My Mother's Daughter Read online

  “No problem. Take your time and think.” Catherine knelt down in the pillowy sand beside the man. “Me and my mother make them. Have a look, mister. They are genuine from the sea.”

  “Lovely. Maybe I’ll buy one when it’s time to go home.”

  Catherine brought her display arm closer to the man’s face for a better look. “When is that?”

  “In about a week.”

  “Are you sure you want to wait? I might sell out.”

  The man laughed. “I’ll tell ya what. You find me in a couple of days and I’ll buy a few.”

  “You promise?” She noticed that the bottle of oil had a picture of coconuts on it. The man didn’t smell anything like coconuts, though.

  “Something tells me you’re gonna hold me to it.”

  “That’s my job. Okay, mister, I’ll come find you.” Catherine turned to leave, then remembered to add something important. “If anyone else tries to sell you anything, you tell them you already promised Catherine the sale, okay?”

  “You bet.”

  Catherine went back to her coconut tree. There wasn’t much competition on the beach, but her last line was something her mother had told her to say whenever she was promised a sale at a later time.

  Since Catherine was at the resort so often, she would see many of the guests several times during their stay. Some would offer to buy her a bottle of Coke or bring her back a present from their day trip to Castries. Others would ask for her address, and once they returned home to America, Canada, or England they’d mail her a parcel filled with clothes. The items were usually gently used, though on occasion some were new. Whenever Catherine got a package from overseas she couldn’t wait to put on her new gear and go for a stroll up and down her street, to be sure everyone saw her. If someone who didn’t like her noticed her promenading about in the naturally proud way she had about her, they would yell out “Rations!” or “Second-hand!” But Catherine would only flash the barb thrower a dirty look, wave her hand as if to shoo them off, and continue on as though the gutter-lined streets of Gros Islet was her catwalk. She couldn’t help that she had on denim overall shorts with a Beatles T-shirt, wooden wedges, and a sure strut and the name-caller did not.

  Eda considered a day of selling at the resort slow if her daughter brought home less than ten dollars. A good day would be more than twenty. Then there were days Catherine made no money at all. Her day ended when things slowed down, and that depended on how many guests were at the hotel, what time a cruise ship was set to depart, if there were other events happening around town. Sometimes her day ended at three in the afternoon; other days she could be there beyond six. Sometimes Catherine left the resort just as school was letting out. She’d spot her friends in their school uniforms, books in hand, laughing, talking, and striding in her direction. Catherine would look down at her bare feet (she didn’t need shoes to trek along the beach), and suddenly the large bag teetering on her head would feel too heavy to bear. She would dart down behind a fence so no one would spot her. Only when the chatter and laughter faded away did she stand up and walk briskly towards home. Catherine always hoped her classmates might assume she was sick, or away on a trip. Peddling to tourists all day was not something to envy.

  * * *

  —

  One afternoon after a long day in the sun, Catherine found her mother in the front yard bent over a small heap of coal. Twenty or more small black pyramids sprouted all over the yard.

  “Enoe, my girl, how did you make out today?” her mother asked while picking up pieces of coal without looking up.

  “One older lady bought five necklaces from me,” Catherine told her with excitement. She took the bag off her head and instantly felt twenty pounds lighter.

  “How much did she give you?”

  “Three dollars.”

  “That’s good, my doudou darling.” Eda’s fingertips were stained black from a day of stealing coal from one pyramid to shore up another.

  Catherine rubbed her flattened braids back to life. “And her husband bought me a bottle of Coke.”

  “You lucky girl. Now go ahead and count the money.”

  Catherine knelt down near her mother and fished the cash out of the inside of the bag; she was too young to pay attention to the tightness in her calves and back. “Twenty-three dollars and sixty-five cents,” she declared when done. “Are you happy?”

  “Of course, my child. You did well.” Eda picked a five-dollar bill from the stash on the ground. “Put this in your pocket,” she said as she passed the note to Catherine, transferring her black fingerprints all over it. “And put the rest in the hole in the floorboard under my bed. And remember to put the rug back on top. The last time you forgot. What if a thief was watching?” Eda let out a hoot.

  * * *

  —

  As Catherine grew, so did Gros Islet’s modest resort strip, and in time four more hotels joined the St. Lucia Beach Hotel. Each year more and more cruise ships docked, which meant Catherine was spending less time in school and more of it selling at her mother’s urging. By the time she was twelve Catherine was so behind in her studies that she was having a difficult time catching up on the days she did show up. Soon it all became too much for her to overcome and she stopped going to school altogether. And so with less than a grade seven education she became a full-time beach vendor. This wasn’t much of a concern to her parents because it helped them make ends meet, and Catherine was committed to doing whatever she could to help them. Even though she desperately wanted to go to school, education was not something her parents could afford to value.

  By the time Catherine was a teenager, beach vending had become a way of life for more families and their daughters. The girls formed cliques that travelled up and down the tourist strip in small pods. More vendors meant that a single hotel guest could be approached many times in one day by a peddler asking, “Excuse me, nice lady, would you like to buy a lovely souvenir to take home?” Naturally this was frustrating to some vacationers, who would yell “Scram!” or “Don’t bug me!” to Catherine and her friends.

  This surge in the number of vendors meant selling became increasingly competitive. Beyond necklaces, conch shells, and T-shirts, children and adults alike were now selling everything from fresh coconut water to mangoes to hand-painted art.

  If there were risks to young girls roaming a vast stretch of beach on their own, their families had to take that chance. One day, Catherine left the tourist strip to pee behind some bushes. A man approached from behind and tried to grab her, but Catherine managed to break free and raced towards the busy beach. Though the experience rattled her, she never told her parents or anyone else about it. She didn’t want to worry Eda or Abraham.

  Catherine was fortunate that day, but one of her friends would not be. One afternoon when Catherine was around thirteen, she and three of her girlfriends were selling when a man approached them. The young girls knew the man as someone who lived in town, but no one knew him personally. He owned a boat that he’d use to shuttle guests of the hotels to beaches up and down the coast. The girls were sitting under the shade of a tree towards the end of the day, after sales had slowed.

  “You children look bored,” the man said. “What’s the matter? No fish biting?” He laughed. The girls were tired and eager for the day to be over, so no one said much. The man peered down at them. “Listen, I’m taking a group of tourists over to Pigeon Point in fifteen minutes. People will be looking for things to buy. Do you all want to come and sell?”

  The girls perked up with the mention of a fresh batch of tourists to solicit. “Of course,” they replied.

  “Fine. Meet me by the dock in ten minutes.”

  The girls quickly gathered their goods, delighted by the idea of heading up the shore for such an exclusive opportunity. They talked excitedly and then hushed themselves as they walked past other vendors towards the dock, careful not to g
ive themselves away. They didn’t want others to ask to come along. When the man showed up he asked them to stay back until after he had ushered all the hotel guests on board. But when Catherine and her friends sprang forward to get into the boat, the man stopped them.

  “Ahh, sorry. I can only take one of you.”

  “That’s not fair,” the girls all grumbled.

  The man peered down at them and then pointed to Joanna, a thirteen-year-old who had the physique of a woman double her age. “You can come now. I will come back for the rest of you after I drop the guests off.”

  Joanna jumped into the boat before the man had a chance to change his mind.

  But the man never returned. An hour passed, and Catherine and her two friends sat under their tree, feeling cheated because Joanna would probably sell everything she had and by the time they arrived no one would need to buy from them. But loyal to their dear friend and curious about how much money she had made, they waited for her. Eventually, after all the tourists had left the beach, Joanna returned, and as they made their way home she was quiet and withdrawn. Normally, Joanna was the chattiest whenever they discussed the day’s adventures or sang on their way home. But now she wouldn’t answer when her friends asked her how much money she’d made, leaving them feeling even more snubbed of the opportunity. Every now and then she walked into the sea until the water was up to her waist. Then she’d come back out and continue walking home, her soaking-wet dress clinging to her body and leaving a trail of darkened sand behind her. Sure, they all swam in the sea, but never when they were working, and definitely not with their everyday clothes on. “What is wrong with you?” Catherine asked.

  Days later, Catherine heard the news from her mother. The man wouldn’t let Joanna leave after he had dropped off the tourists. He had raped her. Her parents had gone to the police, but Joanna would never get justice. A family member of the man had bought him a plane ticket to another island and he never returned.

  Chapter Two

  By the start of the 1970s my mother had become one of the many faces of the island’s epidemic of teen pregnancy when her first child, a girl she named Vonette, was born days before she turned seventeen. When Catherine was eighteen, she again became pregnant. Having to make a living, she left her one-year-old daughter at home with Eda while she walked up and down the resort beaches to sell. That decision wasn’t an agonizing one; she had one responsibility beyond herself and another on the way and had to provide for them. Selling was the trade she had honed since early childhood, and for the most part she liked it.

  It was during this time that, on an early February morning, a pregnant Catherine walked to the tourist haven of Rodney Bay. She balanced a large sack on her head, and her skinny bronzed arms swung at her side to keep her steady. From the road she could see that many vacationers were already perched under indigo-blue umbrellas, others wading in the shimmering aqua sea. She kicked off her sandals, bent to pick them up with her parcel still on her head, and trotted forward as her feet sunk low into the sand.

  The first resort she approached was the Holiday Inn. Its concrete walls were painted a lemon yellow, and its white wooden fence separated the private property from the public beach. As she walked past, Catherine glanced onto the grounds and noticed by the pool a raven-haired man who looked to be in his late twenties. He was resting against a lounge chair with an infant in a blue onesie asleep against his bare shoulder. The sight made her slow her walk. The two were the only guests around, and Catherine zeroed in on the small fuzzy red head tucked against the man’s pale skin. The baby must have been three or four months old. She knew because Vonette had passed through that same delicate phase not too long ago.

  Catherine quickly surveyed the property for security guards who always roamed to make sure locals didn’t trespass and disturb their guests. She had to be sure what she was about to do was worth the risk. Then, ignoring the No Trespassing signs posted all around, she unlatched the gate and walked briskly up to the man.

  Most of the local women who made their living selling on the beach sold jewellery and other trinkets, but a few managed to find a way to babysit for visiting foreigners. These jobs were coveted, not only because they typically paid well, but the sitter got to stay in a fancy hotel room and didn’t have to peddle her wares all day in the heat. Catherine had been selling for years and had always wanted to babysit for a tourist, but she had never been asked or had the opportunity to ask. This was the first time the chance had presented itself so openly, and she was going to grab it.

  Catherine got right to the point because she knew she didn’t have much time. “Hello, mister. My name is Catherine. Do you have a babysitter for your baby?”

  The man looked up at Catherine with a confused half smile. “Oh, uh, I hadn’t thought about it.” The fast flutter of his eyelids said that he wasn’t sure what to make of the question or the young woman who had appeared out of nowhere.

  “If you need one, I can take care of your baby for you,” Catherine said, and noticed for the first time how smooth and solid the pool deck felt under her toes.

  The baby whimpered, and the man patted his son gently on the back. “Well, I would have to ask my wife.”

  Catherine glanced around, not so much for the man’s wife but for someone who might throw her out. “I can wait on the beach for you.”

  “She’s still sleeping,” the man said. “I’m not sure how much longer she’ll be.”

  “Okay. I have to go, but don’t forget me. If anyone else asks to be your babysitter you tell them you already hired Catherine, okay? You promise?”

  “Uh…okay,” the man stammered.

  At the gate she gave him her big smile and a hasty wave. “You won’t regret it.”

  Some three hours later Catherine was selling near another hotel property when a fellow vendor told her that a white couple was looking for her. She wasn’t sure who it could be—everyone called her by her nickname Enoe—but she was the only Catherine around so it had to be her they were looking for. Curious about the tip, she headed in the direction the other vendor had just come from.

  As she neared the beachfront at the Holiday Inn she saw the man from the pool heading her way, and beside him was a slender woman with long, amber hair. In her arms she carried their baby and introduced herself as Laura, the man’s wife, who said his name was Gerry.

  The couple told her that they wanted to go in to Castries for a few hours and wanted to take her up on her offer to babysit their son. For Catherine it was an opportunity too sweet to pass up.

  Gerry grinned. “Ya know, two other ladies approached us, but you made me promise, so I’m glad we tracked you down.”

  The Baxters had no concerns about leaving their son with a stranger. Times were different then, and the small island and its people were warm and friendly. Catherine was so keen and with the friendliest disposition, and so the idea of something untoward happening never crossed their minds. Gerry gave her cash to buy herself some lunch before heading out.

  It wasn’t long before Catherine took the baby down to the beach for a stroll. The purpose was to give baby Lucas some fresh air, but of course it didn’t hurt that the other vendors could see why she wasn’t around. Afterwards she went back to the hotel and settled by the pool with the baby, in the same spot where a few hours earlier she had been afraid she would be caught trespassing. Now she was reclining on a lounge chair under an umbrella, cradling Lucas in her arms. Free to do as she pleased, she flagged down a waiter, who she recognized, and ordered a bottle of Coke. The ice-cold drink tickled her tongue as she sipped in delight, and she giggled to herself. Her afternoon felt surreal as she watched the beach in front of her. Catherine was usually a part of the flurry of activity she was looking at and had never stopped to think about how she fit into it. Suddenly she noticed the loud whack a cutlass made as it took the top off a jelly coconut and the gingerly way the vendor presented it to the tourist and
the swift exchange of money. She saw the children ferrying buckets of water from the seashore to flood a crab from its hole in the sand. And for the first time she took notice of each time a friend approached a tourist to make a sale, only to be shooed away.

  * * *

  —

  Every morning Catherine would make her way to the Baxters’ hotel to see if they needed her help. Even when Gerry and Laura insisted she didn’t have to spend so many hours of her day helping with Lucas, she did anyway. Some days she would only sell in front of their hotel rather than roam the coast as she typically did. This way, if the couple needed her, they could find her easily. In that short while both sides grew genuinely fond of each other. One morning when they were all at the beach relaxing, Laura told Catherine she would bring her to Canada one day. Maybe when she was twenty—Laura said it seemed a good age for her to visit them, as she would have gotten settled with her second baby long before then. Catherine got butterflies thinking about the possibility. But beyond that fleeting mention she gave it no further thought. Tourists said a lot of things; most of them were just being friendly.

  With Lucas in Catherine’s care, the Baxters relished their few hours of freedom each day. They were able to go dancing, have a quiet dinner together, or enjoy happy hour. There was little conflict in Catherine’s heart about taking care of Lucas while her own one-year-old daughter was at home in the care of Eda. Babysitting for the Baxters felt like an official job, something she had never had before. She liked that they expected her to show up, and she liked the responsibility of taking care of the baby.

  When it was time for the Baxters to leave, they gave Catherine many of Lucas’s belongings: his clothes and bassinet, as well as all the local money they had left. For taking care of their baby they gave her two hundred Eastern Caribbean dollars—a hundred Canadian—the most money she had ever earned at one time. They promised they’d be back to visit and said they would stay in touch. That autumn, when Catherine gave birth to a boy, she named him Lucas. The couple wrote to her once they returned home, but as the months passed and familiar patterns were picked up again, they lost touch.