I was born in 1938 in Dominica... Port Michelle... hot sunshine and breeze... I used to sit up under the coconut trees watching the birds. Beautiful. What a country... busting your high heels on the roads. My father was a coffin maker and he made enough money as a coffin maker to buy three houses. My mother looked after the kids. She was always in the garden. Her name was Britannia. Britannia Adrianne St Rose. My fathers name was Sylvester William Lambert. I took my name from my Great Grandmother... so I was Veronica Williams. Madeleine's my sister and Clara, Annette and Raphael... who I call Phaio... and Augustine are my brothers. We went to school in Dominica to study arithmetic and penmanship... I went to Catholic School with nuns, Raphael, Clara and Augustine.
I remember going bathing in the sea and the day a shark chased after me. I had to be rescued by the people in the boats. I was frightened. The shark is wicked, dangerous but beautiful to look at. Little tiny teeth but they can cut you in half. I'd gone swimming to dye my hair... you have to go often and the sea makes it lighter... I wanted golden brown hair... and I was lucky the shark was slow. The fishermen caught it and it was pregnant... lots of little babies came out of its belly. I survived for a reason.
Ortega was the ship I came on... I remember I had steak and kidney pie and vomited it all back up... a different food... I was used to yams and green bananas... I remember my first sight of England... I was wearing a hat... like a mans hat with feathers and high heeled shoes and tights. I wear trainers now. I thought England was beautiful.
I was reborn when I came to England and blessed by the lord Abraham and Isaac. I had a dream and in it I saw a man bent over... like a hunchback in a cave and I became blessed... and a cross of light came down on me... and I saw the planet Zeus... his continent lost under the sea... it was like a city... a city sunk under the sea... I saw this because I was reborn... and I see it like it's a dream... and I see him coming up like a fish with his two hands raised... straight up... up and down... and he said "I am the planet Zeus"... Zeus is sunk... I don't know why I was chosen... the innocent are chosen...
I love the cinema... my favourite film is Godzilla... and the Creature From the Black Lagoon... and the Magnificent Seven... the Hunchback of Notre Dame... he's all bent over.
|
