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17
My people in Old Harbour Bay
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Hail to the Lord anointed, David get a son
And at the time appoineted, Black man tief ‘im money and gaan.
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Arnold Williams, my mother’s late husband’s rummy breath and beaming smile were the background to these words, one of his little rimes that have stayed in my memory since 1948 when I met him. The memory was induced by the enormous concrete and marble tomb under a coconut tree in the back yard of the family house in Old Harbour Bay where we gathered to slaughter a goat which would become the Christmas meal, the obligatory curried goat and rice.
Ena’s house sits on a well treed half-acre lot but still seems to be dominated by the presence of a monument to the long-dead Arnold. Arnold was an ethnic East Indian and his rime undoubtedly expresses some of the tensions in Old Harbour Bay between his ethnic group and the predominant Jamaican of African descent. The Christmas day celebrations in the yard of my mother’s house was somewhat soothing on a psychic level, a slight release of tensions.
Auntie’s Hot Spot, my mother’s sea food restaurant and bar was closed to the public for the day. This removed any good reason on her part to avoid sitting down with my wife and me to attempt to build a bridge across the emotional and cultural divides that separated us.
A long standing Christmas routine the butchering of a goat and a cast of very colourful local characters were the intermediaries to these tensions between my mother and me. After a breakfast of steamed fish, the preparations for Christmas supper began. Get the goat which had been tied up Christmas Eve day, sharpen the machete, kill the goat, hang the carcass from a tree, skin and butcher the goat, start cooking the curried goat. All this done by some of the local helpers gathered in the yard to celebrate. The back yard comes alive once again around the concrete structure holding Arnold’s remains. Keith and Ashie (Mr. Basie), my half brothers, Fatty, Stylo, Congrie, Hector, Lettuce, Doc and some lesser luminaries perform the ritual of preparation for the Christmas supper with much humour and in the presence of a cloud of cigarette smoke and the attractive perfume of fermented cane juice.
We left Old Harbour Bay shortly after Christmas with an appreciation of the unique qualities on display there. The return to Canada seemed easy in comparison to the trip to Jamaica. Although my mother and I had made little headway in building a relationship, we had survived the tensions and now had some shared experiences around preparing and eating food.
When I recovered from bearing the physical and emotional load of Christmas in Old Harbour Bay, I attempted to reinforce the tentative links that had been forged during the visit by composing a verbal portrait of what I thought might have been in my mother’s mind prior to our arrival in Old Harbour Bay.
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Auntie Waits
She stands in the kitchen doorway and with a quick eye assesses first the little pub, then the covered outdoor café. This glance tells her so much about her establishment. The customers are conversing while eating, talking business, joking, laughing. The helpers are copious. Some are working, taking orders, serving food or drinks, washing dishes, cooking. Some are sitting or squatting in the kitchen, chatting. They all belong to this place. Most have grown up in the vicinity of Auntie’s Hot Spot and gravitated there for one reason or another.
A rooster, wandering in the yard, walks into the kitchen and scouts around the floor for scraps. Surprised by one of the helpers coming back into the kitchen, the rooster flies up onto the counter between the stove full of pots of fish being cooked and the sink full of dishes piled for washing. It then flies through the open window and back into the yard.
A goat rounds the corner of the kitchen trailing a ten foot length of rope with a little girl at the end of it. A small dog lays on its back in the shade of the pub with its feet up against the building. On the other side of the yard, away from the café in a gazebo shaded by trees, a few men are playing dominoes.
The music is not there now, but sometimes from this side of the yard, two massive speakers erupt, throbbing, pulsating, lending a power disproportionate to the size of the place. A masonry fence separates the restaurant part of the establishment from the street. The fence, alive with colour, tells the public in pictures and in words that Auntie specializes in fish, steamed, roasted and fried. From the street the bar needs no advertisement. Containers of spirits are evident, carefully arranged on shelves to reveal a wallpaper pattern composed of bottles with identical labels on the back wall. Auntie dominates this little scene through her energy and intelligence.
Today Auntie waits distractedly. She is expecting her eldest son. He has sent a telegram indicating that he will see her in the Christmas holidays. She doesn’t know exactly when, so she has to keep one eye open for her son, the other on her life’s work, her establishment. Of sons she has three, though she lost one many years ago. Of establishments she has just one; she cannot afford to lose it. It is her status, her importance, her respect, the proof of her life. She has served people from foreign lands; she serves passersby. Her establishment is known far and wide. The quality of the seafood that she serves is superb. She has waited so long to see this son that she doesn’t really expect to see him. She is getting old now and wonders how long it will take him to get there. Will she get to know his wife and her two granddaughters?
His photograph at 10 years old still hangs by her bedhead
She sometimes feels tired of her establishment. It demands so much of her; so many things to do to keep it going. Buy the fish down at the harbour, prepare it, cook it properly, see that it is served, keep the helpers on their toes. No time left even to get sick, let alone to travel to an unknown land to see what has become of the little boy who left long ago. He doesn’t even write anymore and although she still thinks of him, (his photograph at ten years old still hangs on the wall by her bedhead) life has to be lived, she has to keep going herself since she has no husband and so many others depend on her.
She moves somewhat nervously now, a bit tense in anticipation of difficulty in communicating with the stranger when he comes, if he comes. Maybe he will change his mind at the last minute; maybe he will be involved in an accident and will not be able to come; maybe he doesn’t care anymore, if he ever did care. With her nice blue frock on, the one with the pretty little white flowers, Auntie waits…
She waits for me…
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