Black Heart of Jamaica

  ‘Come now, it can’t be that bad,’ said Georgie gently, stroking my arm.

  ‘Can’t it?’ I had not told her about my last visit to see Pedro.

  ‘Whatever did you argue about?’

  ‘Me owning a slave.’

  Jenny put her darning aside. ‘Me get you into trouble, missis?’

  ‘It’s not your fault, Jenny. Pedro blamed me for getting myself into this ridiculous position. As if I didn’t feel bad enough already,’ I added in a mutter that turned into a sob. Pedro was my family – my only family really – and now he was gone.

  Jenny gave me a pitying look. ‘Where he go?’

  ‘Your guess is as good as mine. He has no friends here that I know of, little money, and no firm plans.’ I scrubbed my wet cheeks, furious at my display of weakness, determined to get a grip on myself. ‘The only person I’ve heard him mention is his old master, Mr Hawkins, and he’ll want to steer clear of him. He might be trying to head back to Philadelphia or London, but I can’t think why he wouldn’t let me know.’ I kept quiet about my fears that he would be trying to reach San Domingo – I’d been here long enough to realize that the Jamaican authorities would have no mercy if they caught him doing that.

  Jenny nodded, pondering the possibilities silently. She looked at my face for a long moment, biting her bottom lip, weighing up a big decision. ‘If he here, me can ask de brotherhood.’

  Georgie sat up with a start, her expression one of shock. ‘You know how to contact them?’

  Jim gave a low whistle and went to the window, leaning against the frame with his hat tipped back on his head.

  ‘Who or what are the brotherhood?’ I asked, confused.

  Snipping off a length of wool, Jenny threaded her needle, not looking at us.

  ‘I’m sorry, but can someone explain?’

  Georgie glanced at Jenny. ‘Cat, as you’ve probably realized, there are two separate worlds in Jamaica – planters and slaves. I’ve always heard that the blacks have their own channels to pass news and messages. If Pedro’s joined his own people, Jenny’s friends will be the ones to ask.’

  Jenny continued stitching. ‘We go see tatta tomorrow and ask him.’

  Georgie passed her the ball of wool that had fallen to the floor. ‘We really appreciate you helping us, Jenny. I know it’s a risk for you but you can rely on us to keep it secret.’

  I didn’t like the feeling of being completely at sea in another culture. Something was happening here that I did not understand and I did not want Jenny putting herself in danger. I was responsible for her after all. ‘You must tell me, why is it a secret? Why is it dangerous?’

  ‘Buckra try and stop us if dey know about de brotherhood,’ explained Jenny calmly.

  Georgie continued, ‘The planters feel threatened by their slaves, particularly any sign that they are organizing themselves. You have to remember, Cat, the buckras are outnumbered ten to one and would love to crush anything not under their control.’

  Jenny snapped off the thread and handed me my mended stockings. ‘White men be de skin of dis island, but we be de heart. Dey rip it out if dey could.’

  ‘We all promise not to tell a soul,’ I vowed. Georgie and Jim echoed my words.

  ‘Den we go see tatta.’ Jenny gave me a conspiratorial smile.

  After the depressing confusion surrounding Pedro’s whereabouts, Jenny had provided a chink of light. And if I was not mistaken, my slave had just taken control. She wasn’t as subservient as she liked me to think – a good thing too as I had vowed that she would soon be free, Billy Shepherd or no Billy Shepherd.

  The following day was Sunday. With a cloudless sky and scant breeze, it looked set to be scorching hot. Sharing the front seat of the hired cart with Georgie and Jim, I took refuge under my friend’s parasol, uncomfortably aware of the perspiration between my shoulder blades. What would I give for a good old London fog! I mused longingly. Behind us, Jenny sat on a picnic basket in the back; she seemed not to mind the rattling ride, but hummed softly to herself.

  Moses was not working in the garden when we arrived at the plantation. Jenny dipped into her old home and came back out at once.

  ‘De hoe’s gone. Tatta must be at de polinck up in de hills. It be where he go to grow tings for us.’

  ‘How far?’ Jim asked, wiping his brow.

  ‘Five, six miles.’ Jenny nodded to the distant line of the Blue Mountains shimmering in the heat haze.

  ‘Hop in then.’ Jim whistled to the horse and our little cavalcade set off down the rutted track.

  As we jolted along the road, Jenny began to hum again under her breath, muttering a melodious stream of nonsense that sounded like ‘ying de ying de ying’. After a few runs through, the tune was well-rooted in my mind and I joined in with a harmony. Jenny gave me a glance filled with delight at my hitherto hidden musical ability and she started clapping the rhythm. I took up the challenge, drumming on my knees in syncopation. Then, of course, Georgie and Jim could not resist adding their alto and tenor parts. The song got wilder and more inventive as we developed on the main theme. Jenny grabbed my furled parasol and thumped it on the floor of the cart, making a hollow noise like a big drum. Georgie took out her coin-filled purse and jingled it in time. I grabbed two half coconut cups from our picnic and clip-clopped them together.

  ‘I wish I had my flute,’ called Jim, though he was too busy with reins and whip to add to our orchestra.

  Our little concert party lasted all the way up the winding track. On several occasions we passed men and women walking towards their polincks, tools on their shoulders. They turned in amazement as they heard us coming, greeting Jenny with laughter and some even joining in for the brief time they stayed in earshot. It hadn’t escaped me that, though Sunday was supposedly a day of rest, these slaves were still hard at work on the land. From their broad smiles, however, I guessed that labouring to feed themselves was a welcome change from sweating all week for no reward in another man’s field.

  The landscape closed in as we climbed higher. Trees crowded the track, many bearing broad green leaves sheltering clumps of the fruit that, thanks to Billy, I now knew to be called bananas. Birds whistled in the bushes, skimming across the clearing with a flash of colourful plumage. Huge butterflies, some as big as dinner plates, fluttered from flower to flower, appearing far too large to my English eyes. Bright blue, rose red, sulphur yellow: they looked like trimmings from all the silk ball gowns I’d seen in Bath, now dancing a cotillion in the shafts of sunlight slanting through the tree canopy. The air was laden with the scent of damp vegetation and rich soil, deliciously cool after the heat of the valley.

  We reached Moses’ polinck. Jenny told us to stay in the cart and, following a well-trodden footpath, she disappeared into the bush. Georgie, Jim and I sat in silence, no longer wanting to sing without our leader. Jim took out one of those segars I’d seen smoked by local men.

  ‘Ladies?’ he asked in a gentlemanlike fashion.

  ‘Go ahead. I don’t mind,’ I said.

  Georgie gave him a nod.

  Striking a spark from his tinderbox, he leant back and relaxed, blowing plumes of grey-blue smoke into the air.

  I passed the time studying the scenery, distracted by a buzzing that I could not locate. Finally I spotted a little swallow-tailed hummingbird bobbing by the gaudy pink blossoms of a bush, sipping the nectar as bees do at home.

  Angry voices interrupted our peaceful idyll. Jenny stamped back to the cart, followed by Moses, his face taut with rage. He was flailing his arms and shouting in his own language.

  He turned to Jim. ‘Whatever dat fool gal say it all lies. Me not know noting about de brotherhood.’

  Jim sat up and glanced at Jenny’s furious face. ‘Sure you don’t,’ he said mildly, picking up the reins.

  But I wasn’t coming all this way to give up so easily, not with Pedro in peril. Jumping down off the cart, I confronted Moses.

  ‘Don’t be angry with Jenny, Mr Moses. She’s only tr
ying to help.’

  Moses was struggling to contain his temper. I’m sure he would’ve liked to be rude, but years of training compelled him to be polite to a white girl. ‘Me not angry,’ he ground out through gritted teeth.

  ‘In that case, you are a better actor than I am. You’re doing a very good impression of a man in a fury and I wouldn’t want you to take it out on Jenny when it’s all my fault.’

  ‘Not your fault, Missis Cat,’ Jenny broke in, hands on hips. ‘It be my idea to come see dis pig-headed old man.’ She glared at her father.

  ‘Dat buckra gal been noting but trouble since we first met her,’ Moses grumbled under his breath, turning his back.

  I tapped him on the shoulder. ‘I freely admit it. But the kind of trouble I cause is child’s play compared to what’s facing my friend Pedro for going on the run. I told you about him – the violinist, remember? He’s got enemies here. If he gets caught, he’ll be punished – maybe even killed. I can’t sit by and let that happen. Can you live with that on your conscience? I know I can’t.’

  Moses backed away, holding up his hands as if to ward me off. ‘Oh no, missy. Don’t you go blaming Moses for your friend’s foolishness.’

  I stared him down. If blackmailing his better nature was the only way to get his help, I was prepared to do it. Pedro was worth it.

  ‘Oh Lord!’ Moses cast his eyes heavenwards, his resistance crumbling. He sighed. ‘What you want to know?’

  ‘If he is here in Jamaica. And if not, where he went.’

  He rubbed his hands over the crown of his head. ‘Just dat?’

  ‘Yes. I’m not asking anyone to run risks for him. I’ll look after him when I find him.’ I’d already planned to humble myself if necessary and beg Captain Bonaventure to smuggle him to safety.

  Moses paused, considering my request. ‘You really be friend to black boy?’

  ‘He’s my brother – we adopted each other.’ I held his eye, willing him to see the truth.

  Moses sighed, his mind finally made up. ‘Come with me den, missy.’

  I gave Georgie and Jim a triumphant look.

  ‘Me bring her back to my house tonight,’ Moses explained to my friends. ‘Jenny, look after dem.’

  Jenny grinned and jumped up on to the cart. She threw me down my bonnet and a satchel containing a flask of water and some food. ‘Now you take care of my missis, Tatta,’ she instructed her father.

  He gave a curt nod and started off into the bush. Anxious not to lose him, I tripped off in his wake, wondering what on earth I’d let myself in for.

  ‘See you later,’ I called over my shoulder.

  ‘Bye, Missis Cat.’ Jenny waved farewell until hidden by the trees.

  Swallowed up by the forest, I stumbled after Moses as he made his way relentlessly uphill. Having once lived with Creek Indians, I was not as nervous of my surroundings as I would have been only a year ago. With them I had learned to read signs in the wild, even the basics of tracking. If I lost Moses, I was fairly confident that I could navigate my way back to the road. What worried me most was his silence. I had backed him into a corner where he felt obliged to help, and now he was probably having second thoughts. I decided it would be wise to try and make him understand more about what was at stake.

  ‘You’d like Pedro, Moses. He’s very special,’ I began, ‘a gifted musician. I’m not lying when I say he’s like a brother to me.’

  ‘Buckra don’t have black-skinned brothers.’ Moses cut at a low-hanging branch with a machete.

  ‘Maybe the buckra here don’t, but it’s different where I come from. We’re both as good as orphans and so we’re the only family we have.’

  Moses grunted sceptically.

  ‘The first time I met him, he saved my life. I was hanging upside down from a balloon and he climbed up to rescue me when no one else dared.’

  Swish! A vine fell to the ground, severed by Moses’ sharp blade.

  ‘And together we persuaded Mr Hawkins to grant him his freedom eighteen months ago.’

  ‘Ha! Now me knows you lying, missy. Massa Hawkins give no one freedom!’

  ‘Not true. He does when he has no choice. It was either that or be transported to Australia to join the penal colony.’

  Moses stopped and turned to face me. ‘What’s dat you say?’

  I smiled. These were very fond memories. ‘It is a rather amusing story. Do you want me to tell you it in full?’

  Moses waited for me to draw level and we walked the rest of the way side by side as I recounted the adventures in London that had resulted in Pedro’s manumission.

  Moses whistled low when I reached the end. ‘Massa Hawkins keep dat very quiet. He not want his slaves to know dat two young’uns bested him.’

  ‘But we did, Moses! So you can see another reason why I don’t want Pedro to throw it all away.’

  I felt Moses’ warm hand rest on my shoulder for a moment.

  ‘You are a good gal, Missy Royal. One of us at heart.’

  I gave a little curtsey. ‘I take that as the highest compliment, Mr Moses.’

  Twilight had begun to eat up the forest, reducing my vision to only a few yards in all directions, but still Moses strode on. The air was very cool. I shivered in my thin cotton dress put on in anticipation of a valley excursion, not a mountain ascent. Tree ferns had taken over from banana plantations. Up this high, the forest grew in stunted, twisted form, trunks shrouded in moss. There was a ghostly silence to the place. I felt as if we’d left normal life down in the lowlands and passed into a world where the rules of the planter society no longer applied.

  ‘Is it much further?’ I asked.

  Moses shook his head and pointed to a wooden cabin situated at the head of a little gorge. A light twinkled in the window. ‘Home of Obeah man.’

  ‘Obeah man?’

  ‘Our wise man. He call on de spirits for us.’

  I nodded my head in understanding. The Creek Indians also had their wise leaders, intercessors between the tribe and the ancestors. ‘So he’s a kind of priest?’

  ‘You can say dat,’ Moses conceded, though he seemed to think the term inadequate.

  As we approached the hut, I saw that we were not the only visitors that evening. Already seated around the door were a score of black men and women, chatting in a relaxed mood; one couple played an intriguing-looking game with stones on a wooden board.

  Moses did not seem pleased to find we were not the only ones there for an audience with the Obeah man. He motioned me to fall back. ‘Stay. Me go tell why you are here.’

  All too ready to obey his instruction, I lurked in the shadows. During the afternoon I had felt not a moment’s concern being on my own with Moses, but now I wondered anxiously what these folk would make of a buckra infiltrating their private world. I had no right to be here.

  My guide disappeared into the hut. I shrank further back into the darkness. Insects whined in my ear and the squeak of the night crickets filled the forest with an incessant noise. I closed my eyes for a moment, seeking a way to control the fear uncoiling in the pit of my stomach. By slowing my breathing, I willed myself to disappear into my surroundings like my Indian friends used to do just prior to the hunt.

  I obviously hadn’t spent long enough with the Creeks to learn the skill properly, for a woman’s cry rent the air. ‘A duppy!’

  My eyes flicked open and I saw a plump lady turn tail and run back towards the hut. Looking for a private spot to relieve herself, she had instead stumbled upon a pale shape under the trees. I stayed still, hoping that either the others would be too scared to investigate or Moses would return. But that was not to be.

  ‘Where?’ asked a tall haystack of a man, grabbing the woman and giving her a shake.

  Still too panicked to speak clearly, she pointed a trembling finger right at me.

  Five men left the doorway and advanced towards my position. One picked up a stick and held it in front of him like a sword.

  This was not looking good.
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  ‘What you want from us, duppy?’ shouted the haystack man.

  Unclear exactly what a duppy was, I could not be sure if their fear would keep them from harming me long enough to allow time to explain. Not wishing to test them, I decided to retreat and took a few steps further into the undergrowth.

  ‘Duppy, tell us why you no sleep. We help and you no haunt us,’ the man continued. So the duppy was some kind of unquiet spirit. He evidently thought it possible to strike a bargain with a ghost – an intriguing idea and one that seemed to promise me a degree of safety.

  I remained quiet, trying to look as ethereal as possible, knowing the game was up if I spoke. But I was so intent on keeping my eye on the stick-wielding leader that I had not noticed the boy circling round behind me. Suddenly, an arm appeared out of the darkness, trapping me around the throat.

  ‘It no duppy!’ the boy cried exultantly, laughing at the shocked faces of his elders. ‘It be a buckra gal!’

  I struggled against the throttling pressure on my throat but he had muscles of steel. Pushing me forward, we staggered into plain view of our little audience.

  ‘Let go, boy!’ hissed the leader. ‘You must be mad touching white gal!’

  The boy laughed again. ‘She’s alone. Me tink no one know you here to spy on us. Is dat right?’

  I shook my head, meaning to deny the charge of spying, but he took it to mean that I was on my own.

  ‘Best kill her quick so she carry no tales.’ The boy increased his hold on my neck. I was going to black out if I didn’t take action. Kicking him in the shins to make him relax his grip, I swivelled round and administered Syd’s emergency manoeuvre. The boy doubled over with a howl as I sprang clear, grasping my throat as I gulped air.