The Day I Fell Off My Island Page 5

  The news of my mother’s plans didn’t upset me: I always knew that I had a mother – who was separate to my grandmother – and although my Grandma Melba was the midwife for all my three younger siblings, I had no memory whatsoever of my mother being present in my grandparents’ home. So I had no idea what she would even look like. Grandma Melba told me that when my mother finally left her job with the Dees, she took up an apprenticeship to develop her skills in dressmaking, something Mrs Dee had been teaching her. She said that, when my mother completed her apprenticeship, Mother and my uncle Lambert set up a small tailoring and dressmaking business in a two-storey Victorian house in Milverton, a town about fifteen miles from our village. My mother worked upstairs on an old Singer sewing machine, while Uncle Lambert worked downstairs in the front room. They were both good tailors and got plenty of orders from the district where they had their business.

  It was our mother’s cousin Petra who normally measured us up for new clothes, so Grandpa Sippa sent a message to her to let her know of Mother’s request.

  Grandma Melba made sure that we were all thoroughly scrub bed before parading us on the verandah to await Cousin Petra.

  Sure enough, Cousin Petra wasted no time getting to our house – knowing she would be paid a whole two shillings for her work. She was a little breathless on arrival and Grandma suggested she took a rest on the verandah. She immediately threw off her rubber slippers and cleaned her feet on the floor cloth, before walking purposefully across to a wooden bench in the corner. Grandma offered her a tall glass of freshly made lime drink. The silvery segments that gave the drink its sharp taste floated gently at the top.

  As Cousin Petra slowly sipped at her drink, appreciative noises seeped from her lips. She emptied the glass and let out a huge belch. ‘Tank you, Miss Melba, tank you kindly,’ she said. ‘Now, come, children, so mi can set fi work. Which a yuh mi fi measure first?’ She pulled absentmindedly at some small curled up hairs that were growing out of her pointy chin, then pulled down one of the tape measures that was hanging loosely around her shoulders. ‘Sonny, come, child, yuh look like yuh a dead fi pee-pee, so come let me measure yuh up first and put yuh outa yuh misery.’

  Sonny looked at Cousin Petra somewhat perplexed, not able to make the connection between wanting a pee and being measured for new clothes. Clifton and Patsy followed. I was last, as I was for most things, presumably because I was the oldest.

  Cousin Petra had some special paper, which she pinned on to the clothes we were wearing. Each time she took a measurement she drew lines on to smaller bits of paper and wrote numbers at different points along the lines. We’d had this done before, when Cousin Petra had measured us for new school uniforms and special church dresses, so we knew the routine. Standing very still was a must, and any attempt to touch the paper that was pinned to you would result in a sharp slap on the offending hand. Once she completed her measuring, Cousin Petra deftly unpinned and removed the paper from our clothing. Then she gathered up all her bits, stuck her pencil behind her right ear, folded her tape measures and pushed them into her apron pocket.

  ‘Bye, Miss Melba,’ she called out, as she turned on her heel and began walking away across the dirt yard. ‘Oh! An mine yuh pickney dem look after yuh grandmada now,’ she said, without a backward glance.

  Six weeks after our measurements were taken, Grandma Melba visited our mother for the day and returned with our new clothes. ‘Yuh kyan do de trial tomorrow,’ she said, removing from my head any idea that she was about to show us our new clothes.

  The following morning, Grandma sent Patricia and I to fetch two buckets of water from the old concrete water tank hidden from view behind a row of orange and pomegranate trees at the bottom of our back yard.

  ‘Cleanliness is next to godliness,’ Grandma said, ‘soh yuh children dem mus know seh new clothes dem have to go pon clean body.’

  The old water tank was deep and covered in a slimy green moss. On the water’s surface a myriad of weird small creatures leapt about as if giving some peculiar balletic performance. The buckets, when filled, weighed twice as much as Patricia and I did, and it took all our strength to haul the water up to the tank’s edge while the slippery threadbare sisal rope threatened to snap with every tug. We were always relieved not to be dragged down into the murky darkness under the weight of the full buckets. Our cousin Everton had not been so lucky. He had fallen into the parish tank two years earlier. When the village men finally pulled him out, his mother didn’t recognise him – his body bloated up to several times its normal size. The village men had to build a coffin big enough for a fully grown man to contain his eight-year-old body. Only a day earlier I had been in school with him and we’d ended the day playing cricket with the other village children. Everton’s mother didn’t speak for several weeks after his death, while her three other bewildered children gathered around her with defeated, tear-stained faces.

  Patricia and I returned with the water to find the boys pressed behind the back door of the house as if held there by glue. They both hated carbolic soap and water, and as the time approached for their scrub down they started wailing. Clifton first, then Sonny joined in the chorus, ‘Murder woe! Murder woe! Please, Grandma Melba, de soap wi go innah mi eyes. Murder woe!’

  They were making such a commotion I was sure they could be heard in the village across the gully.

  ‘Bwoy pickney, mi nuh waan fi call oonoo name twice!’ Grandma Melba warned sternly.

  Clifton and Sonny finally crept out from behind the door where they were trying to make themselves invisible.

  ‘Stop de bawling now an step innah de tub. Nuh tempt mi fi tek de switch to yuh scrawny back end dem.’ Grandma over-soaped the loofah and, brows furrowed, began scrubbing the boys with some force.

  ‘Murder woe! Murder woe! De soap deh innah mi eyes. Murder woe! Grandma Melba, mi eye dem a hot me!’

  Clifton had given up screaming and left it to Sonny to do his best. Grandma poured a bucket of cold water unceremoniously over them, tugged at their ears, which she wiped roughly, before ordering them to go and wait in the Hall.

  Patricia and I fetched fresh water and scrubbed ourselves, careful not to miss any part of our bodies, as we had to pass Grandma’s inspection. We dried off with what was left of an old sheet and pulled on our hand-made cotton panties, which Grandma had made from the same old sheet and were sized to last for at least another year. As we waited in the Hall for Grandma, I found myself thinking – as I had several times before – that there were no pictures of our mother in there, even though there was at least one framed photograph of all of Grandma and Grandpa’s other children, along with their husbands or wives. I once asked Grandma why there were no pictures of our mother and her reply was, ‘Cho, pickney gal, nuh bada yuhself wid big people business.’

  Now, following my gaze as she entered the Hall behind us, Grandma Melba said, ‘Dem seh a picture tell a tousand story.’ Then she directed us all to sit in a row on the bed in readiness for the fitting of our new clothes.

  Sonny was first to be helped into his beige-coloured khaki shirt and pants, while Grandma Melba palmed his newly shaved head and marvelled at Grandpa Sippa’s deftness with a cut-throat razor. Sonny’s entire outfit, including his socks and shoes, was too big for him, and he looked rather self-conscious in his new clothes. But Grandma simply declared, ‘Handsome!’ and grinned, flashing her ill-fitting false teeth. Conversely, Clifton’s matching suit was too small, and begged the question of how accurate Cousin Petra’s measurements had been. His long knock-kneed legs jutted from his too-short shorts and his shoes were at least one size too small. I watched quietly as he attempted to hide his discomfort to fit with Grandma Melba’s nodding approval. She could just swap their clothes around, I thought.

  ‘Tek de shoes dem off, pickney. Mi a go get fi yuh grandfada to fix dem up fi yuh.’

  The shoes were off before Grandma could finish her sentence. Clifton flexed his released toes and his face visibly relaxed.

&nb
sp; Next, Grandma brought out Patricia’s dress, which was made with a combination of soft-pink and pale-blue cottons. The body of the dress was pink and the blue was used for a delicate round collar. There were front pockets and a separate waistband, which gave the appearance of a belt, only with holes and buttons rather than a buckle. Sewn into the underside was a double set of petticoats, made of a fine but stiff pink crinoline mesh, which gave the dress a wonderful puffed out look.

  Our eyes were out on stalks. Neither of us had ever seen such a beautiful dress, and certainly no one else for miles around would have a dress like that.

  Patricia spun round and round, like a dog in search of its tail, in an effort to admire herself. The shoes, when Grandma produced them, made my mouth drop open. Patricia looked at them and went into a hysterical frenzy of laughter – earning her a chiding from Grandma of ‘Chile, stop yuh stupidness!’ The black shoes shone like the seeds in ackee pods. A bow in the shape of a small rose sat atop each one and a thin strap at the ankle held them on with gleaming silver buckles. Patricia was mesmerised by her outfit.

  ‘Please, please, God,’ I begged, ‘please let mi ave de same.’

  ‘A wa yuh seh, pickney? Wah mek yuh call de Lard’s name out in vain? A sinting wrong wit yuh? Duppy gwaan juk yuh or sinting?’

  Grandma allowed Patricia to strut around for a while and then, when she heard some voices approaching the house, she instructed her to walk out on to the verandah. Grandma plonked her tiny frame down on a cushioned chair as she listened to the eccentric middle-aged twins Miss Merle and Miss Blossom cooing their approval. Miss Blossom helped out Grandma Melba and Grandpa Sippa from time to with the washing and ironing, but sometimes Grandma Melba complained that ‘De dyam foolish ooman nuh know ow to mind fi har business. She always a poke poke bout.’

  ‘Patricia, a soh yuh look beautiful, like a princess fram foreign,’ said Miss Merle.

  ‘A true dat,’ echoed Miss Blossom.

  The women sounded like one person having a conversation with herself in a cave.

  ‘She pretty eeh, Miss Blossom.’

  ‘A true! She pretty so till, Miss Merle.’

  ‘She musa get dat frock fram foreign,’ they said in harmony.

  They tittered some more before shuffling off.

  Grandma Melba stood up and displayed the kind of triumph that might be expected had she created the dress herself. But the moment Miss Merle and Miss Blossom disappeared from view she told Patricia to return to the Hall. ‘Tek dem dere tings dem off, chile – quick quick! Before yuh spoil yuh mada handiwork.’

  Grandma Melba was clearly proud of our mother and, for a moment, I too felt a sense of pride for this mother that I didn’t know, but who had made us these beautiful new clothes, even if they were only for us to wear to say our goodbyes.

  I could hear the boom-boom of my heart as it came to my turn for trying on my new clothes. I soon discovered that my dress was just as beautiful as Patricia’s. It was made in the same style, but where the main body of her dress was pink with blue trim, mine was the opposite. I loved it! However, I could immediately see that the gorgeous patent leather shoes were at least one size too small for my fat feet. But come hell or high water I was going to make them fit. As I pushed my feet into the shoes, I felt my toes curl beneath me in protest. The tops of my feet puffed themselves up high above the pretty shoes. I winced again and again, without making a sound – my problem was the same as Clifton’s. After what seemed like an age, Grandma bent forward and squeezed at each foot in turn.

  ‘Mmm! Petra nuh measure any of dem right at all,’ she said, a hint of resigned frustration in her voice. ‘Mi a fi go see wah yuh grandfada can do. Mi nuh tink dis one a go easy fi fix though. Mi nuh tink dis shiny sinting gwaan budge dat easy at all.’

  Even as she spoke, I’d already made up my mind that whether or not Grandpa could fix my shoes, I was wearing them for my photographs. I even thought of wearing them to bed every night, in the hope that they might stretch as I slept. There was still another month to go before our mother’s arrival, time enough, I figured, for Grandpa to work his magic on both Clifton’s and my shoes.

  Chapter 7

  The month leading up to our mother’s visit passed slowly, but we children could talk of little else. We boasted of the visit to the other village children. We wondered what she’d look like, or which one of us would look the most like her. We spoke incessantly of the beautiful things she’d bring us. I dreamt of a white-skinned doll with glassy blue eyes and wavy brown hair, like the one my cousin Precious’s mother had sent her from England. The doll had proper clothes, including a tiny pair of plastic shoes. Patricia said that she wanted lots and lots of mint balls, and the boys agreed on a football like the one Uncle Lambert had brought back from America when he’d worked there picking oranges, before setting up his tailoring business. It was a red and white football, which we’d all spent many happy hours kicking and throwing, until a village boy named Denis sat on it and squashed out all the air. My brothers had shown the deflated ball to Uncle Lambert and asked him to fix it, but he told them he’d need a pump for that and no one in the village owned a pump – apart from the football there was nothing that needed pumping.

  The day of our mother’s arrival eventually came. She was due to arrive sometime in the afternoon at Preston, the small town nearest to our village through which the bus passed; once she got to Preston the rest of her journey would be completed on foot and donkey. It was a day full of excitement and strangeness at the same time. In my nearly eleven years, I couldn’t come up with a single memory of our mother, and neither could Patricia, and definitely not the boys.

  I woke early and watched as Grandpa saddled up Treasure Girl and Bugle Boy, who were, despite the latter’s name, both female donkeys. Two donkeys meant that our mother would definitely be coming loaded up with wonderful things for us! When he’d finished, Grandpa heaved himself into Treasure Girl’s saddle and grasped Bugle Boy’s extended rein. As the donkeys trotted off down the dew-covered path, I did a little dance of anticipation. My mother was coming. My mother!

  It wasn’t just me who was giddy with anticipation. It seemed as if the entire village had heard of our mother’s intended visit and, as the afternoon drew on, adults and children began to congregate on the edge of our yard like John Crows that had smelt carrion. The odd person would pass by, surprised at the gathering masses, and ask, ‘A wah a gwaan?’

  ‘Yuh nuh hear seh Miss Violet a come today?’ someone would respond from the crowd. I hoped that they’d all melt away in the same way they’d arrived. Whatever our mother was bringing was not going to be enough to share among almost the entire village.

  It was Treasure Girl who announced Mother’s imminent arrival with her braying, something she always did when she was near home.

  ‘Anybody wouda tink seh dat donkey is human,’ Grandma Melba muttered.

  The next thing I knew, Treasure Girl was standing in our yard with the person I presumed to be our mother sitting astride her. I searched her face for a memory, anything that would tell me I actually knew who she was, but nothing came. She climbed gingerly off the back of the donkey, helped by Grandpa. Although we recognised nothing about her face, she looked every inch the lady that we’d imagined. She was small in stature like my grandmother, but light brown in complexion. Again, like my grandmother, she had a mass of hair, an elongated neck, and a face sharply defined by the highest of cheekbones. Her dress was beautiful! A simple purple paisley-patterned dress that had sleeves to the elbow and which showed off her slim figure. Her bottom kicked out in exactly the same way as Grandma’s too. Pretty earrings dangled from her ears, set off by a matching necklace. Patricia and I just stood and stared at her.

  Then Patricia pointed at her and blurted out, ‘Look! Look at her shoes! I nevah in mi life see someting soh pretty!’

  I could see what she meant. Her shoes were made of white leather, soft-looking and toeless, with little cone heels also covered in white leather.
Her feet, unlike mine, appeared slim and dainty. I repeated out loud what I was thinking inside my head, ‘Our mother is a natural born princess!’

  ‘She’s not a princess,’ Patricia retorted. ‘Mi did see a princess in a book at school. She was white like Teacher Cavallo and she had yellow hair.’

  ‘Mi nuh care about your Teacher Cavallo,’ I shot back, ‘fi wi mada is a princess. She a black princess, because all princess who live here have to be black.’

  ‘Anyway,’ Patricia continued, ignoring my statement, ‘mi did tell Teacher Cavallo da when mi grow big, mi waan fi be a princess like de one in de book. She did tell me seh princess only live in faraway places, like Canada, de place where she come from.’

  Clifton and Sonny were standing to attention like miniature soldiers, even though Clifton’s peculiar knock-knees made him appear as if he was unable to stand straight. As our mother came towards us, our collective hearts could almost be heard hammering in our chests, along with the sound of rapid intakes of breath.

  She paused for a moment, then bent slightly forward and said, ‘Hello, my children.’ She talked in what Grandma always described – whenever folks spoke anything but our local dialect – as a ‘speaky-spokey’ voice, even though Grandma herself was not averse to a bit of speaky-spokey when she felt she had a strong point to make.

  Following her brief speaky-spokey greeting, Mother disappeared into the Hall, quickly followed by Grandma. The double wooden doors closed firmly behind them, leaving us with the feeling that our position was little different from that of the waiting neighbours. A month of excited waiting, rewarded with three words. A quarter of a sentence.