Island Songs Read Online Free PDF

jugs so that her family could swab away the night and sip coffee on her return. She didn’t say much to the other women, just the occasional ‘good marnin’. She knew they all had work to do and there was little time for ‘susu’ talk.
    Balancing one of the urns on her head on her way home, Amy grimaced for she knew she would have to make a longer journey to scrub her family clothes in the river later on. When she reached home she placed the vessels on the hard-baked apron of ground before her front door and set about waking her family. Hortense and Jenny were the first to use the water, freshening their faces from the same plastic bowl using a small cake of carbolic soap bought from Mrs Clarke’s tiny shop in the market. They then dabbed their fingers into the ashes of the dead fire, spread it across their teeth and cleaned their molars with a shared toothbrush, rinsing out their mouths with water. Coconut gratings were melted so that Jenny and Hortense could moisten their skin; they didn’t want to be teased at school for having ‘grey knees’. They dressed quickly and braided each other’s hair. Jenny had learned to ‘corn roll’ her own hair when she was only five years old. Amy went off to start work in the kitchen, frying eggs, slicing ardough bread and preparing mugs of coffee with goat’s milk. She presented her twodaughters with a mango each to supplement their breakfast, all the time careful not to disturb Kwarhterleg who was still snoring a rasping snore.
    David was the last of the family to take his ‘marnin fresh’ and by the time he did so, his mother was ready with his breakfast. Although he felt it was his duty to help out with the family business, he wanted to inform his parents soon that he needed to make his own way in life; a nagging restlessness had besieged him for the past few months. David watched his father preparing and sharpening his tools for his working day ahead and he thought to himself that however honourable work in the fields might be, the wider world must have more to offer than planting vegetables and selling them in the market-place in the centre of the village.
    He knew that his father hoped that in time he would take over the farming duties and remembered Joseph’s habitual phrase, ‘if yuh put nuff work inna de soil den de soil will put in nuff work fe yuh’. But he heard from travellers and merchants who were passing through the village of gigantic boats dropping anchor in Kingston harbour, big loud towns where so many people lived that it was impossible to greet everybody with a hearty ‘good marnin’, and red-faced white people who lived in double-decker houses of seven rooms or more.
    Meanwhile, as a weekly treat, Amy was preparing for her husband and son a cake that the locals called ‘Bluedraws’. She kneaded and folded cassava, flour and sweet potato, pressing it hard with her thumbs and fingers. She cut the dough into four round portions and fried these tasty concoctions until brown. She then wrapped the four cakes in banana leaf to keep them fresh and shared them equally between Joseph and David. She was rewarded with a kiss on her cheek from her son. Joseph offered her a warm smile, sniffing the dish. “Amy, yuh is one ably cook! Yes sa! Nuhbody else ah compare.”
    David watched his sisters receiving money from their mother to buy lunch at school; vendors pushing carts would jostle and cuss-cuss each other for business outside the church-come-school. Sometimes fights would develop and Isaac and the teachers wouldhave to rush out to keep the peace. The vendors sold cartoned juices, citrus fruits and a variety of snacks that included fried dumplings. “Hortense,” Amy warned, “if yuh lose ya money once more me gwarn lick yuh wid chicken bone ’pon ya head top when yuh reach home. Yuh hear me chile?”
    Hortense nodded then ran up to her brother. “David yuh nuh walk me to school? Me cyan’t remember de last time yuh walk me to school. Yuh don’t