In a Great Southern Land

by Mary-Anne O'Connor

  Perhaps this was her chance; a new life. A fresh start. Maybe it would even be a better existence, something she could negotiate on her own terms, for despite its poverty and contamination, Vauxhall held something her old life could never offer. Down here, at the least, she was free.

  ‘Freedom,’ she murmured aloud, tasting the word. How precious that seemed, suddenly. How overlooked, until now.

  Eve’s eyes began to close as she thought upon it but the sound of a light whistle roused her as Peter emerged from the fog, heaving a sack into the back and looking at her huddled form with amusement.

  ‘Make yourself at home, why don’t you?’

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry. I’ll get out,’ Eve said, starting to push herself up.

  ‘No, no. Mebbe I’ll join you for a while.’ He clambered in and sat close, his leg against hers, and Eve felt instantly uneasy, her tired mind now suddenly alert.

  ‘I think…it’s getting late. I don’t want to miss Mr Jenkins.’

  ‘I’m sure Mr Jenkins can wait while I claim me coachman’s fees.’ Peter leaned in and kissed her and Eve pulled away.

  ‘Please, Peter, I’m not willing to…’ He kissed her again and she tried to twist away but he held her fast this time.

  ‘You’re a beautiful woman, Lady Eve,’ he muttered against her ear as his hand felt its way along her rib cage. ‘We’ll do well together, you and me.’ He grabbed her breast and she cried out, struggling against him.

  Peter stared, angry now. ‘Not good enough for you, am I?’ Then he slapped her across the face, telling her to shut her mouth before tearing her dress open, the rending splitting the damp air.

  Eve was terrified but she was also angry, and heartily sick of men taking what they wanted, whether by persuasion or force. Well, she wasn’t completely defenceless. And she did have weapons of her own.

  ‘Help!’ she yelled as loudly as she could, pushing at him, scratching and clawing, and causing the dray horse to shift and snort nervously.

  ‘I told you to shut it,’ Peter said angrily, locking his hand over her mouth and looking around, but it was too late. A policeman’s whistle sounded and approaching footsteps could be heard across the boards.

  ‘Who is it? Who’s there?’ called a voice and lanterns glowed in the fog.

  ‘Shite,’ Peter swore, pulling away and jumping to the ground to crouch and look out. ‘Don’t say nuthin’,’ he warned but Eve took her chances.

  ‘Over here!’ she called as loudly as she could.

  Peter swore again, adding, ‘Stupid bitch,’ before taking off at a run. The lanterns moved closer and something clicked in Eve’s brain. Lanterns. Signals. Dock deals late on a Saturday night. She looked around at the bounty of first-rate fruit and climbed down from the dray herself. This wasn’t a place to be found by the authorities.

  Eve crept away, cursing her own naivety, sticking to the sides of the sheds and straining to see anything in the misted, shrouded night. The docks had seemed a cold, dank sort of place before but, with dangers now lurking in that disorientating fog, they had transformed to an eerie hunting ground. Eve’s heart hammered as she took to the shadows, the prey once more, begging God with both heart and mind to spare her stained soul. She’d been cast from the garden, she’d lost it all, let her at least have that precious freedom now. Her chance. I’ve learnt my lessons now, Lord. I swear it.

  Crack. The sound of the pistol tore the night and Eve’s heart fairly slammed in its cage as she took off, not knowing where the shot came from or where she ran to. It was simply instinct and adrenaline that made her move, the desperate will to survive. To outwit, outmanoeuvre, outrun.

  Crack. It came again; her leg hit metal and she fell, and her head landed hard against the damp, rough boards. Then grey turned to black as something rolled from her pocket to rest at her cheek.

  It was a perfect apple, red and waxy, marred by one single hunger-fuelled bite.

  Fifteen

  Liverpool, November 1851

  She was trying to walk but it was merely a shuffle, her muscles wasted after weeks in a solitary cell. No-one had bothered giving her a clean dress nor did she have any way of mending the one she had worn that night at the docks and it remained ripped and bloodstained. Eve had tied her shawl around it to hide what she could and scrubbed at her face. She even used some of her precious water ration to ease some of the grease from her hair and comb it out with her fingers before tying it back, but all of these ablutions couldn’t hide the dirt, the stains, the stench of prison that clung to her now.

  Mrs Matthews was there, as she’d promised she’d be, but there was no-one else here for her. Eve had long given up any hope that Robert would come to her defence, his loyalty to his family and position an obvious choice in the end. The only other person who would care was Mr Jenkins but of course he wouldn’t know she was here and Eve didn’t want him to. Better he remember her as Emma-Kate’s fortunate daughter living a life of respectable servitude. It seemed like a dream to Eve now; a lifetime ago.

  ‘Miss Eve Richards,’ intoned the judge.

  She stepped forward and they removed her chains and she rubbed at the chafing on her wrists absently. Her fate would be announced now but she had little hope it would be a kind outcome. It seemed her destiny would be one of full repentance. A complete casting out. Eve felt that old cloak of non-reality descend; the one that protected her from feeling anything at the most dreaded of life’s moments.

  ‘…transporting stolen goods including two bushels of apples, one sack of American tobacco…’

  Eve wondered if Peter had ever intended to take her to Mr Jenkins, if indeed there even was a pub down at the docks.

  ‘…previous employer had fired you from service for acts of depravity and seduction…’

  Perhaps he’d made that up too, taking advantage of her naivety and emotional state that night; her weak, exhausted mind.

  ‘…acts of thievery including several books, a decorative cake tin…’

  ‘No,’ called out Mrs Matthews on a sob, shaking her head.

  ‘Silence in the court,’ called the bailiff and the judge paused to look up at the housekeeper then at Eve.

  ‘Do you contest this accusation?’

  There was little point trying to convince him the contraband wasn’t hers seeing as she’d been caught red-handed with the stolen apple. No-one in authority had believed her so far and she knew none ever would. Facts were all that mattered in the courts, places where so many lied. Still, this one fact could be disproven – Mrs Matthews could vouch for that much.

  ‘They were my things…in the travel bags in the cart,’ Eve told him.

  ‘’Tis true, Your Honour. I gave her the tin meself,’ Mrs Matthews dared to add.

  The judge shook his head. ‘It is of little matter at this point, I’m afraid.’ He cleared his throat and Eve awaited his next words. What price would the Crown exact for the sum of her sins?

  ‘Miss Eve Richards. you are hereby found guilty of being an accessory to grand theft and sentenced to transportation to the colony of Australia –’ he shifted his parchment to raise his eyes towards her ‘– for the term of your natural life.’

  Eve blinked, tears blurring her vision as Mrs Matthews collapsed and begged him for mercy; meanwhile the guard took Eve’s wrists and reattached her chains. Then they took her away to live the most feared fate in Liverpool, to be taken up the Mersey to be a suffering soul awaiting deportation in a hulk on the Thames. To ‘go for row’, as her mother would say, always with a shudder.

  Eve had earned God’s wrath and she couldn’t fully blame the serpents, those hungry hunters of the prey. For her sins were real too; a weak body, a weak mind. Perhaps she’d even taught others how to treat her with certain things she’d said, and done.

  However unjust, however cruel, atonement must be paid now, and the cost was that once-overlooked freedom. She would mourn it for the term of her natural life.

  It was simply the price of the apple.

&
nbsp; Fever

  Sixteen

  Sydney, Australia, January 1852

  The afternoon sun was brilliant as it danced across the cerulean blue of Sydney Harbour and Kieran paused in his hammering to squint up at it, wondering how much hotter this summer could possibly become. Dave Tumulty, his new friend and co-worker, said it got so scorching in Sydney in February you could cook an egg on a spade. Kieran was starting to think that might actually be true. The bushland along the foreshores and headlands well looked as if it had withstood millions of years of such treatment, seeming bleached of colour to an Irishman’s eye. There were no emerald fields and dark green woodlands here, even the soil was more sand than earth, proving difficult for the settlers to farm.

  Kieran pulled his cap lower to avoid the sun’s glare but didn’t bother unrolling his sleeves to protect his burning arms. Truth be told, he loved the feeling. In fact, he doubted he would ever tire of the heat that permeated every corner of this new land after so many years in the cold. His friend Dave didn’t seem to mind it either, singing merrily as he worked and punctuating the sea shanty with each hammer of a nail.

  And it’s all for me grog, me jolly, jolly grog

  All for my beer and tobacco

  Well, I spent all my tin

  On the lassies drinking gin

  Far across the Western Ocean I must wander

  Kieran chuckled and hammered in time himself, acknowledging that Dave made building at shipping yards far more enjoyable than it should be. Indeed, he made any job they took on a bit of a lark. Hailing from Limerick, Dave had arrived eighteen months earlier and had quickly made Sydney his own, turning his hand to just about anything and learning what made the place tick as he went. Consequently, he now knew everything there was to know about trade ships, imports and, more importantly, the black market. He also knew more people than Kieran could possibly count, especially those in the notorious Rocks area nearby.

  After three months in his company Kieran knew he really should get a move on and follow Liam, Eileen and the family out across the Blue Mountains to Orange where they were already setting up the new farm. As it was, he’d already stayed far longer past his period of recuperation here than he’d intended but that old ‘should’ issue seemed to have crossed the seas with him from Ireland. And there were strong incentives to stay put.

  For a start, the money and the associated perks of working alongside Dave were proving too lucrative to pass up. Kieran had a fair amount of coin stashed away, not to mention some furnishings that he knew would appease his worried sister when he finally showed.

  Well, perhaps a little bit, anyway.

  Eileen’s last letter had been tersely worded and she’d obviously had some help from Liam, the wordsmith, when she’d informed Kieran that she was ‘heartily sick of false promises of impending arrival’ and tempted to come to Sydney to drag his ‘unrepentant, ungrateful self west’ if he didn’t turn up soon.

  It wasn’t that he didn’t look forward to seeing their land at last and carving out a new life with his family, he was just enjoying himself a bit too much right now. This time spent in Sydney was taking some of the sting out of having Maeve torn away and the horrific beating he’d suffered back in Kilrush. It was also helping him to come to terms with the subsequent struggle for life he’d endured as the family crossed the Atlantic. If not for Eileen’s ministrations he’d certainly have died on the voyage, yet the pull of that guilt wasn’t quite strong enough to drag him away from Sydney.

  And there was another compelling incentive to stay, for it wasn’t just the financial benefits that attracted Kieran to the underhanded dealings he took part in with Dave, it was the knowledge that he took it straight from the hands of those who least deserved more wealth. People who had never had a moment of deprivation in their aristocratic lives, along with their corrupt associates in the military. Lord Whitely’s face came to mind then and Kieran paused to clench and unclench his right fist that still ached from the bones that had been broken that cold morning in Kilrush. Yes, the desire for vengeance against oppression burnt deeply in Kieran now and he would exact it whenever he could, from every man who treated other, less fortunate people with contempt.

  You didn’t have to look too far here for the chance to do so. There were many injustices here in Australia; they’d been transported as surely as the convict men and women who’d been forced aboard the tall ships and made their passage. But there was also something new drumming through the heart of this colony, something fresh and untamed. If he had to put a word to it he supposed he’d call it ‘opportunity’, yet it was more than that. Whatever it was, it felt like a living thing and it coursed through his veins and fed that vengeance along with his ambition, filling him with a new type of excitement, one he’d never before experienced.

  He was playing games again, essentially, and, couple that with the drinking and gambling Dave kept exposing him to, it was little wonder Kieran chose to recover here in Sydney a bit longer. The place was addictive.

  ‘Quitting time!’ Dave announced suddenly, tossing his hammer and rubbing his face and hands on a cloth rag.

  ‘Y’sure about that?’ Kieran queried, looking at the half- finished job with uncertainty.

  ‘Aye, ’tis thirsty work, Kier, and I’ve a hankerin’ for some sweeter company than your ugly self.’ Dave began to whistle the sea shanty now, putting on his favourite green waistcoat and combing down his hair, and Kieran joined him as they made their way to The Fortune of War, a favourite pub. Kieran wished he had time to wash up and rid himself of the sweat of the day but he was too keen for an ale to do so. Besides, no-one else seemed particularly bothered about hygiene in this part of town. Still, he did have his new cap, the ink barely dry where he’d written his name along the brim only this morning, and he put it on to smarten himself up a bit.

  Rows of buildings painstakingly constructed from the local sandstone cast shadows that relieved their heated skin as they passed through The Rocks but it did little to relieve the stench of humanity living in squalor. Refuse lined the steep, narrow streets and the faces that passed by were streaked with dirt, mostly workmen such as themselves and the occasional woman, some hauling children back to the crowded terraces where people here made their home.

  Troopers, the colony’s policemen, mostly court-martialled ex-soldiers, were notably absent and with good reason: this was the convict side of town. Kieran had been surprised to learn on arrival that many of the convicts hadn’t ended up in gaols when they docked in Sydney. They lived here, mostly, conducting normal lives, marrying and having families if lucky enough; some even ran businesses, although most had to work for the government a portion of the time as part of their debt to society. Poverty was rife as a result; resentment ran high, despite some of the freedoms granted, and a knife could easily be pulled from a pocket and plunged into the hated troopers. In fact, there were streets that were considered so dangerous no-one dared enter them, save the gangs who held their control.

  But despite the base undercurrents flowing through the town, Kieran loved it here. Sydney seemed made for a man who was starting life over, from its cream-coloured buildings to its busy wooden docks, and it drummed with constant action, especially at its centre, where drunken sing-a-longs, betting rings and pub brawls were commonplace. The natural harbour saw plenty of action too, with constant shipments moving through the Heads from all over the world every week. They delivered plenty of colourful characters to match, and it seemed to Kieran that every nation on earth had representation on these shores.

  The immigrants should have been left to make their own fates, but of course the troopers had other ideas, as did the gentry. Class distinction had been transported too and the aristocracy resided separately in stately buildings among exclusive gardened pockets to the east, along with military and government officials. It seemed the Crown’s long reach was strong, even in this remote corner of the chessboard, but somehow that didn’t make Kieran like Sydney any less. If anything, it made
him more protective of his new countrymen living on this side of town, firing a nationalism that surprised him in so short a time.

  ‘Did you see your girl in that green dress last night?’ Dave said, jumping aside as a woman led a donkey through. ‘Had her eyes falling out of her head for gawking at you, although lord knows

  ‘She’s not my girl,’ Kieran said firmly, trying not to think of Maeve. He doubted he’d ever have a sweetheart again, not now that he knew just how brutally something that precious could be ripped away.

  ‘She wants to be, I’m betting. I might even get some punts goin’ on you doing the deed tonight.’

  ‘I can’t stop you if you’re that keen to lose your money,’ Kieran told him, moving out of the way of a man awkwardly trying to push a covered barrow over the uneven stones, his expression determined. Kieran wondered what lay beneath the hessian, knowing it could be anything around here.

  The sunlight was burnishing the sandstone now as they walked into the cooler interior of the pub, still blinking from the glare. It was busy already, then again it was Friday, and the refreshing ale was downed quickly as they quenched their thirst. Dave soon took court and Kieran had to laugh at the way he entertained the crowd, sharing tall tales of his past adventures and telling some rather ribald jokes. By the time it was near dark he was reciting limericks from his hometown and Kieran was well on his way to feeling good and drunk.

  There was a young man from Brighton

  Who thought he’d at last found a tight ’un.

  He said, ‘Oh my love,

  It fits like a glove.’

  Said she, ‘But you’re not in the right ’un.’

  The pub erupted with laughter and Kieran shook his head at his friend, who took a bow before landing on a chair alongside.

  ‘You’re a sick man, y’know that, don’t you?’