’s trees.

  The Obeah man was not at all what my mother expected. He was smartly dresed and looked no more than forty years old. With his fine, long fingers, he appeared more suited to being a teacher than some kind of strange healer. But since she had never met an Obeah man before, she had no idea how he should look. She was just grateful to have found him.

  Violet didn’t have to explain her predicament; the Obeah man was familiar with the plight of the many young girls who came to him – it would either be that another woman had stolen their man, or they had a belly that they did not want.

  ‘Man, or belly?’ was his only question. His job was to get the man back or get rid of the belly.

  Violet was pleased with his directness – she hadn’t wanted to talk about the circumstances of her belly with a stranger whose job was really the ‘devil’s work’ – according to Grandma Melba – and something for which they would probably both be ultimately punished.

  ‘Belly,’ she responded.

  The Obeah man gave Violet a medium-sized bag of assorted leaves, some of which she recognised: soursop, lemon grass, the dreaded cerasee vine, along with a few pieces of bark and some twigs from the sapodilla tree and some red sorrel – which she was sure had only been added for its colour, and perhaps to stop her from panicking over the concoction that would emerge once brewed. The Obeah man advised her to boil everything together in one large pot, then to leave it for three days, after which she should strain the liquid off and drink a full mug of the potion once daily for a week. He assured her that by the end of the week everything would be cleared from her body, while warning in the same breath: ‘Still mi kyaan promise de medicines will work fa every woman. If its fiyuh destiny to give birth, even wit all my powers, I kyaan prevent destiny!’

  Violet handed over an entire week’s wages of two and a half shillings and hurriedly left the cottage, taking care not to be seen.

  My mother’s attempts to ingest the vile liquid each morning were accompanied by the most violent retching. It took all her will power to force the nasty-tasting drink to remain inside her, but she knew that her body needed to recognise the presence of the medicine if it was to do its job. In the evenings, after settling the children, she would sneak out the back door into the nearby woods, where she allowed her body to get rid of the bile that had built up inside her. Unfortunately, three months later, her childishly flat stomach now had a distinct roundness. My mother was not feeling her destiny.

  It didn’t take Mrs Dee long to see the obvious. She had got to know the church-loving young girl over the year she was with them, and instinctively knew that there would have been nothing consensual to explain the position she was in. She spoke briefly with Violet and assured her that when her pregnancy advanced they would send her home to have her baby, but they were willing to take her back into their employment, since she had proved herself a trusted and hard-working young woman. Mrs Dee was a kind, empathetic and God-fearing woman. She ensured that Violet never had to explain her predicament to anyone. She assisted her in whatever way she could, with clothing, a good diet, sufficient rest and, as my mother’s time drew near, the Dees made sure that she got safely back to her parents.

  Back at her family home, her mother told her simply, ‘De baby wi come, Violet. Yuh nuh ave choice innah it now, chile. Yuh baby wi come safe, de Lord willing.’

  My mother had experienced her baby kicking at her stomach many times, but on the particular Sunday morning of my birth, she woke to the most violent pains she had ever experienced. The stranger ripping her apart with his enormous pengie was bad enough, but this pain was on another level. She just wanted to close her eyes and never wake up again, but she couldn’t and the pain just kept coming. She felt a need to scream as loudly as she could. Somehow, it felt that opening her mouth and just bawling ‘Murder woe! Murder woe!’ would help. But it was early and it was a Sunday and my mother couldn’t bring herself to let all the villagers hear her carry on. She crawled on her hands and knees to her parents’ room and frantically called out her mother’s name, ‘Miss Melba, Miss Melba, mi tink mi time come!’

  Grandma Melba never went to her bed before preparing the fireplace in her lean-to kitchen that was situated alongside the main house, where she would balance her large cast iron pot full of water on three large stones. Realising that her daughter’s time had come, Grandma sprang into action. She lit the fire under the pot and left it to boil while she got together the various items she needed to help her daughter birth her baby. Grandpa Sippa took his day clothes and left the room.

  Grandma Melba spread a couple of old sheets on the floor close to her iron four-poster bed, then woke my Auntie Madge, telling her to fetch her Aunt Eula from her nearby house. The two women helped my mother out of her clothing and washed her body down with carbolic soap. When it seeme
d for a moment that she was about to succumb to the pain and pass clear out, Aunt Eula popped a little bit of smelling salt under Violet’s nose. They placed her in a squatting position on the old sheet with Aunt Eula kneeling behind her, clasping her shoulders firmly. As the surges of pain became more rapid and ever more violent, Grandma Melba positioned herself in front of her daughter, gently massaging her stomach with castor oil and reassuring her that her baby was on the way.

  My mother felt no sense of elation at my birth, only relief that I was no longer in her belly and that the pain had stopped. She didn’t feel in any way maternal towards me, her new baby. She was fine with children, other people’s children, the ones who could walk and talk and go to school, like her younger brothers and the Dees’ children, but not with me. And so, within a few days of my birth, she left me in the care of my grandparents and returned to her employers.

  It was strange to reflect, many years later when Auntie Madge told me this story, that maybe her lack of maternal feelings had been passed on to me.

  Chapter 6

  One night, after Grandpa Sippa had finished telling us a long-winded duppy and Anancy story and the other village children had left, he told us that he had something important to say to us. ‘Mi an yuh grandmada get news from yuh mada,’ he said, looking at each of us in turn. ‘She seh har papers come trough fi har fi travel to Hinglan. She want Petra to measure yuh up fi new clothes because she want fi tek picture wit all a yuh before she leave fa Hinglan.’