Olga - A Daughter's Tale by Marie-Therese Browne (Marie Campbell)

but here is proof that the act was thwarted, so is Obeah all in the mind?
    I have always thought so.
    I know my sojourns into Obeah are of great concern to Father Butler but there is a method to my madness which I have not confided in him because I know he would disapprove.
    I believe that psychologically Obeah is very powerful and I learnt from Lucy and John to use Obeah to get the results I want. I knew that once cook heard I’d been to Annie Harvey, she would change her tune and encourage Sydney to be reconciled with us.

    ******

Chapter Eighteen



Olga’s Diary

Dear Diary

    Christmas Eve: Ruby, Dolly, Pearl and me went to midnight mass at the Holy Trinity Cathedral. Mammie never forces us to go to church and we can choose whether we want to. I always want to go, I like the feeling of peace when I’m in Church. The Cathedral bells always start ringing half an hour before midnight and as they died away the Holy Trinity Choir sang “Adeste Fideles”.
    Father Butler preached the sermon and talked about the true meaning and spirit of Christmas and that it was a season of love and we should love one another and live happily and peacefully together. Father Butler knows my family well and I’m sure he wrote that sermon just for the Browney family. It certainly felt like it.
    Christmas is a special time in Jamaica and we celebrate it in a big way. I love it, there is always so
    much happening and it’s one of the few times, apart from family crisis, a wedding or a funeral, when my family is together.

    ******
    Christmas Day : Today is such a beautiful day, warm with a little breeze and Mammie is sitting in her favourite rocking chair on the back veranda, pretending she’s dozing, but I know she is watching to make sure Cassie and me decorate the dining table for Christmas lunch.
    We nearly always eat in the garden and Cassie and I are laying up the huge mahogany table that’s been moved from the dining room onto the lawn and has been in the family as long as I can remember. Mammie had it specially made years ago and told the craftsman it had to be big enough to hold at least twenty people because she was going to have lots of children.
    Cassie and I have done a good job with the table, even if I say so myself. At each end there is a large bowl of fruit overflowing with mangoes, oranges, figs, papaw, bananas, star apples, dates, pineapple, naseberry and tamarind. Down the centre we’ve put sprays of green maiden hair fern with white Christmas blossoms and lots of deep crimson roses. Each place setting has been laid up with a crystal wine glass and Mammie’s best silver cutlery, a Xmas cracker and a crisp white folded linen serviette in the shape of a water lily and placed in the middle of each setting. As an extra touch I’ve put a few tiny silver dishes of sweets, raisins and nuts on the table.
    We have a real feast on Christmas Day, lots of different things to choose from. Rice and peas, cod fish and ackee, which grows in pods on a large tree, as well as the usual Christmas lunch of roast turkey, roasted plantain, sweet potatoes, calalue, cassada and yams. For pudding we’ll be having boiled Jamaica plum pudding with wine sauce as well and mince pies. Oh, I do love my food. Mammie says my eyes are bigger than my belly. I have a big scar on my upper arm where Dolly threw hot porridge at me one morning at breakfast.
    I remember when I was little the family were sitting down to breakfast one morning and we normally had porridge and there was a sideboard where the porridge was laid out in dishes. I usually examined them all to see which was the biggest one. Dolly was standing beside me and I picked up the biggest one and she picked up hers and she threw it at me and said
    “ Here you take this too” and the porridge hit me on my right upper arm.
    I’ve still got the burn mark all these years later. Mammie was furious with Dolly and she got smacked and Mammie took me to the bathroom and put bicarbonate of soda on it.