Miss Christie sighed heavily, “they can be such a disappointment. Such a disappointment. If Denise had been studying her books instead of studying how to get a baby I am sure she would be going to that school today. But they are such a disappointment these girl children, and you can never tell what will eventually become of them, even when they start out young and full of promise.”
Miss Sarah took the chewing stick she was munching on from her mouth and sent a stream of white spittle flying out in front of her.
“Stop all this right now, Miss Christie! Your Denise was always too force-ripe for her age. And everybody know she not nearly as bright as our Gloria here. I have no qualms about saying Gloria is the brightest child in this yard, maybe even the brightest child around these parts. And she well-behaved and mannersable too, even if we don’t like some of the friends she keeps.” Miss Sarah winked at me and the other two women started laughing. Miss Sarah reached down in the pocket of her housedress, pulled out a bill and handed it to me.
“I’ve been waiting to give you this all day. Give the money to your mother to put in your piggy-bank for you. She pass here not too long ago with a bag of pig tails and red beans, so I know she cooking stew peas and rice for dinner tonight!”
Immediately I was hungry. Stew peas and rice was one of my favourite meals. One I hadn’t had in a long time.
“Thanks for the money, Miss Sarah,” I said, walking away.
“It’s nothing at all. Nothing at all. You a good child.”
“And you must come and help Nilda when her time come to take the exam again next year,” Nadia Blue said after me.
Not a word came out of Miss Christie’s mouth.
As I approached our house the smell of pigtails drifted out into the yard and enveloped me. I could make out the thyme, pimento and escallion Mama put in the stew. I stepped into the house and Mama smiled over at me from the tiny kitchen.
“Guess what? Mean old Rutherford let me out early today so I could come home and make a special dinner for you. He said congratulations to you on passing your exam, old cruff that he is.”
For the first time in a long time, Mama looked young, happy and carefree. She was wearing a T-shirt and a pair of faded denim shorts and had a big cooking fork in her hand. Her hair was not up in a severe bun as it usually was, but down around her shoulders. There was an unmistakable sparkle in her eyes.
“Come here!” She called me over to the pot, as if she had a big surprise on the stove. I pretended Miss Sarah had said nothing to me and feigned surprised when I saw the tiny white dumplings floating up over the pink pigtails and red kidney beans.
“That’s not all,” Mama continued, seeing the look on my face. “I’m making soursop juice sweetened with condensed milk and nutmeg just the way you like it. Change out of your uniform and help me set the table. Put on the white tablecloth with the gold-flowered embroidery. Tonight we celebrating!” She blew me a kiss before turning back to the pot.
Usually I grumbled whenever I was given additional chores, but not today. I put down my school bag, took off my school clothes, and started doing what my mother had asked me to do. Yes, tonight we were celebrating!
CHAPTER 2
Grandy came a few weeks later, bearing gifts as usual. This time it was star-apples, june-plums and sugar cane. Whenever she came, Grandy brought all the fruits in season and I always hurried home from school when I knew she was there. Today, as I came into the yard, I spotted her sitting on the verandah, almost hidden by the hibiscus tree, rocking in the rocking chair. She was eating a piece of sugar cane and fanning herself, and her face broke into a huge smile when she saw me.
I stood for a moment just looking at her. Mama and Grandy looked so much alike! Same high wide forehead and bushy “Indian” eyebrows. The only difference between the two was their weight: Grandy was much heavier than Mama, with an ample bosom I secretly believed was made for me to rest my head on. I made a mad dash for the verandah and stood before her.
“Just you look this bright girl that pass her common entrance examination!” Grandy said, eyeing me. “Just you look this bright girl that going to All Saints High School! Come now and give your old Grandy a kiss.”
She pulled me down into her lap and I buried my face in the side of her neck and the chair rocked harder as she laughed and laughed. Grandy had a smell all of her own. A kind of fresh country smell, doused in rosewater. Grandy handed me a piece of sugarcane from the plate beside her. The emerald streaks through its dull yellow colour gave promise of just how sweet the cane would be. I bit into it and my mouth immediately filled with the sweet juice.
“I just can’t believe it! You getting so big and all! Now you off to high school when it seems like only yesterday I was at Jubilee Hospital looking down at you curled up on your pink baby blanket. Such a tiny little thing you were, we had to pin you down on the blanket so the wind wouldn’t blow you away. A-baby-no-bigger-than-the-palm-of-my-hand. Now you’re getting ready for high school of all things!”
“Grandy,” I nuzzled even further in the side of her neck, “you forever telling me that story!”
“Well, it’s God’s own truth! I’m not lying! It does seem that way to me! Getting ready for high school!”
“Not before I spend my summer holidays with you!” I said, knowing how much this would please her. Later, when I asked her for money to buy tamarind balls and lollipops, and begged her to carry the dress my mother had bought but was refusing to allow me to take with me, I knew from experience she would agree to at least one of my requests.
“You little trickster!” she pushed me roughly away from her. “Think I don’t know what you’re doing? No tamarind balls for you today!”
“Me, Grandy?” I gave her my most big-eyed, innocent look.
“Yes, you! You’re the biggest trickster of them all! Worse than Anansi ownself! If Anansi could trick everyone and get two plantains to eat, you could do the same thing and get four!”
I lowered my eyes feigning shame.
“Ginnal!” she handed me another piece of sugarcane.
We sat together, quiet for a little while, both of us eating sugar cane. I was still on her lap and she kept rocking in the chair.
My summer holidays would begin next morning when I set off with Grandy to Lluidas Vale, the tiny village deep in the dark-blue mountains of Portland. It was where my grandfather, Grandy’s sister, Aunt Clara, and Grandy’s mother and father, none of whom I’d ever known, were all buried. It was where my mother had been born and had grown up, and where I spent every summer holiday.
“You finish packing the clothes to take with you?” Grandy wanted to know.
“I’ve almost finished packing,” I told her.
“Almost not good enough,” she gave me a push and smiled.
When she smiled, folds of dark brown skin crinkled around her dark brown eyes, and it was almost as if, beneath her skin, several different peoples were warring to assert themselves, but no one was quite winning.
“We have to make sure you’re done packing tonight, for we leaving first thing tomorrow morning.”
