Wide Sargasso Sea - Jean Rhys [40]
‘And you,’ I said. ‘What about you?’
‘I was never sad in the morning,’ she said, ‘and every day was a fresh day for me. I remember the taste of milk and bread and the sound of the grandfather clock ticking slowly and the first time I had my hair tied with string because there was no ribbon left and no money to buy any. All the flowers in the world were in our garden and sometimes when I was thirsty I licked raindrops from the Jasmine leaves after a shower. If I could make you see it, because they destroyed it and it is only here now.’ She struck her forehead. ‘One of the best things was a curved flight of shallow steps that went down from the glacis to the mounting stone, the handrail was ornamented iron.’
‘Wrought iron,’ I said.
‘Yes, wrought iron, and at the end of the last step it was curved like a question mark and when I put my hand on it, the iron was warm and I was comforted.’
‘But you said you were always happy.’
‘No, I said I was always happy in the morning, not always in the afternoon and never after sunset, for after sunset the house was haunted, some places are. Then there was that day when she saw I was growing up like a white nigger and she was ashamed of me, it was after that day that everything changed. Yes, it was my fault, it was my fault that she started to plan and work in a frenzy, in a fever to changes our lives. Then people came to see us again and though I still hated them and was afraid of their cool, teasing eyes, I learned to hide it.’
‘No,’ I said.
‘Why no?’
‘You have never learned to hide it,’ I said.
‘I learned to try,’ said Antoinette. Not very well, I thought.
‘And there was that night when they destroyed it.’ She lay back in the chair, very pale. I poured some rum out and offered it to her, but she pushed the glass away so roughly that it spilled over her dress. ‘There is nothing left now. They trampled on it. It was a sacred place. It was sacred to the sun! I began to wonder how much of all this was true, how much imagined, distorted. Certainly many of the old estate houses were burned. You saw ruins all over the place.
As if she’d guessed my thoughts she went on calmly, ‘But I was telling you about my mother. Afterwards I had fever. I was at Aunt Cora’s house in Spanish Town. I heard screams and then someone laughing very loud. Next morning Aunt Cora told me that my mother was ill and had gone to the country. This did not seem strange to me for she was part of Coulibri, and if Coulibri had been destroyed and gone out of my life, it seemed natural that she should go too. I was ill for a long time. My head was bandaged because someone had thrown a stone at me. Aunt Cora told me that it was healing up and that it wouldn’t spoil me for my wedding day. But I think it did spoil me for my wedding day and all the other days and nights.’
I said, ‘Antoinette, your nights are not spoiled, or your days, put the sad things away. Don’t think about them and nothing will be spoiled, I promise you.’
But my heart was heavy as lead.
‘Pierre died,’ she went on as if she had not heard me, ‘and my mother hated Mr Mason. She would not let him go near her or touch her. She said she would kill him, she tried to, I think. So he bought her a house and hired a coloured man and woman to look after her. For a while he was sad but he often left Jamaica and spent a lot of time in Trinidad. He almost forgot her.’
‘And you forgot her too,’ I could not help saying.
‘I am not a forgetting person,’ said Antoinette. ‘But she – she didn’t want me. She pushed me away and cried when I went to see her. They told me I made her worse. People talked about her, they would not leave her alone, they would be talking about her and stop if they saw me. One day made up my mind to go to her, by myself. Before I reached her house I heard her crying. I though I will kill anyone who is hurting my mother. I dismounted and ran quickly on to the veranda where I could look into the room. I remember the dress she was wearing – an evening dress cut