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Saturday, March 15, 2025

Author honoured by Jamaica writes of the housemaid who inspires her

by

IRA MATHUR
357 days ago
20240324

IRA MATH­UR

Ja­maican writer and lawyer Shar­ma Tay­lor, au­thor of What A Moth­er’s Love Don’t Teach You (Vi­ra­go Press, 2023), will be ho­n­oured on Wednes­day with the pres­ti­gious Ja­maican Mus­grave Medal (Bronze) for ex­cel­lence in Lit­er­a­ture. Tay­lor, who counts the late Wayne Brown, Jane Bryce, Dr Er­na Brod­ber, In­grid Per­saud, Karen Lord, Monique Rof­fey, Kei Miller and Ja­cob Ross among her men­tors, is no stranger to ac­co­lades. Ear­li­er this year she was short­list­ed for the V S Pritch­ett Short Sto­ry Prize 2024.

Tay­or has been short­list­ed for the huge­ly com­pet­i­tive Com­mon­wealth Short Sto­ry Prize four times (2018, 2020, 2021, and 2022) and longlist­ed twice (2019 and 2023) and in 2019, won the Bo­cas Lit Fest’s John­son and Amoy Achong Caribbean Writ­ers Prize. In 2020, Tay­lor won the Wasafiri Queen Mary New Writ­ing Prize, the Frank Col­ly­more Lit­er­ary En­dow­ment Award, was a fi­nal­ist in the Eliz­a­beth Nunez Award for Writ­ers in the Caribbean Brook­lyn Caribbean Lit­er­ary Fes­ti­val’s (BCLF) and placed sec­ond in the First Nov­el Com­pe­ti­tion (Daniel Gold­smith As­so­ciates Ltd UK). On her affin­i­ty for writ­ing and in­spi­ra­tion for her de­but nov­el What A Moth­er’s Love Don’t Teach You, Tay­lor says her first teacher was Hort­ense, a house­maid who “looked af­ter her from the day she was born” when her moth­er was at work. “Hort­ense was in her ear­ly 20s and loved me like her own child–gave me the gift of spo­ken lan­guage by teach­ing me her name. When I was near­ly two, Hort­ense dis­ap­peared, and I nev­er heard from her again.”

Tay­lor says her de­but nov­el was a process of self-dis­cov­ery, “I thought about how los­ing some­one im­por­tant to you and be­liev­ing you’ve found them again can change your de­f­i­n­i­tion of fam­i­ly and be­long­ing. I thought of the se­crets we keep from those we love and the se­crets they keep from us.”

Cur­rent­ly Writer-in-Res­i­dence at the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies, Mona Cam­pus, in the De­part­ment of Lit­er­a­ture’s Cre­ative Writ­ing pro­gramme, Tay­lor says she writes “sto­ries she likes read­ing with colour­ful, com­pli­cat­ed char­ac­ters and dis­tinc­tive Caribbean voic­es.” What A Moth­er’s Love Don’t Teach You is told from mul­ti­ple per­spec­tives in pa­tois and Eng­lish to give the read­er a sense of the so­cial con­text of 1980s Ja­maica.

The fol­low­ing is an ex­cerpt with full per­mis­sion from the pub­lish­er Vi­ra­go (a Lit­tle, Brown im­print, part of the Ha­chette group): ex­clu­sive­ly for the Sun­day Guardian WE mag­a­zine.

WHAT A MOTH­ER’S LOVE DON’T TEACH YOU

“When I was eigh­teen, Leroy, mi wut­liss boyfriend from All Age school, wres­tle with mi one evening in the cane­field. I still had on mi shorts and panty, so it was pure shock when mi pe­ri­od stop. Nine months lat­er here comes a cot­ton-hair boy-pick­ney. Hair picky-picky like mine. Skin smooth like Leroy, head just as big. Face wide and beau­ti­ful. Mi nev­er see eye­lash­es long so yet. Lips so fine and full and him likkle fin­ger­nails so pink and per­fect. Long, long fin­gers like Ma­ma. A strong, firm nose, like him know him go­ing to be one im­por­tant man.Ma­ma near­ly get epilep­tic fits when mi tell her mi preg­nant. Is just two years I in the job with the Stee­les, a ex­pat cou­ple who work for the US Em­bassy in Kingston. Mi ne­va know what work Mr Steele do at the Em­bassy but be­cause of how every­body talk to him, I fig­ure he must be a big shot. Dem say him work for the CIA, but mi don’t know if is true. Peo­ple even say Steele wasn’t dem re­al name. That is a false iden­ti­ty and dem in Ja­maica to spy on we ’cause Un­cle Sam sus­pect we go­ing get friend­ly with Fi­del Cas­tro in Cu­ba and Amer­i­cans nev­er want any more Com­mu­nism in dem back­yard.‘Let him get yuh a US visa!’ Ma­ma used to say; but mi nev­er ask and the Stee­les nev­er of­fer. Mr Steele white, pale like a full moon. Mrs Steele was a Black woman, but she much more light­skinned than Ma­ma. Her scarves dem did smell like laven­der and she did wear plen­ty ban­gle that look like dem about to drop off har hand. She used to dye her hair red. When it was grow­ing out, the roots used to black. The red hair usu­al­ly drop across her eyes, so it not easy to see her small face. She let mi bor­row her books and I read dem when I fin­ish work ear­ly.‘That’s po­et­ry from Shel­ley,’ she did say. ‘Or Lord By­ron.’ Mi study po­et­ry I nev­er un­der­stand and talk it out loud. The recitals did please her. ‘Dat ooman fill­ing up yuh head wid words,’ Ma­ma say and suck her teeth. ‘Yuh can eat dem, fool-fool gal?’ Mi pic­ture Mrs Steele in a white apron serv­ing some plump and juicy words on a plate, and mi laugh.Some evenings Mrs Steele tell mi about the years dem did live in Africa, their post­ings in places I nev­er hear about yet but she show mi on a map. She teach lit­er­a­ture at uni­ver­si­ties there, she said, and I watch her eyes turn glass, like she was in a trance. ‘Such beau­ti­ful peo­ple,’ she said. ‘Sweet lit­tle ba­bies …’ And then she would get qui­et.The Stee­les nev­er have any chil­dren, al­though mi used to hear Mrs Steele telling her friends when­ev­er dem come over to the house with dem pick­ney, how much she did want a ba­by of her own. Mi sur­prise when they say they hav­ing what Mrs Steele call a ‘ba­by show­er’ for mi. The par­ty did dead: be­tween mi act­ing like mi want to be there, the too-sweet drinks Mrs Steele make, the bal­loons los­ing air, the stale bis­cuits and the crush-up ‘Hap­py De­liv­ery!’ sign across the hall­way. It was just the four of we–dem, Ma­ma and me. Ma­ma did wear her on­ly good dress–a stiff, white-col­lared black shift that make her look like all the blood suck out of her face. The Stee­les did wear some loose trousers and flo­ral tops Mrs Steele say dem buy in Ethiopia. I was in dis­tress since Leroy take up with a brown­ing named Shelly and move to Mon­tego Bay. Ma­ma say she not sur­prise: Leroy wouldn’t want a black girl like mi. Dur­ing the ba­by show­er, I still reel­ing with shock, sick from the ba­by or the break-up, or the two of dem to­geth­er. Mi couldn’t stop wrig­gle in the chair. ‘So you have no sup­port?’ Mrs Steele say. I nev­er know how to an­swer so mi look over at Ma­ma drink­ing her Dar­jeel­ing tea. ‘We could solve your prob­lem.’ Mrs Steele voice shaky bad. She look on her hus­band who did stand up be­side the glass win­dow. Mr Steele all of a sud­den look­ing hard-hard on some­thing out­side. She rub her throat with her fin­gers and cock her head to one side. Then she say: ‘You’ve worked for us a long time, so I know you know I’d be a good moth­er … I al­ways want­ed my own child.’ I won­der­ing what that have to do with me. Same time, she come out and spell it out plain: ‘How about we adopt the ba­by when it’s born? Af­ter all, you can’t pos­si­bly look af­ter it. I promise I’ll take good care of it … I mean, the child. Think what it would be like for them, grow­ing up in a big house like this.’ She move her arms around the room, like she swim­ming in the mid­dle of the ocean do­ing a back­stroke.”–End of ex­cerpt

Shar­ma Tay­lor holds a PhD from Vic­to­ria Uni­ver­si­ty of Welling­ton, New Zealand.

Ira Math­ur is a Guardian jour­nal­ist and the win­ner of the

2023 NGC Bo­cas Prize for

Non-Fic­tion for her mem­oir, Love The Dark Days.

Web­site: www.iras­room.orgIn­quiries by au­thors can be

sent to iras­room@gmail.com 


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