I faced something of a dilemma writing my latest novel set in the Caribbean. I realised as my black and mixed-race Jamaican characters began to spring to life that, to be authentic, they needed their own voices. As a white British woman, did I have the skill, let alone the temerity, to create patois dialogue?
I was determined to try. I pored determinedly over L.Emilie Adams’s Understanding Jamaican Patois and by extracting suitable phrases and following the grammar the best I could, I felt much closer to making the Jamaican dialogue real. Nevertheless, as a language teacher myself, I know the myriad pitfalls of such an approach, and I cringed at the prospect of anyone from the Caribbean actually reading my words.
But fate stepped in by dropping an actual Jamaican into my life. I braced myself, first to plead for his help and then, when he agreed, to hope he would be merciful to someone who had possibly not only butchered his language, but also his national heritage. In my white, well-meaning, liberal-minded way I knew I risked at the very least, being patronising, at the worst clumsy cultural appropriation.
It’s a tricky line to tread. As Joanne Harris recently tweeted: “Diversity is not achieved by one author writing diverse characters. It’s by encouraging a greater number of different voices…” I agree. But I was writing about a diverse cast, because, despite what you might glean from watching Pirates of the Caribbean, Port Royal was not merely populated by gritty (white) commanders and fey (white) governors and their feisty (white)daughters, by the 18th century, according to a contemporary report: ‘sailors and negroes [were] on the most amicable terms’ enjoying ‘ mutual confidence and familiarity’.
And Port Royal was not the only place where an embryo of racial integration had begun to take root. Take France, whose colony Saint Domingue was a hot bed of slave insurrection. The Code Noire may have formalised the right of white French to exploit Africans, but no rule could ever surmount the human desires and emotions that resulted in many a dual heritage baby making their mark in privileged white society. Among them, Marquis Alexandre Davy de la Pailleterie and a freed slave, Marie-Cesette Dumas, whose grandson, Alexandre Dumas went on to write The Count of Monte Cristo and The Three Musketeers.
And, while the BBC’s current lavish production of Musketeers might well overflow with heaving bosoms, swaggering leather-clad hotties and feature a Comte de Rochefort villain cheesy enough to live up to his name, it has to be said, here is a popular historical drama whose cast includes a number of non-white characters. Including, Porthos, one of the eponymous heroes, played by Howard Charles.
As Stuart Jeffries argues in his Guardian article , “it's worth casting a mixed-race actor as Porthos – to shake some Europeans out of their racist delusions.” Delusions that despite the imperial impositions made on so many races and cultures, European history can only be a sea of white faces and white achievements.
But back to me, cringing in a cafe, as I attempted to read aloud my Jamaican characters’ dialogue to Duran Mitto-Duckett, a Jamaican academic and language teacher. Luckily, he has a very good sense of humour and much patience. He whittled down my awkward phrases and streamlined my odd sentences and ta-dah! My characters came alive!
We also Frenchified the words of the Saint Dominguan (Haitian) characters. Because, as much as I troubled over neglecting their French patois, I write in English. Patois based on your own language is challenging enough, but another language entirely? Apologies to the Haitians, for that omission.
I now confidently introduce the Cole family: Pansy, Hepzibah, Isaac, Lorcan and Thomas; mada-woman, Folami, and long-suffering housemaid, Mitzy. You’ll find them in Kin’s Destiny, if you care to buy it. But here’s a little flavour of the Jamaican spice.
1674 Near Spanish Town, Jamaica
“You fool fool gyaal. You jus’ a come? Trouble tek you and dis pikney shirt fit you?” The mada-woman chided tearful Hepzibah who had waddled into the darkened room gasping for breath, her skin glowing with fevered perspiration. It was not merely her advanced pregnancy which took her breath away. She was terrified at what she had done; at what she had neglected to do.
“But Madame, me sorry! You mussa help de baby dem,” she pleaded. “Is not dem fault dey muma ears-hard!”
Folami steered Hepzy over to a chair, then pulled up a low stool beside the panting girl, her almost-black eyes huge in her tiny, bony face. “Di bad spirit land where di obeah-man set di duppy,” she said, reminding Hepzy of the malevolent force the obeah man claimed lay behind the pregnancy.
“Some wicked powerful duppy a stir up trouble in a you life. When di obeah-man say di duppy come make baby wid you, me did tell you no fi bother di obeah-man, but you never listen and gaan affa di obeah-man fi get you revenge!” Her advice to Hepzy had been to appease the spirits, not seek vengeance. But the obeah man had a different view. He had everything to gain from vengeance and spite.
All such things, whether for good or ill, were practised in secrecy. There were planters who dismissed ‘Guinea ways’ as harmless play by ignorant heathens, but others were not so tolerant. To them, any god that wasn’t their god was the devil…
Hepzibah began to weep noisily, her eyes fixed desperately upon the mada-woman, her sobs growing more uncontrolled and hiccupping. Folami placed her hands on her narrow hips.
“You muma never tell you say you must’n cratch up yourself when you full of fassy!” she continued, her tone softening. “Dem ago get bigger and full o’ pus, nex’ thing you ketch a fever – you might even dead? Just can’t lef di likkle scratch?”
Hepzibah’s chin shook as she managed a nod. Of course she knew not to fuss with a scratch or a scab, how it could become infected enough to kill if you did – but that such a thing also applied to bad spirits, she hadn’t understood – she hadn’t wanted to.
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