What the River Washed Away Read online

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  A Oneworld Book

  First published by Oneworld Publications 2013

  Copyright © Muriel Mharie Macleod 2013

  The moral right of Muriel Mharie Macleod to be identified as the

  Author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

  All rights reserved

  Copyright under Berne Convention

  A CIP record for this title is available from the British Library

  ISBN 978-1-78074-234-2

  eBook ISBN 978-1-78074-235-9

  Text designed and typeset by Tetragon, London

  Printed and bound by Page Bros Ltd

  The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Oneworld Publications

  10 Bloomsbury Street

  London WC1B 3SR

  England

  www.oneworld-publications.com

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  Contents

  What the River Washed Away

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Epilogue

  Afterword

  Acknowledgements

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  For my father, Callum an Ach,

  and my mother, Ishbel.

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  My name is Constance Laing, but I have another: it is Arletta Lilith Johnson. I have been in Africa most of my life but I was born near Brouillette, Louisiana, in 1901, and I have not seen my country for over half a century. Africa gave me a life I could not have had in my own country, not because I am a black woman, but because I am a brave one.

  I have spent each evening of the last few weeks at my desk listening to Louis Armstrong sing as I recall so well from days gone by, and telling you, my confessor, why I came to Africa these many years ago, when they permitted unmarried women to take up auxiliary missionary posts. Here I was able to be among my own kind, and I was able to satisfy what I believe was my vocation; I became a teacher. I had my own classroom and my own house, which I built shortly after I arrived.

  Here in Africa I never leave the house without a hat; in fact, I am never seen in public without a hat and lace gloves. I have forty-five pairs of lace gloves. I bought my first pair when I arrived here in the 1920s. I saw a small advertisement for them in the paper and ordered them right away to hide the scars of my past. I have a habit, you will see, of reading every word in a newspaper.

  In America ladies nowadays wear lace gloves only at weddings and funerals. They do as they please without fear. Be glad that America has changed.

  Here I give up the secrets of my life for you to do with as you please. I have never regretted the actions you will read about. It has not been difficult to tell a stranger; it would have been impossible to tell a friend.

  One

  He’s a bad man.

  I scrub myself clean after he’s gone. The water is shivering cold. He says my feet feel soft like a baby’s, but blood flows from where I scraped them raw on the slab beneath the pipe.

  ‘Arletta!’

  That’s Mambo. She can scream. I’m gonna get thwacked for sure. As if I ain’t sore enough.

  ‘Arletta, feed them chickens, and feed them good. Arletta, what the hell ya doing? Don’t go washing ya hair in the evening time girl, that’s how ya get chilled all the time and what do I get? A poorly child!’

  Thwack.

  ‘How many times I tell ya girl?’

  ‘All times, Mambo.’

  Thwack.

  ‘Well, one of them times it gonna be real fine if you just do as ya told. Go on now. Feed them chickens and then get y’self right on off to bed. Ya hearing me, Arletta?’

  ‘Okay, Mambo.’

  ‘And come on in here, so I can dry that hair. Come on now.’

  Mambo’s fresh home from wherever she’s been and it ain’t long before she’s taking right off again. She’s wearing her fine dress, off meeting some new beau I s’pose, now her old one found me and don’t want her no more. Times I feel I got a Mambo who don’t seem to care for me at all. She don’t seem to care what he’s doing to her daughter. I tried telling her about the first time he come at me with his doing, but I got me a thwacking and tell’t not to be telling lies ’cause of him being white folks, and right high and mighty and all she says.

  ‘He’s a man with what they call a profession Arletta, that’s a right high and minded kinda job. Ain’t no messing, and y’all need a be washing ya mouth out. Go on! And I’m gonna rub that block of carbolic on ya tongue if ya start talking bad on folks. Where ya get that from, Arletta? Ya know somebody got a daddy meddling with them or what?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘And them whites ain’t gonna give us no say-so at all if they hear ya talking that way. Ya knows that, don’t ya?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then just quit with them kinda stories Arletta. We gonna be in a fine set of trouble if folks hear that talk. I don’t know what ya thinking.’

  ‘But he …’

  ‘I’m tellin’ ya, Arletta, Mr McIntyre’s got one good and proper job. He’s working in a bank and all, and even running it now, from what I’m hearing. And look what ya doing to what folks think on him. He’s got what folks call a reputation. Ya know what that is?’

  ‘Well, no, I ain’t know nothing about that. I ain’t know nothing except he’s a bad man, Mambo.’

  ‘Enough girl, or ya gonna find y’self stretching from the branch of a tree, and me dangling ’longside ya, and all them white folks thinking they’s having themselves a picnic.’

  She sure ain’t listening to me, so I’m just glad Mr McIntyre’s gone and got himself all spent out already for today and won’t be coming back as soon as she takes off again.

  She’s wearing a bright red bandana wrapped up on her head so high like she means business. She’s got pink flowers pinned down one side, says it’s the fashion, and she’s wiggling off down our track in that tight dress, the one I says gotta be a size too small and showing off everything she got. Up top that looks like plenty after she’s done shoving them up, this way and that way, and pulling that frock down so a nipple pops right out first stretch she makes.

  ‘Oh my,’ she always says, ‘just look at that. Pardon me, won’t you now.’ And she reckons that’s fine for getting folks giggling.

  I sure hope I don’t get like my Mambo when I grow up.

  ‘Arletta, feed them chickens, ya hearing me? And be good to that cockerel. He’ll be needing special attention now, ’cause I’m wanting him well fed and wild this Saturday.’

  She knows I’m watching her wiggling off to parade herself, half-dressed and rouged all over. ‘Cheap devil Mambo and no panties,’ that’s what Pappy used to say, and about his own daughter, too.

  Ain’t nobody ever put no stop to Mambo when she’s planning on getting wild.

  It’s gonna be a dark moon this Saturday, that’s what she’s talking about. She’s gonna get outta that tight frock of hers and get herself all done up in sparkling white. Ain’t gonna be nobody like her. I hear folks say ain’t never been anybody like my Mambo.

  Out on the front step of our cabin I finish drying my hair with a cotton rag and stop sniffling on account of Mambo leaving me here by my lonesome again. Sniffling ain’t any use anyways. She’s off parading herself just like Pappy said she’s good for, hanging out and dancin
g all night in one of them juke joints, and coming home to our cabin when she feels like it. Ain’t got no mind about me.

  We got two rooms in our old cabin. One we live in, though ain’t much in it, just our table and two wooden stools Pappy made a long time ago when he was able. We got a beat-up old Tilley lamp – Mambo says it was once as blue as the sky, but now it’s got all over with rust. What food we have is laid out on the other end of our table – ain’t ever much – and down below is where we keep kindling for the pot. We got a big shelf stuck up above the fireplace – ain’t much on that neither, except the gourd we use for washing, Pappy’s Bible, real worn out with reading, and a box of matches I ain’t s’posed to touch. We got an old bucket placed outside of our back door that’s all chipped on the edges now, and four tin mugs, but one gets used for tallow since Grandma passed away. And wooden bowls Pappy sliced off a tree and whittled down good till he says they got fit for using.

  Pappy’s rake and spade are laid out across the rafters now, gathering dust and mighty cobwebs, ’longside a rusty old wheel he was gonna use to make a handcart one of them days. Mambo keeps his saw and box of nails up there too, but she ain’t never opened that box and there’s a lot that needs a nail round here.

  The threadbare chair we got in the corner needs fixing up too; don’t s’pose it ever will be, now Pappy’s gone. That’s where I curl up when I need to be remembering him, even though that horsetail sure is prickly coming through all them holes. Pappy said, ‘When ticking need new stuffing, that’s called upholstering, Arletta,’ but ain’t never get done. Only other chair we got is his rocking chair out on our leaky porch.

  Mambo and me share the other room in our cabin for sleeping. We still got Pappy’s old closet in there, and a dresser with proper drawers down below and a big mirror on top that she got from one of her fancy beaux ’cause his folks were turning it out for burning. He brought it over here himself on the back of a cart and stayed for two days. Mambo paying it off I s’pose, with all that giggling. She’s got Pappy’s bed now and the cot we used to share been moved into the bedroom as well – seems just to stuff the room up. We got too much in one room and not enough in the other, but I ain’t saying nothing.

  When it’s fine we cook out back under the boards Pappy nailed up a long time ago. It leaks bad when it’s raining though, and we take the cooking grate in every night ’cause we’re feared it might get taken. We share a toilet with everybody else round here – and the flies – which the gov’ment s’posed to send a truck for emptying every week. We get water from the pipe on the side of the road, same as everybody else. When Pappy was still living, he’d haul water from the pipe to our washtub out back every day and wash me first. When it got cold he’d heat the water, but Mambo says that time gone now and I gotta be doing for myself.

  We’re lucky having our cabin, Pappy used to say, and lucky we don’t have to be sharing it like in the old days. He says it got built bad, but he fixed it up good and gave it a proper chimney and now it’s gonna stand for a hundred years. He planted plenty sweet potatoes and corn out back, an orange tree and two fig trees on the side. Sometimes that orange tree don’t give good fruit if winter’s been real cold, but we always have figs in summer ’cause he’d keep them wrapped up from frosty mornings. He was soft on eating figs, my Pappy.

  One thing my Mambo can do for sure is look after out back. Once when he got mad at her, Pappy said the way she was acting would make folks think she ain’t good for nothing at all. But then he said he was sorry for talking like that. She said he oughta pay it no mind. He said he was glad she was good out back and always been a fine help about the place, and he was right proud of it too. Pappy and Mambo just fight all the time.

  I used to go with him for chopping thin branches out back of our cabin. He said he needed a hundred and I gotta learn my counting, so he’d be sure on getting enough. We stepped out and got ten each time, so I learnt easy. Then I had to count how many he trimmed up, and how many he whittled down for sticking in the ground. That’s how we got a fence out front of our cabin, like nobody else, ’cause Pappy was busy teaching me my numbers. He always said he was gonna put that fence all round his land and I’d learn half a thousand, but he got old. Grandma and Mambo just laughed.

  ‘What land? Ain’t ya land, we just dammit lucky ain’t nobody come on over here throwing us off. Ain’t nobody round here own nothing. Ya just nothing but an old fool.’

  Once he was gone, Mambo grabbed his stack of old newspapers and started covering up the walls of our cabin. Mixed a paste of flour and water and set about sticking them all over. Pappy always got a hold of old newspapers for learning me my letters and teaching me my reading. We were always reading news when it ain’t news any more, and I know every story on them walls near enough word for word.

  ‘Don’t go pasting them up any old how Mambo. Put this here, ’longside of this. See? Them’s the same story, so put them pages together, so’s folks can read all about it.’

  ‘Lord, girl. If ya head ain’t just full of what nobody care nothing about. Ain’t nobody coming over here reading them walls. Folks coming over here don’t read nothing.’

  ‘But they’s oughta Mambo, and they’s oughta learn anyways. I can teach them Mambo, just like Pappy teach me. Ain’t hard Mambo. Look, they’s talking about the fire down in New Orleans here, and here, so put them right next to one another so everybody can read what happened to folks and how they all get hurt, and all them houses, how they burned down, and how they’s gonna raise them up again. Over here Mambo, look. Look at it, that’s a real story, it really happened to folks. It did.’

  ‘Stop with the talking. Just once, stop with the damn talking.’

  ‘And this here’s about all them trees they’s gonna take from round here, Mambo. They’s gonna do it, take them for the railway line and for one of them mills, ’cause cottonseed got oil, that’s what they say. Listen, this one says – it’s from Mansfield, that’s over Desoto parish way—’

  Thwack.

  She wants to be throwing out his magazines, too, but I screamed every word I ever heard him call her. ‘Whore, daughter a Babylon, voodoo queen just like ya ma, slattern,’ and I don’t know what else, till she dropped them magazines right in the middle of our cabin floor and thwacked me plenty. Then she washed my mouth out with the carbolic. I got to keep my magazines though. Seems she’s so upset with my mouth she forgot what she was thwacking me for, I guess.

  Pappy was always telling me to get all the reading I can, ’cause when he was young, coloureds ain’t ever get any reading at all, they ain’t never allowed that. I keep all them magazines under my cot now and study them over and over again. I’ve read them a hundred times. I touch them just the way Pappy said, with a gentle care, so no page gets torn, ’cause the way I see it, that’s the only reading I’m ever gonna get now he’s gone. Except maybe the paper coming wrapped round crawfish somebody give us ’cause a mambo don’t always take dimes. I read them too, so I know what’s going on, even though Mambo ain’t ever take me anywhere. She’s too busy having herself a good time.

  Since Pappy died I ain’t been nowhere. He used to take me to the fairground when it pitched up a ways outside of Marksville and he’d get himself a job selling tickets. Even got me some rides, ’cause he knows most folks getting fair work too, and he’d take me to Mardi Gras down the Cheney dirt road every year. He’d take me hanging out with his old Creole pals for a smoke after they’d pull bass out of the bayou, and they’d always be singing on the way home in the back of Bobby-Rob’s cart. Took me to see the lake once too; that’s a fine sight when the sun’s going down. But since he’s been gone, ain’t nobody taking me nowhere.

  I’m scared of Mambo and all her mumbo-jumbo sometimes, that’s what Pappy called it. He called it mumbo-jumbo on account of him being God-fearing and the Church ain’t got no truck with them old ways. I’m scared Mambo’s doing devil’s work for real. Now Pappy’s gone, all that ju-ju stuff sure is all over the place too, even i
nside of our cabin, and that’s something he ain’t ever go for at all. Grandma and Mambo just about covered hereabouts with bad stuff and vengeance, he always said. Sometimes he’d take me by the hand and we’d go on out finding that bad stuff, dig it up and he’d teach me how to pray to God Almighty so nobody got hurt on account of it. I don’t know nothing about God Almighty, or all that ju-ju voodoo talk – all I know is it sure has caused me trouble every day.

  I’m reading one of my magazines, thinking about how much I miss my Pappy. The sun’s slipping down the sky, but it still feels hot, and it sure is making me feel sleepy. The dogwood under the trees out back are spread all over with flowers that smell real strong. Pappy always liked that. Once it’s dark the only light’s gonna be from Grandma’s old tallow tin cup so I can read. Then I hear the wooden boards on our front porch start creaking.

  ‘Sweetpea?’

  Mr McIntyre! I done him already. I ain’t able for no more, I’m just a kid and sore and …

  ‘Sweetpea. I have a new friend for you, Sweetpea.’

  ‘Go away.’ I crawl under my cot. I’m so scared of Mr McIntyre that I know sure as anything that I’m gonna be scared as hell of his friend.

  ‘Come on out of there, Sweetpea. Come and meet the nice Mr Seymour. Come on now.’

  ‘No! I done with ya already, Mr McIntyre, and I ain’t doing ya no more! I done already and I don’t wanna see no friend. Go away!’

  ‘Come on out of there or I’ll whip you, girl. You’ll do as I tell you.’

  I hold onto the bed frame tight and whisper to Pappy.

  ‘Pappy, please help me. Please.’

  He starts pulling at the cot and I start yelling.

  ‘I thought you said this was all sorted,’ says his friend. He sounds terrible angry. ‘I’m getting out of here before a whole darned squad of niggers turn up.’

  I hear his friend stomp right out of our cabin and onto the porch, with Mr McIntyre following fast behind him. My heart feels like it’s gonna bump right out onto the floor.