It was another two years before a son was born, and to Hugh's amazement he was white, as white as his father, and Ama returned from the forest with him in triumph. They called him Mongan, from the story of Bran, but the slaves corrupted this to Mungo, after a Scottish minister who had been among them, and the name stuck, being easier to say.
After Mungo was born, Hugh daydreamt of returning to Ireland. He knew it was a fantasy. Ama was full of hope, but her joy sprang from her son, and she now thought little of her daughters. Oriole was five and Bridie not yet three. They had taken for granted Ama's distant care, but when they saw the attention and laughter she lavished on Mungo, they clung to Hugh even more than before, trying to help at every turn, Bridie copying Oriole in everything, and hindering him as they did so, but that didn't matter. He had become an indulgent father and he loved to make them laugh, often at Mungo. Sometimes he worried about Ama's neglect, but their affection made him forget about it most of the time.
One afternoon when Mungo was almost two, Oriole and Bridie snuggled into Hugh's arms, and settled for another story.
"Save your white stories for your white son," Ama said quietly, so quietly that he almost missed the hardness in her voice. "Don't give black girls a white boy's dreams."
Bridie didn't notice, but Oriole's mouth fell open, and she turned to look at her mother, her eyes awash with tears.
"But Mama . . ."
"Hush, girl," Ama said without looking at her.
"Well, tell her your stories, so," Hugh said, dismayed.
Ama inclined her head to him.
"I have no story. You know that I have no story. This boy," she said, looking back at Mungo, "this boy will be my story."
Oriole wriggled around in his arms to look up at him, horrified.
"Mama has no story," she whispered. "She's forgotten her stories. But I remember them."
"Hush. You can tell them to me later."
Oriole's face haunted him. He thought about it all afternoon and for several days and nights. Ama had told the girls stories about a goddess with three heads, and told them well, but they weren't hers. Or were they? Had she an epic tale she wanted to forget? He had always wanted to hear it, and took her silence to be a reluctance to speak of her slavery, but now he thought he knew what slavery meant. A slave, he was sure, was someone without a story of her own. As Oriole now helped him weed, now played with Bridie, he vowed that this would never happen to his children.
There had been a slave rebellion in Montserrat 20 or 30 years before. They had tried to burn their Irish masters to death, but had failed and many of them were executed. Having been through a rebellion himself, and having had his leaders executed, it was confusing for Hugh to think of it, but he knew one thing. Those men must still have had a story in their heads which told them they were men and not beasts of burden.
And then, after pondering it for a long time, he thought he understood. Ama loved her daughters, but saw the world they would grow into more clearly than he. She did not want them dreaming of something they could never have. He fathomed the truth of it, but not the justice.
Hugh could only imagine Africa from what he had heard from his shipmates, some of whom had sailed on the slave ships and knew the Slave Coast. He could only dimly remember what they told him, except that they also knew the Gold Coast and spoke of the wealth of the African kings in the interior.
One very hot afternoon, when Ama brought Mungo to the stream to bathe him, Hugh asked Oriole and Bridie to sit before him. They had not heard a story in weeks. Oriole had been having nightmares and Hugh thought he knew why.
"Would you like to hear a story?" he asked.
"But Mama . . ." Oriole said.
"A black girl's story?"
Bridie threw her fists in the air and laughed. Oriole, so like her mother, smiled, her pleasure quiet, tempered by something deep within her.
"A long time ago, before your mother's mother's mother was born, there were two little girls called Bridie and Oriole, who lived in a country where there were only black people.
"The country was called the Country of Gold, because it was so rich. Bridie and Oriole had no gold, but they lived in the forest with their mama and papa."
"Was their papa white?" Bridie asked.
"No, their papa was black and so was their mama. They had lots of animals, and everything they wanted to eat, so they were happy until one day some bad people came and took away the people of the village to a strange country across the sea. Bridie and Oriole saw their mama and papa taken away in chains and they were very frightened and they ran into the forest until they were lost."
"Papa, will you and Mama be stole by bad people across the sea?"
"No, my dove. What I told you is just a story. We won't be stole across the sea. We'll be with you here, always."
In the absence of seasons, the children marked out the passing years. Ama grew more obsessed with Mungo and didn't care any more what he told the girls. Mungo returned her love while he was dependent, but from the age of four he started to break free of her and seek out his sisters' company. At first she vented her jealousy and anger on the girls, and beat them for no reason. Hugh fought with her over this, until once, in a fury with Oriole, she hit Hugh and in reflex he hit her back with such force that he knocked her down. Her mouth was bleeding and she put her fingers to the wound.
The girls huddled together in fear and Mungo was wailing. Hugh and Ama stared at each other in shock. The slave had struck her master and the lover had wounded his love.
He turned and walked away, leaving the children to their distress. How could he ask a slave for forgiveness? He strode up the hill and into the trees, grateful for the chatter of birds, but still couldn't drown out the storm that raged through his head. He had fought for, and his family had died for, the right to be equal. He knew now, after all his years of trying to forget, that he hated a world where a master ruled over his slave. He had known it with clarity as he stood on Vinegar Hill expecting to die, but too much suffering had clouded it, as if he didn't care so long as he could live in peace. His indifference had brought him to this. What mocking deity had made him love a poor slave? In his helplessness, he wept. He knew that Mungo would break her brittle heart. The boy had spirit, and he knew without thinking it that he would grow apart from her, maybe leave them behind if only to break free of her, and where would his poor Ama be when that happened, as happen it surely would?
He walked to the stream, where it ran steep and fast, and washed his face, then went back down along the boundary with Ryan's land. Across the field, he could see that Ama and the girls had returned to work, and Mungo played among them as if nothing had happened and they were a happy family.
"Good morrow, Byrne."
He turned to stare at Ryan as if he had appeared out of the ground.
"Your fields is doing well, I see."
"You know they are not, Cathal. So why do you say they are?"
Ryan laughed it off.
"Why we bother, I don't know. Sugar, cotton, there's no demand, and the soil is bet."
"Well," Ryan said, his face clouding, "the soil is bet, true enough. The one thing that isn't bet is the price of slaves, since the Act."
The English Parliament had forbidden the importation of slaves, and while no slaves had come to Montserrat for years, the market being too small, the Act had driven up the price of slaves throughout the Caribbean colonies. Ryan always seemed to be abreast of such news.
"You have a good investment there," Ryan said, nodding towards Ama and the girls.
"Them's my wife and daughters, Cathal. How often do I have to tell you?"
Ryan laughed again, but his face was grim.
"If you want to make them free coloureds, that's your business, Hugh. But times is hard. The Irish is leaving and going on to Virginia. The only thing that's keeping me is the price of slaves. It will get higher, mark me. It has to. When the price is right, I'm off. I'm sick of this island. And I don't trust the mountains," he said, looking up. "There's too much sulphur around the place. Them volcanoes could rip this place off the face of the earth, so they could. Or an earthquake. I felt something last week. And the hurricanes, God blast them."
Ryan ranted on, and Hugh looked at the mountains.
When he looked back, Ryan was striding through his scrub, still giving out, but to himself. For all his talk about slaves, he was harmless enough and Hugh liked him. He was probably the only friend he had.
That evening, after they had eaten, Hugh looked up at Ama, trying to find an opening to talk again, and saw that dust had caked over the blood on her lips, like parched earth. He found a rag and soaked it in water and, stopping her in midstride, held up her face to bathe it. She glanced at him, then looked away.
In bed, she turned her back on him. He was tempted to give in and play the master, but it was anger and when his anger faded he looked for a while at her outline in the faint light, and listened to the crickets. He was sweating heavily, and knew it would be raining by morning, or at least he hoped it would. It was strange that on such a small island it rained every other day just over the mountains, but here there were days he prayed desperately for rain. He thought about what Ryan had said about going to America. If things stayed the way they were, then the only alternative would be to starve. Yet even if he wanted to, how could he go? Ryan could sell his slaves, but would even that be enough to bring his wife and six children to America and survive? Hugh's holding was better, and he could sell his interest in it to the landlord - maybe - but the fertility of the land was failing by the year. Perhaps they should go now, while they still could. Ama stirred.
"Ama . . . ?" He reached out to touch her shoulder, but stopped short. "Ama . . . if you want Mungo to look after you in your old age, you must let him be now."
She half turned.
"If you watch his every move and spoil him, he won't grow into a proper man. He'll be useless."
She stayed half turned for a while and his hopes rose that she would see he was right. But she turned back again and soon he could hear the steady rise and fall of her soft snore.
She never said anything but seemed to pay him heed, and Mungo ran wild like a little animal, so that it was Hugh who had to rein him in, sometimes, and it was Hugh who curbed him when he challenged his parents, who thought he was old enough to help a little. Hugh made him work. Ama did too, but he was lazy.
When he was five, he discovered the young Ryans, and as soon as work and eating were over, he'd run across the scrub to be with them. Hugh was foolish enough to suggest that Oriole and Bridie go too, to play with the older Ryans, but a flashing look from Ama stopped him in mid-sentence.
"Who would they play with?" Ama hissed. "The slaves?"
Oriole ushered Bridie out to play, pretending not to notice, and Hugh felt his heart splitting in two, knowing that Oriole was old enough to feel such injuries deeply. He turned to Ama.
"I'm bringing you all to America," he said, his voice caught between rage and grief.
"It's no better there," she said, shaking her head, "not for a black girl. Your heart's flower, Oriole, she be a slave there too."
"How do you know?"
"I know. She can marry a free coloured. I hear there's free coloured up north."
"Here, or in America?"
"Here."
"Huh."
He went out to the stable shack and, taking down the saddle, called White Heaps.
"Where you going?" Ama called.
"I'm going to bring my girls to meet some free coloured children."
Oriole looked up from her game with Bridie, panic-stricken, and shook her head vigorously.
"No?"
She shook her head again, her eyes wide.
"Why not?"
Oriole swallowed hard and looked from Hugh to Ama and back again. Ama was glaring at him, he knew.
"Jesus, what can a man do?" He threw the saddle to the ground and stomped away to the fields, White Heaps walking slowly after him. It had started to rain.
"Put the saddle away," Ama told Oriole.
Mungo worked with Hugh on a row. By cajoling and threatening him, Hugh had got him used to work. He was slow, but at least he did it. It was getting hot, and Hugh straightened to rest for a moment. He had noticed Mungo looking back at the others all morning, and had thought nothing of it, but now he noticed that Mungo was frowning at them.
"What's wrong, boy?" he asked him.
"If they's black, how can they be my family?"
"What? What did you say?" He grabbed him by the shoulders and shook him violently. "Don't you ever . . . Don't you ever mention or even think of that again." But Mungo stared at him defiantly.
"What colour are my eyes?" Hugh asked him sharply.
"Blue."
"And your mother's eyes?"
"I don't know."
"Brown. Dark brown. Nearly black. Like yours. You have your mother's eyes, Mungo."
"I have not!" he shouted, and broke away. He ran across the field and sat under a bush, sobbing.
Ama stood up, looking from Hugh to Mungo and back again. Hugh shook his head in bafflement, then calmed himself with effort and went to Mungo.
"Come on, lad," he said quietly, reaching for his hand. "Come on, be a good lad," and, sniffling, Mungo went back to work with him and, it seemed, all was well, he was a child, Hugh reasoned, and had heard about these things from the worldly-wise Ryans, but, he felt sure, he loved his mother and sisters, who treated, him like a god.
They were almost finished when Mungo sat down in the row.
"I'm tired," he moaned, his face hidden under his straw hat.
"Come on, lazybones," Ama said. "We'll be finished in a little while."
"Yis're the lazybones!" he shouted, looking up, his face blazing.
Before Hugh was upright, Mungo was on his feet, his body tense with anger.
"I shouldn't be working," he screamed. "Yis are the slaves. Yis should do the work. Yis, yis, yis!" he shouted, almost choking, pointing in turn to Ama, Oriole, and Bridie. "Yis are the slaves."
Hugh turned in horror to Ama, who clutched her breast as if a knife had pierced it. Her head was rolling. Oriole and Bridie stared at their raging brother. "I hate yis. I hate yis all," Mungo shouted.
He ran towards Ryan's land and that was his mistake, as the anguish that roared through Hugh turned to fury and he ran after him, catching him by the hair in a few strides and lifting him with one hand so that Mungo's feet kicked the air, and unbuckling his belt with the other.
"I've had enough of you, you little pup," he said as if to himself, his breath short. "I didn't see my family die to raise a tin master like you."
His belt released, he threw Mungo to the ground so hard that the boy swallowed dust and was coughing and spluttering and crying out as Hugh bore the belt down on his back and backside and legs. He didn't care where it landed so long as it hurt him badly, and by the sound of the boy's screams he was hurting him.
Then Mungo wasn't crying out, but his body was shaking violently. Hugh had seen the bodies of chastised slaves tremble in the same way, in awful silence, and it dawned on him what he had done. Wiping sweat from his eyes, he looked around to see Ama almost beside him, her cheeks drenched with tears, her eyes red as she stared at the prostrate body of her son, her daughters clinging to her in dread and fascination. He did not know whether she suffered more because of what her son had called her, or because of what his father had done to him. Hugh replaced his belt without taking his eyes off them. She leaned over Mungo, crying quietly, and nervously touched his head.
"Son?" she pleaded, her voice breaking. When he did not resist, she rolled him over and gathered him into her arms. All Hugh could do was gather his daughters to his side and stare at Ama and Mungo, lost in each other as Mungo's trembling ceased. Then she stood and, lifting Mungo into her arms, she carried him back to the house.
Hugh and the girls watched them as they disappeared.
"We'll finish it ourselves," he said, and they set to work, but they were so dispirited, what should have taken less than an hour took almost two.
When they got back to the house, Ama was kneeling beside Mungo's bed, staring at him.
"He's sleeping," Hugh said.
"I gave him rum," she said. She had taken rum herself, but he knew her slurring was not because she was drunk. He touched her shoulder and she turned her haggard face to him. "I gave him rum," she said again.
He helped her to her feet and led her to the table and sat her down.
"Sit in with us," he beckoned to the girls with his head.
He poured a mug of rum and held it to Ama's lips, and she drank. He poured some into a mug for the girls and told them to share it and, spluttering and coughing, they did. Then he drank his own, grateful for the fiery warmth in his belly.
"He was only repeating what the Ryan children told him. He didn't mean it. He has no sense."
"Will you beat sense into him, Papa?" Bridie asked.
"I think I did that today, my dove."
"Because I am not a slave, am I?"
"No, love. You are not," he said, glancing at Ama.
Ama looked at Bridie, and then, to Bridie's surprise, reached across and stroked her hair.
"Do you want to lie down?" he asked Ama. She shook her head.
He looked around him, not knowing what to do. Oriole and Bridie were staring at him.
"Help me get White Heaps," he said.
"Where are you going, Papa?"
"To Ryan's."
They leaped up, grateful for the chance to escape. Ama looked at him quickly, but said nothing. He cast an eye over what they had saved before he left, and it was a consolation to see that most of it was good. Ama wanted some spun to make clothes, and they could use the lesser quality cotton. The price had fallen since the year before, and had fallen the year before that. He looked at the sky. The clouds which had threatened rain had broken up and it would be a beautiful evening, he felt a love for the island, but as much as he loved it, the time was coming fast when it would no longer support them. He stuffed the cane knife in his belt and held out his arms to the girls. They came to him, and he leaned down to kiss them on the forehead.
"I won't be long," he said, mounting White Heaps. "Be good to Mama."
He rode towards Ryan's. He had only been in their squabbling house the once, when Ryan had tried to marry off his eldest daughter to him. He thought of how a little time could change a man's life, for better or worse. If he had waited a year or so and accepted Ryan's offer, he wouldn't be riding now to kill him.
Looking around him, his thoughts drifted to Wexford.
There was a time when he never wanted to see its blood-soaked fields again. But he told himself that he wanted to go back, just the once, maybe when Mungo was older, and find his brother Tom's grave and bury him where he grew up, where his spirit could have happy memories. That woman, the one who had a fancy for Tom, she would remember where he was buried, and he'd bring him home and bury him in his own land, under the noses of the Orangemen if he had to.
He pulled on the reins and headed to the forest, and once deep inside, where the light was emerald, he turned White Heaps and stopped. He had sworn he would kill no more, and Tom's ghost, he knew, had reminded him of that oath. The thought crossed his mind that he should cut his own throat instead, and it was easy enough to think of it, but he wouldn't leave his children fatherless. He would never return to Wexford. How could he bring his poor Ama, his innocent Bridie and Oriole, and equally, how could he leave them, even for a time? He had only to think of Ama's face as she turned from Mungo's bed to know he would never be happy again, not as he had been. All that was left was to love Ama and his children as fiercely as a man could, and hope for that as consolation.
All was quiet when he returned. Inside, Mungo was still asleep, a light sheen of sweat on his forehead. Hugh reproached himself again. Unable to dwell on what had happened, he sat at the table to have a drink. When he tried to pour from the jug, it was empty. He frowned and went to the barrel, but hesitated. Puzzled, he went outside. There was no sign of them. He almost shouted Ama's name, but stopped in case he woke Mungo.
Then he saw the footprints in the dirt, unmistakably those of Ama and the girls either side of her. He followed them around to the back of the house, and saw they led through the brush and tip the hill past the windbreak trees towards the cliffs, and he knew with blasted clarity what was happening. Desperation propelled him onto White Heaps and he urged the horse faster up the hill through the brush and trees, the young branches snapping into him until he reached the barren ridge near the cliffs.
They were gone. He knew it as surely as if he had seen them fall.
He moaned as he stared at the sea boiling around the bluff, hoping that somehow they would surface and live. But Ama had dragged the girls to the bottom, he was certain of this, and though his eyes never left the water, it was into the emptiness of his soul that he stared.
(c) Philip Casey 2001