Eden Falls by Jane Sanderson Page B

had little time or respect for the recipes, which to her were inextricable from the demands of Mr Silas, but she did like the way Mrs Beeton wrote. She wasn’t confident enough of her own skills to read to an audience, but sometimes, if Ruby was alone in the kitchen, she would read aloud as Roscoe did, practising the vowels, memorising the phrases for future use. She found them mysterious and lyrical: ‘The Ayrshire is peculiarly adapted for the dairy. In this, it stands unrivalled’ and ‘the philosophy of frying consists in this, that liquids subjected to the action of fire do not all receive the same quantity of heat’. Marvellous. Marvellous.
    But it was later in the day now, and she no longer had need of Mrs Beeton because she was cooking from the heart for her own people. The smells of her childhood filled the room: green bananas, salted mackerel, Scotch Bonnets, coconut milk. She stirred and sang, and let the vapours from the pots envelop her face. The peppers had bite; she breathed in their heat.
    ‘Girl, that a fine, fine sight.’
    Scotty stood at the kitchen door, watching her. She waved her spoon at him.
    ‘Boiled bananas and mackerel rundown,’ she said. ‘But it won’t be ready a while yet.’
    ‘I no talkin’ ’bout da food, girl,’ he said, and winked. He smiled at her with his loose, lascivious mouth, and she sucked her teeth at him disapprovingly and turned away.
    ‘Ah Ruby, why you so hitey-titey? You breakin’ ma heart, girl.’ He walked through the kitchen and over to the range. Ruby cut him a look, the one she reserved exclusively for impertinent men.
    ‘If you stand there panting and drooling don’t be surprised if I treat you like a dog,’ she said. He roared with laughter and shook his head, as if amazed by her. He was as thick-skinned as a calabash, thought Ruby. There was just no insulting him.
    Batista came into the kitchen carrying the last of the crockery from the dining room. On an island where no one seemed to hurry, she was slower than most; she rested from time to time on every journey, whatever its length. She stood now and blew four long breaths, as if she’d run through the hotel to get here. She was padded all over with soft flesh, which in the three years Ruby had known her had swelled and spread, and it was strange, because Ruby had never seen Batista eat. She always declined staff lunch and dinner, and would sit instead with her Bible: feeding her soul, she said.
    ‘Bakra, ’im want see you,’ she said to Ruby. She meant Silas, whom she held in the deepest contempt. Batista was descended from Maroon warriors; rebellion ran through her veins. When she looked at Silas Whittam she saw a white slave master and untold suffering; the fires of hell were awaiting him.
    Scotty whistled, a long, flat note. ‘Cu ya, Little Miss Badness, what you been an’ done now?’
    Ruby shrugged.
    ‘She slow-slow,’ Batista said, moving again. She hauled herself over to the sink with her pile of plates, and dropped them heavily in the sudsy water. ‘Trouble wid an egg, nuh?’ She looked at Ruby and smiled knowingly; a wide, slow smile that fattened her cheeks and closed her eyes. ‘Bakra, ’im waiting in ’is office.’
    ‘If he wishes to see me, he knows where to find me,’ Ruby said.
    ‘Good girl.’
    Batista puffed and sucked at the air again, in and out, standing with her hands on her huge hips, catching her breath. ‘Mi too bufu-bufu for dis life,’ she said. ‘Mi fit only to sit an’ talk to de Lord.’
    Later, Ruby sat beneath the frangipani tree on the road home, her meeting place with Roscoe. Its branches formed a wide, shady parasol and the ground beneath was soft and fragrant with fallen flowers. A hot breeze blew and Ruby pulled the red cotton scarf away from her head and leaned back, letting the tree support her and the canopy of leaves cool her head. Mr Silas, catching her as she left, had been nasty, tearing into her with the language of the docks. She had