THE CUTTING

This story can also be read here


He takes the largest, sharpest knife out of the cutlery draw and studies it. He then approaches the table where his wife and three children sit…waiting.


“Annie d’you want the leg or breast?” He asks his wife.
“The leg please… or maybe not… the kids like the legs don’t they?” I answer.
“Oh, let them cater to you for once. You have it.”
“Oh alright then,” I agree. I know he’s right.



“I want to say the prayer!” Momo shouts.
We all take each other’s hands around the table, Gabs, our son, grabs mine. ‘Queen’ is on the radio, it’s a song I haven’t heard in a very long time. Outside the Spring sun is bright, big, and golden.


“Lord thank you for our food, friends, and family. In Jesus’ name Amen.”
“Amen,” we chorus.


He continues carving the chicken, then dishes out the vegetables and potatoes unto our plates.
“Can we play Chinese Whispers?” Dan asks excitedly.
“D’you think they play English whispers in China?” John asks, smiling.
“Yeah,” I answer. “They go; ‘Fags! Lager! Stupid council tax!’”
John laughs, Dan looks at me with that puzzled look she reserves for situations like these.
“Who’ll start?” Momo enquires, holding a piece of chicken between her lips, almost reminiscent of Bogart with his beloved cigarette.
“Me!… Umm, actually,” Dan says, pointing to her dad with a fork that’s dripping with thick, dark gravy. “Let’s start with Daddy, then come around to me.”



We all follow. How well she’s trained us eh?
John puts the knife down, it points in my direction, and I can see it winking in the thin streak of sunlight, which escapes into the room through the Venetian blinds. He leans over and whispers in Mo’s ear.


The game’s starting…


Gabs looks over and smiles, this’ll be interesting. He’s got to tell me what he hears.
“Don’t you want some peas Gabs?” I ask.
“Yes Mummy, put it all in.”



I scrape half of the remaining peas out of the white bowl and unto Gabs’ plate. He instantly shovels them into his mouth. I could see from the corner of my eye, Mo whispering to her big sister.
Don’t you want some Momo?” I ask. She turns from Dan, screws her face up and says, “Naw!”
I offer them to Dan but before she responds, I know what she’d say.
“Pshhsss,” she replies.
“Oh Dani, try some,” John sings (all together now), “You can’t say you don’t like them if you’ve never tried them.”
“That’s true,” I agree.
But I dump all of the remaining peas into Gabs’ plate as I draw near to listen to what he’ll whisper to me.



“I walk to seet and I poo,” he says, and as the last person in the chain, I have to announce what I hear.
“What?” John laughs, while Bob Marley wails on the radio.
“What did you actually say Daddy?” Momo enquires.
“I walked down the street and saw birds,” John replies.
“You know Gabs,” I say to John. “Everything has to have ‘poo’ in it.”
“Right! No ‘poos’ or ‘bottoms’ or any of their relations.” I tell the kids.



“It’s your turn Mo,” Dan says, speeding things up.
Momo thinks hard of something to say, while John carves some more chicken, when he puts down the long, sharp knife, it winks at me again.


“Don’t like potatoes.” Dan pipes up as she pushes all her spuds aside. Momo then whispers into John’s ear.
“Mo aren’t you going to eat your potatoes either?” I ask the youngest of our family.
“Mummy, I don’t like potatoes, give it to Gabs.”
“I don’t want any more!” Gabs wails.
“Okay, don’t scream, we won’t make you eat her potatoes,” John reassures him quickly.



This time it’s John’s turn to whisper Momo’s message to me.
I tell it to Gabs.
“I love everyone in my family very much!” Dan shouts, after it gets to her.
“Ahhhh… sweet Momo,” John gushes.
“My turn!” Dan shouts.
“No it’s not!” Momo screams, convinced that her elder sister is again pulling a fast one on her.
“Yes!
It!
Is!
Momo,” Dan declares, pushing up her well-worn glasses.



“Do you want more chicken Gabs?” John asks, carving the remnant flesh out of the bird, which once stood chest-out, soldier-like on our table.
“No,” Gabs answers.
“No thank you!” How many times must we tell you son?” I cut in.
“No shank you,” Gabs says sheepishly, not quite making eye contact as usual.
“Mo, do you want anything else apart from chicken?”
“No thank you Daddy,” she replies with a broad, ‘you-can’t-say-no-to-me’ kind of smile.
“So you’re just going to eat chicken? You have to have a balanced diet Mo, chicken alone won’t do it.” I say, trying to remember how many times I’d sung that song before.
“But I don’t…”


Dan whispers in Mo’s ear.
“What?” she says and leans closer, chewing with her little rose mouth wide open, and her golden curls falling down over her eyes.
Dan whispers again.


“Hello… we’re still waiting. Aren’t you going to try some potatoes? Go on, just a small piece,” John says and he cuts a tiny piece of potato and attempts to put it in her mouth. She reels back, almost violently.
“Go on Momo, tell Daddy,” Dan says to her in the mean time, keeping as far away from the potato as possible.
“Oh yeah!” Momo shouts, the potato poison has obviously caused her to forget that she was still playing ‘Chinese Whispers.’


Momo whispers in John’s ears, he leans over to me, and whispers in mine. Christina Aguilera is bawling on the radio and Mo is dancing, her little hairy arms up in the air.
“Can I yeave the table peas?” Gabs asks.
“Yes,” I say, and whisper in his ear.
“Gabs stinks of poo!” he shouts, but then realises what he’s said. His face turns from victorious to indignant in a split second as the realisation finally hits his seven year-old brain.
“Oh Dan! We said no ‘pooing’ or ‘bottoming,’” John says, but we’re all laughing, I almost choke on my potatoes.
“Can I have some more gravy?” Dan asks, still laughing.
“Sure,” I answer.
“Daddy, Dani took all the gravy,” Momo screams, after she watches her sister drown the few pieces of chicken on her plate.
“Ahh, now I have to make some more. Dani your plate’s swimming in gravy,” John says, but he gets up and goes to the kitchen, leaving the knife on the plate with the now devastated pile of bones, which was once our Sunday chicken.


“Sorry, I didn’t know,” Dan says but she’s still giggling.
“Don’t worry about making any more,” I tell him. “Momo can share hers.”
“Gabs’s under the table!” Dan shouts.
“Gabs get out from under the table son,” I say, feeling about under there but not finding his head of woolly curls.



“Gabs it’s your turn son,” I tell the space under there, “Come out and whisper to me.”
“He’s had a turn!” Momo shouts.
“No he hasn’t babe,” I tell her, then I speak to the space again…



“Do you want some more chicken, beautiful wife?” John asks me.
“No thanks, you have it, love.”
“Daddy and Mummy sitting in a tree, k-i-s-s-I-n-g.” Dan suddenly starts singing - her parents’ tenderness to each other is a vile embarrassment.
“So?” Her dad asks, looking at me adoringly and smiling in that cheeky way of his, the way that keeps my heart racing even after 11 years of happy marriage.
“Dani and Timmy sitting in the classroom k-i-s-s-I-n-g,” I sing.
“NO!” She shouts, but she’s smiling.
“I thought you liked Timmy.”
“No Mummy!”
“I think you do.”
“Mummy, you’re silly.”
“Which one is Timmy?” John asks.
“The tall blonde one in her class,” I reply. “The one with the twin sister in the other year four.”


Gabs whispers in my ear.
I whisper to John, and he bursts out laughing, not because of what was said, but from whom it came. He tells it to Momo.


Momo whispers to Dan…
“You have to say it aloud Dan, tell us what you heard.” I tell her, trying to compose myself.
“Dani and Timmy ‘mumble, mumble, mumble,’” Dan says under her breath.
“Timmy and Dani sitting in a tree s-n-o-t-t-I-n-g!” Gabs shouts, suddenly aware that the Chinese whispers had given way to this other, funnier game.
“What’s that Gabs?” I ask.
“Snogging,” he retorts.
“That’s ‘s-n-o-g-g-I-n-g’ son.”
“I don’t like Timmy. Momo likes Josh! Wait that doesn’t fit!” Dan shouts in succession.
“You have to say the s and n quickly, then the two g’s together. So it’s Dani and Timmy sitting in the classroom sn-o-gg-I-n-g.” I explain.


“Look at me everyone!” Mo shouts, calling our attention to the fact that she is now standing on her chair and gyrating to Pink’s ‘Let’s get the party started.’
“Can I leave the table please?” Dan asks, taking her plate into the kitchen and getting ready for battle.

The Food Line: Excerpt 4 - Sunday's Child

It was by accident that I learned about how dead people vote.

You see, we were in one of the food lines today. Theresa and I were lining up at Wrefords – or I think you have to call it Guyana Stores now - for split peas and cooking oil. We hoped that they didn’t run out of them before we got to the top of the line, like they did last two times we were here. There were a couple of guys in front of us talking politics. They didn’t sound like they knew much, but everyone talks politics these days. Everyone seems to be an expert. It seems like everywhere you go, there’re people whispering about The Comrade and the P.N.C. I hate politics talk because all you hear is, “Ah hear this,” and “Ah hear that.”

There was this young man behind us, who had a small, transistor radio. I could hear ‘The Mighty Sparrow,’ one of those Caribbean Calypsonians, singing that song about how you have to beat your wife everyday to make her love you. And just when he has you thinking, What kind of song is that? he says, “. . . Then she’ll leave you eternally.”
It made you realise that ‘The Mighty Sparrow’ was very clever, and that he wrote a very smart song, which used sarcasm to give you a very important message. Maureen, our English teacher, is doing satire and sarcasm with us. I must remember to cite him next time she asks for an example.

“And yuh know wot? Ah hear that they rigged the elections the last time,” the tall man with the green bag said. He was one of the men standing in front of Theresa and me, in the food line.
The one standing next to him was shorter. He was wearing one of those ‘Puma’ jeans that were so popular. I would love a pair of those – just one pair.
“Ah ain’t votin’ this time. Is waste of time, anyway. I hear that they go to the burial grounds and copy all the names off the headstones, write dem down on the votin’ list, and then mek them vote P.N.C.” Puma jeans replied.

I wondered why ‘they’ had to go off to the burial ground to get the names of dead people. Couldn’t ‘they’ get them an easier way?
“Yuh know that red stuff ‘they’ put on yuh finger when yuh done voting?” Green bag continued. “Well, I hear that some o’ the P.N.C people go home, dunk they finger in bleach and then go back to vote as someone else.”
“But ‘they’ gat everyone name wrote down on the list. How can dat happen?” Puma jeans wanted to know.
“Ah doan know for sure,” Green bag confessed. “But ah sure ‘they’ find a way, mon.”

“Alright! We jammin.” Bob Marley told us on the radio.
“I wanna jam it with you.
We jammin’ . . . jammin’ . . .
And I hope you like jammin’ too
Ain’t no rules, ain’t no vows, we could do it anyhow . . .”
“. . . Ah doan know, pardner. This country getting from bad to worse,” Puma jeans continued.
“Last night, me old girl had a party for she sister, right, and in the middle of cuttin’ the cake...”
“Black out,” they both chorused, laughing like they had just heard a particularly good joke.
“Yeah mon, I tell yuh . . .” Puma jeans began, but a surge of people came back unto us and knocked radio boy’s radio off his shoulder.
“Oye!” he shouted.

When you’re queued up in these food lines (and some people come every day, so they know all the ins and outs of lining-up-success) you have to push as hard as you can, against the person in front of you, so that the entire line is literally joined up together. If you didn’t do this, you were in danger of allowing a ‘poker’ to squeeze himself/herself in front of you.

Most of these ‘pokers’ work in shifts, so Mummy ‘poker’ would start the four a.m shift, get her stuff when the store finally opens, hide it in a bag or in her frock and stand around to wait for a sign of daylight between any two people in the line. Finding this tiny space, Mummy ‘poker’ would then plant herself in. In comes Big Brother ‘poker.’ He would then take Mummy ‘poker’s stolen space in the line, go up and get the two bags of food stuff, be it split peas, flour, oil, or whatever. Brother ‘poker’ would then hide his ration of whatever it was that was being sold that day, and do the same as Mummy did. They would continue this until all of the goods were gone. Obviously, these people have large families to feed, but it was still not fair.

Ahead in the line, someone had caught a ‘poker’ trying to edge in. They pushed forward to stop Miss or Mr. Poker, and the whole line of people went into the barrier at the front of the queue. Our science teacher told us that for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction; hence the whole line came back unto us.
“Oye!” Puma jeans shouted. “You trampling people back here! He turned back and asked me, “You alright child?”
“Yes, Mister,” I said.
“Yuh know dat dispute wid Venezuela,” Green bag said, as if nothing had happened. He was obviously reminded of this because of the Calypso playing now on the radio. “Calysponians take political issues and turn them into lyrics for songs,” our music teacher had told us. Ours was the only high school in Berbice, which taught steel pan music. We had a band room with a set of steel pans. I liked playing base because you had to stand in the middle of four big pans, and manage your way around, to play them all at the same time. It was cool, and made you feel very talented – even if you weren’t.

“Ah hear that the reason Venezuela want that bit of Guyana is coz they want Mount Roraima,” Green bag continued. “That is we biggest mountain, and they want to tek it ‘way. Is like they want to leave us wid nothing.”

“…Not one Blue Sakie
Not one rice grain
Not one Curass
Not a blade o’ grass…”

Sang the Calypsonian, and Green bag sang along with him.
“Not a blade of Grass,” was Guyana’s slogan and response to the Venezuelan threat of taking a piece of Guyana. The Comrade Leader ended some of his radio broadcasts these days with, “Tell Venezuela, Not a blade of grass!”
My friend and I think that since Venezuela was right on the border, if they desperately wanted a blade of grass, they could just walk over and pick it.
Yes, I know, we’ve already been told, “That attitude is not very patriotic.”

Theresa and I got up to the top of the line and got a small bag of split peas, and a quarter pint of cooking oil in the little bottle that we had brought with us. The oil was a bit cloudy, and Theresa said so. The woman behind the barrier said we should be thankful because, “Dis young man behind you, ain’t gettin’ none! Oil finished, and we only got four bags of peas left.”

As we were leaving, “Electric Avenue” by Eddy Grant was playing on the radio. It reminded me of something Christopher had told me when he was here. He said that if all the rich and famous Guyanese like Eddy Grant lived in Guyana, spent their money here, and employed people, that it would probably give more of us Guyanese a chance to become rich and famous ourselves.

“We gonna rock down to Electric Avenue . . .”

MY LIFE AWAY FROM WRITING

I sometimes do a bit of modelling. In September I did the Bristol's Organic Festival's Fashion Show.

We’ve all tried to keep up with the fashionable trend of eating organically, counting our carbon footprints, and keeping up with the forever unfolding ethics of holding global warming at bay.

But how about dressing organically? The Soil Association’s textile standards which was launched in February 2003, held an Organic Fashion Show at the fabulous Harbourside in Bristol. This event gave the public a chance to make up their minds about just how trendy this new wave of organic, ethical fashion is.

This long awaited event was one of the fashion highlights of the year, and was backed by famous labels like Katherine Hamnett, Aardalanish, Marks and Spencers, Del Forte, Bella Natura Nahuiollin Bags, Terra Plana Footwear just to name a few.

The Soil Association has found that the textile industry is one of the major polluters in the world, and has endeavoured to work towards creating an awareness, of how disastrously fatal the use of pesticide endosulfan is to the third world farmers.

Around a quarter of the world’s insecticides are used to grow conventional cotton, and ten percent of its pesticides, and at least 8,000 chemicals are used to turn raw material into clothes, towels, beddings and items which come in to close contact with our skins every day.

With the introduction of textile standards, we the public are provided with pertinent information about the history of the product we are buying, and weather it’s process of production was ethical or not. This allows us to make informed decisions about what we buy and ultimately what we wear.

This organic festival gave Bristol its very own Fashion Weekend. Click on link provided on blog for some pictures.

Bristol Organic Festival Pictures
Sorry, but you need to click through to find me as there are several pictures here

THE LONDON FASHION WEEK PICTURES, 2006. here

I'M MODELLING HOBBS. CASUAL IN DARK GREEN LONG COAT, FORMAL IN THAT LITTLE BLACK DRESS. LINE UP OF FINALISTS AND PATSY KENSIT.

WRITING THE BOOK

I started this book on the 6th of January and finished it on the 30th of the same month in 2005. It took me just 24 days to record the events of what I now know, was the first of the three parts of my life. Of course I had to go over the manuscript for subsequent rechecks and rewrites, but it surprised even me, that I remembered this period of my life with such accuracy.

I sat in my living room, day after day, and wrote with abandon, almost in an out-of-body sort of activity, and typed away on my husband’s old, broken-mouse laptop.
Every day, after we took the kids to school, I would come back home and write until it was time to pick them up again. Taking a short break at lunch-time to have something to eat.

I started ‘Fair Of Face’ (the follow-up) as soon as I had completed the first draft of ‘Sunday’s Child’ because I knew that although the first part was through, there was still so much more to be said. It shocked me that there are even more unbelievable events in this second part of my life.

I have categorically no plans to write a third book. When ‘Fair of Face’ is finished, that will be it. This is simply because the third part of my life is the one I’m living now. I have no intention to write about my present life. There is really nothing to tell.

My progress in publishing ‘Sunday’s Child’ has been a slow and disappointing one. The first line of my synopsis (which I send out to agents and publishers) states that it is a true story, yet some of the replies I got back informed me that they did not publish fiction; a clear indication that they had not read it. At least these were the ones who bothered to reply, so I should be thankful.

When I’m not writing or working with young people, I’m involved in one of the great loves of my life, the world of drama. Having been a professional Stage Actress for 11 years (something I did with my evenings after work), I understand the commitment one has to be prepared to give in this arena, so I have removed myself from it for the time being.

My family comes first and we still have very young children, therefore I am not willing to sacrifice them for my pleasure and fame. But I can do the next best thing – I’m a supporting artist (‘S.A’ or ‘Extra’) and enjoy this experience on a regular basis. I also do a bit of modelling when I can. Earlier this year I did the Bristol's Organic Festival's fashion show at Harbourside, and modelled People Tree and Katherine Hamnett among others.

Last year I did a catwalk show at the Museum of Natural History in London during the London Fashion Week.
Click on the heading for this post above for pictures.

That's me in the short hair next to Patsy Kensit, I promise.

UPDATE: IT TOOK MORE THAN 7 YEARS BUT SUNDAY'S CHILD HAS NOW BEEN PUBLISHED BY PULSE.

The Day Mammy Broke My Face: Excerpt 3 - Sunday's Child

“Go downstairs and bring that wood!” Mammy shouts, while pointing at an old abandoned wood at the bottom of the stairs.
I take the steps one by one, and walk into the dry dirt at the bottom of the stairs. My bare leg brushes by the lemon grass bush whose leaves we use to make tea. I feel the stinging cut from its sharp leaves, but don’t react.

Instead, I glance at the wood. It had been used to patch up the chicken coop a long time back, so it has nails sticking out from various parts of its used body. I walk past it to look for another, a smaller one maybe.

“Ah say bring that one! Look! Doan try me faith here today!”
“But . . .” I can’t follow that with anything else, I don’t think. My mind is a muddy trench with hidden boulders. I’m drowning in the confusion. Why? Why? Why?
I see my fingers pick up the wood, the one with the nails sticking out from it, into all those different directions.
Maybe she only wants the wood, maybe it’s not to beat me with at all. She won’t beat me with a wood with nails in.
Yeah, she just wants the wood for something else . . .

* * *

She is beating me everywhere, as she chews on her bottom lip. The top of the stable door is open, letting some warm air into the room, which is packed with the furniture from the rest of the house – ‘general cleaning’ stuff. She’s holding in her hands, both hands, a piece of wood which is fatter than my arm. I can hear ‘conk’, ‘conk’ as the wood hits my bony parts and it makes a kind of ‘ta’ sound when it contacts with flesh. I reel over with pain and the pressure of the heavy wood on my body, it pounds on my fingers as I move my skinny arm up to my face.

I’m sure that one, or all of them are broken. The sound’s so loud inside my head. I stumble backwards into the wall, from the sheer force of the hit, and the pain. Ta! Ta! Conk!
But I don’t scream out.
“Stretch out yuh hand!”
I try, but when the wood’s about to connect, it yanks itself back.
“Stretch out yuh hand!”
I try – the other hand this time – the wood connects.
Too late.
“Stretch out yuh hand, I tell yuh!”
By now the smell of hate is so frothed in the woman’s nose – the tall woman standing by the stable door whom the child is looking up to – that she grabs the tiny arm and makes the hand stay put.
I weep like a baby, but not loudly, my dry mouth hardly open.
I cry my soul free, but more on the inside than out.
I hold my hurting hand with the other, as I look up again, this time to see if there is a chance of forgiveness.
Then one of the nails connects with my face.
It sticks into flesh.
That was then.
* * *

Back to now:You know, when Christopher came to visit, he brought some big records to play on the little portable record player which my mother had brought to Guyana about a year ago. She’d only brought one needle with it, so it doesn’t work very well now. It sticks into the records just like the nail stuck into my flesh.

“Jailhouse, Jailhouse, Jailhouse, Jailhouse, Jailhouse, Jailhouse,” it would go. Then Mammy would send me to lift the little thingy up so that the record could move from the stuck position and keep on playing. If I didn’t move it far enough, it would stick again, “Rock, Rock, Rock, Rock, Rock, ock, ock, ock, ock,” so I would have to lift the thingy again.

Christopher had also brought a small record, he said it was called a 45. It was a song about the Jonestown cool-aid stuff, but the one he liked best was the big yellow, double one by Bob Marley. He said that the record only looked yellow, but it was really gold, because Bob Marley sold so many of them.

All the words of the songs were written out on the jacket. Mr. Bob Marley seemed to be very, very clever. His words are so sweet, I’d never heard anyone talk about such great things before.
“Schism,” he said on his record. I asked what it meant, but Christopher didn’t know.
“Schism, schism, schism, schism, schism,” Mr. Marley went for a long time before Christopher sent me to lift that thingy.

* * *

Back to then again:
Mammy pulls the thingy, then bright red blood starts to spurt out of my face. Theresa drops the bowl of rice she’s cleaning, screams and runs me to the shower which is at the back of the kitchen, and begins to wash the blood away. But it keeps coming and coming and coming.
Why won’t it stop!
Theresa is only a young teenager so she doesn’t know what to do. I am crying and she is running the water, but the red water keeps on escaping.
My eyes watch me bleed down the drain hole.

“Ah can’t get the blood to stop, Mammy!” Theresa stars shouting and crying. “Ah can’t get it to stop!”

I’m shivering, but not from cold. I’m sure that this is where I die. After hungrily clawing unto this lifeless life for so long, I still die.
I still die?
I still die?
I feel a faint coming on, as the red water runs down into wherever drain water goes.
Christopher is awaken again, this time by all the noise, and gets up to see what all the commotion is about, he sees us in the shower, and tiptoes on the wet, wooden floor outside the little enclosure. He looks at me for a while, then step in on the concrete and says, worried like, “Ah didn’t know yuh had so much blood in yuh mon.” He tiptoes out again, but we - Theresa and I - still cry.

Mammy comes to the shower door now and says to Theresa, “Stop running the water now, yuh want she to bleed to death on me hands?”
Theresa takes me out and gives me a towel to put on my face. She uses it edge of it to dry her eyes.

* * *
Back to now:I didn’t know which part of my face was cut, I thought it was my eye at first but I could still see, so it had to be my nose. I couldn’t feel any pain on my face, how was that possible? I knew that there was pain in my back where I got some of the beating, but none on my face.

“We gat to finish this cleaning,” Mammy said. “Ah warn you, to stretch out yuh hand, but you too stubborn to listen to me. Let that be a lesson to yuh, that next time I give yuh a message, mek sure yuh deliver it.”

“Wot message?” Christopher asked. He was well into his morning body-scratching ritual, while looking for something to have for breakfast.
“Ah send she to go and wake you. If she wasn’t so stubborn, she wouldn’t be standing there like an idiot with a towel on she face.”
Christopher turned to me, “Is that when you come in and shake me out me sleep?”
I nodded my head.
“Ah tired mon,” was what he said. Then he turned away to put the tea pot on the stove.
Mammy said nothing.