Words to Shape My Name Read online

  Saintly, said I.

  Why yes, that’s exactly what—

  He caught sight of my expression and pressed his lips in a thin line. Forgive me, perhaps I am a sentimentalist. I was so caught up in the story. Tragic Lord Edward and his Dear Little Wife. Lady Pamela. So beautiful. To be widowed at such an age. And of course your Father. Poor Tony.

  I were forced to interrupt.

  It’s easy to be sentimental about things what got nothing to do with you, said I.

  He blinked twice at that but I know his kind who like to claim even a distant connection with titled people long-dead and fancy it enough to bestow a lick of polish on them.

  You may think you knows something from reading words, may even think it’s the truth but the Truth is altogether different.

  My breath were in my fist as I spoke and the gas lamps hissed back at me. But I kept on.

  It’s like a Queen of Puddings, I said, or a Plum Duff. Words is just some of the ingredients. But then it gets mixed up and cooked, and ends up looking and tasting nothing like what went into it in the first place.

  Miss Small, says he, shaking his head from side to side though I could not tell if he were annoyed or amused. Miss Small, he said, I’d quail at the thought of meeting you as an adversary in a court room.

  Well, then, I said and stopped, for in truth I were a bit flustered by all this talk about Baaba and Lord Edward, and by talking so sharp and with such feeling and though I wanted to ask questions about the rest of the will, I needed to be gone, to be by myself, to think without Mr Butler’s moist gaze upon me. I’ll be off, says I, bundling the papers into a box.

  He held the door for me, begged me to return as soon as I had completed my perusal of the documents.

  Then we can discuss the provisions of the will.

  24th May, 1857

  A carriage ride to Manchester Square

  Lady Lucy wrote she still thought of me as Ettie. That were my first and dearest name. Ettie Small, and I just a young child with love about me. Names matter. The one you go by, what others may call you, and how you sees yourself. Some speak of tenderness, and some serve to bind you. I lost the name Ettie at eighteen when I became Mrs Harriet Fricker. A mistake. Names just give a quick inkling of a person, but still they matter. Perhaps that’s why my father had me call him Baaba. Said it was of his people. Never said who they was though nor where they come from. Ma insisted I call her Ma, not being of his people, as anyone with two eyes could see. I’ve been branded with many names, some mean and cheap and others I were flattered by. Names what showed but a tiny part of me, one that were true perhaps for a moment, but were never the whole of me. One such name was writ on a playbill, stuck up outside the music hall in Camden Town. The Sable Songbird. That were a long time ago. Least I only had to sing then.

  Since last week, I’ve been shuffling through Baaba’s papers, making fluttery piles of them on the table in my front parlour. I own I’m finding it difficult to make sense of them, not that I’d give Mr Butler the satisfaction of knowing. Some things is best left unsaid. It’s also a bit queer, them faded black lines, because I know the page is silent, his writing mute but I swear I can hear his voice when I read. Or someone’s voice for it’s sometimes familiar and sometimes not. Gives me a squirmy feeling. Unsettled like. So I’ve started to write my thoughts down, odd gubbins of memory what have come back to me, like the day Baaba was summoned by Lady Lucy. I know my hand ain’t up to much. Not like my Baaba’s, his being long and smooth and marked by curls and other faldedaddles. My hand is rough and spiky—

  Still I make no apology for it. It’s served me well over the years.

  Air Street in Piccadilly were busy of a morning back then, when the century were but a few years old and I not much older, so I paid no heed to the grumble of the carriage and the snorts of horses drawing up outside, nor ever imagined that the man with the ruffles and buckles who called were a footman, come for my father.

  I have a note for Tony Small. His lips hardly moved at all. From Lady Lucy Foley, Lady Fitzgerald that was. She has asked me to wait upon his reply.

  Has she now. I expected to see Ma spitting out pins. She snapped the paper from his gloved hand. Told the man she’d take the note to Mr Small herself. Pressed the word mister hard and hissy, like she were brandishing the flatiron.

  The workshop were choked with steam and vinegar. One of the copper vats were bubbling, and the whole tangle of tubing shook. Baaba frowned when Ma and I entered but she paid no heed, pressing the note on him. He broke the seal and walked to the window, rubbing the pane, the better to read it. Poor Ma were twisting her hands in her apron, all in a fluster. I think Baaba read slow on purpose.

  What does she want, is it about the money. Are we finally to receive our due.

  Baaba shook his head from side to side, the letter open in his hand. I could see there weren’t much writing on it.

  She says nothing about any of that. Just that she has a proposal to make to me in person, and has sent the carriage that I may attend upon her immediately.

  I tugged at Ma’s hand but she folded her arms. So after all this time, and all your letters, she demands you come to her just as soon as she bids.

  What would you have me do, Julia. I must go. Hear her out.

  You’ll take Ettie then, Ma said, spitting on both her palms and rubbing them through my hair, pressing so hard I thought once more of the iron.

  Let her see for herself.

  The house sat on the corner of a square, tall and white, with two pillars to the front. I skipped up the steps with Baaba following through the door which opened magically before us. After what seemed an age, we was brought up a curving staircase to a room on the next floor. The footman could scarce bring himself to look at Baaba, and didn’t trouble himself to look at me at all, just held the door open and called out. Mr Tony Small, Your Ladyship.

  I have little account to give of what passed in that room. Lady Lucy talked and so did Baaba but my ears were deaf to their words. My eyes were trapped by my inspection of the Lady. Her dress were of the finest cloth. Green of a kind I’d not seen before, mossy I think and trimmed at the hem and waist in a blue, like a fly’s wings. She wore a shawl in the same stuff, just set across her pale arms like it were spun sugar. Her hair were a bit like Ma’s in colour, almost red but darker, like the ale Baaba sometimes drank and it were piled in soft ringlets that shook ever so gently whenever her voice rose.

  She does stare, does she not, she said, eyeing me calmly.

  Baaba touched my arm, murmured. Ettie.

  Ettie, said she. I remember you as a little baby. In Kildare. She turned to Baaba. Of course, she can hardly remember Ireland.

  He shook his head, No Milady.

  She was always a lovely little thing. Come Ettie, let me look at you.

  I stood before her and it was her turn to examine me. She took my hand in hers. Should you like to draw or paint, she asked. I shook my head. I wanted only to stay and feast my eyes on her and the room.

  Young girls are such gulls for beauty and everything about her seemed beautiful. I see it all the time, how they are drawn to pretty things like mice to sprung traps. Perhaps they hope some might rub off on them, or they can fossick among the crumbs and scents that beauty leaves behind.

  She gave me a spinning top, said it belonged to her niece, who most likely wouldn’t miss it and I should play with it, in the hall with the maid. It were beautiful, painted with white horses what seemed to run faster and faster as it twirled. When I finished playing I brought it back in and left it on Baaba’s lap. Then I explored the room, trailing my fingers along a cold marble table. Staring at a horrible gold clock squatting on top, surrounded by fat babies wearing nothing but little wings. Tripping over to a golden mirror, jumping to catch a glimpse of myself. Only managed see a few curls fly up and down. Baaba called me, told me to sit by him, to take a drink of what the maid had brought for him. I sipped, and squeezed my eyes shut, it were so bitter. The Lady lau
ghed.

  Quite a nip to it, she said. It’s lemon shrub. She turned back to Baaba. Said something about a proposal. A brilliant idea.

  It will help you and … the family.

  Baaba placed his glass back on the tray. You mean my family, he asked and the Lady tilted her head to one side.

  Yours, she puzzled. Yes, yes. Of course yours. And Edward’s.

  She got to her feet in a fit of excitement. Asked my Baaba to write an account of his life. I checked to see if he were pleased about this but his forehead were creased and his eyes tight. Lady Lucy went on, words I hadn’t heard before. Rebellion. Treason. Attainder. Parliament. Confiscated. Abolitionists. She said as how abolitionists were crying out for such accounts.

  Why, you’d be doing your own kind a great service.

  All this she says while pacing back and forth on the beautiful damson rug, and her skirts whispering, and her little slippers making hardly a sound at all. I tucked my grubby boots under my chair. She were still waxing on. About Edward. Dear Edward. His good heart. And how he was incapable of treasonous acts, just led by his good heart and by bad men.

  What do you say, Tony, she asked and her voice had a little wobble in it, like she might cry. You can tell people how he saved you from the clutches of slavery, how he led you to God and such.

  I’ll think on it, Baaba said and the Lady smiled at him. I nudged him to smile back but he didn’t. Instead he stood and told her we was leaving. He placed the spinning top on his chair. Lady Lucy handed him a bundle. Baaba looked none too pleased at this but he gave a queer little bow. I tried out a curtsey what I’d practised at home, but no one paid me any heed.

  I had no inkling then what all the talk were about but I heard so much about it afterwards, listening to Baaba and Ma, Ma all snippy about money, and Baaba all solemn about the Attainder that I feel I’ve always known these words. I even fancy I remember Lord Edward for I have such a perfect picture of him in my head. But that could be on account of Ma’s talk. So much of what she said seems like my own memory. I used to remind her, long after Baaba passed, about Lady Pamela and Lady Lucy sewing their green patriotic emblems on their dresses in Kildare, and she’d look at me, with a queer expression.

  Quit your talk, she’d say. You couldn’t remember that. You were but a baby.

  But when I told her how I remembered her father, and recited how he were shot by a damned redcoat outside the gaol in Naas, and the bastard soldier planting his booted foot atop her poor father’s chest, jabbing him again and again with his bayonet, arís agus arís, and his last words uttered as the lifeblood drained from him, Éireann go brágh, Julie, mo stór, my dear, when I said them words, well, Ma looked horrified. Like I were one of them changelings what gets swapped for another woman’s child.

  That is my story, she cried. Mine. You weren’t there. Unborn.

  I wasn’t there for many happenings yet I can bring them to mind clear as if it were yesterday, and I standing watching. Can’t explain it. Maybe I’m a pickpocket for bad memories. Can’t tell who owns what story anymore. All of them’s mine.

  We returned from Lady Lucy’s house in a chair. It were nowhere near so exciting as the carriage. The seat were just a hard plank, the window open, the air cold and the two chairmen rough and careless. One of them muttered something about carrying blacks. Baaba were reading a little note and paid no heed. He read it softly, over and over.

  My instructions. My instructions. His mouth snagged on the words, like they was stuck in his teeth.

  I am to write and she will ensure that any errors of form or memory will be corrected.

  I am to write and must not concern myself with too many details or dates for she can refer to her letters and amend the Narrative as necessary.

  I am to write. In my own words. As from my own tongue. As I speak them now, with grave formality.

  Grave formality. In God’s name what does she think.

  He crunched the piece of paper in his hand and let it fall. He was silent for the rest of the journey. I were glad to clamber out on Air Street again though I made sure to grab the paper from under his seat. I were glad to see Ma in the hallway as I threw off my boots, even if she frowned and asked Baaba what it was he had in his box.

  Paper, he replied. Paper and a book.

  Are you telling me now she didn’t pay you. Ma’s eyes were narrow.

  Not yet.

  Came over all béal bocht, I suppose. Ma peered at him. I said as much. They’re as mean as sin.

  She brushed down the front of her apron, muttering that something or someone would be the death of her, and she linked her arm under Baaba’s where he held the bundle close, and I took his free hand in mine and swishing my stockinged feet across the flagstones, I led them to the warmth of the kitchen.

  Ma placed a bowl of broth in front of him and waited for him to talk. Baaba could let silence stretch tight across a whole day if he’d a mind to. But not that day. He showed her the box, the leather-bound sheaf of blank white papers tied with packthread, the clutch of quills. A book.

  Ma put her hand on his shoulder. Sure when have you any time for reading? And it’s November. What is she thinking, the light so poor, and candles so expensive.

  Baaba laughed then. I told her all that, he said. But she insisted I take it. Not to read through exactly, but to use it as a guide.

  I glanced at the book, opened the cover and saw a black man inside.

  Oh, I said. Look Ma, it’s like Baaba, but not him.

  Ma leaned over me, smelling of onions and lard. Who is it, she asked.

  Olaudah Equiano. The greatest of Africans. Baaba were none too excited.

  I remember, Ma said. You had the book in Ireland. Mr O’Connor gave it to you. But what’s the point of it now.

  Lady Lucy imagines I can write as he did. His voice changed, sounded strangely like the Lady’s, like he were sucking a sugar comfit. Think of it as a map, Tony, or signposts. Start at the beginning as he did and … follow his tracks. Indeed, you could draw from the wording itself, his way of shaping a sentence.

  Ma snatched the empty broth bowl from him. I don’t have a notion what you mean. What does she want of you.

  To write something like this Narrative. He tapped Equiano’s book. A bit about me. Most of it about Edward. She thinks it might help the Family’s effort to overturn the Attainder.

  Ma flung the bowl and spoon in the tub near the back window, shouting over her shoulder. The Attainder. That word. The English have an official word for everything but ’twere malice alone what caused them to brand Lord Edward a traitor. And him hardly cold in the grave without a means to defend himself or his name. And all so’s they could take his land and his children’s inheritance like they’ve been doing to the Irish for three hundred years. But they dress their thievery up in a fancy word and parliament puts a stamp on it. Attainder.

  The word were a gob of spit in Ma’s mouth. I felt thrilled and scared just to hear her rage on.

  They’ve taken everything from his wife and children. How in God’s name could anything you write change that.

  Baaba shrugged. Lady Lucy will publish it, and it will change public opinion. She hopes. And she’ll pay me for my efforts.

  Ma snorted.

  Just like they paid you for all your years of service. Like they were supposed to honour Lord Edward’s bequest to you.

  She were in such a flap, her hair had come loose, and her cheeks were pink. Baaba reached out to her, pulled her into his arms. Their heads were tipped together, and he murmured in his low voice like he were soothing a baby.

  What choice do I have, Julia. What choice.

  Funny word, choice. The more I turn it over in my head the less I understand it. It’s got a plummy sound, like you could almost bite into it. Choice. A word what belongs only to them who’s got money. Not my Baaba. He had no choice but to write all that fancy Narrative. Don’t sound like him when I read it. Not a smitch like him.

  THE TRUE NARRATIVE


  of

  THE MOST

  REMARKABLE PARTICULARS of THE LIFE

  of TONY SMALL,

  THE DEVOTED AFRICAN SERVANT

  of

  LORD EDWARD FITZGERALD

  The Author’s account of his origins; his terrible enslavement; 1781, the Battle of Eutaw Springs and finding Lieutenant FitzGerald.

  This account which I set before you, my indulgent Reader, is written not from any vain hope of literary merit, or for the sympathy of my fellow man, and as such I own it differs from many a history told by men of my hue. Rather, by virtue of its detailing my humble beginnings and enslavement, it will shed light on He who saved me and elevated me to a position of Knowledge and Faith. But I embark upon this venture with trepidation for although fully proficient in English words as they are spoken, and to a degree which often surprises those who are born to it, my hand is less sure, having come later to the Art of the Pen. I must confess I am reluctant to commit any errors of expression or indeed to sully the unrelenting Whiteness of the Page for it casts a very cold light upon me and my attempts to write of my origins. Is it good enough to say I remember only smells of grass, sweet and green; and the smoky comfort of charcoal fires; the warm dung odour of reed baskets, and the meaty tang of a great river? Perhaps not.

  I must depend upon my Reader’s indulgence and trust that when I say my life began some eighteen years or so after my birth, I will be believed. This then is the beginning, the account of a poor ignorant Negro man who had the good fortune to be taken up from the wilderness by a kindly Lord. A Lord in whose heart burned a righteous impulse, a passion for Liberty. Forgive my earlier digressions. They stem from a certain anxiety that I should find myself unable to put before you the Truth artless and unadorned. Bear with me, for this is the account you seek: The True Narrative of the most Remarkable Particulars of the life of Tony Small, the devoted African Servant of Lord Edward FitzGerald.