The Long Song (32 page)

It was those wretched negroes that kept him from her so long. So determined were they to enjoy the first fruits of their freedom that they were more indolent, gloomy and demanding than ever before. Every night her husband returned home to her at such a late hour and in such a state of exhaustion that all he wished to do was sleep. He was too sentimental with that bothersome race of people. Why, he treated Marguerite almost as if she were one of his own kind.

He demanded Caroline call her Miss July. Quite insistent he became about it. He once yelled upon her, ‘Desist, desist!’ when she forgot. She wished to oblige him, of course she wished to oblige him—he was her husband. But it was very troublesome for her to remember the change. And Marguerite was such a pleasing name to call about the house.

She was only idly chattering—sitting upon her husband’s knee, curling his hair fondly around her finger, and idling chattering—when she asked, very sweetly indeed, if instead of her having to remember the tiresome change to her negro’s name, might he not consider knowing her nigger as Marguerite too. His mood need not have changed quite so quickly. He need not have tipped her on to the floor, nor banged his fist down as he said, ‘But that is
not
her name, Caroline. Her name is Miss July.’ It was only her thought!

And did her husband now require her to have polite society with ‘Miss July’? Did he wish her to enquire after ‘Miss July’s’ family whenever she were in her presence? Was she to invite ‘Miss July’ to sip port and madeira with them? Did he desire her to engage ‘Miss July’ in chatter on whether she hoped for a Christmas breeze this year or invite her to join her other guests from the parish for an evening’s entertainment at whist? Was his instruction to her that she must shake her nigger’s hand? He need not have grimaced so, as if the mere sound of her voice were causing him pain, nor shouted, ‘Oh for pity’s sake, Caroline, shut up.’ What did he expect her to say after he had bid Marguerite to sit at the table with them!

Having enquired of Marguerite one dinner time upon the availability of pickle to have with his meat, her husband proceeded to enter into something not unlike a conversation with her negro. Firstly he laughed—for a reason Caroline could not comprehend—when Marguerite informed him that she would be happy to go into town to purchase some pickle for him. And even though Caroline still required the ham to be laid down and her napkin to be picked up from the floor where it had fallen, she was obliged to wait while her husband, having told Marguerite that he preferred his pickles hot, smiled gladly upon the negro as she replied to him that she thought sweet would be more his fancy. The prattle on who in town made the best pickles went back and forth between them like gossip, until her husband, quite glowing with merriment said, ‘Oh, come and sit down, Miss July.’

Caroline’s breath was entirely ripped out of her. Yet her husband was merely surprised by her shock. What would be the harm, he wished to know, for Miss July to sit at table with them on occasion? What could possibly be the harm? At first Caroline thought him to be making a joke, or perhaps teasing her for her outdated West Indian planter sensibility—after all, it would not have been the first time. So, not wishing to appear insensible to his humour, she laughed. For a negro servant sitting at table as if a guest, would have been enough to have her friends upon the island scoffing openly that she had lost her morals along with all her senses; why Mrs Pemberton would have quite foamed with apoplexy. But Robert just repeated the wicked nonsense—what would be the harm? While Marguerite looked between her master and mistress with a smile so impertinent that it would once have seen her whipped.

And it was not Caroline’s protest that changed her husband’s mind upon the social suicide he required of her. Her yelling no! no! no! no! no! no! no! in a manner hysterical by anyone’s reckoning, seemed to have little effect upon him beyond his screeching, ‘Oh, Caroline, please, please, speak in a lower key.’ No. It was Marguerite quietly thanking him for the invitation, but informing him that she had to return to the kitchen, that released Caroline from the promise of such shame. And Marguerite now looked upon her with pity—Caroline was sure of it.

Appraisers of the artist Francis Bear often commented that his use of the negro within his portraits added a reliable touch of the exotic to what might otherwise be a dull work. So, even before the artist and Caroline Goodwin had agreed upon the fee for the portrait, they had decided between them that a negro boy should appear within the picture carrying a parasol and a fan.

However, within the room under the house another plan was devised. For upon hearing that a likeness was to be painted of the owners of Amity, July, jumping excitedly within Robert Goodwin’s lap, asked, ‘Me can be in it? Oh, tell me me can be in it. Me long to have a likeness made. Oh, can me be in it?’

Having promised July that, ‘Of course, of course, of course my little Miss July can be in it,’ (addressing her in the baby tones he had, at that time, been so fond of), Robert Goodwin then proceeded to counsel first his wife and then the artist against their idea of a boy, with the obvious reasoning that there was not a negro boy upon Amity, or indeed upon the whole island, who was capable of staying still the required amount of time.

So there within the painting, wearing a white muslin dress with a red silk turban upon her head, you will find July. Quite inspired by the way the robust scarlet of July’s headdress created a pleasing counterpoint to the fair hair of the seated woman and the dark head of the upright man, the artist was content to pose July standing full sideways next to Robert Goodwin.

Caroline, however, insisted very loudly indeed that, ‘She can’t stand there!’

‘Why ever not?’ her husband had asked.

Caroline, who could find no reasoned words to present as argument—for it was just a feeling of unease within her stomach that made her protest—looked upon the artist to plead for help. He then decided that the composition and balance of the painting would be better enhanced if the negro were kneeling before Caroline, offering her up a tray that contained an array of sweetmeats. And oh, how Caroline Goodwin had clapped at this suggestion. ‘Yes, yes, yes!’ she said to that.

So within the picture July, now sideways to her missus, leans toward her with one knee bent, proffering the contents of the tray she carries. And although the artist requested that July look towards her mistress with obedient esteem upon her face, July’s countenance craftily contrives to catch the eye of the viewer with an expression that says quite clearly, ‘So, what you think of this? Am I not the loveliest negro you ever did see?’

However, this posture did cause a deal of trouble, for July could not hold its slavish attitude for long. Firstly, her stooping knee would begin to tingle. Then, not awhile after, she would lose all feeling from within both her legs. A few minutes of this blessed numbness and a pain sharp as a dog sinking its teeth deep into the flesh of her thighs, would seize her. Only rising from out the pose and stamping hard upon the ground did relieve it. Yet each time July was forced to perform this curative dance the artist, looking out from behind his canvas, would let forth a deep moaning sigh. And Caroline would scold, ‘Stay still! Stay still! Stop moving!’

Now, although July was quite able to cut down her missus with a look that exclaimed, ‘You wan’ try bending your fat white batty down like this for hour and hour and hour, cha!’ she was no longer required to. For a troubled glance—or even just the hint of one—in the direction of her Mr Goodwin . . . her Mr Big-big blue-eye . . . her Mr Sweet-sweet massa, was all that was needed to have him, with full masterful bluster, defend her with the reply, ‘Can you not see how her pose is painful to maintain, Caroline?’

‘But she is prolonging the difficulty by continually fidgeting. I manage to stay quite still.’

‘You are comfortably seated. If Miss July were comfortably sitting then I am in no doubt that she too could remain as immovable as you.’

‘Do you propose the negro to sit within this picture now?’

‘All I am saying, Caroline, is that if Miss July had been left to stand next to me instead of being forced into this ridiculous pose, then she would have been able to hold that position for longer without it becoming stiff and painful to her.’

‘But Robert, it is Mr Bear’s idea to have her model in that way—not my own . . .’

And so on and so on. These arguments did not erupt every time that July moved, but they occurred enough for the artist to roll his eyes and wearily rest his head upon his hands for the duration of the ill-tempered scene; and for our July to throw her arms about Mr Goodwin’s neck the next time they were alone, and peck a hundred kisses upon his cheek for not permitting the missus to ‘insolence’ her.

Husband was July’s favoured name for Robert Goodwin—for every time she said it, ‘Come sit, husband . . . please start nyam, husband . . . oh, hush now, husband,’ he responded obediently by calling her wife. ‘You are my real wife,’ he told her. ‘This is my real home,’ he said of their damp little room under the house. What would happen if he did not find her waiting for him every afternoon after conch blow? July had wanted to know. Would he search for her? He surely would, he told her. Would he cry? Boo hoo-hoo, he had said.

So July once hid herself. She lit no candle and squatted within the farthest dark corner, behind a chair. In he came to search for her, keen as a miner in quest of a seam of gold. He called her name but she did not move. ‘Wife?’ he said as he lit a candle to breach the gloom. ‘Miss July, where are you?’ he asked at the open door. So fretful did he become that he looked grave as a pickney lost from home. July could not endure this teasing, for she longed to have her arms about him, to feel her face against his warm neck. She wished to scratch her nails down that ribbon of dark hair that ran from his chest to his navel, and watch his white skin streak pink. She wanted to hear his moans as his hands upon her pinched and slapped.

She abandoned the foolish hiding game and pushed over the chair in her eagerness to have him. And as she captured him firm from behind, he squealed with surprise. He pushed her down on to the mattress. His weight on top of her was how she liked it. Unable to move under the bulk of him was what she loved. Him lying so heavy upon her that she could not even inhale breath, while his manhood rose up thick and strong between them, was what she required.

But her husband protested at the prickle of her bed. ‘My wife will not sleep upon something so coarse?’ he said, and bid his boy Elias carry down a plump horse-hair mattress from the rooms above. It was soon followed by a wooden bed frame with a headboard elegantly carved with two birds.

Although Molly did begin to look with one green-eye upon July—whispering jealous chat-chat of the arrangement beneath the house in hushed tones—July paid that silly woman no mind. For as the beloved, true wife of a white English man, July did now dazzle even a haughty quadroon like Miss Clara into a dark drab.

Come, Robert did not want July’s little feet to walk upon the filthy dirt floor—they should walk upon silk, he said. The red and blue patterned rug he gave July he brought from the floor of his own study. And he kissed first the toes upon her left foot and then upon her right, as she stood pressing her bare feet into the soft pile of the mat. And oh, how Elias cussed, as he struggled down to their little room with a dining table and two ill-matching chairs upon his back. But her husband wished her to sit at table with him so they might chat upon England, his papa, the wretched negroes, and the problems of his day. Her husband at the head of this table, and she with her chair pulled up close to his, so she might peel a mango and feed him the segments of sticky fruit, one piece at a time, from her own lips to his.

For in only a few hours the missus would expect her husband up in the house. And July would be commanded to ready the table for dinner. ‘Before he comes, before he comes, everything must be ready, hurry up, Marguerite, he will be here soon,’ her missus would fret upon her. July would then have to direct the house boys to set the table (and slap their heads to get them to do it again, properly), while she unlocked the wine from the cupboard. She would then need to attend the kitchen to inspect the food. After enquiring of Molly what the nasty dish was meant to be, and insisting that the sulking cook add a little more salt, she would have to charge the house boys to carry in the dinner to their massa’s table. And July would have to enter in upon the dining room. And while still tender and damp from love-making, she would have to prance about the table serving her husband and the keen-to-please-him missus their food.