GINGER LILY
By
MARGARET KNIGHT
Published by Sheraton Media Partnership at Smashwords
Copyright Margaret Knight 2004
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
‘Ginger Lily’ is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely co-incidental.
Cover illustration by H Ann Dodson
Cover design adapted by Michel Goodman from an original by Gary Fielder
Smashwords edition published by
Sheraton Media Partnership
54 Sheraton Park, Christ Church ,Barbados
Dedicated to my four children
Charles, Paul, Liz and David (1961-2010)
Special thanks to Frank DaSilva who gave me tremendous encouragement to write this book
CHAPTER ONE
School in England was over, after five years. I had four credits, or what were later called ‘O’ levels, and one pass, with which I had to be satisfied.
Now it was back to the Caribbean. If I had not passed the pesky Cambridge School Certificate, it would have meant another year at school. Another year in England, no problem. Another year at school? A problem.
I was born on the beautiful island of Barbados. I got sent to a boarding-school in England for many reasons, which shall be made clear as time progresses.
So, here we were – my mother Ellen, my sister Gwennie and I – on our last lap through the streets of London – dear London of 1949 – in a Rickards station wagon, on our way to some obscure place called Shell Haven. Which is where we would join a Shell tanker – in fact, not just any old Shell tanker, but the flagship of the fleet. The mater, whom I shall refer to as Ellen from here on in, was unable to fix us up with a passage on an ordinary passenger liner, for everyone seemed to be travelling to the Caribbean. So some strings were pulled by my uncle in Barbados – who had some clout in the Shell Oil Company – and we were allotted state rooms on this flagship. Us ordinary personages, travelling in state rooms yet!
If you had been able to gaze out of the Rickards station wagon window with me, you would have seen all the sights that have so endeared London to my heart – Marble Arch, Leicester Square and the Moo Cow Milk Bar, the Strand, Fleet Street, St. Paul’s Cathedral and the London bobby on traffic duty, to whom I blew a farewell kiss.
London – a safe haven where you could stroll nonchalantly up and down Oxford Street, Piccadilly, Park Lane and right through Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens without fear of molestation. Muggings were almost unheard of in the 1940s and ‘50s.
When Gwennie and I left school in Bournemouth in July 1949, we joined Ellen at a small hotel in Queensway, where we stayed for two months, until we boarded the Rickards station wagon to take us over to Shell Haven in Essex.
We arrived at Shell Haven and there was the tanker, rising and sinking slowly with the Thames tide, tied up to bollards on the dock. A long ship, she was, all newly painted, the late September afternoon sun shining on the large orange and red shell painted on her funnel. There was an oily, dockside sort of pong in the air. Not very pleasant.
The captain greeted us and showed us to our state rooms. Gwennie and I would share one and Ellen would be one deck above, next door to the Captain and his wife, who had joined him for this trip. No other passengers.
Gwennie remained in the cabin while I went back on deck to say a final farewell to dear old England. A sad moment for me. School wasn’t all that bad, once you got past the first two nightmare terms. I settled in and made friends, but I don’t think Gwennie ever did. She hated England and everything about it. She and I did not always get along that well. She claimed I was a rebel; I was wicked; I was deviant. A tomboy. Everything bad. Which was probably quite true. She was quiet and shy. My father, Wilfred, adored her.
Ellen? Well, bless her, she tried to keep an even balance between the two of us. It was difficult to determine who was her pet – if she had one.
“Sam?” The voice startled me. I was engrossed in watching the dock workers scurrying to and fro, preparing to cast off the good ship Shell Queen, with all the accompanying shouts and bangs and other loud dock noises.
It was Ellen. She put a comforting arm around my shoulders and said, “I know you’re sad to leave England, but I have a feeling you’ll be back some day.” Small comfort. The tears welled up then and flowed freely. They washed London’s grime from my cheeks and lips, and I could taste the salt.
The ship lurched, and a gap appeared between her and the dock. All kinds of ropes sprang into life along the bows and stern; there was more shouting and plenty of action. A patch of Thames water was separating me from England.
Ellen stayed with me for a while and then she went to check on Gwennie in the cabin. Gwennie was no doubt unpacking her make-up to wear to dinner that evening at the Captain’s table, and sorting out her fancy dresses.
My thoughts were rudely interrupted by Gwennie. She bounced onto the deck from the open bulkhead doorway, sidled up to the rail, waved a hand in a general direction and said, “Goodbye England, and good riddance!” She whirled away and I shouted at her, “You’ll miss the white cliffs of Dover.” But she had already disappeared into the bowels of the ship.
What Gwennie hated most about England was the climate. She was even cold in the summer! She had also been unhappy at school, but that wasn’t England’s fault.
The good old English summer sun was still very much alive when we passed the white cliffs of Dover. I gazed at them and cried some more and sang the song, White Cliffs of Dover, made so popular by Vera Lynn.
I stayed on deck for quite a while, watching England fade away, and indeed until the sun began to set in the west, where I could see the outline of clouds on the horizon. They looked like vivid pink islands, and I thought of the little, duck-inhabited islands in the middle of the Serpentine in Hyde Park, to which I often used to row in a hired skiff.
Goodbye, dear England.
Down in the cabin, Gwennie was fussing around at the dressing-table mirror fixing her hair and finishing off the last touches to her make-up. Sometimes I wished I could be like her –- petite and very feminine, with long black curly hair and an inbuilt flair for smart dressing which she certainly had not inherited from Ellen. I once heard Gwennie remark, “Mum, you look like a frump in that ghastly dress.” So perhaps she inherited it from our paternal grandmother, who had died while I was an infant and was never discussed.
“Dinner is at six thirty,” Gwennie announced. “The Captain came to visit and see if everything was okay, and he said that dinner is served at six thirty sharp, so you’d better get a move on and get dressed.”
“I don’t know what to wear.”
Gwennie opened my suitcase, which Ellen had helped me pack back at the hotel. It contained a motley collection of grey school shorts, Aertex shirts, black gym shoes, white tennis shoes, socks and hundreds of other miscellaneous items. No dressy dresses. Just a standard school cotton print, Dickens & Jones, which was worn on evenings in the summer.
“Where’s that lovely pink dress with the black lace that Mum bought for you at C & A., which she said would be ideal to wear at dinner on board?”
“In the trunk. In the hold.”
“What? I don’t believe it!”
Just then, Ellen entered the cabin. “Is this what you’re looking for?” She fluttered the pink and black dress in her hands. She had a wicked smile on her face when she looked at me and said, “I saw you put that in the trunk, so I took it out and put it in my suitcase. Sam, you really are the limit. What did you intend to wear to dinner?”
“What’s wrong with this skirt and a clean Aertex shirt?”
Gwennie and Ellen exchanged looks and sighs.
Dinner was in the small dining saloon. There was a long table at which sat the Captain, his wife and about four officers. I liked the Captain. He had a jolly face with greying hair and bushy eyebrows and twinkling blue eyes. He and his wife were Dutch but they both spoke English fluently.
Captain and officers all rose from their seats when Ellen, Gwennie and I joined them at the table, and a dashingly handsome steward whose nickname was Tiger, I discovered, pulled out our chairs.
The food? I’d never seen anything like it. Scrumptious. You spend five years in an English boarding-school, you get used to kippers for breakfast, bully beef, spuds, sloshy cabbage and foul-tasting brussel sprouts for lunch, and mushy rhubarb for dessert. So imagine Gwennie and I going to town on the Scandinavian hors d’oeuvres, followed by soup, then roast beef, baby potatoes, green vegetables and a side salad. Heaven!
At first there was no sign of sea-sickness. The English Channel was calm. They all said, “Wait until we reach the Bay of Biscay.” Yes, we knew from past experience!
There was this officer who kept eyeing Gwennie, and she kept flickering her eyelashes at him. Occasionally the corners of their mouths twitched in a shy smile. I think the Captain had observed these coy but come-hither exchanges, because I saw him exchange a rather knowing smile with his wife.
Ellen appeared not to notice anything because she was busy chatting with the Captain’s wife. When Ellen started chatting she sometimes found it difficult to find a cut-off point, especially if Wilfred wasn’t around.
“And vhat vill your two lovely daughters do now that they are finished school, Mrs. Kinley?” asked the Captain’s wife.
Ellen smiled proudly at Gwennie. “Well, Gwennie has just completed a secretarial course at St James’s Secretarial College in London and I think she’s rather keen to work in a bank. They pay well, you know.” Then she glanced at me. She looked embarrassed. “Samantha has not quite decided what she wants to do. She was very keen to join the WRNS, but Wilfred, my husband, was not agreeable.”
That was true enough. Wilfred and Ellen had visited Bournemouth a few times and taken Gwennie and me out for weekend sprees.
The inevitable question always arose. What did I wish to do when I left school? All kinds of hair-brained schemes entered my head, but my main ambition was to join the Women’s Royal Naval Service. “Absolutely and definitely not,” Wilfred had insisted, though God only knew why. What was wrong with being a WREN?
“But Dad, that is what I would like to do. Is this my life, or is this my life?”
“Don’t be rude, Samantha. I simply do not wish any of my daughters to be in the military. Can’t you be a secretary like Gwennie, or do medicine like me?”
“Huh! A doctor, when I gave up Latin and Science in Fourth Form? Come on, Dad, you know I can’t do medicine.”
“Well, how about nursing then?” On and on went the battle royal, which always ended in a stalemate.
Wilfred was no doubt waiting in Barbados to pounce on me once more, as soon as we set foot on shore at Bridgetown. I was in a quandary. I would probably end up as a receptionist in his office, taking down patients’ boring details.
Tiger winked at me and I winked back. No one noticed; Ellen was still chatting away to Mrs. Captain, and the Captain was chatting up Gwennie.
And so to sleep, lulled by the gentle rolling of the Shell Queen, ploughing her way steadily towards the Atlantic, soon to be passing through the dreaded Bay of Biscay.
Anticlimax. The Bay of Biscay was like a duck pond. Unbelievable, said the Captain. Incredible, said the young officer who fancied Gwennie. His name was Richard and he was Apprentice Third Mate.
At dinner on the fourth night out and well into the Atlantic, just passing the Azores, the Captain announced that a hurricane was heading our way. Not a severe one, but nevertheless we could expect some rough weather. Tankers, he informed us, were low in the water – lower when they were full of oil on the way back up north from Curacao – but we were loaded with ballast. Some consolation when you knew a hurricane was approaching.
The hurricane hit the next day. Shell Queen danced and skipped, rocked, rolled and pitched. At one point she almost turned fully around and headed back to Blighty.
Gwennie was puking all over the bathroom and on the deck above, Ellen was puking all over the state room. I got worried about her, so I fought my way up the companionway and went to help her. I offered to stay in the cabin with her until the weather cleared up or she stopped puking, whichever was first. I assured her that Richard was taking care of Gwennie.
Tiger brought up my suitcase and I settled into Ellen’s cabin. Somehow, I avoided the mal-de-mer, and so managed to look after Ellen.
When the hurricane was over and Ellen regained her strength, she suggested I remain with her for the rest of the voyage. No point in lugging the suitcase back down again. I suspected it was something more than that. She had observed the growing relationship between Richard and Gwennie, and she liked Richard.
Day Seven and the weather was beautiful. The sun was shining, somewhat glaringly, on the Atlantic, and every now and then huge clumps of moss floated past the bows, and flying fish flew away from the sides of the ship like tiny rockets. Richard said the moss was from the Sargasso Sea.
Three days later we arrived in Curacao where we spent two days at the Piscadera Beach Club before flying on to Trinidad, via Caracas.
After breakfast on the day before we were due to arrive in Curacao, I found Richard painting some rails on deck. Good-looking bloke was Richard. Blond hair with a cowlick that graced his wide forehead. Blue eyes and a mischievous smile, which he now bestowed upon me. “Morning. Bet you’ll be glad to be on land tomorrow.”
I shrugged. “I guess. This trip hasn’t been too bad. We’ve had some fun; better than if we’d been on a passenger ship with all the frills and fancies.”
Richard cocked his head and smiled. “Wouldn’t have thought you’d have thought that, you being so lively and all.”
He stopped painting. “The Old Man will kill me if he sees me talking instead of working, but to hell with it! Gwennie tells me you enjoyed boarding-school. I find that incredible.”
It was not up to me to go into detail about Gwennie’s likes and dislikes, because I think they went pretty deep and had their roots embroiled in Wilfred’s background, which was somewhat chequered if we could believe what a cousin had revealed to us.
I often wondered if she accepted who she was, or if she was in total denial and so assumed aloofness as a mask. She seemed to find it difficult to get along with people as a general rule, therefore I was quite surprised when she struck up a friendship with Richard at such an early stage. She had never adjusted to boarding-school and all that went along with it – the confinement, the teasing and cattiness of some of the girls, the mandatory games such as lacrosse and netball in the winter and tennis and rounders in the summer. Gwennie hated outdoor games.
For two young girls to be whisked away from a tiny Caribbean island and dumped down in a boarding-school in an ultra-conservative place like Bournemouth was, to say the least, upsetting.
Wilfred was a doctor and a very strict disciplinarian, which is fine – so long as it’s coupled with some love. I am not sure that Wilfred was capable of love – or at least of showing it. You followed the rules which he laid down, and God help you if you disobeyed them. This was how he had been brought up in the Victorian era, and that was that. His father had been a captain in the British Army, based in Barbados. The colonial era. My grandfather had shocked all the middle and upper class whites in the island, not to mention the Army from which he was kicked out, by marrying a mulatto lady. And there was the crux of the matter. Again, this was according to a relative. “Shame and scandal in de family!”
When Wilfred and his brother, Walter, were growing up, they were obviously subject to much rejection and ostracism from all quarters. Snobbery was equally as common in Barbados, it being such a small, tight-knit community, as it was in Olde England. Wilfred and Walter did not attend the island’s prestigious boys’ public school, Harrison College, for the very same reason. Their father was well-off, having inherited money from his father, who had been one of those hated ‘rich white planters’, and he had engaged the services of a top class private tutor for his two sons. He had no intention of exposing them to the inevitable insults they would have suffered at a public school.
The trials and tribulations of the aforesaid matters seemed to slide off Walter like water off a duck’s back. He paid no attention to the slurs and sly innuendos – he had long since decided that he was going to make a success of his life and he would override the obstacles in his way. Which is exactly what he did. By the age of forty-five, he was a company director and he married a Spanish lady from Venezuela and sailed through life.
Not so Wilfred. He bore a heavy chip on his shoulder. His father pulled his pockets and sent him off to Canada to study medicine. He returned to Barbados a doctor and married into a very refined family, with their roots in Scotland, and got on with his life. But he never forgave his father for marrying a ‘coloured’ lady. I often wondered if he loved his mother. He never talked of her, and as for asking questions, better you went and hanged yourself from a mahogany tree.
Richard brought me back from my reminiscences. He was asking how come I liked boarding-school.
“Oh, I didn’t always like it, you know. I hated it at first. I hated the cold in winter and I hated the confinement. I had been accustomed to so much freedom in Barbados. When I wasn’t swimming in the sea, or on the beach playing around, I was climbing a tree. I guess Gwennie has told you I am somewhat of a tomboy. I suppose I really started to settle in at school in my second year. I had begun to make friends, and the girls had stopped teasing me and calling me a ‘colonial’ and asking me if I wore a grass skirt in Barbados. When they asked me that, I replied, ‘Heavens, no. I wore nothing.’ That shut them up. After that things were pretty cool for me, and at one point I got a bit swell-headed because I had become the school’s swimming champion, and eventually the tennis vice-captain – I had a wicked serve. So, I had ‘arrived’. I was happy then. Story of my life so far, Richard.”
Gwennie appeared at that moment, wearing a cute little sun top and a pair of shorts. She looked fresh and smelled of flowery perfume. She gave me a forbidding look, “hands off my man” sort of thing, and I said lamely, “Oh, I was just exchanging boarding-school views with Richard.”
I sauntered off to look for Ellen.
CHAPTER TWO
We hadn’t really seen much of Curacao, being confined, so to speak, at Piscadera Bay, but we had visited Willemstadt which was quaint with Dutch colonial-style buildings, but rather smelly. Curacao had one thing going for it at that time – oil.
And so on to Trinidad which fascinated and yet depressed me. Port of Spain was a mass of confusion with a tremendously cosmopolitan population. East Indians, negroes, whites and mulattos, Portuguese originally from Brazil, Spanish from Venezuela, and ‘Douglas’ who are half-Indian, half-negro. The city smelled of Indian roti and many other spicy foods. I always feel somewhat claustrophobic in Port of Spain, which is surrounded by mountains. It is the land of the humming-bird, and the land of steel band, calypso and carnival. It is sticky, hot and humid, and traffic buzzes around in every direction, car horns blaring, and people shouting at one another across the busy streets.
An East Indian will meet you at the top of Frederick Street, selling a silver bracelet for ten dollars, and by the time you reach the bottom of Frederick Street, you have beaten him down to two dollars. Mind you, the silver filigree bracelet will tarnish after a few wearings on your sweaty wrist.
We were spending one night in a guest-house in St Anne’s, round by Queen’s Park. The Queen’s Park Hotel was the posh one, but I guess Wilfred was a bit strapped for cash after dishing out all that money on his two brats in Bournemouth.
First thing I had to do in the bedroom after plunking the old suitcase down in a corner, was to search the entire room – under the bed, pull back the covers, in the closet, in the bathroom, under chairs and dressing table – in the ghastly event that I should find a tarantula spider. Trinidad is full of them. A Trinidadian whom I met on the ship going to England in 1945 told me so, and he should know.
All night, as I lay tossing and turning, I imagined things crawling on me in bed. I was glad to see the light of day and to be off to the docks to board the Canadian steamship Lady Rodney for the last leg of our journey. No state rooms, just a four-berth cabin, but we got entertained that night in the finely decorated dining saloon by a full orchestra, which played some of my favourite music – Glenn Miller stuff.
Three days later, after making stops at Grenada and St Vincent, we arrived in Carlisle Bay, Bridgetown.
I got up at the crack of dawn when we were still about an hour away from dropping anchor, and I watched the outline of Barbados growing closer and larger in the early morning light. I could see the hills of St George and Shop Hill, St Thomas, and the twinkling lights of Bridgetown, growing ever dimmer as the morning sun peeped over the hills.
I had very mixed feelings. When I had left Barbados, all those years ago, I had been distraught, to say the least. Neither Gwennie nor I knew what we were going to. The image of England imprinted on our minds was that of a cold, unfriendly country, recovering from the devastation of war. All the English people we had met on the island were snooty and unfriendly.
Wilfred and Ellen had a few English friends, but they all seemed to be single men or women, or married couples with no children. When Wilfred had enquired of them about boarding-schools in England, one of them had suggested Roedean and another one suggested Cheltenham Ladies College. However, a third one vetoed both of those schools and suggested a much smaller one in Bournemouth. “The girls won’t feel so overwhelmed,” he had declared. Thank God for that bloke.
Gwennie sneaked up behind me as I stood at the rail, and I jumped when she spoke. “Look at it! Will you just look at Bimshire!”
I’m not quite sure how Barbados got nicknamed ‘Bimshire’, but it is thought that some half-wit said it was like England and that perhaps one of the shires had separated and floated down the Atlantic.
“God, what a sight for sore eyes,” she went on. “Look at the green hillsides, the dazzling white beaches, the coconut palms. I can’t wait to get on my swimsuit and plunge into that blue Caribbean sea.”
She was right. It was a sight for sore eyes.
A tender was approaching the ship, which had dropped anchor with much rumbling and groaning from the winch in the bows, and a great big plop and splash. Ellen joined Gwennie and I on deck. She was craning her neck to see into the tender. Looking for Wilfred. He was there all right – cigarette in his mouth and all. He was a rather short, stocky man, and like the Captain of the Shell Queen, he had rather bushy eyebrows and a hooked nose.
The tender parked itself off by the gangway and Wilfred came on board. Hugs and kisses and smiles all round. Not normally an affectionate man, but this was a special occasion. Ellen was glowing all over.
We were finally home, in beautiful Barbados. I had forgotten how hot it was, especially in October.
Wilfred had breakfast on board with us and then we all trooped down the gangway and into the little launch that was bobbing up and down beside the bottom step of the gangway.
While Gwennie and I had been at school in England, learning how to say “How now brown cow” properly, Wilfred had been busying himself in Barbados running around looking for a house on the beach to buy. He found one on the West Coast. A spacious four-bedroom bungalow with two bathrooms. A long driveway lined by mahogany trees led up to the front patio; a huge lawn to the east of the house was bordered by a display of various flowering shrubs. To the west, the glorious white expanse of beach and the glittering blue Caribbean Sea. To the north of the house were four acres of woods made up of mahogany, manchineel, whitewood, cordia, casuarinas, sea grapes and coconut palms, all swaying in the breeze from the north-east trade winds.
Two servants met us at the front door, Kellman the butler-cum-handyman, and Meg, the cook, dressed in a light blue frock with a white apron and white cap on her head. Both Kellman and Meg wore huge smiles on their dark faces, and I was overjoyed to see my darling Meg again. How I had missed her. She was fat and jolly with a most comfortable lap, and two huge boobs upon which, as a young child, I had often rested my head, thumb in mouth, and gone off to sleep.
It was hot and humid and already thunderheads were building over towards the south, and if we didn’t hurry up and dash down to the beach to have a quick swim, we would likely get caught in a storm. So Gwennie and I rushed inside, tore open suitcases, found swimsuits and were down on the beach in minutes, leaving Ellen and Wilfred to kiss and hug – if ever they did that – and make up for their absence from each other.
Ellen was quite an affectionate person, particularly with her brothers and sisters, upon whom she could lavish affection and have it returned. She was born at the turn of the twentieth century into a rather large family who had lived most of their lives on various plantations, mostly in the parish of St Thomas. Her hair was mouse-brown and to a certain extent she resembled the Hollywood movie star, June Allison. Her brow was wrinkled and her blue eyes twinkled when she smiled. She was a ‘do-er’; always doing something – sewing dresses for Gwennie and me, or for our dolls, knitting in the 1940s for the war effort, an avid churchgoer and a member of the Mother’s Union and the Fellowship of Marriage. Although rather quiet, she was jovial at times, with a great sense of humour when let loose amongst her siblings.
Wilfred was the opposite. Quiet and often withdrawn. He possessed what I thought was rather a warped sense of humour. He loved to make fun of people’s idiosyncrasies. He made the most fabulous rum cocktails which everyone called ‘Wilfred’s brew’.
We had an enjoyable swim, Gwennie and I, but it was rather short, because of the looming thunderheads and the rain, which had begun to spatter.
Wilfred and Ellen were sitting in the wide veranda overlooking the beach, sipping drinks, when Gwennie and I joined them. The cocktail shaker on a side table contained ‘egg flips’, as Wilfred called them. Rum-based eggnogs with lots of nutmeg floating on the top. Delicious after a swim.
I hate thunderstorms, but we hadn’t been sitting in the veranda for more than ten minutes before we heard the first rumble of thunder and the rain was sweeping in sheets across the sea, so we abandoned the veranda and moved into the drawing room, which contained all of the furniture that we had left at the old house before sailing for England. It looked good in this setting, for the old house had been one of the older type Barbadian homes, with shuttered doors and windows and storm shutters on inside doors. It had also had a chimney on the kitchen roof, from which curled the smoke from the wood and coal stove used in days gone by.
Wilfred and Ellen were discussing politics. Wilfred sometimes got quite hot under the collar when discussing this subject. He appeared to have little use for Mr Grantley Adams, who had successfully initiated the famous 1937 riots, when, to put it in a nutshell, he incited sugar workers and other agricultural labourers into rioting against ridiculously low wages. Ironically, over thirty black people were killed – many by black policemen under the supervision of a white police commissioner – and no whites sustained injuries.
I was just coming up to six years old and Gwennie was eight when, on July 26th, we witnessed the rumblings of the riots. I hadn’t a clue what it was all about, except that the names on everyone’s lips were Grantley Adams and Clement Payne. It bothered me little, and in fact I began to liken it in my mind to a Red Indian-cowboy rootin’ tootin’ shootout.
I became apprehensive, however, when I heard Ellen and Wilfred discussing what would be the likely outcome. The black people would be swiftly “put in their places” by the police, and some would no doubt die. That did bother me because I dearly loved Meg and I had a certain amount of affection for Kellman, although he and I were many times at loggerheads, since he was always threatening to “tell the master or mistress” what I had done, and one such crime was playing with black children on the beach. That was a definite no-no. Kellman often carried out his threats and I got my bare bum whacked by Wilfred with a tamarind twig.
Years later, when reading about pornography and masochistic tendencies, I found it difficult to associate bum lashings with pleasure, sexual or otherwise. That tamarind twig stung, and was distinctly unpleasant.
The first night of the riots was particularly painful for me. The house was completely barred up, with storm shutters in place, and Wilfred walked up and down, revolver in hand, all night. Distant gun shots could be heard from time to time throughout the night. I was fearful for Meg and I thought about her all night. I worried that she might be shot or injured in some way.
A few days later, everything was back to normal. Meg was safe and so was Kellman. The labourers got what they asked for – higher wages and better conditions, because the British Government in its infinite wisdom and upon advice from the Colonial Secretary, had intervened.
Our new home had a name. Originally called Casa Linda, Ellen changed it to Ginger Lily. Ellen had a passion for lilies, she planted them all over the place. Some in a lily pond, along with hyacinths. She planted amaryllis lilies all along the walkway to the beach. Ginger lilies lined the driveway, in between the mahogany trees, and at the northern end of the lawn. The ginger lilies, some pink and some red, seemed to thrive all year round.
To the north of the house and rather subtly hidden, Wilfred had had his office and waiting room built, and he had lots of patients from the surrounding areas. He knew his medical stuff and was a surprisingly sympathetic doctor.
A few days after we returned and having just about settled in, I was figuring it was about time I had a little chat with Wilfred because I didn’t know where I was going or what I was doing. Gwennie and Ellen were all busy making plans for Gwennie’s wedding to Richard. The lovebirds had been in constant touch and had decided to tie the knot as soon as Richard could get leave from the Shell Company. They told me I had to be chief bridesmaid. Not something I was wild about.
Wilfred was in his office sipping tea, having just seen his last patient. I knocked on the door and he yelled, “Come in.”
The office had a desk and two chairs, a couch with a curtain around it, a washbasin and two or three white enamel tables with bowls and other medical paraphernalia, including a microscope, cluttering them. Over on one wall were shelves with all kinds of labelled bottles stacked on them.
Wilfred’s spectacles were perched on the end of his nose and he dipped his head to look at me.
“Hi, dad. Could I talk to you?”
He consulted his watch. “Yes, I’ve finished for the day, and I was just going to go and take a rest, but what’s on your mind?”
“Well, I’ve been thinking. I can’t loaf around Barbados doing nothing all day. I mean, it’s wonderful to be back home and spending half the day in the sea, but for how long?”
“Well, why not just take it easy for a month or two at least, and start thinking about what you would like to do eventually. As a matter of fact, I have been thinking too. I wondered if you might be interested in helping me in the office. You could either do a secretarial course, or I could teach you to do a few minor tests, and that way you would gain a little medical experience.”
“Tests? What kind of tests?”
He cleared his throat. “Oh, just urine, and perhaps blood haemoglobin, that sort of thing.”
Me – testing pee. I’d just completed a reasonable education and all my father could think about for me to do was testing pee.
“Could I think about it?”
“Of course. Take your time.” I thought he was finished with me because he rose from his swivel chair and shoved his spectacles back on his green eyes. But he said, “On the other hand, you might like to consider returning to England after a while, and doing something over there. I have to tell you that I do not hold out much hope for this island, the way things are going. Ten, maybe fifteen years from now this will be no place for white people, mark my words. You can see for yourself how uppity the negroes …”
“Dad, please …”
He gave me a scornful look. “As I was saying, the black people – if that suits you better – have become uppity. They are getting ready to take over, and when they do, they will destroy everything that has been achieved in Barbados. Wherever they go in this world, they destroy. They never contribute a damn thing to any society.”
I did not wish to listen to his diatribe, because I knew what would follow – That damned man Adams, he caused all of this; a white man put him in the position he is in today; the blacks have lost all respect for white people; one of these days you might even see a white Bajan marrying a black one; I don’t know where it will all end, on and on he would go. So I quickly said, “I may just think about returning to England, but not for those reasons,” and I walked out.
CHAPTER THREE
Christmas was upon us. After some heavy rainfall accompanied by ear-shattering thunderstorms throughout September, October and November, the lawn was green and the garden was beautiful with the poinsettias and snow-on-the-mountain all in full bloom.
Ellen was busy at the sewing machine every day, making a fancy dress for me to wear to the coming out, or launching, or whatever they called it, of her two daughters, at the annual Coming Out Ball at the Marine Hotel. This was where I was supposed to meet my
Mr Right, Gwennie having already met hers. She was still going to the wretched Ball, but our cousin was to be her chaperone, seeing as how she was engaged and all.
Wilfred, of course, was in his element. He was convinced that I would meet Mr Right from the Right family, get engaged and married and have all the Right children (all white, of course), who would eventually leave the island for boarding-school in England. And who knows, one of them might even marry a Sir Somebody, or better yet a Duke or an Earl. Poor Wilfred.
Unfortunately, I had news for him. I had no intention whatsoever of finding a Mr Right, let alone marrying him. I had, in fact, spied a very handsome young man who lived just up the road in a little fishing village called Boston Bay. He was tall with curly black hair, very expressive eyes and a wide mouth that spread a smile all over his face. He was brown-skinned. He cycled past our house quite often on his way to Holetown. I knew this, because one day I found a poor wounded wood dove in the road and just as I was picking it up, he cycled by. He stopped the bicycle and grinned at me. I said, “Hi.”
“What are you going to do with that bird?” he asked.
“Take it inside and look after it until it is well enough to fly again.”
“It will die.”
“Oh, thanks. Thanks a whole heap for your encouraging words.”
He sped off on his bicycle without another word. I looked at the bird and said, “Well, how do you like that cheeky bugger, bird?”
Sad to say, the cheeky bugger was right. The little bird died about a week later, although both Ellen and I had tried our best to save it.
Ellen had finished the dress for the pesky Coming Out Ball. She had bought the material at Selfridges before we left England. I had to admit it was beautiful. White background with a soft flowered pattern, and long skirt reaching to just below the ankles. I felt like Cinderella. Ellen was making me try it on in front of the long mirror and I was fidgeting and shifting from foot to foot.
“Hold still, will you,” exclaimed an exasperated Ellen.
“It itches and tickles.”
“Of course it does. New material always does. Now there you are, turn around and have a look.”
I looked. For once I looked like a lady. I guess Ellen was satisfied. She made me take it off carefully and I got stuck with pins. I exited her sewing room in a hurry.
Just then the phone rang. I answered it. Hesitation at the other end, then, a soft-spoken male voice stuttered, “May I speak to … uh … Sam, please?”
Something familiar about that voice. “Samantha speaking.”
“Oh, sorry. Don’t they call you ‘Sam’ any more?”
The voice was definitely familiar. “Yes, they do. But – excuse me, who wants to know?”
“Uh … Tony. Tony Brownfield. Remember me?”
I did. Grew up with Tony and his sister, Julie. They had lived a few houses away from us, when we had lived in that white enclave known as Strathmore in St Michael. That was before Gwennie and I got shipped off to England.
Strathmore was a residential area, laid out in avenues with a tennis club somewhere in the middle, where everyone went to play tennis and drink rum punches. Black people were not allowed to walk through Strathmore unless they were domestic servants working at the houses. A proper little South Africa. The houses were practically identical. All two-storey, with large drawing room, dining room, breakfast room, closed-in verandah, kitchen downstairs, and three or four bedrooms and one bathroom upstairs.
Tony Brownfield. Fancy that. He and I used to ride our bicycles like crazy up and down the avenues, singing at the tops of our voices and causing the little old ladies who lived in some of the houses to appear at their windows and shout threats at us.
Wilfred would have punished me for sure, had he known, and Tony’s father, who had a terrible temper and was often somewhat inebriated, would have got out the leather strap out and tanned Tony’s hide.
“Tony Brownfield! Well, blow me down. How are you? Que pasa?”
Tony laughed. “Ah, so you remember our favourite Spanish phrase. I heard you were back from England and that your Dad bought a beautiful bungalow on the beach in St James. Do you like it?”
“It’s smashing. I love it. It’s good to be back home, and best of all to be able to run down the beach and into the sea. It’s heavenly. But I miss England. I miss London and the Underground trains and Oxford Circus and browsing around in Foyles Bookstore, and feeding the ducks in the Serpentine in Hyde Park, and – oh, just everything about London.”
“Yeah. Well, listen. Are you going to be coming out at the Marine? And if so, could I be your escort?”
Uh-oh, I thought. Wilfred’s been at it. I’ll bet he’s been talking to Mr Brownfield, scheming to get Tony and I together. If that’s the case, I simply won’t go.
“Tony, why are you asking me? Did your father and Wilfred scheme this together?”
An explosion on the phone. “Jesus, Sam, do you think I’m still a child? I left school this year. I am nineteen and I am totally independent, except that Dad took me into his business for six months before I enter university in Canada. I’m sort of apprenticing with the old man, if you will. He can’t rule my life. If you don’t wish to go with me, say so.”
A right twit I am. I apologised. “I’m sorry, Tony. I just thought … well, you know Wilfred. Of course I would love to go to the Ball with you. Mum has just made me a gorgeous dress, and I’m all ready.”
We talked some more and reminisced a bit on days gone by, and then we said hasta la vista and rang off.
The Marine Hotel was its splendiferous self, all glittering with coloured lights and balloons and decorations all over the dance floor. People were arriving and car doors were slamming as debutantes stepped out, some on their fathers’ arms, others with their escorts.
Tony looked magnificent in his tuxedo and bow tie and all. If he had been good-looking in his childhood, he was now ruggedly handsome. A sort of Clark Gable-without-the-moustache ruggedness. Light brown hair, light brown eyes with golden flecks, and a dimple in his chin. I felt proud to be escorted by him, and I noticed many girls giving him the eye.
Gwennie looked beautiful in a powder blue full-length dress with frills and ruffles and whatnot, but her face wore a slightly sad look. She was missing Richard.
They corresponded frequently, and although a date had not yet been set for their forthcoming marriage, we all knew it would be shortly after the New Year. Richard had left Shell and was with the Harrison Line, plying the Caribbean route. He was awaiting their permission for leave to get hitched.
Gwennie dangled on our cousin Ian’s arm, as they made their way up the steps and into the ballroom. Wilfred glowed like a glow-worm. He found us a table up front close to the bandstand. The music was by Percy Green’s orchestra, which was considered the best dance-band in the island at that time.
Wilfred ordered drinks and we sat and gazed around at people. Ellen and Wilfred kept waving and nodding at people they knew. Gwennie and I had lost touch with many of our old friends and it was kind of exciting seeing and recognising them again. Faces do not change that much in four or five years but hairstyles certainly do.
Wilfred suddenly sat bolt upright and leaned across the table, trying to whisper but not quite managing it, to Ellen. “Look at them!” he exclaimed, inclining his head towards a couple who were just seating themselves at a table. “See what this island is coming to? They would never have been able to buy tickets to this Ball before.”
The couple he referred to were coloured, but so pale it was difficult to distinguish them from whites. A lot of white people sitting at tables nearby waved to them and greeted them with smiles. I sighed. My dad had a problem.
The band started playing a Glenn Miller medley. Tony got up and asked me to dance. And Wilfred grabbed Gwennie before Ian could. Protocol, I believe it’s called.
Tony was a good dancer, but a peculiar thing happened to me when I looked at him, and it sent a shiver down my spine. Instead of seeing Tony’s face, I saw the face of the brown-skinned bloke from Boston Bay, who cycled to Holetown every day. Catastrophe in the making!
Tony held me off a bit and looked at me kind of oddly. “Why did you look at me like that?” he enquired.
I felt like a fool. I didn’t know what the hell to say. Why had that happened? I shrugged. “Gosh, Tony, I’m sorry. I guess I was … ah … admiring how handsome and grown-up you look.”
“Why, thank you, Sam. I beat you to it though; I was admiring you all evening!”
I inclined my head and murmured a pitiful thank you, which failed to sound genuine.
“I missed you, Sam.” This said with a little hand-squeezing.
I did not reply because in all honesty, if I echoed his sentiments I would be lying. It was good seeing him again and I felt proud to be with him, but I could not shake off the niggling thoughts of the Boston Bay boy that persisted in invading my mind. Why? I kept asking myself, as if that would help.
When we got back to the table, Ellen and Wilfred were excitedly discussing a couple who were dancing. The young man was Our Roy – better known to his adoring Mum as ‘my little carrot’. He had red hair and a lilywhite skin, and people said he was a pansy boy. So, according to Wilfred, what the heck was he doing at a Debutante Ball with a girl in tow!
“Just look at him!” exclaimed Wilfred, leaning closer to Ellen. “Isn’t he just too much? He even dances like a girl.”
Ellen said, “Joyce tells me she is so proud of her ‘little carrot’ because he has recently returned from England, having done a course on antiques, and he is going to set up an antique business along with a young man from Martinique.”
“Probably a faggot like him,” declared Wilfred.
“Wilfred, keep your voice down. The music has stopped. Furthermore, Roy is a perfect gentleman. Notice how he always jumps up from the table when people come over to talk to Joyce? His late departed father would be very proud.”
I had always liked Roy so I excused myself and sauntered over to Joyce and Roy’s table. Roy sprang up like a young buck, and came to give me a hug and a kiss. “Good Lord – Samantha! My, my, but you’re so grown up and delightfully pretty. Do join us. Mums, you remember Sam, don’t you?”
Joyce, her face almost a mask with far too much make-up, nodded her head vigorously and extended a hand upon which hung a few jangling gold bracelets.
“Of course I do. Sit down, Sam, and tell us all your juicy bits and pieces. I see you’re with Tony.” Her thickly pencilled eyebrows jumped up and down, insinuating a lot. I stole a furtive glance across at our table and observed that Wilfred was stealing furtive glances across at us.
I smiled at Joyce. “Nothing serious, Mrs. Jermaine, I assure you.”
“Oh, Sam, please call me Joyce. You’re not a child now.”
“She certainly isn’t, and oh, look at her deportment,” piped up Our Roy, clapping his delicate hands together. “That’s what boarding school does for you. I wish I had known you were coming out this year – I would have been so happy to have escorted you.”
I remembered the pretty girl he had been dancing with. “But, where is your belle? Did I not see you dancing just now?”
Joyce and Roy exchanged glances. “I am his belle, Sam,” Joyce replied.
“Let me explain, Mums. Sam, I am rather distressed because most of the young ladies these days appear to be after two things – money and sex. So I opted to escort my mother. The one I made the mistake of dancing with – she’s a good-looking girl, but …”
“She comes from nothing,” cut in Joyce.
“Mums, please. She was pushing herself too close to me and sort of rubbing up against me. You know what I mean, Sam.”
It was all I could do not to laugh out loud, but you never know with homosexuals how they will react to certain emotions, so I inclined my head and gave a tactful smile, like they taught me to do at boarding-school.
I sat with them for a while, then made my excuses when I saw Tony coming towards our table. He wanted to dance.
CHAPTER FOUR
A tour around Gwennie’s boudoir was an experience. It was pretty with frilly lace curtains and a bed with a fancy canopy. Gwennie did it herself. She was working at Barclays Bank in Bridgetown so she got a good salary and she loved pretty things. When we were children, she played with beautiful dolls for which Ellen made the clothes on her Singer machine, while I climbed trees and sped around Strathmore on my bicycle.
I knocked on Gwennie’s door and opened it a crack. “Can I come in?”
“Sure, Sam. I’m just polishing my fingernails. Want to do yours?”
I laughed. “Fingernails? You must be joking – I don’t have any. I bite them!”
“Sign of nervousness, Sam. I thought you had outgrown biting your nails.”
“Nah. Wish I could.” I sat in her rocking chair. “Is this an antique? Roy would love it for his upcoming antique business.”
“It is indeed an antique, and Our Roy is definitely not going to get it. It had belonged to Granny – don’t you remember? You can have it when I get married, but not to sell to Roy!”
“I’m thinking of working with Roy when he opens his shop. We discussed it the other night at the Ball. He said he would be delighted to have me come and help him.”
“Dad won’t be pleased. He is glad of your help in his surgery, I believe.”
I had started working with Wilfred, for which he paid me the ‘handsome’ sum of $60.00 a month. Gwennie got $100.00 a month plus bonuses and other perks at the Bank. While she was ‘balancing’ books, I was balancing things on scales, testing pee and cleaning bottles of all kinds of pharmaceutical things, many of which were acids.
“Yeah, well. I’m kinda fed up testing pee now. I like haematology but that’s a bit advanced for me. A dreadful old man sneaked up behind me one day when I was busy dipping litmus paper in someone’s pee, and startled me. ‘I hope that’s not my piss you’re examining,’ says he. ‘It’s a terrible colour.’ I told him it was not his, and then he had the audacity to ask me whose it was!”
Gwennie giggled. “Why did he want to know that?”
“Malicious old bugger. He said he wanted to know so as he could avoid the person who obviously had a terrible disease.” We both had a good laugh.
I shifted in the rocker. “Gwennie, I want to ask you a few questions.”
“Shoot.”
“First of all, what’s the real story on Dad’s mother – our esteemed-but-never-talked-about grandmother?”
“Sam, we’ve been through this before. I don’t really know any more than you do, and you know that Dad and Mum will not discuss it. All I know is that she was coloured, light-skinned. Half-caste, in other words. But Sam, most so-called whites in Barbados come from a similar background, so what’s your beef?”