London, England, February 9, 1967
Professor Finley drew yet another chord progression on the chalkboard. Felicity struggled to keep up, her manuscript paper already rubbed grey with repeated erasing.
“And what is this chord?” Professor Finley asked. Scanning the room, he called out, “Miss Alexander?”
Felicity jerked forward. She had been doodling in the corner of her page. “Um … the dominant?” she guessed.
“We just left the dominant. Do try to keep up. Anyone else?” Sarah Stilwell raised her hand. “Miss Stilwell?”
“First inversion of the subdominant.”
“Very good,” said Professor Finley. “I’m glad someone is paying attention. Miss Alexander, a lovely voice does you no good if it comes from an empty head.”
Sarah snickered loudly. Felicity slumped in her seat. This class didn’t matter; she would be going home to Claude afterwards.
As soon as her key turned in the door of their house, he ran to meet her. “Guess what, Cinnamon?” he said. “Tibbs is here.”
“You mean Percy Tibbs? From Grenada? The chief minister?”
“The Devil himself,” said Claude. “He’s in London. Judging the Miss World pageant. Miss Grenada is in the running, and there are already National Front out there protesting because they say Tibbs is marking up all the Black girls above the white girls.” He smiled. “If true, that’s the first good thing Tibbs has done in years. And a whole pile of feminists are there too, protesting the whole idea of beauty pageants. Bon jay, it’s the place to be tonight! I’ve already written Neville’s speech. I worked on it while I was waiting in magistrate’s court. But we have to hurry, Cinnamon. And,” he said, “wear comfortable shoes. We could be walking for a while.” Coming from a voice lesson, she had worn heels at the last march she had been to, one against nuclear disarmament, and by the end, she was hobbling in pain. Claude had sat on a park bench holding her feet in his lap, massaging them for an hour before she could walk well enough to get home and soak them in the bathtub.
The pageant was at the Royal Albert Hall, where Felicity had heard a number of recitals with Will. They exited at the High St. Kensington station, and as they got closer to the hall, Felicity heard chanting. Security guards hauled women one by one out of the building. They clutched tattered bags of flour and several of them were coated in it. “They must have been flinging that around inside,” said Claude. “I wonder why?”
One section of the pavement was occupied by the black-clad National Front, waving signs reading “defend white beauty” and “send the blacks back” and “britain for the british.” A smaller group of Black faces stood opposite, yelling “Go away, Nazi scum,” and “We belong here too.”
“There’s Neville,” said Claude, pulling Felicity along with him. Neville was with Alison, Marlene, Clayton, Gerald, and a few others from the West Indian Students Association.
“Brother!” Neville’s face was glowing with uncontained joy. “They’ve just crowned her! Miss Grenada is Miss World! Just think, little Patricia Jack, the most beautiful woman in the world.”
Claude squeezed Felicity’s hand. “Not the most beautiful. I’ve got that one right here.” Felicity pressed closer to him.
“Yes, yes,” Neville said. “We all know how in love you are. But remember Patricia? When she was at St. Anne’s, and never let anyone feel her up at the Emporium? Bon jay, look at her now.”
A door opened near them and security came out, sweeping the crowd back. Two more security guards escorted a woman towards a limousine. Flashbulbs began popping from the cluster of reporters who had also gathered in the area. The woman was wearing a crown and she was brown; the colour of maple syrup, a warm, treacly shade. Her hair hung past her shoulders, beneath the crown, curving in deep glossy waves. Her face wore an expression of terror. Felicity looked at Claude and saw, with a pang, that he was watching the woman too.
Marlene patted her short kinks. “Her hair isn’t natural,” she said in a smug tone. “Probably a wig.”
Though Felicity’s skin was still lighter than hers, Patricia Jack was not as dark as Marlene or Alison or most of the other West Indian women present. Her coronation was supposed to be an elevation of the beauty of Black women, but Felicity understood that it still left many Black women out.
Marlene seemed to read Felicity’s mind as she stared at Claude. “It’s always the fair-skinned ones, isn’t it?” she said. “But no one is protesting that. How can you, when you’ve fallen for it yourself?”
Resentment replaced understanding. “Maybe he just doesn’t want to be with a miserable bitch,” Felicity said.
Marlene threw her head back and gave a hard laugh, like the crack of a whip. “That’s always what they say, isn’t it? Us darkies are the bitches, the leftovers no one wants. You think you’re so much better, don’t you? You just wait, he’ll get tired of you too. He isn’t going to want to babysit you forever because you don’t know the simplest things about your own history. And he’s right, these white people still think you’re a nigger, just like me. See that sign, ‘niggers out’? That’s for you too.”
Felicity jerked backwards at the force of her vitriol. It was as if Marlene had vomited a year and a half of resentment down the front of Felicity’s coat. After the incident at Felicity’s first Christmas dinner in London, Felicity had given Marlene as wide a berth as she could and Marlene, in return, had ignored her. It seemed that the hostilities had faded to a mutual dislike. But all this time, Marlene had been honing her hatred, clasping it close to her, polishing and refining it like a diamond.
Claude put his arm around Felicity. “Marlene,” he said, “that’s uncalled for.” The chants of the crowd had swelled and he had to shout over them. “I’ve told you before —”
The shouts of the crowd swelled. Neville ran back and forth, testing the barricades for signs of weakness. He ran up to Claude. “They’re coming!” Neville shouted.
Claude turned from Marlene and pointed. “His car will have to pass there.”
Neville said, “We’ll block it from passing. Then he’ll have to speak to us!”
Neville distributed signs. “tibbs call an election.” “tyrant tibbs step down.” “free granada.” It was drizzling and cold. Claude kept Felicity nestled against him, his body heat radiating through the damp, as they drifted away from the rest of the group. She was still stunned by Marlene’s outburst, but she knew it was not the time to complain to Claude. Something bigger was happening. The crowd began to grow restless, chanting and singing. Alison and Marlene approached Claude. Marlene stood silent behind Alison, looking away from Claude and Felicity. “Claude,” Alison said, “Neville wants you to come and stand with him, so you can help lead the march.”
“We’re all right here,” Claude said. “We can see everything.” He squeezed Felicity closer to him and she took heart that he was keeping her away from Marlene. That he still chose her.
Then someone shouted, “They’re coming! The cars!” People spilled into the road, shouting and waving their signs. The first car stopped, unable to back up because many other cars stretched behind it.
Neville ran along the row, searching for the car with Tibbs in it, shouting when he found it. Lifting the megaphone, he began the speech Claude had written. “Percy Tibbs, we the people of Grenada, exiled by your actions, demand that you bring democracy to our country. We demand fair elections. We demand that you return property stolen from the people of Grenada.” Felicity roared her agreement — not too loudly, as she didn’t want to ruin her voice for her coaching appointment the next day — and raised her sign, caught up in the exhilaration of the moment. She had just stopped an official government motorcade. She was standing up against injustice. For all the moments when she had said nothing in the face of unfair treatment — Brian’s parents, people shouting at her on the street, men thinking they had the right to touch her — now she was fighting back. It was the Red Sky Revolution, but instead of watching it from afar, she was challenging its very architect.
Claude pulled Felicity with him as he elbowed his way through the crowd to stand beside Neville. The window to the back seat of the limousine slid down just as police arrived on horseback. One of them held a megaphone and directed, “Leave this area immediately!”
Neville shouted Claude’s words, “You have betrayed our trust. You have turned your back on the workers who brought you to power.”
A face looked out through the window of the car. A dark face, very dark, with a trimmed mustache and big eyes. A handsome face, Felicity thought, not the grotesque visage of a monster she had envisioned. “Well, well, well,” said Percy Tibbs. “Young Neville Carpenter, is it? Family from St. Andrew’s. And Claude Buckingham. Son of Albert Buckingham. A man of many business interests, if I am correct. You should stick to protesting apartheid.” His gaze landed upon Felicity. “I don’t know this half-caste,” he said, “but I see you have excellent taste, Mr. Buckingham. A pity she doesn’t hold your attention as much as she should.” He smiled at Felicity. “I assure you my dear, I would have far more interesting ways to spend an evening with you.” Felicity laughed to herself that he had not connected her to the dark-skinned Alexander family from Vincennes.
Percy Tibbs scanned the rest of the group. “Marlene Francis and Alison Greaves. Forever unlucky in love, aren’t you? My people have been watching you all. No Grenadian studies abroad that Uncle Percy doesn’t know about them. Let me tell you, I appreciate the ebony sisters amongst us even if the rest of our men do not. Charles Davies. From a fishing family. What do you think they will catch in the future?” Percy Tibbs licked his lips. “I shall be sure to say hello to the folks back home. You don’t even have to ask.”
The window whirred back up. “Call an election!” shrieked the crowd. Fists hammered against the window.
“Disperse at once!” bellowed a voice through the police megaphone. In the next moment, a blast of water, colder and stronger than the drizzle of rain, swept into the crowd. Felicity was knocked sideways, her hand wrenched from Claude’s. The crowd screamed and scattered as the water cannon continued to gush. Felicity was sure she heard the high laugh of Percy Tibbs as his limousine rolled past.
“Claude!” she shouted, getting to her feet. Water poured from her shoulders and her hair. She slipped in a puddle as she tried to stand. She broke her fall by grabbing a fence post. “Claude!” The police herded the protestors into a corner. She craned her neck, trying to see if Claude was among them.
“Move along, miss.” A police officer on a horse blocked Felicity’s way back to the area where most of the protestors were. She needed to find Claude. But at the insistence of the police officer, she retreated a block before sinking down onto the curb. She was soaked, and so cold her teeth were chattering. Her hair clung to her scalp and cheeks in dripping worms. She realized that she had no money, no house keys. She hadn’t brought her purse, knowing it was better to be as unencumbered as possible at a protest. Claude had her things in his pockets. Neville had laughed at Claude the first time Claude dug in his pocket for change and emerged with a tampon and eyebrow pencil in his fist, but Claude just replaced the items and said, “Nothing I won’t do for her, Neville.”
What could he do for her now, cold and wet on a curb with no way home? And even in the lowest heels she had, her feet ached. She hugged her knees to her chest, shuddering, attempting to keep the tears and panic at bay, trying to think of a solution. She sat for half an hour, trying to gather the courage to go back and demand that the police help her. Or to knock on someone’s door and request assistance.
“Felicity, oh my God.” She looked up to see Claude running up to her, followed by Neville, Alison, and Marlene. “Oh, Cinnamon.” He sank down beside her and pulled her close, cradling her body to his. His wet shirt stuck to her face. She could feel his heart thudding. “I was worried sick.” She felt the tension release as Claude smoothed her wet hair from her face.
“How touching,” snickered Neville. Marlene muttered something to Alison.
“We need to get the women home,” Claude said to Neville, over Felicity’s head. “We don’t want anyone catching a cold. Let’s get a taxi.”
Seeing their wet clothes, the driver didn’t want to let them in, but when he realized what the fare would be to four separate residences, he grunted his assent. Claude helped Felicity in and draped his damp coat over her shoulders. She buried her face in his chest as the taxi began to move. Neville said, “After we drop them off, we should get down to Heathrow and see if we can find Tibbs there.”
Claude said, “Neville, we have to be careful. He knows who we are. He threatened our families. He’s been watching us.”
“Nah,” Neville said, “that’s just talk.”
“Neville,” said Claude. “You know it isn’t just talk. He has his Nutmeg Squad all over the island, hunting people. He locks them up in Richmond Hill prison.”
Felicity heard Neville blow his cheeks out in frustration. “You’re letting him win.”
“Neville.” Claude’s voice was plaintive, stripped of its usual warmth. “He threatened my father. His businesses. He could ruin us. Or what if he …” His voice trailed off in a squeak, and Felicity recognized the precursor to tears. She felt for Claude’s hand and held it. Stroked calm into it. Burrowed closer to him, she registered the panicked clanging of his heart. It began to slow as she traced circles into his palm.
“Fine,” Neville said. “We’ll wait.”
“Just until we’re strong enough,” said Claude.