Chapter Thirty

They all came to the dock to see me off: Sibille, Max, Oskar and Ivan, Valerie and Amy, Johnny, Richard and Paul. In the last two weeks it seemed to me that some major shift had taken place within the group; as if they had all made a collective internal shuffle to make room for me.  As if I was now enclosed in one big shared heart belonging to them all. Without words, only with gestures and looks and smiles, I felt their support and their final acceptance. I was one of them. One by one they hugged me before I boarded. Sibille accompanied me on board, carrying my suitcase in one hand and my violin case in the other.

Uncle Don and Aunt Jane did not come to see me off; but then, I had not told them I was leaving. As my guardians they could have prevented my journey; but thank the Lord, the shipping company did not ask for signed parental permission. If they had I would have forged it.

Nobody in Georgetown knew I was coming, and so on arrival I took a hackney carriage out to Kitty, where I surprised Aunty Dolly in the process of hemming a frock. She frowned as she looked up.

‘Eh-eh! Is what you doing here?’ No smile of welcome, no hug for me. I did not care. I smiled and hugged her and asked if I could stay, at least for one night until I could find other accommodation. Myrtle had arrived on the scene by now. The two of them exchanged a covert look. Neither of them smiled, neither showed the least sign of pleasure on seeing me. Though I understood, my heart cramped as if in the grip of giant claws.

‘It’s all right,’ I whispered. ‘I’m on your side. I’ll make it all good.’ And they let me stay.

Early, very early the next morning, I made my way to the Kitty Police Station. I spoke with an officer for a few minutes, after which he set me in a carriage that took me to a house in Kingston.  I walked up the stairs and knocked on the door. After a while, an Indian woman, still in a nightgown but with a hastily thrown-over shawl across her shoulders, opened it.

‘Mrs Bhattacharya?’ I asked. She nodded. ‘May I speak to your husband, please?’

Mr Bhattacharya, the Crown Prosecutor, came out in his dressing gown, and interviewed me just as he was. Afterwards, Mrs Bhattacharya offered me breakfast, and I accepted, though I felt little hunger and ate no more than half a slice of bread with a thin spread of butter. Mr Bhattacharya, now bathed and dressed, joined us, and very dapper he was too in his black trousers, crisp white shirt and dark blue tie. I had never seen an Indian dressed so smartly. To match his spruce outfit he spoke with an accent straight out of a London University, his enunciation cleaner than my own by far. A brown peer, who might have walked straight out of the House of Lords. He was tall and lanky, his hair jet black and shiny, thin lips beneath a neatly combed moustache, and sharp searching eyes that seemed to probe into the deepest corner of my mind. It wouldn’t do to have this man on the other side. My poor Papa.

After breakfast, a hansom cab picked us up and carried us to the Victoria High Court. The crowd was already thick on High Street as we approached. People were chanting; an angry, passionate chant, but I could not make out the words. The signs people waved told me more: Justice for Bhim!Down with racist trials!‘Guilty! Murderer! When I got out of the carriage someone recognised me.

‘Is Cox daughter!’ went the cry, and I was treated to a roar of fury. I bowed my head. Mr Bhattacharya held up his hand, put a protective arm around me; the crowd grew silent and parted to let us through, and then took up its chant again.

As we reached the other end a single voice reached me. ‘Winnie?’

I looked up. George was standing right in front of me. I did not answer; I just stopped and we stared at each other for a while, and then I nodded slightly and Mr Bhattacharya and I walked on.

‘Wait here until you’re called,’ said Mr Bhattacharya, gesturing to a bench in the corridor outside the courtroom. ‘I’m going to speak to your father.’ He walked away down the corridor, turned a corner, and disappeared.

I sat on the bench, stiff-backed and somehow very calm within. A man in uniform stood guard before the open courtroom door. People began to arrive. They all stopped to stare at me. Yoyo came, and Miss Wright, and Miss Yorke, and some of the ladies form the Main Street houses. They all stopped and stared and Yoyo tried to speak to me but the guard gestured to her to move on. Uncle Jim approached, and stopped when he saw me.

‘Winnie?’

I looked up, and met his eyes.

‘What’s going on, Winnie? What you doin’ sittin’ here?’

I opened my mouth to speak but only a croak emerged, and the guard pushed him on too.

I waited. Time crept forward. A clock on the wall ticked far too loudly. The corridor had emptied long ago; everyone was in the courtroom, waiting. I could hear their breathing, their shuffling, their anxious murmuring, through the open door.

After what seemed an eternity, Mr Bhattacharya returned.

‘Miss Cox,’ he said to me, ‘you may speak to him now. Come with me.’

‘Oh!’ I exclaimed, and the anxiety must have shown in his eyes. We had not planned this. I did not want to see my father face to face. What I was doing, what I had told Mr Bhattacharya was bad enough. Seeing him in the dock would be bad enough. But Mr Bhattacharya held out his hand, gesturing to me to get up. He even smiled, for the first time since we’d met.

‘Don’t worry!’ he said, ‘it will be fine.’

I rose to my feet and followed him back the way he’d come.

Another door, this one closed. Another guard. Mr Bhattacharya nodded to him and he opened the door. He made a gesture towards me, rather, towards the handbag and I handed it over immediately.

‘Please raise your …’ but Mr Bhattarachrya stopped him mid-sentence.

‘No need to search her,’ he said. ‘She’s unarmed.’

I entered the room. It was a small, shabby and sordid enclosure, its wooden walls covered in scuffed and peeling grey paint, and divided into two by a wall of metal bars with a padlocked door set into it, making a jail of the far portion. Inside that jail sat Papa, slumped on a chair drawn up to the bars. A broken man. A caged man.

Pictures ran through my mind. I saw us all, Mama, Papa, we three girls, in the drawing room at Promised Land; we girls clapping while Mama and Papa swirled laughing to the Blue Danube sung by Mama. There was Papa, a younger, kinder Papa, sitting on his favourite chair and we three little girls climbing all over him, giggling and pulling his moustache; he tickling us and hugging us and being all a Papa should be. Papa, dancing with us one by one, teaching us all to waltz while Mama played the piano. Papa, my hero, my god, my father. Reduced to this: a prisoner in a cage.

Papa looked up as I entered, and a half-smile moved his lips. His moustache was turned down, limp and unkempt as was his hair, which had obviously not been cut in months and hung over his forehead and onto his collar. He wore prison clothes: a weary blue-grey ensemble with a number stitched into the shirt pocket. Papa, an abject soul, lost. Involuntarily, a lump rose to my throat. I stood looking at him, unsure of what to do, what to say.

Another man, on my side of the cage, stood up as I entered and introduced himself now as Mr Harper, Papa’s lawyer. He offered me his chair, the only chair on this side, and I sat down.

‘You may leave now, Mr Harper’ said Papa to him, and he tried to protest, but Papa only roared at him. ‘This is my daughter! Leave, I tell you!’

He left, and silence followed. Papa and I sat looking at each other.

‘Papa,’ I said eventually.

‘Winnie,’ he replied, and stood up. For a few seconds we simply stood, staring at each other, and then I sat down and so did he. I could not find words to speak, but at last he did.

‘So it is true,’ he said. ‘You are on their side. You will tell your story.’

Something in me that had been turning soft hardened. ‘I will tell the truth,’ I said. ‘Papa, you know it is the truth.’

More pictures flooded my mind. A different Papa. His face distorted with hatred, whipping an Indian labourer. Papa, using ugly forbidden words to speak of the man I loved. Papa, drawing a pistol and pointing it at Bhim. And Bhim. One hand raised and holding a flame. Bhim’s face, wide-eyed with fear, screaming words I could not hear. His other hand, empty, an open palm, held out towards Papa.

Papa slumped forward, resting his elbows on his knees, his head on his hands.

‘Yes, he said eventually. ‘I know you speak the truth. I cannot blame you for that. You always spoke the truth. Always, always. It was what I always loved most about you: so candid. Never devious, as Yoyo was. And your kind heart. Always for the Poor Unfortunate. Just like your mother.’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Like Mama. That’s what she taught me, Papa. The best person I have ever known. The best person, probably, that you have ever known. A kind, compassionate woman, full of light and joy, full of love for all of us, until you destroyed her. You turned her against yourself, didn’t you. You turned her away. With your cruelty. And then you sent her away. Even though you knew we needed her, you sent her away.’

Papa hammered his thigh and glared at me. ‘I sent her away because she was a tramp! Your mother is no saint! You have no idea!’

‘Yes, I do, Papa. I read her diary. I know – I know everything! I know about Edward John! But still you should not have sent her away! She was our mother! We needed her! At the very least you could have let her stay in Georgetown. But no – she had to go so that you could keep on being the monster you turned into!’

Papa leapt to his feet, grabbed the rails of cage. I was glad they were there – would he have attacked me in his rage?

‘Monster! How dare you! How – how …’

And then, as suddenly as he had leapt up, he fell back into his chair, a broken man. Broken with sobs, sobs that horrified me as much as, somehow, they moved me. How is it possible to keep a hardened heart when the object of that hardness is weeping in contrition?

‘Yes. I sent her away. I could not have her in my house, knowing what she had done. She begged to stay, because of you, Winnie, and Yoyo. Begged on bended knees. She’d given him up, years before, she said; it was over, over at Edward John’s death. She promised to change, to wake out of her darkness, if only she could stay. Promised even to leave Promised Land and live in Georgetown if I could not have her in my house. But no. I could not have her in the country. How could I bear it? I sent her away, Winnie. Ostensibly to accompany Kathleen, to avoid scandal – but she had no choice. She had to go. I threw her out in my rage and jealousy. Yes. You have me to blame for that as well, for sending your mother away. You can hate me even more. Go on. Just hate me. I deserve it. I am a cruel man. A bad man. She was good, too good for me, and I drove her into his arms and then I drove her away. She was all I ever loved. I was a broken man, Winnie; I couldn’t take losing her love. I am a broken man. A criminal. A – a murderer. But it was her fault! She betrayed me! Adultery! How could I keep her after that! She had to go, Winnie. I had to do it. I banished her. Sent her into exile … I lost her. My most precious …’

On and on he rambled. The words tumbled out from his lips in a torrent, confession following accusation, blame riding on the back of self-reproach; recriminations, excuses, explanations, all spilling from his lips in an uncontrolled frenzy, a temporary madness, Perhaps, too, a release. My own mind reeled as I listened in stunned silence, but at those last words I broke in.

‘You didn’t have to lose her!’ I cried. I was parched inside. I longed for a glass of water. ‘You could have changed. You could have forgiven her and changed – because you know very well why she did what she did! You could have put things right – loved her again, become a good man again! Let her show you a way of love, and kindness.’

‘Love! Kindness! You’re a dreamer, Winnie, you always were! I had an estate to run!’ Papa roared. ‘You cannot run an estate on kindness! That was the first thing Mr McInnes told me! You have to show the coolies who is master! But once you start, it takes hold of you – drives you to do things – terrible things – brings out the worst in you … the evil … I …’

And then, once again, he switched. Fury flared again in his eyes, and he pointed a finger at me. ‘You, Winnie, you! You betrayed me too! You! You little sneaky slut! Throwing yourself at a nigger! You ran to that rat, that Booker rat, that mad Booker traitor! You took sides against your own father! Him, of all people! Him! That rat! That bloody nigger-lover! Him of all people! Just like your mother! Yes, just like her – nigger-lover!’

I stared. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Not the shocking words so much, but the meaning behind them. The hidden meaning. Could it be true? Or was I misinterpreting?

‘Papa – Jim Booker – Mama – was he the – the man who …’

‘YES!’ Papa roared. ‘Of course he was! Who else! Who else would she run to but a nigger-lover like herself! You both – both of you! Behind my back! Traitors both!’

Now I was the one to slump. I tried to say something but nothing came; I could not say a word for the lump in my throat blocked all speech. Uncle Jim! He was the man Mama had loved! The father of Edward John! No wonder – no wonder … my mind stumbled through the past, trying to fit together the jigsaw pieces, but I couldn’t. A thousand questions rose into my mind, all needing answers I could not find. Uncle Jim! It must have happened between wives; after Gladys’s death, before Bhoomie. Uncle Jim seemed to favour women of all races. But of all people, Uncle Jim! I had assumed Mama’s lover was the Troublemaker. Uncle Jim! That explained so much! My mind reeled. Meanwhile, Papa raged on.

‘Of all people, him! Him and her, and then him and you! What about me! What about me! Her husband, your father! Why, why, why!’

That’s when I finally found the words. ‘Because, Papa, you were no longer that man we loved. You became a monster. You drove us away. You drove us to him. Uncle Jim is a father to me, the father you weren’t.’

Papa stared at me, and than, for the second time, he broke.

‘Yes. I drove you away. I lost you. I lost you both. Two of the four people I love most in the world. I lost you, and I have only myself to blame. You are right. I became a monster. How could she love me. How could she love a monster? My fault. I drove her away.’

‘That was it, wasn’t it?’ I said. ‘The reason for her darkness.. She discovered, just as I did, what sort of man you were. A cruel, ruthless man. A monster. What sort of man you are.’

‘No. Past tense, Winnie. I am no longer that man. You are right. There was a monster living in me. You saw. You know. She saw, and she knew, and yes, you are right, it drove her away, turned her against me. Destroyed her love. Turned it into hatred. Drove her away. Drove her to him. I could not take it. I couldn’t take the reproach in her eyes. I could not take her knowing I was a monster. I could not take her infidelity; that she could find a better man than me.’

He stopped speaking. Papa sat upright again, looking straight into my eyes. ‘Winnie,’ he said. ‘Ah, Winnie. My little girl. You are so like your mother. That’s why I love you so much. Yes, I still love you. Even though you betray me.’

‘Then, Papa, if you still love me – don’t make me do this! Don’t make me stand up there in court! Please, Papa! We both know the truth. We both know what happened. For Mama’s sake, Papa – tell the truth! It will save you. It will save us all.’

Right on cue, there was a sharp rap on the door, and it opened slightly. I looked around; Mr Bhattacharya stood just outside. He pointed at his watch.

‘Miss Cox? Are you nearly finished? Time’s running – the court is waiting …’

‘We’re nearly finished,’ I said, though in fact we had only just begun. So much still unsaid. A lifetime of errors to be put right, here and now.

‘Papa,’ I said. ‘What now?’

‘I am a broken man,’ he said simply. ‘It is all over. I have lost everything – everything of any value to me. I lost her, and you, my daughter. Winnie, I – I …’ He stopped. And then he said, ‘Winnie, call in Mr Bhattacharya.’

I stood up, and stepped to the door, slightly lightheaded and still unstable from the distress of the conversation. I opened it. Mr Bhattacharya, sitting on a chair just outside, jumped to his feet.

‘Please come in,’ I said to him. He entered the room. Papa was standing in his cage.

‘Mr Bhattacharya,’ he said. ‘I wish to make a confession.’

An usher escorted me into the packed courtroom. There were no seats left, just standing room at the back. Black people stood there. Several faces turned as I entered, white faces, black faces, frowning faces, puzzled faces. A hum of murmuring filled the room as people nudged each other and looked at me and looked away. Was I a friend, an enemy? No one could tell; what they did know was that I had held up the process and was thus, in some way, significant.

The room was divided into two; on one side sat the people who looked like me. On the other side sat those who looked like George. White people, black people. My people, his people; but to me, just people, and I belonged nowhere. Where was George? I scanned the backs of heads, looking for him, and in that moment he turned around and our eyes met across the room. He was on a bench near the front, as I had guessed, but even at that great distance I could feel it, that spark of connection that never failed when I was in his presence. I quietly moved to stand at the back, with the black people. I knew my place.

The judge entered, everyone stood up, and I lost sight of George. He sat down again. I could see the back of George’s head, Papa in the dock.

My head was spinning by this time and I found I could not pay attention. Too full was I with my conversation with Papa, this new Papa full of regret and self-accusation, full of blame and jealousy and distress. This new small Papa who bore no resemblance to the Papa I had once known. The things he had told me! Shocking things, and things that made everything fall into place. I understood now, everything. Mama had not deserted us! And Mama – Mama and Uncle Jim – the two of them – Edward John …

The world turned fuzzy and my knees gave way. It seemed to happen in slow motion, for the last thing I remember is a man, a stranger, crying out as he reached out to grasp me as I sank to the floor. And then everything turned black.

 When I came to I was once again in the private room, lying on a cot, and George was there sitting on a chair next to my head and holding my hand. I sat up immediately.

‘What happened?’

‘You fainted. They brought you here.’

‘No, I mean to Papa. The verdict?’

‘Second degree murder. They said he deliberately took the gun as self-protection, but that he had no intention to kill originally, but he genuinely believed Bhim was armed and he reacted out of fear. It wasn’t intentional, the judge said. And because he confessed, he’ll get a lighter sentence. Ten years in prison, Winnie.’

I sobbed aloud.

‘But he’ll get off early,’ George said. ‘And they’ll probably send him back to England. It would be too dangerous for him, prison in BG. The other prisoners – they’ll be furious and might harm him.’

That was a relief, but only a minor one. I collapsed into his arms, convulsed with sobs.

‘Papa! Oh, my Papa! I made him do this! Oh, I hate myself! I loathe myself!’

George rubbed my back and murmured comforting words.

‘You did the right thing, Winnie. The courageous thing. You made him confess.’

‘I had to! I couldn’t keep silent! I didn’t realise – I couldn’t …’

‘You did the right thing,’ he repeated.

 ‘I don’t know what’s going to happen now. To us both, Yoyo and me. Yoyo will hate me now! And what is to become of her? She’s so young, and now she has neither mother nor father. And what will I do, where will I go? Everyone will hate me. Everyone knows what I did. Everyone knows it was me. That I somehow changed the outcome; they saw me arrive with Mr Bhattacharya. They know, and they’ll hate me for it.’

‘Not everyone, Winnie. Don’t you realise? To us you’re a hero!’

‘Am I?’

‘Of course you are. How could you not be?’

And yet, being a hero seemed not to matter. It was a minor thing. A very minor thing. Only one thing mattered, now.

‘I sent you a telegram. A silly telegram. You don’t say things like that in a telegram.’

‘No. It’s not a thing for a telegram.’

‘Then …’

‘Winnie … you haven’t thought it out properly. You don’t know. I can’t offer you anything. Only hardship and struggle.’

‘I want to struggle at your side, with you. Isn’t that what marriage is about? For better, for worse?’ I could feel my lips quivering. I bit the bottom one, to stop it.

‘You’re so young. So innocent.’

Now it was my voice that quivered as I spoke. ‘Not so innocent any more, George. I’ve dug deep inside myself. It’s not just some sentimental fairy tale. Not any more. I’ve been tried and tested. I’ve been lured into a better life and I almost took the bait. I’ve been forced to grow up. I’m not a little girl any more and I know life isn’t going to be all roses and violins, life with you.’The words sounded so false; true on the surface, and yet … I had rehearsed them so often to myself. It was what I wanted to say, what I felt I should say, and they were true but only to a degree.

‘You don’t understand, Winnie. It’s not personal any more. It’s political. I have to step into Bhim’s shoes. I have to follow in his footsteps, fight for his sake, so that his death was not in vain. Up to now I’ve been covert, an underground fighter. I have to come out, Winnie, and speak up openly and fight openly. It’s bigger than just you and me. Any woman at my side would have to take second place to that fight.’

Now, both lips and voice quivered. But I had known he would say that, and I knew the answer I had to give. ‘Your fight is my fight. I will be there. I can do it. I know it.’

‘Winnie – are you sure? Quite sure?’ His eyes were fully of worry, full of hope; surely they saw the tendrils of doubt in mine. I was wearing a mask, a mask of bravery I did not fully feel. Surely George knew that I was not yet ready. Not yet capable. Not yet strong. That I still had knots to untie, matters to put right.

A vision rose in my mind’s eye of a beautiful house on a white powder beach lapped by sparking turquoise waters, roses growing up the walls, and, yes, from somewhere in the sky an orchestra playing the Blue Danube. Thomas, holding out his arms for me. I could still have that. Thomas would forgive me, that I knew. I had done my duty, spoken up, stood up for truth and justice. I was free to go, to return to a life that seemed cut out for me. Yes, the news of what I had done would follow me to Barbados and make of me a pariah. But if Thomas could forgive me so would, in time, everyone else. I had done my duty in speaking up, confronting Papa. I was free to make that choice. I could not have done so, had I not spoken to the prosecutor, for the guilt would eventually have killed me.

But now, a different kind of guilt plagued me, sharp and relentless, a knife twisting within me: guilt towards Papa but of a deeper quality. No longer just the guilt of testifying against him, but the guilt of selfish motives.

Had I betrayed my own father just so I could win George for myself?

Was I such a manipulative person, so evil, so devious, that I was prepared to send my father to prison just to impress, and win, the man I loved? Was water thicker than blood? How could I live with myself, with George, knowing the terrible price I had been willing to pay? Could I ever forgive myself? Had I done the right thing? Where lay selfishness, unselfishness? Had I betrayed my own people, my own blood? But what choice did I have? Weren’t truth and justice of more worth than ties of blood? Would I ever find peace again? What about Yoyo, the plantation? Miss Wright – would she stay, now that Papa was in prison? Had I betrayed her, too? All these questions swirled through me, tumbling over each other, tearing me apart. Where was the answer? Where? What was right, what was wrong?

I hid my face in my hands and wept. All the guilt, the emotion, the pressure of the last few weeks and the final climax here in this building of justice flooded through me, an ocean wave that found its only outlet in tears, in great heaving sobs that racked my body. George tried to hug me but I pushed him away; I had to walk this path alone. Yet I did accept the handkerchief he offered. Wave after wave washed through me and it seemed it would never end, that I would weep forever.

But finally the flood ceased, and then came the ebb, bringing peace, and final conviction. I looked up at George, whose last question still hung in the air, unanswered.

I looked up, and my voice broke, yet it was clear and firm. ‘George: I’m sure. I’m not free! I can’t – I just can’t! I need to put things right first. I need to be there for Yoyo – she thinks she’s grown up but she isn’t. She’s all alone now. I need to be there for her. She must hate me – I need to put that right! I have to go back to Promised Land – we girls will have to run the plantation for a while. I can’t leave it in the hands of Mr McInnes, and Mr Smedley, and Yoyo just isn’t old enough. I don’t even know if I’m old enough. But I’ll try.’

I reached out and grasped his hand, squeezed it.

‘I’m more than ready for that fight, George. But I need to put my own house in order first. That’s where my fight begins. Wait for me.’

The End