Wooden Heart

The year was nineteen sixty two.

I was twelve years old.

The place was the district of Watt Town, St Ann’s in Jamaica.

To cut a long story short and to spare you some of the traumatic and eventful experiences which propel the innocent into a life which is never dreamt of, well only by the most masochist perverted minds and those involved in making horror films.

Well now having pulled you in so far it would be rude to have you wondering and pondering about what has been left out.

So I consider it only fair to divulge the less gory.

The annual garden party was due to take place in the local square held by the local Justice of the Peace. My older cousins had permission from their mother to attend. My aunt, whom I was living with at the time, taking her guardianship responsibilities very seriously suggested that I was a little too young to go along.

At the thought of missing out on a rare opportunity to dress up apart from going to church. I did my usual and threw a mighty sulk. My aunt was by now immune to pouted lips, glowering forehead, hunched shoulders and silence.

Suddenly a bus came to a halt at the bottom of the hill and out stepped Molly, a beautifully dressed young lady on a return visit from Kingston, ‘the big bad city’. I had never met her before but she turned into my fairy Godmother. She looked so fine and had an air of confidence about her. When she spoke it was with that acquired city of Kingston twang. She managed to persuade my aunt to let me go along to the garden party, promising that she would look after me. My aunt, not wanting to seem a spoil sport in front of this sophisticated Kingstonian, agreed.

Wow!

All week my three older cousins and I talked about nothing else. Saturday eventually came. We did all our chores to perfection. Talk about going the extra mile. One of my jobs was to fill the drum with water to last over the weekend. That Saturday morning I flew up and down that hill with my bucket as if I had wings on my heels. Then it was time to have my bath in the big wooden tub and my hair washed and hot combed and curled with strips of newspaper.

After I had climbed into my light blue taffeta dress which my mother had sent from England and my black patent shoes with the kid heels and shiny buckle, I experienced my Cinderella moment. Molly my fairy Godmother duly arrived, all elegant and sweet smelling.

Five young ladies descended that hill as if we were descending a staircase in a scene from ‘Gone with the Wind’. At last we arrived at our destination. It was early evening and we floated around greeting friends from school, feeling well cool as today’s generation would say.

The setting sun seemed to cast a wonderful golden glow. The dances at the time were the twist and the mashed potato. We had practiced these dances a lot as we listened to a neighbour’s radio. Of course like Cinderella there was a set time for our return. Well, it was not our fault if we were poor people and could not afford watches. The time just flew by.

Then a song came on and a boy walked up to me and asked me if I wanted to dance.

Oh did I.

Although I had not had any practice of smooch dancing, in his arms it just seemed to come naturally.

Then all too soon it was time to leave. Prince charming and I bid our farewells.

As we weaved our way around the mountainside with the moon, stars and fire flies to light our way, I felt I was in seventh heaven. Then one of my cousins came out with, “Did you see her dancing with the bare foot boy?"

To this day I really do not know if he had shoes on or not. What would I be doing looking down at his feet when I could close my eyes and rest my head on his shoulders in a romantic dream as Elvis Presley crooned those words, “Treat me nice, treat me good, treat me like you really should cause I’m not made of wood and I don’t have a wooden heart”.

So he may not have had any shoes but he surely did not have a wooden heart either. I will leave it just there.

I’m sure you really don’t want to know about the repercussions for us returning late. Back then late would have been about eight o’clock. Oh how times have changed!

I often wonder whatever happened to my Prince Charming in the guise of that barefoot boy and wonder if he ever thinks about me.