Free Olga - A Daughter's Tale by Marie-Therese Browne (Marie Campbell) Page B

happened to Chickie she doesn’t want history repeating itself. If that’s the case then, I say, since the girls are now young women, its Becky’s duty to give them some kind of sex education – telling them babies are a gift from God is crazy. Knowledge prevents accidents. Only last night I heard the McKenzie boy ask Olga to go with him into the stables.
    “Come on Olga, it’ll be ok, we’ll use French letters”. And what did Olga say?
    “I didn’t even know you could speak French”.
    No wonder he laughed so much, I must admit I couldn’t help smiling myself at her innocent remark. Dear Olga, it was not a good day for her yesterday.
    I asked Becky if Chickie had finally given up hearing from Victor Condell again. She said Chickie is desperate to marry Victor, because she doesn’t want Maurice growing up being illegitimate.
    How strange, Jamaica’s not like England, where illegitimacy is frowned upon and such a lot of stigma is attached to unmarried mothers. The other day the Gleaner reported that last month there were 137 births in Kingston and 80 were illegitimate. The island has a history of illegitimacy and it wasn’t that long ago when marriage was discouraged and even forbidden but I must admit it was at a time when planters could get more money for their slaves if they were sold separately, rather than as a married couple. Becky’s says in today’s Jamaica, marriage gives a family respectability and, of course, she’s right.

    ******

Chapter Fourteen

    Letter to Vivie, Miami, USA
    from
    Olga, Kingston, Jamaica

    Dearest Vivie

    There’s been a terrible scandal in the family. You just won’t believe what happened last Saturday morning when we came down to breakfast.
    “That’s strange; I can’t smell any burnt toast”. Dolly said. You remember Vivie how cook insisted we eat burnt toast, because for some reason she thinks it’s good for us. Well, there was no toast, no porridge and in fact, there was no breakfast at all.
    Then Mammie came into the dining room and said cook hadn’t turned up for work and she asked Pearl to go to cook’s house and see if she was alright.
    Pearl said “No, Mammie, I get frightened when I go near that house, it’s full of voodoo stuff”. Pearl’s right. If we have a boiled egg for our breakfast, cook makes us smash the empty egg shell because she said if we don’t then witches can use them as boats and control the winds. What’s wrong with that, I wonder?
    “She lives alone and maybe she’s ill or hurt, after all it’s very unusual for her not to turn up for work”. Mammie was clearly very worried about her.
    But, as we all know, she doesn’t really live alone. She lives with talking peacocks, voodoo dolls, three scrawny chickens, a pet mongoose and that whopping big black cat of hers, called Lucifer, which follows her just about everywhere she goes.
    Do you remember Vivie when cook first started working for us Lucifer used to follow her here and because Mammie wouldn’t allow it in the house, it used to curl up under the cotton tree out the front and wait for her to leave at the end of the day. I tried to stroke it a couple of times but it would hiss at me.
    I certainly didn’t want to go to cook’s house and neither did Ruby, so Mammie said she’d go, but in the meantime Cassie was to get breakfast ready while
    Ruby went upstairs to wake Sydney, because he hadn’t appeared either. Well, within minutes Ruby came running down the stairs and into the kitchen very excited and announced that Sydney’s bed hasn’t been slept in all night.
    Now that’s quite unusual for Sydney I know, but I told Mammie that Sydney had probably been working late and fallen asleep on the couch in the office at the back of the bicycle shop.
    “I expect he’ll come home shortly to wash and change his clothes. After breakfast I’ll go with you to cook’s house, Mammie” I said.
    So, just as we’re finishing breakfast in walks Sydney and we all heave a sigh of