Web of Secrets E-Book

Denise Harris

• Herausgeber: Peepal Tree Press
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2020

Seitenzahl: 257

Beschreibung

'I am Margaret Saunders... call me the eavesdropper...' No-one tells Margaret anything openly - what has happened to her father, the cancer taking over her mother's body and why her grandmother starts seeing faces pressing through invisible cracks in her bedroom wall. So, with an intuitive sense that uncovering the truth will free the household from its bondage, Margaret starts hiding in cupboards and under beds. But as an 'over-imaginative' 14 year old who is, in her family's view, refusing to grow up, she is acutely vulnerable to feeling that she is in some way responsible for what she uncovers. Set in Guyana in midst of the 1960s racial disturbances, Web of Secrets makes suggestive connections between divisions in the family and the nation. It embroiders a dazzling fabric of whispered family conversations, fantasy and Guyanese folklore. It warns of the psychic hazards of trying to suppress the past and proclaims the redemptive power of truth in the process of healing. Denise Harris was born in Guyana, the daughter of the novelist Wilson Harris. She works for UNICEF in New York. She is also a photographer.

Leseprobe

WEB OF SECRETS

DENISE HARRIS

In memory of my mother

And for my Aunt Sheila

CONTENTS

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-One

Chapter Thirty-Two

Chapter Thirty-Three

Chapter Thirty-Four

Chapter Thirty-Five

Chapter Thirty-Six

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Chapter Forty

Chapter Forty-One

Chapter Forty-Two

Chapter Forty-Three

Chapter Forty-Four

Chapter Forty-Five

Chapter Forty-Six

CHAPTER ONE

‘... My opinion is that perhaps the whole thing started from that first ambush which happened so long ago that we have literally cast it aside... People ambushed against their wills, collared and brought by force to this country with only memories to carry them through... a place one would not put a name to from the very beginning, and even those memories had to be concealed and pressed down on for the sake of survival, but then those same memories would one day ambush us in return, as I see it, and don’t take my word as gospel, but as I see it, Kathleen Harriot imagining she was seeing cracks was in fact ambushed by memories that were thought to be dead and buried and in fact were only lying low, so they resurfaced and then things started happening... it’s a matter of psychology. I lived on the same street with the Harriots. When I saw what became of her I said to myself it’s all a matter of psychology... it may sound far-fetched, but what you think, Gladys, after all you were friends with Kathleen Harriot, what you think?’

‘It’s hard to say, Alan. I just don’t know, but my husband always said we should not rule out the place with its history and legacies, that it should also be taken into account. Geor-r-ge only came to that conclusion after he went to England and after the whole story with Kathleen Harriot... spent five yea-r-rs in England... To this day I still don’t know how he felt about that place. I think he remained neutral, but mind you that’s only my opinion for I could never get a straight answer from that man. “Oh yes, Gladys,” he used to say to me, “I can understand how a place can affect a person’s life more than we think”, those used to be his exact words. Then there was the matter of the light... was a big thing for him at that time... seems so long ago it’s hard to believe it really happened. Where do the years go? Just imagine, I will be seventy-six in June, seventy-six, me, Gladys Davis... Anyway, as I was saying, he would keep on ha-a-rping about the day he returned, how when he stepped off the plane the light blinded him. I remember it took him weeks to readjust to it. The man would keep drawing the blinds in the house complaining the light was too ha-a-rsh for his eyes and I would complain that the lack of light acted like a pall on my spirits, that there was not enough light.

For a few weeks there was a constant pulling up and pulling down of blinds. It finally stopped when I broke my crystal vase that my mother had given me as a wedding gift. Geor-r-ge had pulled down the blinds as usual as soon as I had turned my back. I had dozed off and just gotten up, which made it worse... Anyway, to cut a long story short, my hand knocked down the vase and it fell and broke into little pieces. There was no chance of gluing it back, there were too many pieces to contend with. I don’t think anything has ever upset me so much, even talking about it now still affects me. The blinds were drawn back from that moment. I told him he would either have to go blind or adjust again to the light, but I was not putting up with a house in constant darkness. Well, he eventually went to the optician, which he should have done in the first place... that was Mr. Bradley then wasn’t it... Well anyway, it appeared he needed a pair of glasses, something to do with the glare... although I have to admit that he never fully recovered his sight until the time of Kathleen Harriot’s granddaughter’s departure to America... but that’s another story... but Geor-r-ge insisted that the day he came off the plane he could barely withstand it. In fact it was so bad that a fellow passenger from this same country who knew Geor-r-ge and was walking right behind him at the time thought something was the matter... can’t remember the man’s name... it’s on the tip of my tongue... What was it again?... Small?... Smith?... Smart?... Anyway, whoever it was apparently approached Geor-r-ge and said , “Excuse me, Mr. Davis, but do you need any help?” And even put out his hand to Geor-r-ge as one would to a blind person. Geor-r-ge literally had to grope his way to the airport building. I remember wondering why in heaven’s name he walked the way he did, as if feeling his way... his head was pushed forward, both of his hands stretched out before him as if he were playing a piano, and the thought did flash across my mind that he was drunk... not that he ever drank, mind you, for he was a godly man... but I knew how terrified he was of flying, was not at peace until his feet touched solid ground. As soon as he came up to me I remember asking him if something was wrong. “Geor-r-ge, you look so strange”, I said to him, “just as if you can’t see”. “It’s the light, Gladys,” he kept saying... “What light?” I wanted to know. He kept saying that he would explain later, to leave him alone... He said it was only then it struck him, in a flash, how relentless this country is. Relentless heat, an intensity of colours, downpo-o-urs of rain. Just plain outpo-o-urings he used to say. I never quite understood him... So when it all happened, you know, with my old friend Kathleen Harriot claiming she was seeing cracks, with Kathleen’s daughter, Stephanie, literally dying from a surfeit of love, and then Kathleen’s granddaughter, Mar-r-garet, becoming ill from an overblown imagination and having to be sent away, Geor-r-ge wasn’t at all surprised. Let me think... was it Mar-r-garet’s brother Guy who accompanied her to America...? He’s still over there and has no plans of returning according to their sister Adrienne... is a dentist and apparently doing very well... Yes, if I remember correctly, Guy was the one who accompanied Mar-r-garet to America for he was leaving to go to University at the same time she became ill. Adrienne took her sister’s illness quite badly, which surprised everyone at the time for they never appeared to be very close... shows how one can never tell... From what I can gather Adrienne seems to have kept in constant contact with Mar-r-garet. I think she’s the one who encouraged her to come back after all these years... twenty to be exact. Anyway, let me get back to the point and not digress on the ins and outs of that family or I would spend the next two days talking. As I was saying, Geor-r-ge felt that most of what happened was connected to this place with its history and legacies. After he returned he would insist that it is ha-a-rd to achieve a fine balance here, taking into account the imbalance that surrounds you. We dance all night, party all night, beat our women to death in jealous drunken rages, hate to death or love to death... there’s no stopping us, Geor-r-ge used to say. We literally have to drop to our knees before we can put a halt to ourselves... “How could Stephanie be otherwise, Gladys!” he would argue with me. “Look at how she loved her husband Char-r-les Saunders from the moment they first met and would love him to the end... Would die of that love. As for Char-r-les, he couldn’t have one or two or three women, no, he must have stre-e-ams of women, an excess of women... Women would have to be the death of him.” Then he would refer to Kathleen herself, pointing out how much she loved her adopted son Compton. For Geor-r-ge, a love-seed was planted from the time the unknown woman arrived at Kathleen’s home with Compton when he was only three days old. I can remember it was during the rainy season. In fact it had been raining for three days, so that didn’t help much, for how could the seed not become sodden Geor-r-ge said... Yes, that was the word... sodden... still not quite clear as to what he meant and he didn’t bother to explain... Kathleen’s sister Irma, like John, never accepted Compton. I think it was the only time Irma Chase and John Harriot ever agreed on anything. Childless Irma, I used to think, was only envious, though she would never admit to that envy and John was as usual suspicious and distrustful of anything that for him was out of the ordinary. Seeds of doubt se-e-ethed in his mind from the very start, for to him Compton was an unknown quantity, brought in a strange way to his wife. It made no sense to him. I remember people used to think of him as a ha-a-rd man. According to Irma, Kathleen and John were two of a kind... they suited each other she used to say... but to give John his due, he also felt that their daughters, Stephanie and Eileen, were being brushed aside by their own mother for the sake of this boy. Kathleen was a dear-r friend, believe me, none of you here were as close to her as I was... dear-r Kathleen... such a strong woman in her time, yet who would have thought... changed so much... didn’t allow herself to see one crack, as Geor-r-ge would point out to me just to prove his point, no she had to see one and two and three and four and five cracks until they overtook her. He became like a broken record when it came to this subject... yet in the end they seemed to see eye-to eye. They became closer, talked the same language. Then later, after the whole story, he would also go on and on about how he had started to see things afresh, how he began to read his country’s legacies in a different light... was ha-a-rd to stop him... but there’s no doubt he changed his ideas. I could hardly understand him sometimes, and believe me Geor-r-ge wasn’t any great thinker, I can tell you... not one for books or ideas, just went about his daily business like most people. But one thing he kept saying to the end: that we need to look at our country’s history in a new way... For him the whole thing was an eye-opener... like it seemed to be for Kathleen, no matter who thought otherwise... and George agreed with me. No matter what was said about her, I still say most people just didn’t understand... Now Margaret’s returning... after all these years... after all these years... ’

‘Gladys, who can say how it all started? It’s so easy to see after the event, but when you yourself are part of it, that’s another matter. As close as you were to them at the time, you were still an outsider... As the old saying goes, he who feels it knows it. Look at us, a group of old men and women sitting on your verandah talking about the past... that’s all we ever do... talk about those who have passed on and the past... and it’s not even as if we knew them as well as you did, but we did know something of them. Who didn’t at the time? This country is small and Kathleen Harriot was well known. It was the talk of the town. It’s okay to see what should or should not have been done from the outside, but when you’re actually in the thing itself, now that’s something else... Okay to talk about the place and the climate and the excess... but who knows, perhaps it would have happened wherever. Could have been in Timbuctu and it still would have occurred. Who knows... ?’

‘I still feel it started with the cracks, but then I don’t know as much about the whole thing as Gladys does. I only used to hear about it through my mother, who always made sure that nothing passed her. I used to tell her she should have been employed by the KGB... ’

‘To me, whether one knew the family well is not the point, and I certainly didn’t. I worked for John Harriot but that was it... but it was the kind of story anyone could have an opinion on, and to me, from what I can gather, something must have led up to Kathleen Harriot thinking she was actually seeing her house literally crack up before her eyes. Things just don’t appear out of the blue, there is always a connection, they don’t just appear out of the blue sky.’

‘Well, I don’t know what any of you may think, but I still feel it was that house. There were always rumours and strange stories about that place. There was never any record of Kathleen Harriot’s grandparents’ burial... the only record was a verbal one of them fading fast. Think of it... two people having lived in a house so many years and no one, no one, could ever remember an actual funeral taking place. I remember her sister Irma kept repeating that the house should be smoked out, that unlaid-to-rest spirits were restless in that house and that her sister and husband should smoke it out. People keep forgetting the history of that house, but I never do. Gladys may have known Kathleen Harriot very well, but I used to visit Irma once in a while after Irma’s husband Frank died... he was related to the Chases who once owned that jewellery store on Dapple Street. The son was named after the father, Frank William Chase... Irma and I used to attend the Pilgrim Holiness Church... she certainly helped to build up that Church... put a lot of work into it. We started off with about twelve people, including the Hopkins... They were the first American missionaries who came here from America to help found the Church. A few of the members found Irma to be bossy. They used to grumble about the way she made herself president for life of our Missionary Society. The first time Irma decided to hold a fair so as to raise some money to add a section to the church for the Bible Club, the Hopkins were quite upset and said it was no different to gambling. They even quoted from the Bible to prove their point. That didn’t stop Irma Chase... She quoted back and said the Church needed money and a fair would be held... and so it was... she helped build that Church up from scratch, I can tell you.’

‘Am... place, history, house, cracks, whatever it was... am... the thing is... the thing is... am... do we learn anything from it... anything... am...? Perhaps it would not have happened if they had started to pick up the pieces from way back and in the picking put them to good use... am... good use... The outburst must have been a result of so much being hidden for so long... you know what I mean... covered up... pasted over... am... now if something can be learned from it, then I would say it was not wasted... But was something learned? That’s my point... am... that’s my point... am... and excuse the digression, but I would like to say that Gladys refers to herself as being old... Well I choose to differ... am... to differ... I am seventy and still going strong... am... going strong... Who knows, I may yet pick up and marry some young girl and surprise all of you old fogies... ’

‘Eh, you do go on don’t you, all of you. Is all too much for my ole brain because I’m ole and I jus’ don’t know. There’s never any easy answers. My husban’ says wasn’t our business anyway. He thinks that’s the problem... If people had only minded their business, a lot of what happened could’ve been avoided... but he says we never learn, we keep on like nothing ever happen. At the beginning opinions fly up and down, then we go home and faget... lose intrest and feed on something else. He says our attention span’s too short... and why this intrest in Kathleen Harriot and her family all of a sudden? For years people seemed to faget and now here we are bringing up that ole story jus’ because Kathleen granddaughter Margaret returning... ’

‘Talking ’bout names, maybe that’s where the whole thing start... think ’bout it... Maybe we should’ve put a name to it. We should’ve given this country a name... this would’ve helped... A place without a name can’t come to terms with itself. All that burning and looting and slaughtering of each other because of affiliatshuns to diff’rent political parties might never have started in the first place if we could only have put a name to it...’

‘Ahmm... excuse me, but I’m going home. Gladys is right... none of us knew dhat family dhe way she did. We were only acquaintances going by rumours and hearsay. I remember vaguely seeing Katleen Harriot’s daughters Stephanie... and what was dhe other one’s name... oh yes, Eileen. I remember seeing dhem once in a while when dhey would go into town... Dhey were both smart dressers so one couldn’t help noticing dhem... Dhe adopted son, Compton, always struck me as a resentful young lad, didn’t seem to fit in wid dhe family, always gave me dhe impression of being an outsider... and I have to agree wid Gladys dhat Katleen Harriot seemed to love Compton more dhan her own two daughters, but at dhe same time wasn’t she very hard wid him? At least dhat’s the feeling I got whenever I heard her speak to him. She seemed to be quite domineering... ahmm... Anyway I’m tired... it’s too hot to go into all of dhis high-faluting talk... you notice... not a bret of air... It’s no different to my son who’s always talking about some ‘ism’ or some ‘ology’. Somebody he knows is always studying some ‘ology’... Dhere he goes and christens his daughter wid some kind of name dhat I can’t even pronounce. “Why can’t you call her someting simple like Joan or Tracy or Marilyn? Why a name I can’t even remember, much less pronounce?” I guess by talking we feel we’ve come to some understanding at our ages, but if you want to call a spade a spade, I don’t tink we understand much of what went on... ahmm... Some of you here were once school teachers, so you sound no different to textbooks but I was just a housewife and like Gladys’ husband George not one for book learning. Names and ambushes and low lying memories and legacies and history are too much for me... it’s all too much. I can’t afford to tink too much at my age. I have to hold on to what I’ve been taught all my life. It’s enough to deal wid my granddaughter’s name. I can’t afford to disrupt all I know or I might end up seeing cracks myself. Let me deal wid what I know... too old to look into anyting else... would only lead to pure confusion. Perhaps dhat was Katleen Harriot’s trouble and why she began to see cracks. At her ripe old age she began to see someting else and instead of letting it lie low she began to investigate and pry... Dhat’s where she got into trouble. She should’ve left dhe cracks alone and dhey would’ve disappeared, but no, she decided to investigate and get to dhe source... What could you expect na? Let me go home. For me... I will let sleeping collared dogs lie... ahmm...’

CHAPTER TWO

It was just as the clock struck six and Kathleen Harriot turned over on her bed and opened her eyes that she happened to notice, from where she lay, what appeared to be a deep crack on the wall facing her. It took her a few seconds to collect herself. The light in the bedroom was still dim as the blinds were drawn. She thought it strange if it was indeed a crack. Perhaps it was a trick of the light, perhaps a trick of the eyes; one could never tell.

She groped for her glasses on the bedside table. Ah, here they were, next to the Bible. She carefully put them on and once again cast her eyes to the wall. Yes, she could now see a lot clearer, except for the usual finger marks on the glasses. She must remember to clean them or ask Margaret, as lately the child seemed to enjoy doing it. She would creep up from behind her and gently remove them from her face so as not to make her jump at the sudden movement. ‘Grandmother let me clean your glasses’... ‘I’ve always wanted to ask you, Mrs. Harriot, you’re called Grandmother by your grandchildren, but what do they call your sister?’ Mrs. Talbot asked that just yesterday when she passed by to see how she was doing... considerate woman... Over the years would occasionally stop by to look in on her, though not a close family friend. ‘My sister is called Granny Irma by Stephanie’s children and Eileen’s daughter, even though she’s their great-aunt... Don’t know who decided on it... Sometimes one can never tell how or when things are started’... Like getting old, like yesterday when Adrienne was combing her hair for the tea party at the YWCA. As Adrienne pulled the hair away from her face she caught a view of herself in the mirror and in a flash saw the scrawled lines, the pulled-down, pulled-at flesh, the face of an old woman, a residue of time. She pulled away for a moment in this tug-of-time, not daring to look, as if by this act she could blot it out. But then she pulled-up her face again to the mirror hopeful hoping, and this time saw the wrung-out, roped neck. As she fell back she murmured to the room, ‘My neck looks no different to a turkey’s, doesn’t it? Our mother used to tell us it was the first sign. The face may pass but the neck is the give away.’ The years had shuffled up from all sides and she had given it the barest attention. Insidiously they had scraped themselves across her flesh, dragged themselves across her flesh, pulled and nagged at her flesh eventually beating it down. At that moment she blamed the mirror, she blamed the light, she blamed the day, for after all, ‘there are days and days and this was just one of them. There are mirrors and mirrors,’ she murmured; ‘it all depends on the light. Nothing more than the neck of a turkey.’

‘Did your mother Hope Amelia Robertson say that the neck is the first sign? Is that what she said, Grandmother?’ And then the child laughed, came up to the mirror and looked, then she laughed. ‘What are you laughing at, Margaret; it will happen to you one day. I know it’s hard for you to believe, as you are still fettered by youth as I am by age, but one day it will happen and you won’t even see it happening... takes you by surprise...’

The child nodded as if she understood and for a moment looked just as careworn as the old woman... curious child... Now why did she call out her mother’s name like that as if invoking it? Hope Amelia Robertson. In fact, when she thought of it, there were instances like this one when it was just as if Iris were back with her, instances of stark recognition that came and went in the flicker of an eyelid. Irma always said it, always said Margaret reminded her of their sister Iris... Was it the expression, the gesture of the hands, the turn of the head, the furtive look as if she were up to something, the way she was always into a book, couldn’t leave the printed word alone, pursuing it relentlessly? Or perhaps it was the eyes scrutinizing the word, the very soul leaving one with a feeling of unease, just like Iris used to do... the one who in pursuing the word never seemed to care to pursue marriage or friendship or anything for that matter. ‘Haven’t you found anyone yet?’ their mother would ask, never letting go. ‘You are far too choosy... We have not had any old maids in the family. You can’t only seek words, you must also set your sights on marriage and having children. A woman should get married and have children. Pick and choose the way you do and you will end up with the bramble, mark my words.’

Iris always walked alone, was the one always to be sought, later to be found, most likely under a tree buried in the leaves of a book...

‘It isn’t natural the reading she does and yet one can hardly get a word out of her,’ their mother would complain. ‘Mumbles her way through life... For a girl she reads too much, will fill her head with pure book knowledge, but that isn’t enough for a woman. Leave that to your brothers; they will have families to support.’

Iris, who was called the dark one, not as fair as the others, the one who took after the father... Iris, whom their mother had considered as someone in hiding what from she could never tell, in hiding like any common criminal going about like a thief in the night, no one daring to say that their mother also gave the feeling of being on the alert as she tiptoed her way through the house, slid along walls, gripped bannisters as if for dear life in anticipation... who for all of her married life would use only one chair, refusing to sit on any other, never allowing her bedroom door or windows to be opened more than a crack. At any strange sound she would jump-up and yet would jump down Iris’s throat for acting like a person in hiding, yet she herself had remained in hiding for years, waiting for a white man, any white man once he was a white man...

Iris, the one who continued to live alone in their parents’ house after their deaths, never to step out of it again until death stepped in and took a hand. She would drive their father so mad that he would beat her as if she were one of his own sons with strong enough backs to bear the blows, the cane whistling through the air. ‘I’ll beat the fear of God into you if it’s the last thing I do,’ and she would accept them as if they were her due without a cry, which would make their father strike even harder to elicit that cry, anything rather than the silence, the acceptance, as if this were nothing else but her due. ‘I’m the one in charge of this household and you will not forget it... You will not escape it, not while I am in this house.’

Their father, proudly referred to as Mr. Albert Fred Robertson by the villagers, since he was the first negro headmaster of the village school, a man who extended the role onto his family. A harsh, strict man who firmly believed that if one spared the rod one spoiled the child... his only restraints his God and then his wife. A man who dared to remove and marry the woman who could pass for white from under the very eyes of her parents was seen as a man who walked tall and stood tall though standing no more than 5' 7" , who feared no man, not even the white man... His wife, a woman whose only claim was that she could pass for white, at least in this unnamed country where it was hinted one could pass for anything if one had the know-how, for in other places she would be in the same boat as most of them, but to her parents, Robert Gerald Hinckson and Cecilia Margaret Hinckson, what further proof could one extract from the white man but the case of a mistaken identity, since their daughter from the time of her birth had been mistaken for white by the white doctor himself and for this very reason given the name Hope.

What further evidence did one need, her parents would stress? So in the passing she was taught that she had the right to be considered as one, accepted as one. But however one looked at it, they pointed out, however one looked, from whatever angle one viewed it, it gave her an advantage in this country and in the outside world... She was already ahead of the race.