Olga - A Daughter's Tale Read Free Page B

up and down the gangplanks, in and out of the hatches in the sides of the boat below carrying the bananas on their heads with such consummate ease.
    Some of the men have cutlasses and are using them to slice the stalks off the bananas if they are too long. I’ve never seen black men before and can’t stop staring at them. When they’ve finished loading the bananas the women and girls are handed a piece of paper from the negro foreman and take it to the paymaster to collect their wages, I think. Watching the hustle and bustle of the Negroes going about their work remind me of armies of ants soldiering away.

    ******

Chapter Three

Becky’s Diary

    “ Mon Repose” : I still can’t quite believe the news that greeted Martha and me when we got off the boat at Kingston. There was Lucy standing on the dockside heavily pregnant. It came as such a shock because she hadn’t mentioned it in any of her letters.
    “I wanted it to be a surprise” she said. It was certainly that.
    The long journey to “Mon Repose” was in a horse drawn buggy, very uncomfortable because of the rough roads, but scenically beautiful and at times a frightening experience up steep hills, past towering coca palms with their feathery plumes waving in the breeze, around sudden sharp bends with waterfalls cascading down the side of the mountain.
    The house is wonderful, spacious and cool with mahogany wood panelling in most rooms and windows that go from the highly polished floor to the ceiling and left open all day to let the mountain breeze run through the house.
    Lucy has been busy sketching and the house is full of pencil drawings and watercolours of exotic flowers, and ferns, as well as brightly coloured parrots, hummingbirds and the mockingbird. Coming from Paddington, it’s taking me some time to get used to seeing such a richness of scenery that thrives under a sun that shines constantly in a cloudless clear blue sky.
    John and Lucy are a popular couple on Kingston’s social circuit and Lucy tells us that new arrivals, even if they are only staying a short time, always attract interest, curiosity and lots of invitations to different social and sporting occasions abound. A garden party at Winchester Park, a concert at Port Antonio, a picnic on the beach, the theatre and an invitation to Kingston Races, are just a few of the invitations we’ve received. I haven’t the stamina to accept all the invitations but Martha is making the most of the social life here which is why she sleeps late every morning.
    But in spite of all that is new to us, there are some things that are very familiar about this island. Britain’s habit of colonising a country in its own image has not escaped here. Jamaica, the exotic “land of wood and water” is divided into three counties of Middlesex, Surrey and Cornwall. The English settlers brought with them their recreations and pastimes. Horseracing is very popular with everyone and race meetings are held in several parts of the island. John says there’s a cricket club in virtually every major town for the well off Jamaican, and just about every open space has become a cricket pitch for poor blacks who seem to have developed a passion for the game and would use an oil tin for the wickets and the rib of a palm leaf for a bat. All the best hotels have tennis courts and fallow fields have been turned into polo fields.
    Yesterday was one of the strangest days I’ve experienced. It started innocently enough with Lucy and I having breakfast on the veranda overlooking their plantain field. A plantain is almost exactly like a banana and grows in enormous bunches just the way bananas do, but they are bigger and green, not yellow.
    From the verandah I could see John at the entrance to a field listening intently to a wizened old man. Standing next to the old man was a small black boy who carried a large basket.
    “Who is the old man” I asked Lucy
    “He’s an Obeah man and he’s going to dress the garden”
    “What on