Free The Long Song by Andrea Levy

round mould the missus did give her the first Christmas she arrived, and boil it until the water does run dry. And when the thing hard, then it is done.
    ‘I do not want it to be like last year’s, for that was not plum pudding,’ her missus pleaded. ‘It should be light, not hard as a medicine ball. I could show you if it were needed,’ the missus said.
    This impudence coming from the missus’s mouth nearly caused Hannah to look up into her face. The last occasion that the missus did cross that breach betwixt the house and the kitchen was to show the cook how pastry could be light, edible and not as tough as a stone that edged the garden, if the fingers that lifted and raised the flour fluttered air into the mix, then folded and rolled in the fat with as gentle care as a mother tucking a baby into a cot. Hannah had sucked in her breath and held it there for the whole of the missus’s instruction. For, like an ember spat sizzling from a fire on to a silken rug, until the missus was returned to her rightful place, Hannah could not exhale that wind. And she had not lungs enough for that wretched missus to sputter once more into her domain.
    ‘Oh, Miss Hannah will make it real nice for you, missus. You see. The plum pudding will be just right,’ Godfrey assured, while calming Hannah’s fiery dread with a sly wink.
    Whilst attending to the missus’s instruction on this dinner, the sun had paused lifeless in the sky waiting on her to finish: Godfrey was sure on this. Not until all her commands were complete—including the tune the musicians should play as her guests changed from their stout travelling shoes to slippers—did the sun rouse itself to once more roam the heavens. Then, as Godfrey said, ‘Please, missus, I will need plenty money for marketing,’—counting upon his fingertips to ponder the sum before telling his missus the amount that was required—the sun began to gallop. Long shadows drifted silently across the floor like a magic lantern show as he waited for Caroline’s breath to return to her so she could whimper, ‘How much?’
    ‘Is what all will cost, missus. All this need plenty money. And there be a lot of rumble and fuss in town, so ship come in and people strip it like crows in Guinea corn.’ Godfrey told her.
    ‘But why so much?’
    ‘Hear me now, missus, hear me,’ Godfrey said, pressing his hands together beseeching. ‘The fine candles, the beeswax that missus do prefer, be six shillings and eight pennies for the box. Me must fill the room so plenty box must be brought. Now the tallow candle is one shilling and one penny for the same number . . .’
    ‘Tallow! Is my room to smell like an abattoir? This is to be a fine party, not a crop-over feast for niggers.’
    ‘Then is six shillings and eight pennies for the box.’
    The missus stared upon Godfrey’s face, once more wordless. Yet he knew what was causing her worry; she would have to beg her brother for more money for this feast. Trip up the steps of the counting house. Tap lightly upon the door. Wait with negroes peering at her from the garden, from the kitchen. When finally allowed permission to enter, she would be bellowed at to close the door behind her. A moment would pass before all around would hear the massa’s voice blowing through the stone walls of the counting house as he found passion enough to thunder, ‘That is too much, Caroline, too much!’ No pitiable pleading about Prosperity plantation or beeswax candles would quell him. When the door of the counting house once more opened, the missus—red-faced and sobbing into a handkerchief—would slowly descend the steps.
    ‘My brother says you cheat me. How can everything be so expensive?’ the missus asked.
    And Godfrey, holding her gaze, unflinching, answered softly, ‘It is not that things be expensive, it is just that you can not afford them.’
    The missus suddenly swung her fist around and struck Godfrey hard upon his ear. Godfrey stumbled. The blow had