Inside the church is like a beehive. All the women cleaning and dusting and sweeping. Fill up every nook and cranny with big bunches of flowers them pick along the way. Little offerings of mango and soursop, maybe a yam. And after I help move the organ, the deacon ask me to go take a cup of bush tea to the little room at the back. Tell me the pastor need a little pep-up before the sermon.

I knock and enter.

The pastor have him back to the door looking out the window at the clouds moving slowly cross the sky. Maybe him is a dreamer, like I used to be. Like James. Then him turn round and I know. The man in front of me is the biggest dreamer I ever going meet. Him look me up and down like him seeing all of me. Not just the flesh and bones of me, but the soul of me. The dreams of me. Even the dreams I been too frightened to dream.

‘So, you are William, Stella’s boy.’

‘Yes,’ I stammer, surprised him know me name.

‘Come closer so I can get a good look at you.’

I step forward, feel the sunlight surrounding him shoulders, surround mine. Then the pastor look me straight in the eyes. Not like how Massa used to look at me, sideways, but directly, simply like him is saying, you and me, we is family. We is one.

‘The deacon tells me you’re not always eager to come to church.’

‘No, sir. Don’t have no time for church business.’

‘Have you been baptised? Taken Jesus as your saviour?’

I shake me head.

The pastor take a sip of him bush tea, keep looking at me.

‘But you came today. Why?’

‘See if the rumour is true. That when you preach, it make a slave think him gone to be with the Ancestors.’

‘Died and gone to heaven,’ the pastor say, and him laugh. A strong laugh, with no fear sitting in the middle of it. ‘The Lord is our salvation. He leads us out of danger towards the Promised Land. But to get there, we must be baptised, work hard to cleanse our souls.’

‘Plenty work to do round the plantation,’ I say.

‘Tell me, what is this work that you do and why is it so important?’

Puffing meself up. ‘I do whatever work needs doing.’

‘And pray tell, what is the purpose of all this work?’

I think hard, notice how the pastor just smile and nod and wait. Finally I come up with something.

‘To keep the plantation going.’

‘So, the purpose of your life, William, is to keep the plantation in full production. And to make your masters rich.’

‘Is not what I mean,’ starting to feel angry.

‘If that is not your purpose in life, William, what is?’