A Tattooed Heart

by Deborah Challinor

  Please look after Sophie and Anna for me, but let Robbie think he is.

  All my love always,

  Harrie

  She said goodbye to the children, and Daisy and Elsa, and asked Isaac to drive the carriage to the corner of Hunter and George streets to wait for Sarah, who came trotting down the road, bag over her shoulder, at ten minutes past eleven.

  ‘Poor Adam,’ she said as she climbed into the carriage. ‘I feel such a shite. I told him I was going to the bog. He’ll think I’ve fallen down it.’

  ‘Did you leave him a note?’

  ‘Of course I did.’

  Suddenly alarmed, Harrie said, ‘You didn’t say what wharf we’re leaving from, did you? He might follow you.’

  ‘Do I look stupid?’

  ‘You never look stupid.’

  ‘God, I hope I don’t get seasick,’ Sarah said. ‘Friday will.’

  Harrie bit her lip. ‘I’m not looking forward to the ship either.’

  ‘But you don’t get ill at sea.’

  ‘No, it’s not that.’ Harrie felt a flush creeping up her neck and across her face. ‘It’s, um . . .’

  Sarah twigged. ‘Oh. Is it Mick Doyle?’

  Relieved that Sarah had guessed, Harrie nodded. ‘What will I say to him?’

  ‘Nothing. Mrs Hislop said he won’t be aboard. Remember?’

  ‘Yes, but what if he is?’

  ‘He won’t be.’

  ‘But what if the captain changes his mind and he is, and he says something to me?’

  Sarah’s normally slightly sharp features softened, and she took Harrie’s hand. ‘Love, I hate to say this, but if he is, he might not even remember you. Have you thought of that?’

  On the one hand the notion that she’d spent more than a year trying to forget the events and repercussions of a single disastrous night, while the boy himself had probably forgotten her immediately, was profoundly embarrassing, but on the other, it was a mercy. If he didn’t remember her, she could go about her business without fretting over what he might be thinking about their shameful time together. The alternative was unbearable: the thought of him leering at her, reliving every humiliating and possibly even disgusting moment, was horrible. But if he couldn’t recall her . . . Instantly, she felt a dash of the tension that had been building inside her over the last few days ease away.

  ‘No, I hadn’t, actually,’ she said, and burst into tears.

  ‘Oh, for God’s sake, Harrie, he isn’t worth crying about! Not after all this time!’

  Harrie waved a hand, trying to gain some control so she could speak. Finally she said, ‘It’s not him.’ And it wasn’t, really. ‘I don’t care about him. It’s Charlotte.’ And off she went again.

  Sarah pulled her into a hug. Harrie sank against her, relishing the comfort of her slender little frame and the familiar smell of her perfume — which, she suddenly realised, was the same one that Adam wore: sandalwood and lime. They were turning into each other, Sarah and Adam.

  ‘Why can’t I be calm, like you?’ she asked.

  ‘Because it’s not my child Leary’s stolen,’ Sarah said, giving her a handkerchief. ‘Well, not as much as she is yours. And anyway, I’ve always been more hard-hearted than you.’

  Harrie blew her nose loudly. ‘You’re not hard-hearted. I keep wondering whether he’s feeding her properly. And what about her drawers? She’s probably wetting her pants. And she’ll be terrified and crying all the time and won’t be getting any cuddles. He won’t be cuddling her. At least I hope not.’ She shuddered. ‘I couldn’t bear that.’

  Sarah gave her a squeeze. ‘Try not to worry. Silly thing to say, I know, but try. We’ll be there by eight or nine o’clock tonight and we can start looking straight away.’

  ‘But how big’s Newcastle? We could be looking for days. And what if we’re wrong? What if he’s taken her somewhere else altogether?’

  ‘We’re not wrong.’

  ‘I saw that. You crossed your fingers.’

  ‘I did not. And Leo said Newcastle’s not big at all. Hardly anyone lives there.’

  ‘Did you tell him we’re going after Charlotte? Sarah!’

  ‘No, I didn’t, though I did say I thought we should, just after she was taken. He tried to talk me out of it, so I let him think he had. He didn’t want us to, because he didn’t think you could manage. He was worried for you.’

  ‘I’m not made of glass, you know.’

  ‘Not now you’re not, though you were last year. I think now you’re made of steel.’

  Harrie said, ‘I am when it comes to Charlotte.’

  The Katipo was a three-masted fore-and-aft schooner, one hundred and thirty feet in length and currently sitting reasonably high in the water as she wasn’t carrying cargo. Her sleek wooden hull was painted black with a blood-red stripe running just below the bulwark; her jib-boom was long and lethal-looking, pointing out into the cove like a stiletto. The schooner’s figurehead, tucked beneath the base of her bowsprit, was the head and torso of a woman with bright yellow hair and a well-developed chest.

  ‘Big tits,’ Friday remarked. Even bigger than hers.

  ‘They’re all like that,’ Sarah said.

  Aria said, ‘No, they are not. I have seen plenty with men on the front, and once a horse with a long horn. But the best are the women with the fish tails.’

  ‘Where would you get to see lots of ships?’ Sarah asked.

  ‘Kororareka. All the whalers.’

  They were standing on King’s Wharf, watching Captain Farrell’s crew prepare the schooner. The tide was on the turn and there was a fair off-shore wind — according to the captain — so the Katipo would be warped out a short distance until the breeze filled her sails, and they’d be off.

  Whatever happened, Friday wished the crew would hurry up. She was worried that someone would appear and stop them. James, Adam, Leo; it would only take one to come along and ruin it all, though she supposed that if worse came to worst she could just shove whoever it was off the wharf into the water and they could all jump on the ship and sail away. She kept looking over her shoulder back towards George Street, but so far they were getting away with it.

  The crew kept staring, though, and every time they did the captain shouted at them. Hadn’t they seen women before? Mind you, she kept gawking at them. What a bloody strange-looking lot. She’d seen some exotic tars in her time, but Captain Farrell seemed to have sailed round the world collecting the most extraordinary sailors he could find.

  Finally, the sails had been unfurled and hoisted, and the ship’s little rowboat launched carrying the anchor. The captain beckoned them aboard. One by one they trooped up the gangway.

  ‘Welcome aboard the Katipo,’ Captain Farrell said, though his expression wasn’t particularly friendly.

  Still the crew stared. A little man trotted across the deck and saluted them.

  ‘Bonjour, mademoiselles,’ he said, smiling hugely and revealing several gold teeth. ‘Welcome to this most beautiful schooner on the oceans. I am Pierre and I am le chef.’

  Friday couldn’t take her eyes off him. She and Aria towered over him — he wasn’t much over five feet and as skinny as one of Sarah’s skeleton keys, but wiry and sinewy. Faintly brown-skinned, he wore a sharply pointed little beard, severely waxed moustache and a long black plait down his back, and had kind, merry brown eyes. Also, he reeked of lavender.

  ‘And Mademoiselle Harrie, it is such pleasure to see you again!’ Pierre grasped Harrie’s hand and kissed it with a flourish. ‘Welcome, welcome.’

  ‘Do you remember me?’ she asked, looking shaken.

  ‘Never would Pierre Babineaux forget a lady with such charm, chérie. We will find your daughter, no?’

  ‘That’s what we’re here for,’ Friday said, answering for Harrie. Then, to save beating about the bush, she blurted, ‘Is Mick Doyle here?’

  Captain Farrell said, ‘No. I did advise Mrs Hislop that he wouldn’t be sailing with us. Did she not tell you?’
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br />   ‘The captain, he agrees Mick is the arsehole,’ Pierre chattered on, ‘so he has been stood down to spare the hurts of the mademoiselle.’

  ‘She did say,’ Friday said. ‘Just making sure.’

  ‘Told you it’d be all right.’ Sarah gave a relieved-looking Harrie a gentle prod with her elbow.

  Aria said to Pierre, ‘You look like a monkey.’

  The crew laughed, evidently highly entertained. The ship gave a lurch and the girls all staggered.

  Squinting up at her, his hand raised against the midday sun, Pierre replied, ‘And you, mademoiselle, Pierre is believing would make even Marie Laveau reach for her most potent gris-gris.’

  The crew laughed even harder.

  Scowling, Aria asked Friday, ‘Who is this Marie Laveau?’

  ‘Dunno.’

  ‘I do not think I like you, little man,’ Aria said.

  The ship lurched again. The captain ordered, ‘Hawk, take the women below. Gideon and Te Kanene, you man the capstan; Pierre, you see to the rigging. Sharkey’ll join you when we pick up the anchor.’

  The men scattered.

  As they followed Hawk across the deck, Friday noted that it was very tidy, the planks beautifully oiled, the brass gleaming and all the ropes coiled and tucked out of the way. She didn’t know much about ships (only the men who sailed them), but the captain clearly cared about his schooner. There was a small rowboat suspended to one side of the quarterdeck, swaying gently, and a pulley arrangement opposite where the other one obviously hung when not in use. Three hatches, currently closed, broke the smoothness of the deck and a low door sat open beneath the poop deck. Hawk ducked his head and disappeared through it.

  ‘Remind you of anything?’ Sarah said glumly as she stooped to follow him.

  It did: endless, very unpleasant days and nights at sea on the Isla when they were transported from England — Christ, how many years back? Three? Three and a half?

  Below, in the cabin, the light was dim and she could smell salt, damp wood and the smoky reek of burnt whale oil. They were in a space that looked like a communal mess room, almost completely filled by a table flanked by benches. Directly above that was a latticed skylight. On each side of the room opened two doorways covered by rough curtains, and at the end opposite the entrance a doorway led to a tiny galley, next to another room with a proper door on it, which was shut. Probably the captain’s cabin, Friday thought.

  God, it really did stink down here. She felt sick already.

  Hawk indicated two of the curtained areas. ‘You four will share these two berths. We should arrive at Newcastle at around eight tonight, but we may have to stand off before we enter the harbour mouth, depending on the tide. Captain Farrell thought you might prefer privacy during the voyage. There will not be much room, but . . .’ He shrugged.

  Friday had a good stare at him. He was a handsome man, if you liked that sort of thing. His skin was a copper-brown colour, and he had high cheekbones, dark eyes and quite a bit of a nose on him. Like that cheeky Frog, Pierre, his black hair was braided, though his plaits hung down his chest, which you could see a lot of. What a fop. Could you be a fop if you weren’t English? He wore strange clothes, too: loose trousers and a shirt made from some sort of soft fabric with no buttons, and a heavy belt of silver and turquoise with a knife jammed in it.

  ‘Is there something you want?’ he asked her coolly.

  ‘No.’

  ‘The captain has asked that you all remain below deck while the ship gets under way. You will only be a nuisance if you come up. Pierre will prepare tea and food for you shortly.’

  ‘Where’s the privy?’ Sarah asked.

  ‘The head is at the bow.’

  Friday said, ‘I didn’t see one.’

  Hawk nearly smiled. ‘It is not like a privy you would find ashore.’

  ‘Well, come on, show us.’ The shame of it if they accidentally peed in a bucket or something, thinking it was the shitter.

  Hawk sighed, but beckoned patiently and they filed back up the steep steps and along the deck. And there it was, a tiny cubicle formed by a partition open to the elements at the very point of the bow, just above the figurehead. Hawk opened the door, revealing a plank with a hole in it. Friday peered down, noting gentle bow waves rolling past below. How high could fish jump? she wondered. She didn’t fancy getting her arse bitten off by a shark halfway up the east coast of New South Wales. Feeling dizzy, she retreated and shared a dismayed glance with Aria, who shrugged.

  ‘At least there is a wall,’ she said. ‘On the whaler on which I came to Sydney there was no wall, just the plank.’

  Overhead the sails billowed and cracked as the wind blowing off shore caught them. Ahead, the figure in the little rowboat struggled to haul up the Katipo’s anchor, then turned and rowed back towards the ship. Finally, it seemed, they were under way.

  Hawk said, ‘Please go below again and stay there. We are busy.’

  ‘All right, no need to go on about it,’ Friday grumbled as she stomped off towards the cabin. Bossy bugger. She hated being at sea; it terrified the shit out of her.

  Below deck, sitting around the table, Sarah said, ‘Now what? What are we going to do down here for eight hours?’

  ‘Sleep?’ Friday suggested.

  ‘I can’t sleep,’ Harrie said. ‘I’m too worried.’

  The sunlight from the open cabin door was momentarily blotted out as Pierre bounded down the steps. ‘Mademoiselles! I will make for you the scones and tea? You are preferring the cheese or the sultana?’

  ‘I hate cheese in my tea,’ Sarah said.

  Pierre beamed. ‘Ooh, you are the witty one! Does Mademoiselle Harrie wish to choose?’

  ‘Me?’ Harrie looked startled. ‘Oh. Um, sultana?’

  ‘Sultana! Oui!’ Pierre declared, as though Harrie had just solved the riddle of life. ‘She is the excellent choice! The captain, he likes the sultana.’

  ‘For fuck’s sake,’ Friday muttered. The captain, the captain, the bloody captain. What was so special about Rian bloody Farrell? Sour-faced bastard.

  ‘Can I help you in the kitchen, Pierre?’ Harrie offered.

  ‘She is called the galley, mademoiselle, and non, she is too small. One of us will end up with a burnt part.’ Pierre mimed receiving a painful burn on his backside, then bowed ridiculously low. ‘But merci beaucoup. The offer she is appreciated.’ Then he hurried off into the galley, humming away, and proceeded to make a lot of noise involving bowls and other cooking implements.

  ‘That man is a buffoon,’ Aria said.

  Harrie said, ‘I quite like him.’

  ‘Only because he likes you,’ Sarah remarked.

  ‘I reckon he fancies you,’ Friday said.

  ‘Oh, he does not!’ Harrie went red. ‘Why do you have to make everything . . . lecherous?’

  ‘I’m not. Anyway, fancying someone isn’t lecherous. It’s normal.’

  Aria said, ‘Not when you are my lover, it is not. Why would you lust after anyone else but me?’

  Friday reached out and patted her hand. ‘Well, I wouldn’t,’ she said without a trace of guile. ‘No one else could ever compare with you.’

  ‘I should think not.’

  ‘He’s just being kind,’ Harrie said. ‘Maybe he’s trying to make up for, you know, what Mick did. God, I’m so glad he’s not here.’

  Friday agreed. ‘That would have been awkward. Lucky Farrell booted him off the ship. Good on him.’ Whoops, she’d just said something nice about the captain.

  She sat for a moment, gazing at the well-scrubbed table top. Why was she being so nasty about him? She didn’t even know the cove. It was just the way his crew ran around bowing and scraping as if he were King William; it annoyed the shite out of her. But, actually, that wasn’t quite right — they didn’t bow and scrape, did they? They listened to him, they did what he asked of them, they even laughed with him, but he still seemed to command their respect, and obviously their loyalty. Once upon a time she’d comm
anded the respect of Harrie, Rachel and even Sarah, and she couldn’t have asked for more loyal friends. But now, even Harrie quite regularly told her to shut up, and neither she nor Sarah trusted her an inch. Even Aria didn’t trust her, she was sure of it. And she didn’t blame them: she’d let them all down that often, one way or another.

  A crash came from the galley, followed by what sounded like loud swearing in French.

  ‘Do you think he’s all right?’ Harrie asked.

  ‘Christ, who cares?’ Friday plonked her elbows on the table. Surely it must be just about time for her to sneak off and open a bottle of her ‘lemonade’?

  Sarah stabbed a finger at her. ‘Look, if you’re going to grumble and bitch all the way to Newcastle, it’s going to be a bloody long eight hours. This is for Charlotte, not you. If you didn’t want to come, you should have stayed at home.’

  ‘I’m not grumbling and bitching!’

  ‘You are, you bloody old curmudgeon.’

  Friday stared at her, horrified. ‘Me? A curmudgeon?’ How could anyone accuse her of that? She was always laughing and taking the piss and making jokes. She always looked on the bright side. Didn’t she?

  ‘Yes, you.’

  ‘I’m not grumbling. I just don’t like being on the water. You know that.’

  ‘It’s only for eight hours,’ Harrie said soothingly. ‘That’s not even long enough to get sick.’

  Then why do I feel so queasy? Friday thought. Probably because I haven’t had a drink since ten o’clock. And why’s everyone being so mean to me? A pewter cruet set on a wooden tray in the middle of the table began to slide slowly to the right, then stopped and slid back the other way, accompanied by ominous creaks and grunts from the Katipo’s timbers. Shit.

  ‘Are we tipping over?’ she blurted.

  ‘No, probably just getting out into the swell,’ Sarah said. ‘The Heads?’

  ‘What heads?’ Friday felt panic rise up in her like the tide they’d waited for all morning.

  ‘North Head and South Head. We have to go out between them to leave the harbour and go up the coast.’

  Her fear ratcheting up a notch, Friday looked around wildly, trying to orient herself. No windows. Bloody typical.