Salt by Catrin Kean

Author:Catrin Kean
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: The Books Council of Wales
Published: 2020-08-23T17:29:10+00:00

Chapter 22

A Letter

1887

Samuel sent part of his cook’s wages to his mother in Barbados every month, and she had used it to leave her labouring job and move to a little house on the north-east of the island. She wrote letters telling him about it and Samuel, sitting on the bed in his vest after work, read parts of them to Ellen.

‘She can see the sea from the porch. All sweet and briny.’

‘She working on her vegetable patch.’

‘She got coconut trees and bananas. And ackee. She worked so hard to give me an education, for me to have a better life than she had. She deserves this now.’

‘Did she have only one child?’ asked Ellen. He had never mentioned siblings.

‘No, she had more. All gone.’

‘Gone? Where?’ To sea, like him, scattered around the world?

‘In the ground. None of them grew past being babies.’

Ellen stared at him. ‘Amos, Sol and Eve.’

The naming of them made it worse. ‘Your poor mother.’

He caught her horror: all those babies. Lost in the earth. He swiftly changed the subject.

‘She wants to meet you.’

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