Free The Polished Hoe by Austin Clarke

clammy-cherries to stick kite paper on our kite frames, during kite-season, when we mekking kites. ’Specially at Easter. Yes! The clammy-cherry tree at the junction!”
    “Things made from clammy-cherry last for generations. Tough and durable and rugged things. From clammy-cherry, the Plantation makes the handles of certain implements used in the fields. Like the handles for forks and hoes. And sickles that we cut Khus-Khus grass and Guinea grass with.
    “The handle of the hoe I used for all those years in the North Field was made from the same clammy-cherry tree. Yes.
    “Ma herself used the hoe she inherited from her mother, my gran. And it was there, on the day she died, leaning up in the yard, strong as anything, strong as the day the Plantation made it. This is the same hoe I inherited from Ma. Yes!
    “And it is the handle of that hoe I have been polishing. Rubbingit-down in oils. Night after night, for the past three months. And why three months? I can’t find rhyme nor reason to explain it! Must be one of the ironies Wilberforce always talking about, constantly. . .
    “I went one morning, when he wasn’t too busy, to see Mr. Waldrond the Joiner and Cabinetmaker. Mr. Waldrond makes the most beautiful furnitures in this Village, in the whole Island, if you ask me! And I respectfully asked Mr. Waldrond for a drop of oil and a daub of the stain or polish he uses on mahogany.Mr.Waldrond look at me, and laughed. ‘Never,’ Mr. Waldrond say, ‘in all my born-days, and during my time as joiner and cabinetmaker to this Plantation, plying my trade in this Village, have a girl, a woman, axe me to lend she the tools of my trade!’
    “Heh-heh-heh! I had to laugh, too. I didn’t tell Mr. Waldrond what I needed the stain and the oils for. But outta the goodness of his heart, and without cross-questioning me, Mr. Waldrond give me a few drops of linseed oil and some Hawes Lemon Oil and some homemade polish he uses for polishing mahogany.
    “I took those three things, and from that day, I would sit down in a chair in the kitchen, evening after evening, whilst Gertrude would steal a glance at me, when she think I don’t notice, wondering what I am doing rubbing and rubbing the handle of a hoe with linseed oil and Hawes Lemon Oil for, but there I would be, rubbing up and down, up and down; down and up, polishing till the handle start to shine, like Mr. Waldrond’s mahogany furnitures.
    “While Gertrude is washing the wares, or starching clothes, doing her housework, there I would be, polishing and polishing the clammy-cherry-tree handle.
    “I then turned my attention to the blade. And I used a piece of sharpening-stone with oil on it. This I got from the blacksmith, who shoes the horses on the Plantation. The mules and the donkeys. Ifonly I had the strength to use a anvil, and was able to lift his hammer, I would have beaten-out a brand-new-brand blade for myself. And sharp as a Gillette razor! But I had to rely, every evening, on the sharpening-stone and the oil only. For three months.
    “I had-got the oil off the chauffeur, Mr. Broomes, poor man, who drove the cane lorry the Saturday afternoon that he run-over the Bardrock fowl.
    “Sometimes, in the heat of thinking of things to do, like making doilies for the furnitures, or preparing great-cakes for festivals and bank holidays, I would miss a evening of polishing and sharpening. But, as regular as I could, I would be at that kitchen table . . .
    “But what was I polishing and sharpening for? What was my purpose spending all those hours on a hoe, in the kitchen of this Great House for? After so many years using the same hoe in the fields, retired from the fields, put into the Main House as a houseservant, eventually given certain favours in my upliftment . . . then turned into some man’s kip-woman! To where I am now. Or was it that I am a dreamer?
    “Ma always said, ‘Girl, you is the biggest dreamer that I know. You’s a born dreamer, Mary-girl!’
    “But