Olga - A Daughter's Tale Read Online Free Page B

side – looking like she wanted to be as far away as possible from what she was carrying. I got up and went towards her and as I did so I saw Rosa was carrying a brown paper parcel and asked her what she was holding.
    “I got the plenta thing and string!”
    “Ernestine give it to me and tell me bury it in the garden for the new baby tree”.
    Rosa put the parcel on the ground and with the tips of her fingers gingerly pulled back the brown paper to reveal a bloodstained cloth. Then she slowly pulled back each corner of the cloth carefully as if she didn’t want to disturb what was in there until finally she revealed Bobbie’s three day old baby placenta and umbilical cord in all its gruesome glory.
    “In the country the placenta and umbilical cord are kept for three days after a baby is born and then buried in the ground. A young tree will be planted in the same spot and the tree would be known as the baby tree. It’s our custom” Rosa told me.
    “We been doing it this way in the country for hundreds of years. It bring good luck for the new baby.”
    Later, I told Lucy the story and asked if she known about this particular custom.
    “Of course not” she replied, “what’s more the thought of keeping a three day old placenta is disgusting and Bobbie will have to manage without his own baby tree.
    But it’s amazing,” she said, “just when I thought I’d learnt everything there was to know about Jamaican customs and traditions, up pops a really bizarre one.”

    ******

Chapter Six

Lucy’s Diary

    Constant Spring Hotel: Becky left “Mon Repose” very early this morning leaving a note asking Martha and me to meet her at the hotel in the afternoon as she had something to tell us.
    Both girls had recovered from their accident surprisingly quickly but had been reluctant to rebook their passage home to England. Martha is considering staying on in Jamaica and opening a dress salon, but is hesitant about taking such a big step. She has struck up a friendship with Thomas Bonnett who owns a large department store on Harbour Street. Apparently he was very impressed when she told him she worked at the Theatre Royal in Drury Lane and he realised she had skills he could make use of. Thomas suggested she stayed on in Jamaica and work for him, until she felt the time was right to start up on her own, or returned to England, whichever she decided to do. Since Becky’s recovery I hadn’t seen too much of her either. Bobbie keeps me busy and Becky’s always been self-sufficient and can amuse herself. Sometimes she takes a boat to Port Royal, the train to Montego Bay or Port Antonio.
    One day I asked her if she makes these trips alone and she confessed she had met someone special. I suspect this “someone special” is the reason she has asked Martha and me to meet her here.
    The Constant Spring must be the most beautifully situated Hotel in the whole of Jamaica. It’s as tropical as you can get, set 600 feet above sea level and at the foot of the Blue Mountains amid sugar, banana, pineapple and coffee estates.
    As you come up the front steps of the hotel there is a splendid Royal Palm tree standing in the main entrance. Inside it is cool, comfortable and elegantly furnished and outside there are spacious cool verandas where you can sit and take in the scent given off from the exotic and colourful tropical plants and shrubs that fill the hotel’s gardens. The hotel serves wonderful ice cold fresh fruit drinks, like pineapple and coconut or the hotel’s specialty, a drink called matrimony, made with the pulp of an orange and a custard apple which is what Martha and I are drinking while we wait for Becky.
    On an immaculate green lawn to my left a group of men and women are playing croquet. On my right, elderly guests, who find the sun too hot, sit under shaded arbours and tropical foliage which provides shelter from the unrelenting sun, either reading or quietly talking; elsewhere some children are shrieking and laughing