The Lamplighter Read online

  Less than a third of the slaves survived.

  Captain’s Log: 23rd May 1709 –

  Buryed a man slave No 84.

  Wednesday 29 May –

  Buryed a Boy slave, No 86 of a flux.

  Decreasing. Rough or very rough.

  The weather still dirty, the captain said.

  Slow moving, with little change.

  BLACK HARRIOT:

  The weather filthy!

  MACBEAN:

  Rain then showers. Moderate or rough.

  Thursday, 13 June 1709

  Buryed a woman slave, no 47.

  Later Decreasing.

  BLACK HARRIOT:

  Into the howling, moaning Atlantic.

  Into the open-grave-green sea.

  Into the choppy waters, another body.

  Another stiff black wave into

  the tight black waves of the sea.

  Into the turbulent waters,

  another body yet.

  MARY:

  If you want to learn to pray,

  Go to sea.

  Scene 3: Interior Fort

  ANNIWAA:

  It smells bad down here. So bad I don’t want to breathe. So bad, I take small sips of the dirty air.

  Sometimes strange people come down. Their skin is pink. They look through me like they can’t see me. The women are moaning but they can’t hear us. The sounds they make with their mouth are strange. I don’t know what they mean.

  At first when they shove and push me down here, I am hungry, so hungry I am hollow. Now, I don’t want to eat. I don’t want to eat if I can’t eat with my mama. A woman here, with the markings of the enemy, tries to feed me a little. At night I sleep under her arm like a bird under a wing. We are all crush-crush in here.

  I am getting smaller by the day. I am a girl getting smaller. Maybe soon I will be the size of a goat and then the size of a yam and then the size of a cricket and then I will vanish. Maybe I will start to grow backwards. Soon I might be ten, then nine.

  My hands are small and my legs are sticks.

  My belly is swollen in a strange way. I can feel but I can’t see myself. I can feel I am not myself.

  When I get really scared, I try and make my Mama come for me.

  I close my eyes and say it to myself. Please. Please. Come and find me. Come and get me. Please. I see her in my head. She is in the yard, pounding fufu. She is wrapping kankei cake in banana leaf. She is digging for yam. I can see her in her yellow head-tie. I see her walking through the trees, past the ones with the big curly leaves, past the wide one that is older than my grandmother. Striding like a giant. Coming to find me.

  Then, all of a sudden, my mother is gone. I can hear the big monster howling at the thick dungeon walls.

  Sometimes I can hear singing, strange singing.

  Song: All

  CONSTANCE, BLACK HARRIOT, MARY and THE LAMPLIGHTER sing as if they are in the fort’s chapel.

  ALL:

  All glory be to God on high

  And on earth be peace;

  Good-will henceforth from heaven to men

  Begin and never cease.

  ANNIWAA:

  One day slips into another day. The dark comes and folds up the days. I wonder if I will ever get out of here. I wonder if I will ever go home. I wonder if I will be a girl when I get out of here. A girl, twelve. Maybe a girl, thirteen. Fourteen. Maybe not a girl anymore. Maybe a woman. Maybe I’ll have grown into a small woman without my mother.

  Scene 4: Herself Talking

  Exterior a place of memories. Caribbean countryside, Devon quayside and urban landscape. Cane field. Suggested rather than stated.

  The same chorus of three women will accompany the telling of the Lamplighter’s story, to give the impression that any single story is a multiple one.

  FX:

  (The sound of wind with the sound of sea on cobbles in the background added.)

  THE LAMPLIGHTER:

  Reader, be assured this narrative is no fiction.

  I have not written my experiences in order to attract attention to myself. On the contrary, my description falls far short of the facts. It is not my intention to horrify.

  BLACK HARRIOT:

  This story was written by Herself.

  MARY:

  This is Herself talking.

  CONSTANCE:

  I am. She is. You are. They. They is. They are, they are, they are.

  LAMPLIGHTER:

  Nobody ever told my story before.

  I was the one who was recaptured and sold

  For eighty pounds, on December 8th 1792,

  forced then to board a vessel at Lamplighter’s Hall,

  Avonmouth, heading for the plantations.

  BLACK HARRIOT:

  To board a ship and cross the water

  Board a ship and be carried over

  To be carried across the water

  And land with strangers all over,

  All over again

  MACBEAN:

  I saw her –

  Tears flowed down her face

  Like a shower of rain.

  The Inn where she was sold

  Still stands on Station road,

  Shirehampton, Avonmouth.

  I saw her open mouth.

  I saw the lost look in her teary eyes.

  CONSTANCE:

  Avonmouth, open mouth.

  MARY:

  We were sold in English Inns.

  BLACK HARRIOT:

  We were sold in Bristol coffee houses.

  We were sold in Liverpool warehouses, shops, on the front steps of Custom House, on the east side of the old dock.

  At the slave ports of Lancaster, Whitehaven, PortsMOUTH, PlyMOUTH, DartMOUTH

  CONSTANCE:

  Mouth, lips, teeth.

  BLACK HARRIOT:

  Exeter, Glasgow, CHESTer

  CONSTANCE:

  Chest, heart, lungs

  MACBEAN:

  To be sold by Auction at George’s Coffee House, betwixt the hours of six and eight o’clock, a very fine Negro girl about eight years of age. Any person willing to purchase her may apply to Capt Robert Syers, Merchant Draper near the Exchange, where she may be seen till the time of sale.

  BLACK HARRIOT:

  We were sold for sugar in the coffee.

  Sugar in the tea.

  MARY:

  We were sold for tobacco and rice.

  Sold to make the cities rise.

  MACBEAN:

  To be sold for want of employment…a healthy Negor wench, of about 21 years old, she has a female child of nigh three years old, which will be sold with the wench, if required.

  CONSTANCE:

  Bristol, London, Birmingham, Liverpool, Manchester, Glasgow, Edinburgh

  MACBEAN:

  Horses, to be sold at the Bull and Gate Inn Holborn.

  A very good Tim Wisky with good harness.

  A Chestnut Gelding, he goes safe. A good grey Mare and a well tempered Black boy who has recently had the smallpox.

  BLACK HARRIOT:

  After we were sold, I myself recall,

  We were marched down

  The cobbled quays where the ferrymen

  Met us, the men with the moon faces.

  CONSTANCE:

  The men with the red sun faces.

  Then we would be rowed to the waiting vessel.

  FX:

  (The sound of the wind with the sound of the sea.)

  LAMPLIGHTER:

  I can’t tell you everything I lost. I lost my family. I lost my name.

  I lost my country. I lost my freedom. I lost my weight.

  I lost my sense of smell.

  BLACK HARRIOT:

  I lost my bearings. I lost faith

  (for a while.)

  CONSTANCE:

  I lost my words.

  I lost my tongue.

  BLACK HARRIOT:

  I lost my sense of fun.

  LAMPLIGHTER:

  At night… At night,

/>   BLACK HARRIOT:

  In the morning

  MARY:

  During the day

  LAMPLIGHTER:

  The men with the red sun faces came.

  Nobody told my story before.

  This is Me talking.

  MARY:

  This is Herself.

  CONSTANCE:

  This is Herself Talking.

  LAMPLIGHTER:

  I was the one who was stowed away.

  For weeks on the Mary, the ship

  Roared and tossed and everything was green.

  Nobody knows what I went through coming here.

  Just to stay alive, to see, to hear, to touch, to taste, to feel.

  Nobody ever did stop and think about me. And so, my inside-

  Voice got louder. And so my inside-thoughts got faster. And so

  My outside-smile, wider.

  And I learnt how to, how not to

  CONSTANCE:

  How to, how not to, what to not do, what to do, what not to do.

  LAMPLIGHTER:

  And I just about survived. I lived to tell this story.

  I have forgotten what I have not remembered.

  I am jumbled with the span of years, and the weight of things.

  The weight of a horse bit in my mouth.

  BLACK HARRIOT:

  The weight of a chain on my arm.

  MARY:

  The weight of my body

  On the scales before I was sold.

  CONSTANCE:

  The weight of my heavy heart.

  MACBEAN:

  I’ll never forget the sight of her,

  Standing on the cobbles with the tears

  Flowing down her face. I can see her still.

  Like she is still standing there.

  Like it was yesterday.

  LAMPLIGHTER:

  Over the big span of years

  I span myself, time myself.

  Could say those years are one step in time.

  Could say they are nothing at all.

  Not long ago.

  BLACK HARRIOT:

  Not long ago enough yet.

  CONSTANCE:

  Not far away enough yet.

  MARY:

  Not in the past yet.

  LAMPLIGHTER:

  Not as long ago as I would like to think.

  I can still stretch my arms back and be able to touch it again, smell it again, taste it again. Slavery. The feel of it.

  Don’t forget to remember me. My voice is coming back.

  MARY (low):

  This is Herself talking.

  LAMPLIGHTER:

  My voice is coming back,

  Stronger by the day,

  By the light of the silvery moon.

  Close, slavery. Close – too close ever for comfort. A trudge and

  A slide away. A scrape and a pull away. A skip and a jump away.

  I remember when I was bought and sold and weighed as if it was yesterday.

  BLACK HARRIOT:

  This is the story of Herself.

  MARY:

  Told without the bit between the teeth.

  LAMPLIGHTER:

  The deaths I managed to avoid. The deaths

  I did not live.

  BLACK HARRIOT:

  The endless deaths in us, the windowless deaths,

  The deaths in the dungeons,

  The deaths at sea

  The deaths in the ship

  The deaths in the new land

  The deaths tied to the tree

  The deaths in the plantation

  The deaths in the shacks

  The tobacco deaths, the sugar deaths.

  The broken-hearted deaths. The love-missed and missing

  Deaths. The in-your-face deaths. The stowed away deaths.

  The sea deaths. The deaths at sea.

  LAMPLIGHTER:

  Death looked like a big steel ship called

  Grace of God. Death tasted

  Like a wounded bird, like captured freedom.

  MARY:

  And death was in all of us.

  Scene 5: Shipping News

  MACBEAN:

  New Low, moving rapidly North-east and deepening.

  Occasionally moderate or poor.

  Buryed two slaves –

  A man (no 140) and a boy (no 170)

  Of the gravel and stoppage of urine.

  A boy, no 158, then a girl no 172.

  No 2 died of a flux. No 36 died of a flux.

  Decreasing 4 for a time.

  Biscay. Southwesterly veering westerly. Very rough or High.

  LAMPLIGHTER:

  Very rough or High.

  MACBEAN:

  Sole Lundy Fastnet Irish Sea

  CONSTANCE:

  Sole Lundy Fastnet Irish Sea, Sole Lonely Lundy, Fastnet,

  Chain, Irish Sea. Monday, Monday. Tuesday, Tuesday. Fast.

  Net. Sea. Fish. Soul. Sea.

  MACBEAN:

  From fore to aft

  From the nose of the ship to the rudder

  From shoulder to shoulder

  Head to toe and toe to head,

  The slaves were packed tight.

  BLACK HARRIOT:

  Dire was the tossing. Deep the moans.

  CONSTANCE:

  The men with the moon faces

  Came to the shore

  In big ships glinting like knives

  Across the huge- big mirror water

  LAMPLIGHTER:

  I would rather die on yonder

  Gallows than live in slavery

  MACBEAN:

  Squally showers for a time later.

  1716. The Windsor reached Buenos Aires

  with only 164 slaves surviving.

  1714 The Norman left London

  to pick up 300 slaves.

  The Norman carried 150 gallons of malt,

  Three hundred weight and ten pounds of flour.

  12 hundredweight of biscuits. Coming soon.

  Fifty chests of corn.

  Twenty gallons of rum.

  MARY:

  Coming soon.

  MACBEAN:

  Rain later, moderate or good.

  CONSTANCE:

  Bad or good. Happy or sad. Big or small. Good or bad.

  Sad or happy. Small or big.

  Left or right. Right or wrong.

  Scene 6: The Story Coming Back

  FX:

  (Exterior a place of memories: West African village. The sounds of children playing.)

  LAMPLIGHTER:

  I remember back before –

  when I played with my friends in my

  own country, and time was long

  And trees were tall, I remember how my brother

  and I watched out for kidnappers.

  And how good my father was shaping the wood and metal, and

  visits to the snake spirit, how some healers could really heal.

  I remember how the Crocodile River,

  ran fast. I remember my brother ran fast.

  I remember our home with its cone-shaped roof, how my

  brother and I belonged to our entire village. I remember the

  days I lived before I came here, the life before.

  The life before, the life I lived,

  the life when I could breathe,

  when I could smell the smells

  and taste the tastes.

  FX:

  (Fade West African village. Cane field. Suggested rather than stated.)

  LAMPLIGHTER:

  Seems another me

  lived that blessed life, another girl-

  girl, deep in the interior country

  far away from the coast,

  a girl who had never ever seen the sea,

  a girl who climbed to the top of trees.

  I like to think she is up there, still,

  mysterious, magical girl,

  that she would never ever

  hear this story.

  MARY:

  I wanted to
run from that story.

  CONSTANCE:

  I wanted to pretend it never happened.

  BLACK HARRIOT:

  I wanted a break.

  LAMPLIGHTER:

  But no matter how fast I ran from my story,

  No matter how many years,

  The story just kept coming in and coming back

  Like the sea to the shore

  Like the sea always comes back to the shore.

  BLACK HARRIOT:

  Nobody told my story before.

  You better listen good, girl.

  Or I’m going to tell it twice!

  MARY:

  I wanted to be still and quiet.

  Never to tell it.

  When I lived it

  sun up to sun set.

  BLACK HARRIOT:

  I was bought up on the Guinea Coast

  CONSTANCE:

  Imagine how much gold they took

  To name a Coast after it.

  MARY:

  Imagine how much ivory

  CONSTANCE:

  To call a Coast Ivory Coast.

  BLACK HARRIOT:

  Imagine how many slaves

  MARY:

  To name a Coast Slave Coast?

  CONSTANCE:

  On the front of the 22-carat gold Guinea

  There is an elephant and a castle,

  Beneath the effigy of a right-facing King.

  MACBEAN:

  ‘Elephant and Castle’ – very popular name for British pubs.

  BLACK HARRIOT:

  I was brought up on the Guinea Coast

  When I was a young girl.

  I was taken to St Kitts and sold

  To Big Fat Planter

  When I was a young girl.

  I had two children

  Their father was Big Fat Planter

  When I was a young girl.

  FX:

  (Urban landscape. Suggested rather than stated.)

  BLACK HARRIOT:

  He brought us to England

  When I was a young woman

  Where he died of the smallpox

  And left us all penniless

  When I was a young woman.

  Nothing else to do to stay alive

  MARY:

  When I was a young woman

  BLACK HARRIOT:

  I learnt to be a whore and I taught myself to read. I imagined a polite whore would fare better in the streets of London. Seventy of my regulars were Members of the House of Lords.

  MARY:

  When I was a young woman

  CONSTANCE:

  Lord, Lady, Sir, Master, Misses, Miss,

  Yes, No. Yes Miss, No Miss. Yes Sir, No Sir.

  Three bags full sir.

  Young Missy-Missy said I must always

  Answer yes or no if asked a question. I asked her what must I say if it is something I do not know. She answered why you must say you do not know of course.