Island Songs by Alex Wheatle Read Free Book Online Page A

ah hillside fe more dan ten years now. Sometime me don’t see people fe untold moons. Sometime me come down to look ’pon ya fader working him plot of land. An’ me see dat ya fader treat de soil like it ah gift from de Most High. Yuh tell me ya fader never go church all de time, but him still live Godly. Yuh see, David, we all come from de dirt an’ we shall return to it. So it’s Godly dat ah mon like ya fader live off de land. An’ yuh tell me yuh don’t waan to follow ya fader mighty footsteps?”
    “Nuh mon!” David’s voice grew louder. “Yuh talk jus’ like me Papa! Levi yuh lucky becah yuh ’ave seen different places an’ different land. Yuh tek one step inna de big wide world an’ decide to live like ah bushmon. But inna me seventeen years me see not’ing apart from de pure hills dat surround Claremont. Me waan to tek ah mighty step inna de big world an’ mek ah decision meself!”
    Standing up, Levi went inside his storage hut and emerged with a water coconut in his right hand; the top was scalped to allow drinking. “Tek dis, brudder. Nice an’ cool. It will quench ya temper. Dey say dat Maroon blood is mighty quick to boil.”
    David accepted and drank, tipping the juice into his mouth.
    “David,” Levi continued. “Me don’t waan to tell yuh to do dis an’ dat. Yuh affe follow yuh own destiny an’ mek up ya own mind about de problem. But me affe tell yuh dat de big wide world out der is dangerous.”
    Suddenly, David laughed, causing the juice inside his mouth to dribble over his chin. He wiped his mouth with his left palm and said, “living inna Claremont cyan be dangerous too. De udder day poor Miss Mavis get run down by mad cow.”
    Fixing David with a stare that spoke of disapproval, Levi continued. “Inna de big universe out der yuh affe rely ’pon de corrupt minds of mon. For example, mon an’ mon will mek decisions about ya life dat yuh ’ave nuh control over. Ah job or ah opportunity fe example.”
    Raising his arms and showing his palms, David remarked, “but isn’t dat how de world go?”
    “Not if yuh waan it to. If yuh follow ya fader’s footsteps den de only t’ing dat ’ave control over yuh is de soil dat grow ya food an’ de sun dat ah shine bright, giving everyt’ing life. Soil cyan’t lie an’ soil cyan’t never be corrupt. An’ living off de land yuh mek yaself ya own king. Me don’t ’ave nuh shoes an’ nuh shirt but nuh mon ah control me or corrupt me. Now, nah even de King of England cyan’t say dat wid ah honest heart.”
    David bowed his head and stilled his tongue. He did not want to disagree with Levi. But the desire to bless his eyes on new pastures was something that could not be denied. He decided to inform his parents of his intentions after harvest; his father would need him that day. Following that he would leave and his father or Levi could throw no words at him to make him change his mind. Once gone he’d grow his hair like Levi, be a Nazarene like John the Baptist. Last week he had so enjoyed Levi’s tale of Jesus’ disciples warning him off approaching ‘the dirty, matted hair wild one’. As he read when Levi showed him a passage of the Holy Piby, no scissors would trouble his hair again. He’d walk into far lands and see the world but keep that black pride that Levi instilled in him. Yes, he told himself. Me time ah come.

Chapter Three
    Two days until harvest Sunday. Amy, shaded by the zinc roof, was nursing a mug of rum and goat’s milk while sitting on an unsteady stool outside her kitchen, the choking smoke of burning tyre strips from her neighbours’ yard irritating her; Miss Panchita, who lived twenty yards away, was breastfeeding her three-month-old baby and wanted to ward off any mosquitoes and other insects; she had yet to register the birth of the infant in the parish capital, St Anne’s Bay, but hardly any Claremontonians ever did – the long trek put them off, notwithstanding the illiteracy that most Claremont