Her biography of Jean Rhys was acclaimed

by critics and scholars as definitive

and enthralling, and became a best seller.

There was mention, of course, of the importance

of her Bahamian heritage.

Then the lies had begun, the aspersions,

the accusations of plagiarism.

Her annotated ‘Anthology

of Afro-Caribbean Poetry’,

for instance, published a decade before,

was deconstructed scholarly note by note.

However, the royalties from her books,

a TV series, and the Oscar winning

movie based on the biography

had made her financially secure.

 

Aged sixty she bought and renovated

a Victorian folly – masquerading

as a mediaeval tower – on the North Downs

near the Pilgrim’s Way to Canterbury.

The folly had been built with money

from Trinidadian plantations.

Sometimes, she felt, there might be the appearance

of something that might pass for justice –

so she grew sweet potatoes, cassava,

okra, pumpkins, plantains in the small garden

on the south-facing side of the tower.

 

From the leads of the tower she could see:

the village to the west; to the north

the cathedral city where she had studied;

south the Sussex Weald and the English Channel.

And she would marvel at the long wave that had

surfed her – captive or free – to that tower.

Her study – in the room below the roof –

faced the Norman church at the centre

of the village, the conqueror’s church

in this land of Saxon invaders.

 

In the last two years she had spent much of her time

successfully organising online petitions

against the big tech companies wholesale

devouring of books to build mega

databases. The books would be manually

taken apart page by page, scanned then burnt.

 

She savoured her continual solitude –

garnished by occasional visits

from friends in the black literati –

but in July of that long summer

of drought and wildfires she decided

she would begin her autobiography.

She would start with a list of quotations

from Jean Rhys’ ‘Wide Sargasso Sea’

that she would use as chapter epigraphs.

She had by heart so many quotations,

waiting to be recalled, rising unbidden.

 

She began work next morning. The heat

became worse as she climbed to the top floor.

In the study it was oppressive, hot, humid.

She thought suddenly of Nassau’s Venice Bay,

the grove of jacaranda, and the body

of her young son on the silver sand,

and shuddered. A peacock butterfly

was fluttering against the closed window.

The eyespots at the edge of its wings

were like whirlpools. As she opened the casement

to let the creature out she saw someone

on the path near the Norman church, then crossing

a field – buff-coloured from weeks of drought –

someone who might once have been her son.

 

After lunch she fell asleep in the shade

of the north side of the folly – and she dreamt,

for the first time in years, of her son drowned,

and she howling among the petals falling

like deceiving violet snow. She woke abruptly,

feeling captive to that ancient grief

from another country. And she could still hear

the police shouting at her about her son

daring to trespass on the exclusive

beaches of gated Venice Bay. ‘There are

always two deaths, the real one and the one

people know about’. And she wondered

who the young man of colour had been,

crossing the barren field near the church.

‘Only some things happen and are there for

always even though you forget why or when’.

Maybe he had been a lost pilgrim.

 

Later that evening, while she was working

on the first chapter – its epigraph

‘They say when trouble comes close ranks, and so

the white people did. But we were not

in their ranks’ – she smelt the acrid smoke

of heathland burning, thought of the commons

near the village. As she shut the window,

she could see smoke rising in the night sky.

‘When they had finished, there would be nothing left

but blackened walls and the mounting stone.

That was always left. That could not be stolen

or burned’ would open the  last chapter but one.

Perhaps the lived truth of her own story

might be nevertheless well received.

And she laughed aloud, her gut reminding her

that her success and her colour combined

would be used to persecute her again.

‘Justice…is a cold lie’.