Black Cake(7)

“We could see that you had your ma’s smile from the very start, just like your brother,” Benny’s dad told her, pinching her chin. Her mouth was the only thing that Benny’s father hadn’t passed down to her. That, and her pale skin.

Benny had always thought of her parents as being made for each other. Her parents would have had a lot in common, both being from the Caribbean, both orphaned, both having immigrated to Britain before moving to the United States together. But it might not have mattered, it was love at first sight, they’d always said that, and some people were meant to find each other, no matter what.

“Your mother thought I was so good-looking,” Dad used to joke, “that she fainted on the spot.” Everyone had heard the story. One day in London, Bert Bennett saw Eleanor Douglas drop to the ground and went over to help her and, as they say, the rest is history. Sometimes, when Daddy told that story, he would lean in and tap Ma on the nose with his own, just like that. A nose kiss. Does anyone ever fall in love that way anymore? Without hesitation, without terror? Or is everyone else like Benny?

And does every couple keep secrets this big from their own children?





B and B, I know, I need to explain why you never knew any of this. But it won’t make any sense if I don’t start at the beginning. This isn’t only about your sister. There are other people involved, so just bear with me. Everything goes back to the island and what happened there more than fifty years ago. The first thing you need to know about is a girl named Covey.

Covey was born in a town that bordered on the sea, a deep, rolling, blue thing that paled to turquoise as it neared the land. And the bigger Covey got, the harder it was for her to stay away from the water. When she was little, her father used to stand her on his shoulders in the swimming pool and launch her into the deep end. But it was her mother who taught her how to ride the waves, and this is what determined her fate.

Now, I know you may be thinking of those nice, Caribbean beaches with calm waters where you can look down and see the fish swimming around your ankles. Yes, they had those, too, but where Covey grew up, it was surfing country and there were beaches where, if you didn’t know how to handle yourself, the waves would pull you under. Her mother’s favorite spot was like that. It was no place for a child, that’s what Covey’s father used to say, but her mummy took her there anyway. So Covey grew up strong. And she would need that strength when things began to fall apart.





Covey





Even toward the end, there was something about that moment that always made the women laugh.

Twist, twist, twist.

These were Covey’s favorite days, when she was done with school and could kick off her saddle shoes and sit in the kitchen with the women, the radio dial turned up to calypso and rockabilly, the aroma rushing to their heads as they twisted open the jar of fruits soaking in rum and port. The grassy breeze mixing with salt air, slipping through the louvers to cool their sweaty necks. The whispered gossip, the pips of laughter.

Covey’s mother and Pearl, the family helper, had a small but popular cake business going. Most people they knew had common-law marriages, Covey’s own parents included, but a formal arrangement was more respected, and someone with money was always planning a wedding. On such occasions, a black cake was indispensable. And that’s where Mummy and Pearl came in.

Mummy always laughed when she was making black cake. And there was always some point at which she would not be able to resist the pull of the music on the radio.

“Come, Pearl,” she would say, but Pearl was not much into the dancing. Pearl would give that closed-mouth smile of hers and bob her head to the music while Mummy raised a batter-covered spatula in the air and waved it to the beat, stepping toward Covey and then skipping back and grabbing Covey’s hand. Cuh-vee, Cuh-vee, Cuh-vee, she would sing to the music. She would pull Covey into a kind of shuffle, giving off a smell of granulated sugar and butter and hair pomade as the two of them spun into the dining room and toward the living room.

Pearl liked to act stern-like with Mummy. “Miss Mathilda,” she would say, sounding more like she was scolding Covey than talking to her employer. “These cakes are not going to mek themselves, you know?”

There was a time, when Covey was little, when Mummy used to dance with Pa out in the backyard. It was always on a night when the power had gone out and they had lined up candles in glass jars along the edge of the patio and taken the transistor radio outside. Mummy would step in close and run her hands up and down Pa’s back. At some point, Mummy and Pa would each take one of Covey’s hands and dance with her. Sometimes Pa would lift Covey up into his arms and dip her this way and that and Mummy would laugh.

In those last months before she disappeared, Mummy rarely laughed at all. Her face would grow still whenever Covey’s pa passed by. It was one of those grown-up things that Covey would not understand until much later. Like the weight of Mummy’s kiss in the middle of the night.

Covey felt the kiss in her sleep. Then another. Then a hand along her hairline. A hint of rose perfume and her mother’s salty-forehead scent. Then it was daylight, Sunday morning. Her mother must have let her sleep late. She waited. No Mummy. She got up and went to the kitchen. No Mummy.

Twelve hours later, no Mummy. Pearl left supper, as usual. Pa came home tipsy, as usual.

Two days later, no Mummy. The police came to the house, nodding as her pa talked. Yes, they said, they’d see what they could do.