The Lamplighter Read online

  They call me the Lamplighter.

  They call me the Lamplighter.

  Scene 7: Shipping News

  MACBEAN:

  The weather, still dirty.

  Buryed a boy slave of the flux.

  Buryed a man slave of the flux.

  The general synopsis at Midday Atlantic –

  Low 967. The Dorothy. The Windsor.

  Coming soon.

  MARY:

  Tobacco, sugar – coming soon.

  BLACK HARRIOT:

  The British sweet tooth – coming soon.

  Hot puddings, cold puddings, steamed puddings, baked puddings, pies, tarts, coming soon. Moderate or good. Creams, moulds, charlottes, bettys, trifles, fools. Coming soon.

  MACBEAN:

  Buryed a man slave. Buryed a boy.

  Buyed a boy slave of the flux.

  LAMPLIGHTER:

  Into the shark infested Atlantic,

  The black deaths slipped. The sharks

  Followed the slave ships for the pickings.

  And the seagulls that carried the souls

  Of the dead sailors flew over the dead.

  MACBEAN:

  The right hand and foot of one

  Across the head and foot of the other

  So that they are fettered together

  And cannot move either hand or foot.

  From head to toe and toe to foot.

  Two days before docking in

  The slave galley could be smelled,

  The putrescence of blood, faeces, vomit and rotting bodies,

  Wafting downwind,

  The smell of the dead carried

  Across the water to the Port.

  Permanent trade winds blow

  From the Northeast and East

  Across the Atlantic.

  BLACK HARRIOT:

  Dire is the tossing. Deep the moans.

  MACBEAN:

  Buryed a woman slave of the flux.

  No 29. Buryed a girl slave. No 74.

  Later Decreasing Four or Five.

  CONSTANCE:

  The slavers followed the sugar.

  The sharks followed the slave ships.

  The slaves’ bones sunk to the bottom of the sea.

  LAMPLIGHTER:

  I would rather die on yonder gallows

  Than live in slavery.

  BLACK HARRIOT:

  Demerara. Muscovada.

  Molasses. Treacle. Syrup.

  Brown sugar. White sugar. Moist sugar.

  Castor sugar, raw sugar.

  Scene 8: Sugar

  FX:

  (During the scene we hear the sound of sugar cane being cut and the sound of a sugar mill.)

  MARY:

  Mrs Hannah Glasse’s first cookery book in England. The Art of Cookery made plain and easy.

  BLACK HARRIOT:

  Take three quarters of a pound of best moist sugar to make a cake the Spanish way.

  CONSTANCE:

  Rum had a wonderful history of success in Britain, so did jam. La dolce vita!

  BLACK HARRIOT:

  This is the dawning of the Age of Sugar.

  LAMPLIGHTER:

  My story is the story of sugar.

  MACBEAN:

  The owner of Worthy Park, Jamaica declared, ‘The white man cannot labour under a burning sun without certain death, though the Negro can in all climates with impunity.’

  LAMPLIGHTER:

  My story is the story of sugar.

  My story is not sweet.

  MACBEAN:

  The careful benevolence of providence has provided the Negroes with thick skins.

  MARY:

  I carried manure in baskets, weighing eighty pounds, on my head. The holes dug for the cane were deep and wide.

  LAMPLIGHTER:

  The sun baked the heavy soils.

  The sun baked my skin.

  The cakes were baked. The cakes were baking. The cakes had been baked. The cakes will be baked.

  BLACK HARRIOT:

  Pound cake! A pound of floor. A pound of butter. A pound of sugar. One dozen eggs.

  MARY:

  The cut cane was heavy and cumbersome.

  CONSTANCE:

  20 tons of cane to produce one ton of sugar.

  MARY:

  At Worthy Park, 89 of the 133 field slaves were women.

  LAMPLIGHTER:

  We did the planting, cutting, burning, carrying, loading, slicing and stripping.

  MACBEAN:

  The long sweep of Jamaica’s fertile southern coast was pitted with plantations.

  MARY:

  I was always hungry. I never stopped being hungry especially in the summer. We got breakfast at nine when we’d been up since four. When the belly is hollow, when the ground feels like it is moving up to meet you, when the emptiness inside you is like something moving. You are all the time imagining food.

  LAMPLIGHTER:

  One time I run away

  Crawling through the tall sugar cane

  Watching out for snakes

  I get as far as the forest in the hills.

  Dogs are sent after me.

  When the people catch me

  They flog me

  Till my back is so crisscross

  It looks like cut cane

  MACBEAN:

  The posterior is made bare and the offender is extended prone on the ground. The driver, with his long and heavy whip, inflicts the lashes under the eye of the overseer.

  LAMPLIGHTER:

  My story is the story of sugar.

  BLACK HARRIOT:

  In 1775 the British West Indies Colonies produces 100,000 tons of sugar

  CONSTANCE:

  Syllabubs and fancys, junkets and ices, milk puddings, suet puddings.

  LAMPLIGHTER:

  I cut the cane. After I cut the cane, the cane is crushed in the sugar mills and processed in the noisy factories and boiling houses.

  MACBEAN:

  As we pass along the shore, the Plantations appear to us one above the other like several stories in stately buildings which afforded us a large proportion of delight.

  BLACK HARRIOT:

  My story is the story of sugar.

  I was stolen for sugar.

  I gave my body up for sugar.

  I nearly died for sugar.

  Sugar is my family tree.

  I have no sugar daddy.

  CONSTANCE:

  They took my little girl

  when she was three years old

  already old enough to be my soul

  mate, to shadow me in the sun

  all day and ask a hundred whys.

  I never told her lies.

  I never talk about her.

  They took her and they sold her.

  One, two.

  MACBEAN:

  A three-year-old girl is to be sold

  Betwixt the hours of six and eight

  In Bristol coffee house, sturdy, healthy, has had the small pox,

  for five shillings.

  CONSTANCE:

  I remember when she was in my belly

  counting the months

  – one two three –

  and trying to imagine her

  and trying to think how

  if she were a girl

  – four five six –

  I could make her look ugly

  enough when she got older

  – nine ten eleven –

  so that none of them ever came near her

  on the day they sold her,

  my body shook and shook so much

  that my speech went.

  For months, I couldn’t say a word.

  How many moons ago

  how many years

  – twelve thirteen fourteen fifteen –

  since I seen my four children?

  My baby boy, my wise girl

  with the big questions, my big boy

  whose eyes changed the time

  he saw me being beaten?

  How many m
oons since I saw my children?

  MACBEAN:

  The rule of thumb on the sugar plantations:

  One slave required for every acre of land.

  BLACK HARRIOT:

  Jamaica produced nearly a quarter of the world’s sugar.

  MARY:

  Back in the big house,

  The BigMan entertained his friends.

  MACBEAN:

  Wednesday, 15 March 1775. John Cope, Richard Vassall, William Blake Esqr dined with me and stayed till nine in the evening. Mr Cope stayed all night. Had mutton broth, roast mutton and broccoli, carrots and asparagus, stewed mudfish, roast goose and paw paw, apple sauce, stewed giblets, some fine lettuce which Mr Vassall brought me, crabs, cheese, mush melon. Punch, porter, ale, cider, Madeira wine and brandy.

  LAMPLIGHTER:

  I was his cook for many years.

  If I ever made a mistake,

  If they ever thought I could have done something better.

  Nobody said anything to me. I was stripped directly and they cut away at me.

  I was whipped so many times,

  My back was all corruption, as if it would rot. After the lashes

  They’d wash my back with salt water,

  Rub it with rags, and then send me straight back to work again in the kitchen.

  BLACK HARRIOT:

  Syllabubs and fancys, junkets and ices, milk puddings, suet puddings.

  MUSIC:

  (Sugar cane music, the next part is sung.)

  SONG:

  (Spiritual.)

  ALL:

  Go down, Moses, way down in Egypt’s land

  Tell old Pharoah, Let my people go.

  BLACK HARRIOT:

  Go down Moses

  MARY:

  way down Egypt’s land

  CONSTANCE:

  Tell old Pharoah,

  ALL:

  Let my people go.

  LAMPLIGHTER:

  I stood on the cobbled quay,

  And was resold to the Plantations.

  I left Avonmouth

  And crossed the Atlantic.

  This is my story.

  MARY:

  Narrated by herself.

  LAMPLIGHTER:

  I was shy of my story for years.

  I did the thing that you are taught to do.

  ALL:

  SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSsssssssssssssshhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

  CONSTANCE + ALL:

  Keep it quiet. Button it. Bite your lip. Bite your tongue. Pipe down. Cut the cackle. Stow it. Mum’s the word. Whist! Hush. Hold your tongue! Keep your mouth shut! Shut it. Keep schtum!

  MARY (softly):

  Hush now. Don’t explain. There, there. Hush now.

  LAMPLIGHTER (sings):

  Hush little baby, don’t you cry,

  Mama’s going to sing you a lullaby.

  CONSTANCE:

  The field driver comes for me early. He is coming for me because he is coming for her. She won’t go anywhere without me. She is Only three. She is a girl who says things that always surprise. The other day she ask me if she will be a man or a woman when she grow up?

  It is already hot. Her hand sticks to me like we are joined together. I squeeze her hand. I always tell her that is me passing my love to her – our special hand squeeze. She squeezes back. It is her reply. She loves that. How the love happens without words.

  I know, as I walk up the hill, along the side of the sugar cane past the orchard, towards the Big House; I know, as I look down to the ground, wanting for the ground to open up and swallow us both up; I know, as I walk with her little hand in mine, that I will never forget the feel of it, slightly sticky, warm, small fingers. There is nothing like the feeling of a small child’s hand in yours. You are the guide. It is full of faith, light, trusting. Sometimes, she likes to close her eyes and for me to lead her. Sometimes she likes me to tell her life by reading the darker lines on her hand, the lifelines. I tell her she will grow into an old woman; she has a strong heart. She will have five children. I like to count my child’s children.

  One, two, three, four, five.

  (As if she is hiding in numbers.)

  LAMPLIGHTER:

  Hush sssssshhhhhhhhhhhhh.

  Scene 9: Shipping News

  MACBEAN:

  Across the green sea of darkness sailed

  CONSTANCE:

  The Brookes, the Vigilant, the Iphigenia.

  MACBEAN:

  Galeforce ten. Rough or High.

  120 slaves sailed on the Royal Charlotte

  – fifty died.

  105 slaves sailed on the Molly

  – fifty died.

  MUSIC:

  (A death roll.)

  MACBEAN:

  6th September 1781, the Zong was on its

  Well-tried route from Liverpool, to

  West Africa, and on to the Caribbean.

  Ship’s Captain, Luke Collingwood,

  Decided to jettison live slaves into

  The sea, so that he could claim

  Insurance on each life.

  CONSTANCE:

  £30 per dead slave.

  MACBEAN:

  29 November, the first batch –

  54 slaves thrown overboard alive.

  A day later 42 living slaves

  Thrown to the sharks.

  On the third day,

  26 more slaves thrown to sea.

  On the third day,

  The slaves put up a fight, and were

  Shackled before they were drowned

  In the early, unmarked, grave of the sea.

  BLACK HARRIOT:

  Ten people saw what was happening

  And refused to hang around waiting.

  They jumped, up high,

  They dived down into the sea.

  Those were the deaths with wings,

  Like songs, like freedom songs,

  Rising up and out at last.

  No more no more, no more, no more.

  MACBEAN:

  Across the roaring Atlantic tossed

  The steel-stowed, stocked slave-ships

  BLACK HARRIOT:

  Tobacco for the pipes of Englishmen.

  Coffee for fashionable society.

  Sugar for the English poor.

  Scene 10: Death – free at last

  FX:

  (Cane field.)

  MARY:

  Clarissa was Congolese, was thirteen

  By a guess,

  She was ill when she arrived and they

  Put her to work on the second Gang

  And changed her name to Prattle.

  LAMPLIGHTER:

  I remember. I forget.

  MARY:

  At seventeen, she succumbed to the flux and died.

  BLACK HARRIOT:

  Raveface was 24 at a guess

  When she arrived

  She was a field hand for forty years.

  Freedom finally came for Raveface

  In 1838. She was 64.

  LAMPLIGHTER:

  I remember. I forget.

  CONSTANCE:

  Phoebe, a Coromantee, suffered from Yaws.

  MACBEAN:

  It is nauseous and loathsome in appearance. Its frightful ravages, its twitching pains, extending to the very marrow, bring with it a deformity of bone and flesh that is horrifying.

  LAMPLIGHTER:

  So many of the field hands

  Had crab yaws on their hands

  Or ringworms on the side of their necks.

  BLACK HARRIOT:

  Cure for Yaws. Stand them in a cask where there is a little fire in a pot. Give them a mixture of two woods, Bois Royale and Bois Fer and apply an ointment of limejuice and rust of iron to the sores.

  LAMPLIGHTER:

  This is my story.

  Told by myself.

  I am dead and alive.

  I am wanted, dead or alive.

  SONG:

  O Canaan, sweet Canaan

  I am bound for the land of C
anaan.

  O Canaan, sweet Canaan

  I am bound for the land of Canaan

  O Canaan, sweet Canaan

  I am bound for the land of Canaan

  I am going to the promised land

  I am going to the promised land.

  LAMPLIGHTER:

  And when one of us died a sugar death,

  Of Yaws or dysentery or heat

  When one of us died

  Of leprosy, TB, pneumonia or yellow fever,

  When one of us died because

  We couldn’t take no more

  Out in the sugar fields

  When one of us died again

  Out in the tobacco fields

  We would call out her name.

  ALL:

  Clarissa, Phoebe, Raveface, Sally.

  LAMPLIGHTER:

  And into her grave would go, quick, quick,

  Some rum,

  Some rum and some casava bread,

  Even when we’re hungry, hurry up,

  No time now, no time to mourn the dead,

  A pipe, quickly now,

  A pipe and a tier to light the pipe.

  CONSTANCE:

  I will not forget her!

  ALL:

  Clarissa, Phoebe, Raveface, Sally.

  LAMPLIGHTER:

  Free at last! Free at last!

  Thank God Almighty, she’s free at last.

  ALL:

  Clarissa, Phoebe, Raveface, Sally

  CONSTANCE:

  I remember Sally!

  BLACK HARRIOT:

  Was always running away

  She was say, seventeen

  Or eighteen years old,

  She was Congolese.

  Chains and stocks did not stop her.

  MARY:

  Remember Mountain Lucy? Mountain Lucy

  miscarried after she drank Contra Yerva every day

  on purpose. Remember.

  CONSTANCE:

  I remember Mountain Lucy!

  ALL:

  Clarissa, Phoebe, Raveface, Sally, Mountain Lucy.

  LAMPLIGHTER:

  Thank God Almighty! Free at last!

  SONG:

  (The next part should be sung by the chorus each sharing the lines.)

  ALL (singing):

  Dark down there in the faceless dark

  We couldn’t see for looking

  We couldn’t take your hand down there

  We couldn’t hear for listening.

  Remember the steps down

  We couldn’t take for breaking

  We couldn’t breathe down there in the dark

  We couldn’t speak for fearing.

  Then, up we came two at a time

  We couldn’t walk for running

  Up and out along a strange new path

  We couldn’t stop for going.

  CONSTANCE:

  I walk along the path with my bean girl’s hand in mine. ‘Bring her up to the House. Make her look nice.’ Maybe I am wrong and this day will not be an end. Maybe I will walk back down the hill with my little bean girl’s hand in mine.