by Judy Johnson
I wish I’d been the one to shoot it.
Ten minutes later, I’m on my break. I dry my palms on the front of my long skirt as Charley makes the introductions.
‘Captain Watson, please be acquainted with Miss Mary Oxnam. She plays piano, sometimes passablement, here in my salon.’
Watson responds with an awkward greeting. He’s a Scot. There’s no mistaking the snare-drum vowels vibrating off his tongue. My father hates all Scots. Even more so if they’re Catholic. I find myself wishing that Bob Watson is a Pope-lover, just on general principles.
The kerosene lamps on the wall toss a small star into each of Watson’s eyes, and, at the same time, turn his face cadaverous. He steps forward into the more flattering aura of a dozen smoky cigar-ends. I notice his receding hairline: the tide pulled back on his skull, exposing the pebbles-and-shell mulch of discoloured skin. A few sandy hairs cling bravely to the shoreline.
‘Captain Watson,’ I say.
He reaches out a hand riddled with jaundice-yellow corrugations. His fingers are sharp with calluses of horny skin from salt water and weather. There’s a sudden fluttering fume of feathers in my nostrils. Cold, wet paddles on the back of my neck. A goose walking over my grave.
He asks, do I feel chill?
I shake my head. I don’t know why I’m reacting this way. My intuition doesn’t usually let me down. Why is it warning me off?
It could be just that he appears slightly sinister. There’s something persistently askew about his face, even when the light plays fair with the shadows. A rough scar runs from his right cheekbone to his lip. Skin puckers at its top edge, as if, having braced itself for the initial blow of knife or axe, it never relaxed again. It makes the eye above it appear intent, like an eagle’s. The left eye, held in a loose pouch of skin, seems less aware and more approachable.
I look into his left eye and smile.
Charley slips discreetly away.
Watson’s fingers move like caterpillar legs around the brim of his hat. ‘I’m going back to the Lizard in a week. Could I see ye again beforehand? Have a drink, or take a stroll?’
An inelegant man. Absurdly direct, obviously unskilled in social niceties. Reticent, I’d guess, to a fault, and beyond. But an industrious hitch tightens under my ribs. Like the future picking up the stitch of the present. I don’t know what to make of it, but at least the goose is gone.
‘I can see no harm in it,’ I tell the ravaged side of his face. I explain that I have half an hour’s break now. We can go for a short walk down by the river if he likes. Although the mosquitos are voracious. And I’ve heard there’s been trouble with the Myalls. I ask him if he thinks they’ll come into town, then look briefly beyond the open door, where night’s fallen like tar.
‘Aye. Maybe under the cover of darkness.’ He wonders, with a raised eyebrow, if I have some lavender oil.
‘Is that the frontier’s new defence against the natives? I’d better tell Inspector Fitzgerald. He’s still using rifles.’
His laugh has something gritty in it.
I fetch the small bottle from under the bar. We rub oil into our arms, our throats and faces. I accidentally smear a little into my eye — a sensation as though it’s been doused in carbolic acid. I blink and blink until the sting is washed away. The other eye waters in sympathy.
‘Just the oil,’ I sniff, and pull my handkerchief from my sleeve.
We wend our way outside. The lamplighter, Albert Ross, is almost to the far end of Charlotte Street. Where we’re standing is already aflame. A whiff of gas. The spit and fizzle of small insects drawn in. Beyond Dooley’s Sailmakers, the night is a solid wall of darkness: like the hood of a camera. Easy to conjure a set of all-seeing eyes inside it.
‘The blacks won’t come into the lit street,’ Watson tells me, as if I’ve spoken.
‘Have you had trouble with the Myalls too, Captain Watson? On your Lizard Island?’
‘Call me Bob, lass. I’ll feel like yer father otherwise. As I should, no doubt — I daresay I’m almost the same age.’
He waits for a compliment, but I don’t supply it.
‘No real trouble,’ he goes on, talking about the blacks. ‘Just aggravation. I don’t know that they’re Myalls. Could be any local tribe, really. They land on the far side of the island, light their fires and howl round them at night. Why the Lizard, I don’t know — the only pickings are leathery goannas they could get anywhere on the mainland.’
A lightning leash flashes above us. A minute later, the thunder-dog on the end of it growls.
‘Perhaps they’re after the iron around your slug station,’ I say. ‘Don’t they make their spears with it?’
‘Aye. The tips, at least. They’ve not figured out how to heat and forge it, but they’re canny wee buggers, banging and grinding away on wet sandstone till they get a passable shape.’
We’re almost to Chinatown. The sultry breeze reeks of gunpowder, soy sauce, ginger and, faintly, the thick syrup of opium. A firecracker puts in its tuppence-worth down near the waterfront. A yelp of surprise, then the splash of waves.
The approaching storm ups the ante. A brilliant zigzag. Then a stack of wood falls on the floor of the sky. Like most loners, Bob doesn’t know how to start a conversation. Or how to sustain one — once he’s started talking, he can’t stop. He regales me for nearly the length of Charlotte Street with tales of woe and worry from Lizard Island: gory accidents to his crew, encounters with pirates, the rough justice he’s dealt out to would-be swindlers, troubles with the blacks. He rabbits on as if I’m not really there. Only a sudden burst of fat, lukewarm raindrops saves me.
‘We’d better go,’ he says at last. ‘Before the downpour.’
We turn back for French Charley’s. Fortunately, the rain holds off, though thunder continues to grumble overhead and occasional flashes set the busy street in stark relief. Aside from reinforcing my poor opinion of the sea-slug trade, I’ve learned nothing of use and my break is almost over. At the first sign of a gap in his monologue, I interrupt.
‘It just sounds so worrying for you, Bob. But you’re not alone on the island, are you? You have back-up against the natives? You have a partner, surely?’ My voice sounds suitably breathless.
‘Oh aye, Fuller. Percy Fuller,’ he says in a flat tone.
‘Does Mr Fuller go out fishing with you every time?’
I hope I’ve struck the right tone: I’m so interested in you. I want to know every trivial detail.
‘No. He owns his own lugger, Petrel, and keeps his own crew. Kanakas and tame black boys. My lugger’s Isabella. Another fisherman, Porter Green, is on contract and works on Isabella with me. Fuller and I split the catch, but I’m thinking of changing that, seeing as he spends so much time gallavanting around instead of fishing.’
‘Oh, dear.’
I leave a substantial gap for further disgruntlement and he fills it.
‘Aye. I told him straight: I’ll buy ye out, but ye’ll not be my partner if ye don’t pull yer weight.’
My mind ticks over. Peculiar that Percy’s decided on slug fishing as a cover for his real business. This upcoming project of his and Roberts’s must somehow be accommodated by the trade. Or perhaps the fishing is irrelevant and it’s Lizard Island he has an interest in.
French Charley’s and my piano are only minutes away, so I decide to risk a few more questions.
‘You must get a lot of sea traffic past your island, Bob?’
‘Oh aye.’ He nods in the dark. ‘Seems there’s always a steamer or schooner passing, north and south. We have a signal hill with flags to send messages to passing ships should there be the need.’
‘Really? How very interesting.’
Something’s tingling on the tip of my perception. Something to do with Charley Boule. When nothing resolves, I have to conclude that my third eye has a cataract from all the smoke in the salon. Never mind. There’s time. I’ll figure it out.
When we reach the front verandah of the bar B
ob falls silent. I can tell he’s desperately trying to think of a way to justify a second assignation. In the pause, I hear a mechanical clicking noise coming from somewhere on his person. I mention it, and he looks slightly abashed. He pulls two battered silver balls about the size of human eyes from his right trouser pocket, rolls them around in his palm.
‘Medicinal balls. I bought them from Wang Fe down on the waterfront six months ago. Now I can’t leave them alone.’
‘What are they supposed to do?’
I’ve been inside the herbalist’s lean-to, seen the spiders in bottles, chunks of dried starfish, row on row of curiosities he grinds into powder and then expects his gullible patients to swallow. Metal balls seem fairly tame.
Bob tells me they’re to calm him when he’s nervous, amuse him when he’s bored, help him think when he can’t concentrate. His eyes dart away.
‘Which are you now? Nervous, bored or flighty?’
‘Nervous. I want ye to like me.’
I tell him baldly, ‘I’m not one of Charley’s girls. I won’t go upstairs with you for a handful of gold dust.’
‘Why would a man bother with the preliminaries if that’s all he wanted? Truth is, Mary, I’m a peaceable, solitary fellow.’
I glance at the evidence to the contrary — at least, to the ‘peaceable’ claim. The scar. The sinewy muscles just under the skin. Click, click, go the balls.
‘Aren’t you going to say it?’ I ask. ‘What’s a nice lass like you doing working in a place like French Charley’s?’
‘A man ought to mind his own business. I just have one question for ye.’
‘Yes?’
‘What’s a nice lass like ye doing in a place like French Charley’s?’
I laugh at his weak attempt at humour, and watch him relax. It isn’t pretty, his smile, but better than the alternative. The lack of symmetry in his face is exhausting if taken at a single gulp, but I gaze at it front on, albeit briefly. Lightning from behind my shoulder opens a scar across both his eyes. I think of Mary Shelley’s monster. I slap at a mosquito on my forehead. Inspect the blood smear and wings on my fingers. In the dark it’s just a smudge.
‘There’s always the odd one that develops a taste for the very thing that’s supposed to repel it, isn’t there?’ I muse.
‘Ye strike me as an odd one yerself, Mary Oxnam. Are ye attracted to things that should repel ye?’
I think of Percy. ‘Yes,’ I confess. ‘Often.’
I glance down the street briefly; see the line of bawdy houses, gambling dens and assorted pits of iniquity, known in generous circles as the vibrant heart of the far north.
‘You can stop fiddling with your medicinal balls, Bob. I do rather like you. And one day I’ll be bold enough to ask how you got that scar. But right now, there’s a storm coming and I must get back to work.’
6
Connections are shy creatures.
Sometimes they only announce themselves
in the middle of the night.
From the secret diary of Mary Watson
21ST NOVEMBER 1879
It’s been ten days since I first met Bob. We’ve been for a few more strolls in that time, and now he’s gone, sailed back to his island. I’ve learned nothing more about Percy’s new venture. Heard little of interest between Bob’s alternate bouts of self-pity and self-aggrandisement. But last night, as I lay awake, tossing and turning in the heat, the puzzle pieces came together. Bob Watson. Charley Boule. Lizard Island. Of course! It’s time to interrogate Monsieur Boule.
French Charley’s. Ten minutes before opening time. A stale urine smell in the air mixed with hops, barrel sherry and a splash of sweet-pea water. I’m standing in the doorway and feel the slide of silks and satins as half-a-dozen girls flounce past me. I open my mouth to stop Laura; I want to ask her how she knows Bob Watson. Their shared look, just after I first saw Bob standing in the doorway at Charley’s the night we met, implies a history. But she’s gone before I manage the words. In any case, I have other, more pressing matters to attend to.
‘I need to talk to you, Charley.’
My boss is at his makeshift bar, his back to me. He’s mixing his seasonal cocktail: Yuletide Mule. Never mind that Christmas is a month off. He’ll decant it into jugs and put one in the middle of each table. With its Scrooge’s nip of brandy, slurp of industrial alcohol and tingling sprinkle of gunpowder, it has a kick that keeps on kicking. For a fee.
Heccy Landers, my not-so-secret admirer, bends his ungainly bones over three-dozen bottles standing in the stone trough, spilling more than he’s filling. This evening, it’s beer and moselle mixed together. The bottles will be recorked and passed off as champagne. Heccy must have heard about Bob and me walking out together. He looks extravagantly miserable, from his red hair down to his boots, every time he glances over his shoulder. Typically, Charley’s more concerned with the splash of profits down the drain than the slow leak in Heccy’s heart.
‘Mon Dieu. Wake up, stupid boy!’
Nicole jostles past me. Her make-up is thick enough to mortar bricks. She’s riding high on a wave of heat and resentment. Her mouth opens and the log of lipstick breaks into splinters. Here it comes: a gem from the almanac of whores’ wisdom.
‘That Watson fella, ya watch ’im. I know yer up yerself, my girl, but some men’ll pull the life outa ya regardless, like a tapeworm.’
‘You’ve missed your calling, Nicole. An image like that, you should’ve been a poet.’
‘Insultin’ me ain’t gunna help. Just this, Miss Prissy-Britches. I seen his type before. Lookin’ po-faced, like they’d rather go to church than have a poke in the bushes, then turnin’ into animals when ya get ’em alone.’
‘Well, you’d know all about animals.’ I look her up and down.
This provokes a smirk; the red smear forming an exaggerated bow as she returns the favour. Her eyes run over my cream blouse and long beige skirt, her contempt glittering. ‘Yer jealous of me face and figger. Can’t blame yer for that. But men aren’t too fussy, and I’m tellin’ ya somethin’ for nothin’. Blokes like Watson leave serious bruises.’
‘Nicole, I am jealous, dear. I’ve always wanted a career like yours. Remind me how the promotions go? First a salon. Then a pub. Then down among the Chinamen. Then the hospital. Then an unmarked grave.’
‘Stop fighting or I’ll put you both in a hessian bag and throw you in the river, like the squawling cats you are,’ Charley says, without turning.
‘I’d rather have my own bag,’ I say coolly. ‘I might catch something, otherwise.’
Nicole sticks her tongue out of the side of her mouth. She looks remarkably like a cud-chewing cow. I tell her so.
Charley intervenes again. ‘Nicole, go and open the front door. Mary, start playing the piano. It is what I pay you for.’
Nicole flounces away, buoyed by the many petticoats she’ll take off later in the night for some drunken prospector at the rate of one handful of gold dust apiece.
‘I said I want to talk to you,’ I remind Charley.
‘And I say go to work. Come to see me on your break.’
‘Louise. Out of the way!’ Charley holds both hands palm up in exasperation. Louise, the resident carpet snake, is unruffled. Leisurely she flows, like a patterned river, between his legs, then curls into a fat Cumberland sausage in her favourite spot just under the trough’s drainhole where the slow drips of alcohol ping off her skin.
‘I know why you introduced me to Bob Watson,’ I say.
This works. Heccy looks up, startled. Charley exhales noisily through his nose.
‘Come to my office.’ He takes off his apron and folds it neatly.
He closes the door behind us. There’s a rich, mahogany silence, at odds with the chaos outside. The phantoms of fine cigars and snifters of cognac have made soft, expensive connections with the rosewood table. He opens his polished case and pulls out a cigar. He takes the key from around his neck, bends over and unlocks the drawer that holds his
float of bribery money, paid to customs officers on duty when one of Charley’s special deliveries turns up on the dock. He extracts a gadget that looks like a walnut crusher. Nips the end of his cigar and reaches for his matches. He neglects to lock the drawer again, and I infer he’s distracted.
‘This could wait,’ he says.
‘I don’t think it can wait, Charley.’
The sky’s bucket upturns on the roof and I have to bide my time for a few seconds until the first deafening gush becomes an ordinary deluge.
‘I’ve heard you, when I clean up the tables at night, talking with your cronies in here. Knight, that underling of the customs sub-collector; Douglas from the telegraph office. And Müller, butcher and under-the-counter trader par excellence. It’s not the price of sausages you’re discussing.’
‘What exactly have you heard, chérie?’
‘Nothing specific.’
His eyes relax back in their hammocks of fat.
‘It’s difficult to make out every word through the symphony of moans and bedsprings coming from upstairs. Tell me, do the girls get paid more for melodrama?’
He taps his nose. ‘Every man likes to feel he is a stallion.’
‘More ass than stallion if you ask me.’
‘But no one does ask you. You are, how you say, left on the shelf?’
‘Spare me your sparrow pecks.’
‘Stop wasting my time. Say what you must.’
‘I’ve heard you speculate about the prices of gold and opium. Passing steamers. Drops in the ocean in kerosene tins in the middle of the night. Knight’s an important man to consult on matters of avoiding import and export duty, isn’t he? And what does Douglas bring to the party? Did I hear something about telegraphic codes? A Playfair cipher? I imagine you think you have it all covered: sea, air and ground?’
‘You have no shame,’ he tells me. ‘Listening at keyholes. You insult not only Charley Boule, but the protector of our lawful oceans and the guardian of our vital communication channels.’
