Local Customs Page 8

  Letty

  IT IS TABOO FOR THE FISHERMEN TO FISH ON TUESDAYS, the agricul-turalists to dig or plant on Fridays. And so they work on Sundays, which is the Christian day of rest. Mr. Freeman says all that must change or, at the very least, they must not work on Sundays once they convert. This was met with great resentment. Why should they lose two days of work? Then give up the old taboos, says Mr. Freeman, but they are frightened to do so. There is an eye painted on the prow of the canoes, and the words ONYAME NAA, “God never sleeps.” But which God?

  To make matters worse, there was a drowning in mid-September. The fishermen cannot swim, so if a canoe capsizes and they can’t hang on until another canoe comes to their rescue, they drown. Do they cry out? If, as Brodie told me, the women are not allowed to cry out when giving birth, are the men supposed to be equally brave — or do they pray and scream in those panic-stricken moments before they let go and are swallowed by the hungry sea? I once met a general who had been in the Peninsula War. He said most dying men call for their mothers, particularly the young lads. In this case all the men were saved except one.

  They brought his body up from the beach and paraded it through the town. That night the drums went on until dawn and there was much weeping and wailing. Mr. Freeman stayed inside the mission house; the boy was one of his converts.

  I meant to ask Mrs. Bailey if sailors can swim. If not, how naive to trust that your ship will never let you down. My own experience at sea almost convinced me that I could never go on board a ship again; I would have to stay here forever. Which is what happened, isn’t it? My letters went home, my essays, even my trunks, but not me.

  The fish here is wonderful. A fish dinner, with roasted yams and plantain fried in palm oil is Heaven. But George is a hearty eater; he wants some sort of stew or roasted meat to follow and a pudding to follow that. He will be corpulent later on, but perhaps not. Except for the governor of Elmina, the white men I have seen so far are all thin, weedy, most of them.

  Brodie said the men need exercise; he worked with Indian clubs every morning when he was at Anamaboe and in Accra, he said, there are tennis courts. Perhaps we could have a clay court here, I said, but would George play tennis? Somehow I doubted it.

  Sometimes, when George and I met up for a “wee dram” before dinner (whiskey for him, ginger beer or sherry for me) he would look at me in puzzlement and blink his eyes once or twice. I think for a moment he had no idea who I was. Then his face would clear; ah, yes, the wife.

  I made sure that the table was set properly every evening: silver, crystal, candles, hibiscus flowers floating in a glass bowl, my Grandmother Bishop’s damask tablecloth. He never commented on any of this; I doubt he even noticed it, and yet I’m sure this was all new to him out here. The one thing he always praised was the pudding. Thanks to Mrs. Bailey, Ibrahim now had quite a repertoire of stodge.

  One afternoon I took a walk down to the beach with Mrs. Bailey and Isaac. She had a mind to see if she could buy directly from the fishermen rather than wait for tomorrow’s market. The fishermen chant as they haul the nets up onto the shore. The market women are congregated there with their baskets and after they have bargained, they raise the loaded baskets to their heads and walk away like queens. Everything is carried on the head, enormous loads, yet they have beautiful posture. It was very colourful — the women in their cloths of many colours, the men chanting, the wind blowing, the tall palm trees like one-legged birds or feather dusters. I wrote to Maclise (he painted me, you know — a very flattering portrait) and said he should arrange a visit, for there was much here to interest the painter’s eye. A little ragged boy separated himself from his companions (“Bronie, Bronie, Bronie, give me dashee-o”) came up to me and put his hand in mine. Just for a moment he let it rest there and smiled up at me. I think the others dared him to do it. Then he ran, laughing, back to his “gang.” Something stirred in me, some swift yearning, almost a pain in my heart.

  I wonder if George ever wanted children. When I first came I noticed several children with rusty hair and rather blotchy skin. I wondered if those were George’s by-blows, but Mrs. Bailey (who had obviously wondered the same thing) said Isaac had told her that these children have some disease that makes them like that. There is no cure, but the surgeon intends to take one or two of them to London when he next goes on leave. He wants to show them to some colleague of his who specializes in tropical medicine. After all, he said, who would have dreamt that something as simple as limes would be the answer to scurvy? I liked Mr. Cobbold; he was so good when George was ill. But by not performing an autopsy on me he certainly put the cat among the pigeons.

  Mr. Freeman

  I SAW MRS. MACLEAN OUT WALKING with Mrs. Bailey and their young servant. Our lady of leisure. I wished she would show some interest in the day-to-day struggles of our mission. She said she had “commitments” to publishers in London and must finish certain things before the ship arrives. I had dipped into her work — such a lot of words to cover so very little substance. Not my dish of tea. Never mind, I said to myself, God will give me the help I need — “the back is made for the burden.”

  I did miss my wife. She nursed me through my fever and then she sickened. The night before she died, not having spoken or opened her eyes for hours, she suddenly sat bolt upright in bed, cried out “My God! My God!” then seized my hand, and looking directly at me, she said, “Thomas, this time tomorrow I shall be in Heaven.”

  I will need another wife and have written to the Society for someone suitable. Meanwhile, the merchants are convivial, the new chapel comes on apace and Captain Maclean supports me in every way. The fowls we were given when we arrived were thriving and I started a little vegetable garden out by the cemetery, for I would like to be self-sufficient.

  I must tell you an amusing story, which I related to my friends over a glass or two of punch. One afternoon, as I was returning to the house after my labours, a young girl greeted me and said she had been sent to me.

  “Do you wish to learn about the Christian God?” I asked. The more young women I could convert, the easier my task would be. The women will persuade the men, for no mission girl would want to marry a pagan, and no young man would want to see his sweetheart pledge her troth to another.

  “No, Sah. I be sent for you. I be wife — for you.”

  Well, you can imagine my shock! I quickly sent her back home to her Mama.

  The men laughed and laughed (I must admit I exaggerated my facial expressions as I told this tale), but then Mr. Swanzy said,

  “You do realize, old chum, that you have shamed her?”

  “How so? I would have shamed her by taking her in.”

  “That’s according to your view; but according to theirs, you sent her back because she was not good enough. I should imagine she was beaten when she returned.”

  “Surely not.”

  “Surely so.”

  I was terribly distressed to hear this and prevailed upon Swanzy, who was an Old Coaster and spoke the language like a native, to find out where the girl lived and explain to her parents that my God did not allow me to take a concubine.

  “Don’t you get lonely, Thomas?”

  “Of course; I’m a man, aren’t I? But I will soon have a second wife who will be joined to me in Christian marriage.”

  “Good luck to you, then.”

  Letty

  THE RAINS VIRTUALLY STOPPED by the first week in October and the red dust blew into and onto everything, every nook and cranny, every fold and pleat. It blotted my writing, it even got between my teeth. If anything was set out early, on the dinner table, it had to be covered over with fine net cloches. I was surprised, on the occasions when George and I lay together, that we didn’t act as emery boards to one another. When I first arrived I thought the contrast of the red earth and the lush green hills was picturesque in the extreme; now I hated it. I could sponge myself off two or three times a day and yet I never felt refreshed. I became nostalgic for the rains, but everyone else
said the Dry Season was the healthy season, or as healthy as it gets — out here.

  The wind blew all the time, day and night. The wind in the palm trees rattled the leaves like bones. The wind blew and the waves crashed against the shore, the drums went on, distant or up close (someone was “wedded or deaded” as Mrs. Bailey used to say), and I found it hard to sleep. Some nights I could hear an animal screaming; it sounded like a child being murdered, awful. I told George and he said it was a little creature called a hyrax, a kind of sloth, and the natives had a folk tale about it which involved Anansi the Spider-Man.

  “I can’t remember exactly what the hyrax did to provoke Anansi, but he did something, and Anansi the Spider set out after him.

  “‘Say you’re sorry or you’ll be sorry,’ Anansi yelled.

  “Seeing a palm tree close by, the hyrax scrambled a little ways up.

  “‘I’m sorry,’ he said.

  “‘Again,’ said Anansi.

  “‘I’m sorry.’ (And the hyrax climbed a little higher up the tree.)

  “And so it went on, with Anansi standing at the bottom of the tall coconut palm and the hyrax calling out, ‘Sorry Sorry Sorry’ until he made his way to the very top. Then he changed his tune, knowing that the spider could never reach him.

  “‘I’m not sorry!’ he screamed. ‘I’m not sorry! I’m not sorry!’ And that is what you’ve been hearing.

  “The people love stories about Anansi, grown-ups as well as children. He’s naughty, and he’s a shape-shifter. He can turn himself into anything: a piece of cloth, a log, a sleeping-mat.”

  “A sleeping-mat?”

  “Oh, yes. He likes playing tricks on people and on animals. I’ll see if I can remember more of them. Someone should collect them and write them down in English. Now there’s a job for you, Letty. The thing is, they are not really Fantee stories, they come from the Ashantee people, but they have made their way down to the Coast.”

  “With the slaves, I suppose.”

  “I suppose so.”

  “Well how do I get the hyrax to stop screaming?”

  “You don’t. Just wait for him to move on.”

  Letty

  FOR THE FIRST SEVERAL DAYS, except for nursing George AND the awkward visit from the Governor of Elmina Castle, I lived in almost complete seclusion, but I had great resources in my writing (which I did for a few hours every day while my husband slept) and I remained quite well. I did miss flattery (I’ve never pretended I wasn’t vain) but even more I missed talking about ideas and books. Then Brodie arrived.

  At the end of our second week a delightful young man came to see me, or rather, he initially came to pay his respects to George and to welcome me — he said he was quite a fan of my work. Brodie Cruickshank, head of Anamaboe Fort some miles beyond Elmina. Another Scot and a fellow student of my husband’s when he was at Elgin Academy. But very different from George, oh yes.

  George was still unwell and unable to receive him, so I did the honours. I thought it was very rude of George not to make the effort, when Mr. Cruickshank had come all that way to see him, and he, too, had been ill, he said, and was still suffering from headache.

  We lunched together and chatted about all sorts of things. He had read nearly all of my books and confessed, shyly, that he had come to meet the wonderful L.E.L. just as much as he had come to welcome the governor home. Just before he left he took a small volume from his breast pocket.

  “Would you autograph this for me?” He was to stay a few days at Mr. Topp’s and asked permission to call on me again.

  I hoped he would stay a fortnight — forever! After he left I realized that I had lived the past few weeks in virtual silence. George was simply not a talker. Getting a conversation going with him was a task equal to that of the Israelites making bricks out of straw. That was just how he was, and to add to that, he was still feeling rotten. I needed the attention I received that afternoon from Brodie Cruickshank; I was parched for it. Mrs. Bailey likes to say she’d “murder for a cup of tea.” Well I was ready to murder for a real conversation! For recognition that I was important in my own right; flattery; laughter: I gulped it down, felt quite dizzy with it all, as though it had been wine, not words. Brodie — he had asked me to call him Brodie — seemed more English than Scotch, perhaps a little French as well. People back home said I, too, had a French “flavour.”

  George: Brodie Cruickshank. A nice enough fellow, good at his job. I think he was a little bit in love with Letty.

  Mr. Freeman: Mr. Topp had a visitor, the Head of Anamaboe fort, farther along the coast. He had just called at the Castle and reported that Governor Maclean was still convalescing and unable to see him until tomorrow. However, he had lunched with Mrs. Maclean and all of his talk was of her. Did we realize that she was the premier poetess of England? Didn’t we think it amazing that she was here on the coast? How brave of her to come etc. etc. etc.

  Mr. Cruickshank was quite yellow about the eyeballs and he did say he’d had fever recently and was still suffering from headaches. However, he would be going on leave in October and a few months of Highland air would soon put him right.

  He seemed a bit of a milksop — all this talk of poetry and headaches with a few French phrases thrown in. I wondered what he would think if I volunteered the fact that I could give the Latin names of just about anything growing here on the coast?

  “Have you read L.E.L.’s poetry, Mr. Freeman?”

  “I have glanced at it.”

  “Oh, you must do much more than glance at it; she has depths; she can move you to tears.”

  “I shall have to try again.”

  Mr. Topp’s wife was an excellent cook. I took pains to complement her on the stew. Her marriage to William Topp was a Christian marriage and she was a strong supporter of my work. A beautiful woman, even when heavily with child as she was that night. I walked home under the stars, hoping I would soon hear from the Society about the possibility of another wife.

  Letty: George said to me one evening in early October, “Why Letty, you look wonderful; you are positively blooming.”

  “Thank you, George,” I said, “I do believe this climate agrees with me. And yet a little bird told me your friends were placing bets on how long I’d last.”

  George: Yes, I heard that rumour as well, but I don’t believe it.

  Letty: I shall have to observe who has the longest face and then I shall know which one wagered a guinea on “dead within a fortnight.”

  George: It was quite amazing. I had been unwell since the day we arrived — fever, chills, costiveness — and here was this London belle, this glasshouse flower, flourishing.

  Mr. Freeman: All this young flesh, all this display, this ripeness. Testing me. God was testing me. But I could not help envying Mr. and Mrs. Topp and their obvious contentment.

  Letty: I asked Mr. Freeman one day why he thought all the other missionaries died of fever when I had not even suffered from a touch of it.

  “Perhaps because you live at the Castle, on higher ground.”

  “Then George should have been spared illness as well. And you, you live in town.”

  “I believe I was spared because God has plans for me.”

  “I see.”

  Freeman: She smiled and a little dimple appeared at the side of her cheek.

  “And does God have plans for me, then?”

  “I am not privy to God’s plans.”

  Letty: “Ah,” said Mr. Freeman, dining with us one evening, “Gentlemen’s Relish, how wonderful!” Rubbing his hands together. How badly he wanted to be one of us.

  George: Letty went on and on about Brodie Cruickshank.

  Letty: “It’s hard to believe you grew up in the same area. Brodie is so outgoing and you are so … taciturn.”

  George: “I told her I couldn’t change who I was, ‘not even for you.’”

  “Oh, no, no. Please don’t take offence. I like you just the way you are. But you know how one tends to generalize: the Irish, lovers of
horses and stout, talkers, fiery; the French, fond of talk, witty, arrogant; the Scots — well, the Scots are more like you than Brodie Cruickshank.”

  “Perhaps he is the exception that proves the rule.”

  “Perhaps.”

  Letty: He stood up, throwing down his serviette. “Oh dear, I think I have hurt your feelings.”

  “Not at all. We true Scots have no feelings.”

  Letty: He went up to what he called his cockloft and that was the last I heard or saw of him that evening, although at one point, in the middle of the night, I thought there was someone outside my door.

  “George?” “Isaac?” “Who’s there?”

  I shivered. Mrs. Bailey would have said, “Someone just walked over your grave.”

  Brodie Cruickshank

  “MR. CRUICKSHANK,” SHE SAID, “HOW DO YOU DO?” Her small hand in mine, such delicate bones. And her pale, pale skin, with the little blue vein just above the left temple. She was like some rare butterfly that had flown into the wrong garden; from the very first I feared for her health, yet she laughed when I told her this climate was deadly.

  “Mr. Cruickshank, George told me the same thing, over and over and it’s true, I’ve been a semi-invalid most of my life. At home I’ve often had to take to my bed, but here, for some reason, I thrive. I feel better than I have felt in years. It’s you men who seem to suffer.”

  She was so good to me, bathing my forehead with eau de cologne, letting me lie on her settee while she sat next to me and read out bits from the essays she was writing on Walter Scott’s female characters.