‘The only thing you can do is forget bout what happen the day before. Don’t carry the memory round like a sore toe you keep bumping. Forget bout what going happen tomorrow. You not going know till it arrive anyway. Only stay alive, from day to day. Because if you don’t learn to stop all the mosquito dem from buzzing, the breathing sickness going kill you.’

Calla draw some more on her pipe. ‘This slavery business,’ shaking her head, ‘been going on for a long, long, long time. Nothing you or me can do bout it. Fretting not going change it one little bit. Some of us born on the plantation, like you, like Stella. Some like me, we born somewhere else. But don’t seem to make no difference. In the end, you, me, Stella somehow we ended up in slavery.’

I get all excited. ‘Where, Calla? Where you come from?’

‘If you settle down, little Will, I going tell you. From cross de seas. Africa! A big, big country, bigger than dis little island. The place me call me true home,’ and Calla eye them get watery when she look out cross the fields like she seeing this home of hers. And in the glimmering I can sense the wide, wide spaces too.

‘Why, Calla? Why you leave this Africa place?’

‘Get stolen by the Black Mother. What backra call the slave trade. The trade in sugar. In bondage. In pain.’ Is all she say bout that. Start to cough, almost choke. Make me rub her back till she can speak again. ‘Get sold to Old Massa William. Long before you born.’

Calla must be mighty old, me thinking.

‘Now Massa Cargill, him son own me. Just like him own you. Own Stella. Own all the slave dem on Rock Pleasant. And him can do whatever him want to any of us.’

‘Why?’ I ask.

‘Why? Why? See how the mosquito dem buzz and buzz. Is what going kill you.’

‘But why?’ I ask again.

Calla look at me hard. ‘Is just the way things is, little Will.’

‘Then nuttin’ going ever change,’ and it pain me to think is true.

Calla pat me head. ‘You too smart for you own good.’

‘Too many mosquito dem buzzing round.’

She laugh out loud. ‘Too many. Some slaves turn bad. Try to fight it. Get into plenty trouble,’ she say. ‘Some slaves don’t know how to fight it, so we fight it on the inside. Make us get sick.’

‘Oh,’ I say, starting to understand. ‘Like what happen to me?’

‘Yes, little Will. Like what happen to you. And if you let it, it going kill you.’

‘Me don’t want to be sick all the time. Me want to be big and strong.’

‘Yes,’ Calla say.

‘Like … like … like Massa.’

‘Not like me?’ Calla ask, looking at me straight.

‘No! Like Massa.’