When the overseer did at last behold July within the doorway, he held up his finger in quick acknowledgment for her to wait, before turning away again. But then, just as hastily, he turned back to her. And the overseer began to gaze upon July with the same captivity as Elias staring upon her breasts. From the soaking wet kerchief upon her head to the mud dragging at the bottom of her skirt, his eyes attentively perused her. It was only a boy calling, ‘Come, massa, look here,’ that drew his attention away. He held his hand up to July once more saying, ‘One moment. I will be there in one moment,’ before turning to pay heed to the crouching boy.

‘Me have some, massa!’ the boy cried as he held up something within his two hands for the overseer to look upon.

The overseer saying, ‘Good, good, excellent . . .’ began retreating. But the boy just followed, as if obeying this partner in a dance. The man almost tripped over an upturned chair in his prancing to avoid the boy’s proffer. ‘Good, yes, yes, just carry on,’ the overseer commanded. ‘I must just . . . I must just see to . . .’

July was what he ‘must just see to’ and, ‘You’re very wet,’ was what he presently said to her. July opened her mouth to begin her message, but was stopped when the overseer said, ‘I think I can see steam rising from you,’ and smiled. But then a dark frown swiftly replaced that grin. ‘Did your mistress send you out with a message for me in this storm?’ he asked. There was such agitation in his tone that July, well practised to deny anything pronounced with passion, nearly yelled ‘no’.

‘I cannot believe,’ he carried on, ‘that even she would require you to step out into this weather.’

This overseer then commenced to blast aspersions at her missus’s character with eagerness. What could possibly be so important? he wondered. He had never known anyone make so many demands, he said. Why did she have so many messages to give? He had only seen her early this morning, what could be so urgent now?

Soon the air grew so thick with these reproaches that July began to feel a curious concern for her missus. Come, July feared that soon she might defend her fat-batty missus and announce that Mrs Caroline Mortimer was not so villainous. Luckily he left her mouth no opening, for he spoke rapid as hail upon a roof.

‘My father,’ he went on, ‘always taught me that even servants should be treated with respect and not ordered here and there at a whim. But I fear Jamaican planters have learned over the years to behave another way.’

And then he stopped to sit down hard upon his chair. With his arms folded and his lips pressed firmly together, he glowered at the desk in front of him—searching it with intent, as if some mislaid fortitude were scattered there.

July was now finally free to deliver her message and would have, if it were not for two large brown dogs that chose that moment to rush in upon the room. Ungainly bounding, slipping and scraping on the wooden floor, they knocked into July and stumbled her against the overseer’s desk. These barking, playful dogs immediately brought the negro boys to their feet as they ran to shoo them. The overseer cried, ‘Wait, wait,’ as the boys ran gleefully out of the room after the hounds. He then sighed forlornly and slumped lower within his chair. Only Elias remained.

July was about to deliver her message again when Elias arrived at the overseer’s desk and set down before him a box. This wooden box, which was no bigger than a serving plate, held within it an ugly squabble of floundering black cockroaches. Some dead, some crushed, some crawling for release, some being crawled over, some upon their back with their legs flailing the air, some with their armoured shells and fidgeting feelers scratching their distress upon the wood of the box as they writhed within it. Elias had run off as soon as he had laid down the item. He took little notice of the overseer, who at once sat up within his chair, and called out after him, ‘Elias, don’t leave this here!’ His houseboy’s voice was small and very far away when it came back saying, ‘Soon come, massa.’

And at once July knew the nature of this fuss—the overseer was trying to rid his house of the hundreds and thousands of cockroaches that lived with him there.

Casting a hasty glance to July, who still stared down upon him, the overseer coughed into his hand, then purposefully moved an ink stand, a pen, and a blue and white patterned side plate—with the drying pips of an orange upon it—a little way away from the bug-a-bug box. He then swallowed hard, sat back upon his chair, folded his arms, took a breath of composure, and said to July, ‘You have a message for me?’

At last.

‘Me missus,’ July began, ‘wan’ to know . . .’ But this overseer’s eyes would not stay upon her. Gradually they returned their gaze to the restless creatures within the box. ‘She has beef,’ July said, hoping a greedy stomach might wrest back his attention.

‘Beef . . .’ he repeated, heedless.

‘Me missus say—you wan’ come to eat beef for dinner? Heifer be killed in the pen and me missus . . .’

‘Heifer . . .’ he said.

July thought to yell, ‘A tiger be gnawing the missus and a monkey be wearing her petticoat!’ Tiger . . . monkey . . . softly spoken would surely be this man’s careless reply, for his focus rested so fast upon that box. When one brave cockroach hooked its scabrous legs over the rim while calling on all who were still alive below to follow in this escape, the overseer slowly began to push his chair away from the desk.

‘So what shall me tell me missus?’ July carried on.

But the overseer just yelled out, ‘Elias, come and take this wretched box away!’

Raising himself swiftly from his seat he rushed to the door to shout, ‘I pay you to catch them and take them away. Come back here now! I demand you come back here now, boy.’

Elias soon appeared before him, grinning as only mischievous negro boys do. ‘Me find plenty more, massa. You wan’ come see?’ he said.

‘Just take that box away. Get rid of them. And do not leave them on the veranda, like last time. Take them far away. Do you understand? Kill them and take them far away.’

Elias, grabbing the box, soon noticed July’s two breasts and, for a moment, stopped to stare upon them before saying, ‘Me find plenty more roach-bug, you wan’ see? Me can show you, Miss July.’ July did not actually slap Elias’s head, nor command him with harsh words to, ‘Take it now or me bash your ears till them ring all day.’ She just gave him one look, then stamped her foot down hard—and this did say and do it all for her. Elias carried out the odious box as if walking with a tray of precious jewels across a swamp, for none must spill to scurry home, past his fuss-fuss massa.

The overseer sat down at his desk, then looking to July said, ‘I am so very sorry. Could you please repeat your mistress’s message?’

As July opened her mouth—to talk again of the heifer and the beef and the dinner—the biggest, blackest, monstrous beetle you ever did see, fell from a beam in the ceiling on to the desk, right in front of the overseer. This miscreated creature was surely the colossus of the cockroach dominion; for so immense was it that the blue and white plate that it landed upon seemed to crack under the bug’s hard shell and the little pips of orange that were scattered upon the dish bounced into the air like jumping beans.

Now. That the overseer jolted upon his seat, then stood up in fright upon seeing the creature land, is certain. That he leaped from his chair, somersaulted three times backwards away from the desk to arrive at the other side of the room with his legs wobbling beneath him like a newborn calf’s while pulling upon his hair and shrieking wild as missus gone mad, may be hard for my readers to believe, but that is how July remembers it. The white man was terrified—tears of fear soaked his face as he flapped before July, frenzied as a moth caught within a net.