Part ten: Miss Judy

There is a smooth highway that runs along the coast, wide and new like an American boulevard. But as you turn up towards the mountains the road becomes narrower and more worn. Gradually its bends become sharper until it is so steep that the roots of the trees on your right hand side whilst you are up with the canopies on your left. Compared to the palm trees of the beach the mountain roads pass through a much more of a jungle and vines hung from branches like Rasta dreads.

Alfred the driver quietly answered our questions (both national and personal) and then he asked one of his own. Who the storyteller? From the front seat next to him Auntie A answered that I was, and pointed with a thumb over her shoulder at me in the back with the bags. Alfred caught my eyes in the rear-view mirror and we smiled at each other. So where have you been then? he asked still holding my gaze. I opened my mouth to answer, but A beat me to it and told him all about the things we had done. I turned my eyes back to the window thinking of what stories I will have to take home with me. I didn’t mind my backseat position or my silence: I had so many words in my head I had none left for my tongue.

High in the mountains of Lime Hall there lives a Jamaican artist called Judy Ann Macmillan and we were heading towards her home where we were staying for the night, lucky enough to be joining as guests on her artist retreat. Birds of Paradise flowers stood guard by the turning, nodding in the breeze, and we got the first sight of Rockfield House with its veranda and saw two ladies relaxed in the chairs.

Judy Ann stood to welcome us and called to her old aid Mr Chis to carry our bags into the house. Mr Chis appeared from the garden, spade in one hand (though what he had been using if for was unclear). He was a rather elderly man: the white in his beard and the hair that appeared under his red baseball cap revealing his age. That, and the rather strange way he marched around the garden in wellington boots, one trouser leg tucked in, one out and announcing himself each time.They treated each other with the exasperation and love of old spouses and he reappeared regularly asking if he should do this or that; should I lock the gate, should I light the fire and he passed through with wood in his arms.

The house is beautiful – not stone and magnificent like Unity had seemed; it was a little more scruffy, a little more lived in, a little more of a home. We went right up to the bedroom at the top, and right down to the bathroom at the bottom and ended back on the veranda for a drink. Mr Chis passed with a broom in his hand. We sat as the sky went the same colour as ripe papaya flesh, sipping on spiced sorrel made in Judy’s kitchen.

Up high in the mountains it is much cooler than by the sea and it was nice after supper to sit by the fire. The wood smelt good as it burnt and we took it in turns to interview poor, tired Judy who talks willingly about her life and her art, and tells stories with such good humour that a laugh a will often convulse through her whole body before it escapes, and she’ll stamp a foot or clap her hands to help set it free. We fought silently over whose lap the little cow-coloured cat with milky eyes would choose and then slowly we each drifted off to bed.

 

Ackee fruit with saltfish is quite a traditional Jamaican breakfast but this morning Lydia, who had walked down her hill and up Judy Ann’s, was making banana muffins from an old and trusted recipe (just add water). There is an ackee tree growing outside the kitchen, and Lydia took me to see if we could see a ripe one. The fruit look a bit like misshaped red pears but hang heavier and more solid, and when the fruit is ripe it splits so that you can see 3 large conker like seeds. There is an old belief that to get the fruit to open you must laugh under the ackee tree and it pops, laughing back at you. It must have been Lydia’s amusement with my interest that helped her spot an open fruit right on a high branch at the top.

A few more students arrived for the mornings class and Judy positioned them to paint views of the house they had chosen, whilst me and Auntie A sat down to draw Mr Chis, who turned out to be a most patient and willing model. To be a good teacher you have to be willing to give away a part of yourself every time. Whether it is knowledge, or energy, or simply attention and I think Judy gave herself totally to us. I watched her sit and guide the paintings, always talking through what could be done and showing with just a brush stroke how you could bring a picture to life.

 

We stopped for lunch and after coffee and rum cake Auntie A and I rolled back down the hills, through the jungles, to the beach.