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By Root 3059 0

usually walked up and down the glacis, a paved roofed-in terrace which ran the length of the house and sloped upward to a clump of bamboos. Standing by the bamboos she had a clear view to the sea, but anyone passing could stare at her. They stared, sometimes they laughed. Long after the sound was far away and faint she kept her eyes shut and her hands clenched. A frown came between her black eyebrows, deep – it might have been cut with a knife. I hated this frown and once I touched her forehead trying to smooth it. But she pushed me away, not roughly but calmly, coldly, without a word, as if she had decided once and for all that I was useless to her. She wanted to sit with Pierre or walk where she pleased without being pestered, she wanted peace and quiet. I was old enough to look after myself. ‘Oh, let me alone,’ she would say, ‘let me alone,’ and after I knew that she talked aloud to herself I was a little afraid of her.

So I spent most of my time in the kitchen which was an outbuilding some way off. Christophine slept in the little room next to it.

When evening came she sang to me if she was in the mood. I couldn’t always understand her patois songs – she also came from Martinique – but she taught me the one that meant ‘The little one grow old, the children leave us, will they come back?’ and the one about the cedar tree flowers which only last for a day.

The music was gay but the words were sad and her voice often quavered and broke on the high note. ‘Adieu.’ Not adieu as we said it, but à dieu, which made more sense after all. The loving man was lonely, the girl was deserted, the children never came back. Adieu

Her songs were not like Jamaican songs, and she was not like the other women.

She was much blacker – blue-black with a thin face and straight features. She wore a black dress, heavy gold ear-rings and a yellow handkerchief – carefully tied with the two high points in front. No other negro woman wore black, or tied her handkerchief Martinique fashion. She had a quiet voice and a quiet laugh when she did laugh), and though she could speak good English if she wanted to, and French as well as patois, she took care to talk as they talked. But they would have nothing to do with her and she never saw her son who worked in Spanish Town. She had only one friend – a woman called Maillotte, and Maillotte was not a Jamaican.

The girls from the bayside who sometimes helped with the washing and cleaning were terrified of her. That, I soon discovered, was why they came at all – for she never paid them. Yet they brought presents of fruit and vegetables and after dark I often heard low voices from the kitchen.

So I asked about Christophine. Was she very old? Had she always been with us?

‘She was your father’s wedding present to me – one of his presents. He though I would be pleased with a Martinique girl. I don’t know how old she was when they brought her to Jamaica, quite young. I don’t know how old she is now. Does it matter? Why do you pester and bother me about all these things that happened long ago? Christophine stayed with me because she wanted to stay. She had her own very good reasons you may be sure. I dare say we would have died if she’d turned against us and that would have been a better fate. To die and be forgotten and at peace. Not to know that one is abandoned, lied about, helpless. All the ones who died – who says a good word for them now?’

‘Godfrey stayed too,’ I said. ‘And Sass.’

‘They stayed,’ she said angrily, ‘because they wanted somewhere to sleep and something to eat. That boy Sass! When his mother pranced off and left him here – a great deal she cared – why he was a little skeleton. Now he’s growing into a big strong boy and away he goes. We shan’t see him again. Godfrey is a rascal. These new ones aren’t too kind to old people and he knows it. That’s why he stays. Doesn’t do a thing but eat enough for a couple of horses. Pretends he’s deaf. He isn’t deaf – he doesn’t want to hear. What a devil he is!’

‘Why don’t you tell him to find somewhere else to live?’ I said and she laughed.

‘He wouldn