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’.
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By David Selzer