dropped back on to the table with a thump. The overseer’s hands could no longer hold it, for they were shaking and limp. Like a rushing wind July felt his breath coming faster and quicker as he clasped her with a ferocity like anger. He was kissing her upon the mouth before she realised. His wet and loose tongue licked her like he was gorging upon greasy chicken.
July was overjoyed. Miss Clara, Miss Clara, boil up some water, for Miss July Goodwin is coming to take tea! The swelling of his private part began pressing hard upon July, and she knew that what she must do now was lead this tender young white man around by it.
But at once the overseer pulled sharply away from July. ‘I am sorry, I am sorry. Forgive me. I am sorry,’ he said, as he moved quickly across the room. Some might consider that he ran. Certainly, July thought herself to be chasing him when she followed behind him urging, ‘No, no, it be right, massa.’ But every time she approached upon him, the man would take a stride backwards away from her. What sort of dance was this? She stepping forward and he jumping back? Around and around that room they went in this manner. Come, it was quite comical.
But July, skilled in the catching of rats, soon trapped this man within a corner. He held out his arm to keep her from him, as he kept repeating upon a panting breath, ‘My father, my father, my father,’ before finally completing the plea with, ‘My father would not approve.’
‘But your papa not here,’ July said softly.
‘My father,’ he carried on, ‘has the highest contempt for white men who abuse their position with negroes.’
‘Me is a mulatto, not a negro. It not be wrong, massa.’
‘My father sent me here to do good. He is a righteous man.’
‘Him will never know,’ July said, almost gaily. But when he glanced full upon her, July recognised the anguish stricken within this white man’s face.
‘I can see my father before me and I must not.’ He lifted up his head to plead heavenward saying, ‘I will not give in to this temptation, Father, I will not.’
And July, looking up to that same spot where he could see his papa said, ‘But there be no one there.’
‘Please go, Miss July.’
‘Your papa want you to be kind to negroes, massa.’ July said as she moved a long step closer toward him.
‘No, Miss July. Please leave now. Please, please, please, I beg you. You are too beautiful, you are too good . . .’ The rest of his words were muffled and lost as he covered his face with his hands.
It was now July’s turn to feel all her breath leave her. For this white man thought her beautiful. This white man thought her good. She lunged at him to catch him about the shoulders, for this prize was just too close for July to give up upon it now. But he pushed her off so fiercely that she nearly fell.
‘Please, Miss July, please just go now.’ Then clenching fistfuls of his own hair as if to wrench it from his head, he howled, ‘Help me, Father, help me, Father,’ before sliding down to sit in his corner and sob like a child.
CHAPTER 24
READER, I MUST WHISPER you a truth. Come, put your ear close to this page. Lean in a little closer still. For I am moved to speak honestly regarding the last chapter you have just read. Are you listening, reader? Then let me softly impart to you this fact. That is not the way white men usually behaved upon this Caribbean island.
CHAPTER 25
AFTER THAT DAY ROBERT Goodwin was forever watching July. She would find him at the garden’s edge, astride his grey mare—enthralled, motionless—as she, seated upon the veranda steps ate an orange and licked her sticky fingers. Never did he come close when the sun was high and never did he greet her by name. But she caught him in open-mouthed reverie gawping upon her swaying hips as she walked the long path through the stony provision lands to do her business there, secretly, instead of using the pit near the kitchen. And wherever he did chance her—within the garden, upon the veranda, crossing to the kitchen, walking a path—anywhere, anywhere, he did spy her alone, July would sense the overseer’s watchful pining. And, oh, how his blue eyes did gaze. Only the imagined commands from his