The Voices of Time - A clever tale of making something from nothing

• Title: The voices of time
  
• Author: Kenrick Mose
  
• Publisher: Macmillan
  
• Reviewer: Barbara Nelson

The voices of time is the first novel by Trinidadian Kenrick Mose, a former lecturer at the University of the West Indies, Mona, Acadia University in Nova Scotia, Canada, and (for almost 30 years) at the University of Guelph in Ontario, Canada. Mose has settled in Canada since 1969.

The novel is a tale that spans three generations of the flock of the star-crossed Greenidge clan as they scratch and claw their way upwards out of deep poverty to a semblance of middle-class respectability in Trinidad.

The story is narrated by three of the main characters. It opens with Clarissa, a fair-skinned 'Bajan' girl with eyes and skin "that come from some African slave" who is raped by - 'Master Jeremy' - son of the Old Man who lived in the Big House and ran Paradise estate in Barbados. Clarissa becomes pregnant and has an abortion.

But Clarissa liked Gustus - the good-looking young man with nice fair skin, curly, red hair and eyes golden like honey - eyes that were the same colour like those of the Old Man who lived in the Big House.

"The only man I ever liked was Gustus," she confesses. Gustus' pride and anger at the situation with Jeremy propels him to marry Clarissa and take her away to Trinidad. The journey from Barbados took three days in a little fishing boat.

Life was very difficult in Trinidad. Clarissa had a hard time with Gustus who never spoke much and would "bury everything deep down inside." He was a good workman and provided for his family, but he was also very stubborn and bad-tempered. When Gustus was in his rage, he had no respect for anybody. As the years passed, his tantrums grew steadily worse until he started to beat Clarissa with his leather belt, even when she was pregnant. But she bore the many years of shame, mental and sexual abuse, unfaithfulness and embarrassment, had eight children, and remained faithful to the patriarch Gustus.

The first section of The voices of time is vivid, colourful and absorbing. It ends with Clarissa bemoaning the fact that her son Charlie "filled her cup of sorrows to the brim." Why? Because Charlie had picked up with and eventually married "a little half-white bastard some white man on the estate had with a little Indian woman."

Charlie was, however, very ambitious, "anywhere he landed, he wanted to be on top". He was also vain, self-centred and a show-off. Like his father Gustus, he often used his leather belt to keep his eight children in line.

The second part of The voices of time, told by Charlie's wife Mary, unfolds against the backdrop of the Second World War. "The war cut off all the chocolates and apples and toys that used to come for the children (in Trinidad) at Christmas time. They even had to introduce rationing."

Positive changes

At that time, too, Adult Suffrage was introduced and this brought many positive changes to the twin-island state. This gave the ambitious Charles the opportunity to improve himself academically. He even travelled to England on a British Council six-month scholarship to observe primary schools.

Like his father Gustus, Charles tried to instil in his children the importance of learning, study and application.

Kevin, Charles' son, narrates the third and final section. He was the apple of Charles' eye and the only one to follow his father's advice, always came first or second in his class and finally got a scholarship to the University College of the West Indies in Jamaica. He grasped all the opportunities that presented themselves.

After the death of his father and mother, Kevin realises with a feeling of nostalgia, that in spite of all the difficulties and problems that he and his family would face, the dreams and themes and fortitude of the ones who had passed on before would help to sustain and guide them.