Local Customs Page 11

  “I didn’t notice that.”

  “Why would you? You probably didn’t even think about slavery. Few who weren’t involved in it, or abolitionists, gave it a second thought.”

  “And the Europeans on this coast?”

  “Well of course they thought about it. They not only held slaves, they also supplied stores to the slaving ships.”

  “Did you do that?”

  “No, it was pretty well all over when I arrived. Although Anamaboe Fort held many slaves in its heyday.”

  “Did George have anything to do with slaves?”

  “The Council here was not allowed to trade. In anything. If ships stood out in the roads and sent for supplies, he could hardly refuse to sell them what they needed, but he couldn’t very well go out and inspect the ships himself.”

  “Does any slave-trading still go on?”

  “I expect so. One hears rumours. You see, it was considered acceptable for such a long time and was such a lucrative business; there are many of the old traders who refuse to honour laws that are made across the sea.”

  “If they are caught?”

  “If they are caught, they face enormous fines, and the slaves are freed. We have to find other ways for men to make money on this coast. Palm oil is one, and we’ll find others.”

  “Others as lucrative as selling people?”

  “Letty,” I said, “times change. We used to exhibit the heads of criminals on pikes. We still enjoy hangings and bear-baitings and earlier than that we used to run around nearly naked and covered in blue grease — or the Welsh did, at any rate. Kings beheaded wives they wanted to get rid of. As civilization progresses, things that seemed perfectly acceptable at one time become unacceptable later on.”

  “I know Mr. Freeman is counting on that. Wants to do away with all those fetishes and multiple gods.”

  “I’m not sure the Wesleyans are going about it the right way. A little less of the ‘Thou shalt not’ might help.”

  “How many slaves do you think went from here to the New World? Mr. Freeman implied thousands.”

  “A steady stream at any rate. It’s over now, Letty; there’s nothing you can do about it.”

  I left her looking even more pensive than when I arrived.

  Letty

  THUNDER, BUT NO RAIN. Thunder and great streaks of lightning, but no rain. Then, suddenly, the rain would come, falling straight down and galloping across the roofs like a pack of wild horses. The red earth turned to red mud, red pudding. Then, just as suddenly, it was over. Everything steamed. The earth sucked up the wet.

  It rained the afternoon I was buried. George stayed in his room.

  The Castle gun was fired at 8:00 p.m., just before the heavy gates were closed. The keys were brought to George at 9:00 p.m. No one could get in or out from the closing of the gates until they opened the following morning.

  Isaac now slept at the top of the stairs, yet someone stood outside my door, breathing, waiting. Someone left me another doll, just two sticks tied together with red cloth and a flat piece of wood for the head. Something a child would make. Or maybe not. I told no one; I locked it in my secret drawer.

  They said the bats that flew around the lowest level of the Castle were the souls of slaves. These are a superstitious people; Mr. Freeman is out to change all that.

  When Mr. Freeman got his congregation really worked up they jumped up and down and shouted. He held up his hands, palms outward.

  “Quiet now. Quiet. Let us pray.”

  When he called to see me, I sent word that I was busy, perhaps another time. Always he left a note and a little gift from his garden, some flowers.

  I longed for letters and journals and newspapers, but consoled myself with the thought the Maclean would soon be in. October, now, and back home, the loveliest time of the year. “Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness.” My friends would be returning to Town from their country homes. There would be parties and new fashions. New faces. George said we could go to Accra during the Christmas holidays. Two days to get there, two days to come back. Brodie told me the officers dance with one another — the Dashing White Sergeant, Eightsome Reels, Minuets, even.

  “You will be the belle of the ball.”

  “I am not a natural dancer; I can’t seem to concentrate on the steps. Too many things going on at once. I’m all for sitting on a little gilded chair with a glass of punch and watching.”

  “I think you are just being modest.”

  Mrs. Bailey, my plump Abigail, would be leaving with the ship. I told her I planned a party for Christmas Eve and would she teach Ibrahim to make mince pies?

  “Don’t know what we can use for suet.”

  “Just do your best with what we’ve got in the stores. I know there are raisins and of course there’s plenty of brandy.”

  “I suppose I could candy some peel.”

  “There, you see; I knew you’d be able to help. Perhaps, if you made up a great stock of the filling, using brandy to preserve it, and you taught him the pastry, he would have no trouble putting it all together.” Anything to do with sweets and Mrs. Bailey was interested. (And I had several tins of Scotch shortbread if all else failed.) I wished we could have oysters as a first course, but it didn’t really matter; when in Rome … There were snails in the market, Isaac said, but they were dismissed by Mrs. B. as “revolting” and “huge.” I was hoping for escargot.

  New books, new faces, new topics of conversation. Here it is always the climate, the natives, who is dying, who dead. And the sea never stops; there is just a pause, a moment of unbearable tension, then WHAM! it begins again.

  The wind in the palm trees rattles the leaves like bones.

  Brodie Cruickshank

  I SUPPOSE I WAS A LITTLE IN LOVE WITH HER. At any rate I loved everything about her that was familiar and feminine, English and civilized. I considered George Maclean a very lucky man.

  Letty

  PERHAPS SOMEDAY SOMEONE WILL WRITE A SAD BALLAD about all this, something along the lines of Barbara Allen or Lord Randall. George could have it set to music and play it on his violin.

  George

  SOMETIMES I THOUGHT OF HOME, but not too often; as I told Letty, it is not good to live in two places at once. The most successful men, out here, are those who arrive with the idea they will stay forever — except for the occasional leave for reasons of health. And yet and yet. I imagined the snow on the hilltops after the first frosts in September. The rain and fog would seem to go on forever and then along would come one clear crisp blue day to make up for all the rest.

  I missed the sound of the cuckoo on the moors in spring, finding the nests of the curlew in the heather, the drumming of the male snipe. All the birds — there were so many birds. Land birds, sea birds. Here the most prominent bird is the vulture. He is always up there, wheeling in great circles, looking for something dead or dying. “Nature’s dustman.”

  “Did you know, Letty, that Macbeth was one of us?”

  “I knew he was a Scot.”

  “He was a Scot from my area, a Mormoir, or sea stewart, who headed the Celtic resistance to the encroachments of a new regime and the new language that followed.”

  “Macbeth was a very bad man.”

  “A weak man, an ambitious man — or at least that is how Shakespeare portrayed him; his wife was the bad one.”

  “Shakespeare’s women are so various. Viola is my favourite. Perhaps, when I finish the Scott essays, I should turn to Shakespeare.”

  “Not another novel?”

  “Not at present. Ethel Churchill wore me out. And I must admit that it is much harder for me to write prose than poetry. Poetry seems my native language; it just flies off my pen. Whereas prose — prose is like a foreign language to me.”

  “The essays are in prose.”

  “But that is different. I am operating as a critic there; I am not the prime mover.”

  “I admire your self-discipline.”

  “It was something I learned at a very
early age. And then, since my early twenties, I have always been aware of the wolf at the door. I did not write solely for pleasure; I still don’t. I write to feed the wolf.”

  George

  I HAD A FEELING that when the boat came in, Letty might feel a great tug toward “Home.” That is why I agreed to the Accra expedition at Christmas. I would much prefer to stay here, sleep late, catch up on all my work, but she needed something to look forward to. Unless the Wesleyan Society was sending out more missionaries with this ship, once Mrs. Bailey left, Letty would be the only white woman here. And she absolutely refused to get involved with the Mission School; she seemed to have taken a positive dislike to Mr. Freeman when she could have been such a help to him. I would never force her to do anything, but it did look peculiar when the little school was so badly in need of teachers. I didn’t think it was because he was a mulatto; it was something deeper than that. And certainly there was a time later on when I disliked him heartily. It was a misunderstanding, but it cost me dear.

  Letty: George, if he says “Adam’s Ale” once more I shall scream!

  Letty (to Brodie): A horse in a mill has an easier life than an author.

  Mr. Freeman (raising his voice): “My chains fell off, my heart was free; I rose, went forth and followed Thee.” (He paused to make sure his linguist understood and could translate properly.)

  “Did you get all that?”

  “Sah.”

  Letty (Mr. Freeman and several others are dining at the Castle): “Perhaps you should take a native wife this time, Mr. Freeman, as the climate does not seem to suit these European ladies.”

  “It seems to suit you, Mrs. Maclean.”

  “Yes, it does. Much to my surprise. I haven’t felt so well in months.”

  “Not even a hint of fever?”

  “Not a hint, not a whisper.”

  “God is smiling down on you, dear lady.”

  “So it would seem.”

  Letty

  THE CLEANERS FOUND A DEAD BAT under my bed. “Isaac,” I called to the breathing outside my door, “is that you?”

  I began to slow down with my writing of the essays. I knew I would finish in time to send them off, but I was unsure of what to do after that. I was contracted to do the next year’s Drawing-Room Scrapbook and the engravings should arrive with the boat, but I could do three dozen poems to go with three dozen engravings in the twinkling of an eye. Then what? Perhaps I should begin a novel, something to keep my mind from my night terrors. There was the story Brodie had told me about that governor of Elmina, of how, if the women he chose became pregnant, they were set free. A young girl from the interior is walked down to the Coast with her brother and a hundred others. They are locked in the cells and only taken out when the slave traders arrived, or to have their daily airing in the courtyard. The governor, from his balcony, looked down on the naked women from above. “My” girl is very lovely, like the bride we saw in the wedding procession, and of course she is chosen.

  Pointing. “That one. Yah. Her.”

  How would the other women feel when it is discovered she is with child? Would they be envious — now she wouldn’t have to board a slaving ship to be transported God knows where? Or would they feel deeply sorry for her, knowing the brutal reputation of the governor, knowing that this had been her first time with a man?

  At four months, her condition is evident and the jailers make their report. The governor would quite like to keep her with him — she is so young and beautiful, like a young antelope, but a rule is a rule and he considers himself an honourable man.

  When the great gates are shut behind her she stands frozen to the spot. Where can she go? What should she do? She stares up at the indifferent stars, her beautiful eyes full of tears. She has not even been allowed to say goodbye to her brother. All she can do is stumble away from the Castle toward the fires of the little town, terrified that some wild animal will spring from the shadows and catch her in its jaws. (There must be a bit of moonlight, but not much.)

  As to what might happen after that, I wasn’t sure. Would she give birth to a boy or a girl? Would she be befriended by a market woman, a merchant’s wife, a degenerate trader? I would like her to have a happy ending, but I fear that won’t be her fate. Perhaps her daughter will have the happy ending, or her son. Maybe the missionaries will take her in. (Would there have been missionaries at Elmina at that time? Brodie would know.)

  It could have been a very good novel. The crashing surf, the Dutch governor, the terrified girl climbing the ladder to his quarters. Palm trees. Monkeys. Perhaps one of those awful “ordeals” Mrs. Topp mentioned, to establish guilt or innocence. The Southern Cross. The slave traders who stand in a little room with a peephole, so that they can see the slaves but cannot be seen themselves. “That one.”

  Her brother has to come into it — his story. He ends up in Jamaica, working in the cane fields. Three volumes.

  “By Letitia Maclean, formerly L.E.L.”

  I lay on my bed in the afternoons, watching the dimity curtains billow in the breeze from the sea. If Ethel Churchill brought in £300, why shouldn’t this bring in more? I would call it, The Desolate Shore.

  “Brodie,” I said, “tell me more about the days of the slave trade.”

  “What do you want to know?”

  It got hotter every day now and I found I had little appetite. My old pain returned, but I rationed the drops carefully; they had to last. George was so caught up in Castle business he never noticed how listlessly I pushed the food around my plate. I had terrible dreams, but when I awoke, shaking and sweaty, I could not remember them. Mrs. Bailey began going through her trunk to see what she could leave behind. There had to be room for the mountains of knitted goods she was taking home to our Dulcie.

  “Are you looking forward to leaving, Mrs. Bailey?”

  “I’m not looking forward to the voyage; I expect I shall be sick the whole way across, but I’m looking forward to being back in England. This has all been very interesting and I’ve certainly been treated well, but it’s not home, is it? Colourful though, innit? So different. Out of the ordinary. I certainly never thought I’d have a chance to see Africa, did you? Funny where life takes you.”

  It was Mrs. Bailey who closed my eyes and dressed me in my prettiest blue-sprigged frock. “Laid me out,” as they say. George sat in his room with his head in his hands. Mrs. Bailey said George should come and remove my rings as they were his mother’s, but he refused. I don’t think he wanted to touch me.

  George: She was so cold, so still.

  Mr. Freeman

  THE HEAT AFFECTED ME — HOW COULD IT NOT? — but what really plagued me were the flying insects, especially the mosquitoes; they always seemed to head for my ears, which are rather large and fleshy. I lay there sleepless, for a month, until I devised a kind of canopy from the net curtains my wife had brought with her. After that I slept as sound as a newborn babe. The other men laughed at me, I know, and my cook-steward grinned in a mocking manner, but I tell you, my canopy, plus cotton-wool ear plugs against that awful whine, well, this changed my whole perception of the place.

  There were skeps at Sir Robert Harland’s and I got the idea for my canopy from the hats with nets hanging down, that we used when collecting honey from the supers. Of course the sting of a bee is much more painful than that from a mosquito, but I am a practical man and like to find solutions for problems. If the mosquitoes were depriving me of my sleep, then I must find a way to correct that.

  I wondered if it would be possible to keep bees out here. My garden grew well and my aubergines were fat and glossy, my beans plentiful, my onions excellent. I had brought along some cuttings of herbs and medicinal plants as well, such as comfrey and sage, feverfew, and St. John’s Wort. By the time Mrs. Maclean arrived I felt I could “show off” my little plot and she was very impressed.

  I saw her once before, you know, even spoke to her, although of course she didn’t remember me. She was one of a large house party that weeke
nd and while wandering around the estate, seeking inspiration for a poem, no doubt, perhaps looking for the family mausoleum, she came across one of Sir Robert’s granddaughters crying bitterly. It was not my job to attend to guests, except to supply nosegays for their rooms and perhaps bunches of grapes from the conservatory. The child didn’t sound in danger or of course I would have gone to her aid — I was deadheading roses just around the corner.

  Mrs. Maclean — Miss Landon as she was then — discovered what the trouble was, came looking for help, and saw me.

  “You!” she called. “Miss Caroline’s ball has fallen in the pond. Please fetch it for her.”

  She turned her back and expected me to follow. I brought with me my long rake and it proved an easy matter just to lean out over the pond and rake it in. Never a thank-you from either of them and the child put her hands behind her back.

  “I don’t want it now, it’s all nasty.”

  I left it there on the lawn for somebody else to find and went back to the roses.

  Miss High and Mighty. It’s the ones without much money who are the worst. Sir Robert and Lady H. never used that tone with me, or with any of the servants, even if he did make me choose once I had seen the light. They didn’t like Methodists? Well, few did.

  Sir Robert said that he wished me well in whatever I did in future and shook my hand. (Of course at that point he didn’t know I was going to take his housekeeper away as well!)

  Letty

  IT WAS HARD TO BELIEVE THAT THE MOON up there was the same moon that shines down on London. Did they talk about me? Did they sigh and say how dull London seemed now that Letty’s gone?