by Judy Johnson
‘We’ll get you settled in first. The weather’s been unpredictable, anyway. It looks fine now, but could blow up later.’ He turns away to sneeze from the cloud of dust I’ve stirred up, then leans on the doorframe.
‘I thought the dry season was when you got most of your fishing done.’
‘It is. But bad weather sometimes surprises us this time of year. May and June … fine weather can turn foul in a heartbeat. A sailor needs to be on his toes.’
‘When exactly does cyclone season start?’
He has a match propped in the side of his mouth, manoeuvring it with his teeth so that it levers up and down. ‘It’s obvious you’re not a born-and-bred Queensland girl, or you’d know. About the beginning of November, give or take. It’s all over, or should be, by the end of April.’
‘That’s a long time to be landlocked.’
‘Worried we’ll all get sick of each other, Mrs Watson?’
‘Not exactly.’
‘I guess you’re wondering how your old man is going to support you until the wet season?’
‘Not particularly. I can support myself, remember?’
But he’s determined to be provocative about my marriage of convenience. ‘You should be worried.’ He pulls his pipe out of the pocket of his dark trousers. From the other pocket, a plug of tobacco. He spits the match on the ground then parks the pipe in his mouth to get it out of the way. His next words are spoken around the stem. ‘We collect about half a ton a month of slugs when the weather’s good. Let’s see. Slugs were worth about a hundred pounds a ton last month, give or take. Of course, as Watson and I are partners, we each get half. Half of what’s left, that is, after the blacks, Kanakas and Chows have been paid. And then there’s supplies, repairs, the odd bribe …’
He’s not finished. But I’ve finished listening. I turn my back on him and drag an empty crate over to the corner, trying to imagine how to divide the large room up into smaller ones. I’ve decided what’s essential. A bedroom with a door for Bob and me. For Carrie, the curtained alcove with enough room for the cot and a washstand.
‘Sea-slug fishermen are the lowest of the low, you should know that. Bottom feeders, just like the slugs they catch. Of course, Watson is a charmer.’
I hear Bob’s swearing brogue outside the door, accompanied by a thump. Another tinkle of breakage.
Percy raises an eyebrow and lifts a hand in sarcastic farewell.
Bob lumbers in, my treadle machine in his arms. I look up warily. His face, already a patchwork of bad needlework, is sewn up even further with annoyance.
‘Next time I’ve a mind to drown a Kanaka, I’ll tether this to his ankle.’ He dumps it roughly on the floor, then pulls a dirty handkerchief from his back pocket and wipes his palms on it.
‘I’m sure you’ll think it’s useful after I’ve mended your clothes,’ I say. ‘That’s unless you’ve just broken it in your bad temper, in which case it will just be an expensive doorstop.’
He puts a hand to the small of his back and shoots me a filthy glare.
‘Have you come across that box of soap yet?’ I ask sweetly.
‘The soap, the bath. The whole kit ’n’ caboodle of the bathhouse waiting for nothing but assembly.’
‘So this is marital bliss. No wonder I’ve remained a single man.’ Now it’s Porter Green’s thin figure blocking a column-length piece of the sun.
Bob gives him a sideways glance, ignoring me. ‘Seems a husband’s nothing but a packhorse. Just as well you’ve stayed away …’
‘Mary.’ Porter dips his hat, then looks around. ‘Where’s your sister?’
‘She’s gone for a walk.’
‘Oh? Which way?’
‘Along the beach.’ I point south, to my left. ‘Why, what’s the problem?’ I turn sharply to Bob. ‘You said it would be all right.’
Bob shakes his head. ‘It is all right!’
Again the hand goes to a spot halfway up his back, as though he’s supporting a paling that’s about to come loose. He wanders out the door, mumbling curses.
‘Don’t worry about him,’ Porter says. ‘He’s always riled when his back’s bad. And he’s not used to having a woman around.’ A slight breeze clacks morse code on the shutters.
Not a white one who’s not a prostitute, at least. I bend over to try to heft the treadle machine onto the crate I’ve just dusted.
‘Here, let me do that.’
He’s stronger than he looks, his thin arms like high-tensile wire. But my heart plummets as he lifts and I hear the tinkle of something dislodged inside.
‘Forget it,’ I say. ‘It looks like I’ll be sewing by hand.’
My eyes sting with frustration as I pick up some soiled cloths and head out to the washhouse. Porter’s in the way and I tell him so, with a tight smile. His own face is full of sympathy. I can smell wine gums on his breath as I pass.
‘I’ll have a look at it,’ he says hesitantly. ‘Though we might need a new part or two when we next go to the mainland.’
‘Please don’t worry yourself. If anyone fixes it, it should be Bob.’ I look down to the cloths, filthy with the dirt of many months’ neglect. ‘It’s about time he learned to clean up his own messes.’
In the dark, mildewy lean-to, I dump the cloths in the stone trough that passes for a sink. I eye the copper in the corner over its cold hearth. It eyes me back, I swear, its big belly gloating. All of those fish-stinking clothes I’ll soon have to boil up. Hopefully, sooner or later, the nowhere-to-be-seen Ah Sam will arrive to help.
Porter’s followed me, and now is loitering outside the washhouse door.
‘I was married once,’ he says and scuffs his boot. ‘She died of childbed fever.’
‘I’m sorry to hear it. And the baby?’
‘Shortly after.’
‘And you’ve never thought of marrying again?’
‘Oh, I’ve thought of it. But it hasn’t thought of me.’ He seems to realise, then, that he’s holding me captive while I’ve still so much to do. ‘Apologies. It’s just a long time since I’ve had a woman to talk to.’
‘I hear you might build me some walls today?’
I hear banging in the distance, which I assume is Percy starting work on permanent pens for the animals.
‘Yes, of course.’ He fingers his belt with the ragged holes. ‘Mary?’
‘Yes, Porter.’
His eyes have a caution in them. ‘Tell your sister not to wander too far from the house on her own.’
I could have told him the scream wasn’t sustained enough to signal real danger. I’ve heard Carrie’s whole repertoire. There’s the whine that can escalate to a full-blown gale when she doesn’t get her way. The glass-breaking soprano of genuine fright. Then this particular high-C squeal with a yelp at the end, for surprise.
But Porter is already running towards the beach.
I follow, slowly, after untying my dirty apron, hanging it from a peg on the washhouse wall and picking up my sunhat. The peach slant of winter air shines through its wicker.
Down at the beach, there’s a large gathering: Percy, Porter, Bob, a Chinaman I haven’t met who must be Ah Sam, and two Aboriginal boys. Carrie has her nose buried in Bob’s chest. He’s patting her awkwardly on the back.
‘What’s all this nonsense?’ I ask.
She straightens up, rearranges herself.
‘She had a wee fright,’ Bob says. He has the same guilty look on his face as when I quizzed him about Will Hartley, his slug agent in Cooktown.
‘So I see.’
‘I was picking up shells when I saw this monster in the corner of my eye!’ Carrie adds.
‘Just an old goanna.’ Bob’s tone suggests he’s already told her this. ‘They won’t hurt ye if ye run away. Just don’t stand still, or they’ll run up ye as if ye were a tree.’
Carrie shivers delicately.
Percy snorts, mallet in hand, Women! written across his face. He strides back up the beach.
‘But it was hug
e!’ Carrie spreads her arms to their widest expanse. A hanky dangles from one hand like a limp flag. ‘And ugly. I can’t bear ugly things.’
I wait for her to look my way, but she doesn’t. The two Aboriginal boys are staring at her, transfixed. Despite their wide travels and bush knowledge, she’s clearly a species of shrieking creature they’ve never encountered before.
The ocean’s throwing packages of foam on shore, then pulling back, leaving ribbons of white bubbles behind. Bob looks out over the water, then adjusts his hat. His scar’s turning pink in the sun. ‘If the fuss is over, I’ve fishing nets to mend.’
‘Aren’t you going to introduce me, Bob?’ I tilt my head in the direction of the men I’ve not yet met.
‘Ah Sam,’ Bob says, ‘this is the new missy.’
Ah Sam smiles modestly, bare feet shifting in the sand.
Bob turns to me. ‘Ah Sam is all yours. Except for when there’s slugs to be boiled.’
‘Nice to meet you, Ah Sam.’
No response. Then he bends his head a little.
‘Ah Sam!’ Bob tries to coax him into speech.
‘It’s all right, Bob. He’s just shy.’
The smile is grateful this time. He’s older than Ah Leung by five or ten years, which might make him forty-five or fifty. But he looks strong, which is the main consideration as far as I’m concerned. He mumbles something I can’t decipher, then steps backwards for five paces before swivelling on his heel and heading in the direction of the pandanus swamp.
I turn to one of the Aboriginal boys. He wears only a small loincloth around his hips, and he’s so thin that his ribs stand out beneath the ritual scarring. Bob’s already told me that his boys were recruited from Cape Direction, far to the north-northwest of the Lizard. That they have no connection with the blacks that came over from the mainland in their canoes.
‘This is Darby,’ Bob says.
The boy’s head drops. He inspects his suddenly fascinating toenails.
‘How old are you, Darby?’ I ask.
He consults Bob with a quick flick of his long lashes.
‘About sixteen, would that be right, Darby?’
Darby looks up. ‘Me seventeen, missis.’ He has a surprisingly low voice, as though a toad’s squatting at the base of his vocal cords.
‘Seventeen. My word. You’re tall for your age.’
He straightens up, pleased, showing me that he’s taller still than I imagined.
‘And this is Charley Sandwich.’ Bob waves a hand in the direction of the other boy.
‘Me eighteen,’ Charley says, a gleam of one-upmanship in his eye.
‘Why do they call you Charley Sandwich?’ Carrie’s found her voice and the colour is back in her cheeks.
‘Yer a guts, eh, Charley?’ Bob says. ‘And not just for sandwiches.’
Charley nods seriously, as if this were a condition to baffle the finest medical minds in the country. His hair clings to his head with tight, black-sheep curls.
‘Got hollow legs, eh, boss?’
By way of proof, he holds them out one at a time and shakes them. Carrie giggles.
I pretend to listen. ‘I must say, they do sound empty, Charley.’
Another considered nod. ‘Breakfast already fall through.’
Something catches my peripheral vision: another fuzzy head disappearing behind a clump of pandanus palm that divides the beach from the flat land in front of the house. One of the Kanakas?
Bob follows the line of my eyes. ‘The four Malo men stick with each other. Ye bide them from a distance.’
‘Shouldn’t I introduce myself?’
‘I wouldn’t bother.’
‘Can’t they understand English? Not even pidgin?’
It seems an innocent enough comment, but it incurs a scowl.
‘I said not to bother.’
I pull my hat down over my eyes. ‘Come along, Carrie. We’ve a lot of unpacking yet to do.’ I turn and walk purposefully back to the house.
‘What’s the matter with Bob?’ Her words are little pants following me.
‘A bad back, apparently.’
‘Is that all? Is it because I slept in your bed last night?’
‘If so,’ I say, and feel my jaw tense again, ‘he’ll be in a better mood tomorrow, I’m sure.’
27
It doesn’t take much sweet music
to soothe a wild beast.
From the secret diary of Mary Watson
8TH JUNE 1880
‘Think ye can make it?’
Bob’s sitting on a stump, pulling on his boots in the sunlight. The new day’s skipping saucily across his eyes. High, arrowing clouds chase each other across the blue slate above us. He smiles and the reins of his scar pull tight. One eye compresses as though to wink, the other doesn’t. He is in a better mood. As he should be, considering he’s taken advantage of every night since Carrie’s been in her own bed behind the curtain.
‘You asked me a similar thing, remember? Before we climbed Grassy Hill.’
I’m standing with the washing basket, about to head to the two ‘Y’s of timber strung with rope that make up the clothesline, about ten yards away. I’ve not yet had a formal washing day with the copper and mangle. Just scrubbed a few things of Bob’s, Carrie’s and mine with soap and water and wrung them out by hand. There’s a whistle across the plain, carrying the faint sting of sand.
‘Aye, but Grassy Hill’s only five hundred feet. A wee dribble to Cook’s Look at eleven hundred. Ye may not make it to the top, considering ye swatted and puffed like an adder on the lesser climb.’
He’s counting on friction to spark my competitiveness. But he doesn’t need to bother. I have, after all, a particular interest in learning how to pace myself up Cook’s Look.
‘I was hot,’ I correct him. ‘And had a blister on my heel.’
The thin hair over his ears flaps with the wind. He didn’t wear his hat when he was unloading the boat a few days ago. Even though it’s winter, there’s a pinkish tinge to his face and a reddish scarf painted around his neck. He puts both hands on his knees and stands, adjusts his trousers at the waist and, using one hand as a shade, stares out to sea at the white caps. ‘Some kelpies out there, all right.’
‘Kelpies?’
‘Ghosts that look like horses. They promise a bonny ride. Then, when a daft man climbs on their back, they dive, drowning his poor lost soul.’
And I thought the Cornish were superstitious.
‘Just let me peg the clothes out,’ I say. ‘They’ll dry in no time with this wind.’
‘Where’s Carrie?’ he asks.
I look over to where she’s sheltering in a break of trees. They sway and bend around her, but she’s calm in the centre of them, sitting on a stool with her sketchbook and pencils.
He follows the line of my eyes. ‘Keep her close to the house,’ he says. ‘I’ve seen the smoke of a blacks’ camp over near South Island.’ He points to his left, somewhere beyond the swamp and the farm.
‘Surely they’re no threat to us unless they land on the Lizard?’ I reply. ‘You told me there were no canoes here.’
‘The islands are a short paddle from each other. Just precaution. No danger.’
I remember old Riley Robinson’s words about the Lizard. How the blacks are drawn to it like a fingernail to a scab. I shift the basket a little under my arm.
‘Tomorrow or the day after, we go down to the beach.’ Bob’s pointing to his right. ‘I’ll teach ye how to shoot.’
The grass smells of sun and insects, sprinkled with sea. I wonder how that eagle we spied the first morning on the island would view our progress: Bob and me moving upwards, into the vault of a cobalt sky. Grey granite rocks everywhere. When I use them as handholds, they graze my palms.
There’s a cairn of rock and a signal flag at the summit, just as I knew there would be. Bob points out a waterproof box anchored to the rock with a metal pin.
‘While I’m out fishing, ye can run up a flag i
f there is need. I’ll teach ye their meanings before we go back to sea.’
The view is dizzying. At altitude, the wind reminds me of two charwomen either side of a vast bed, whipcracking a brand new sheet over us. The climb is forgotten: the balding patches of dry ground, the mangy hummocks of grass, hordes of vicious meat ants beneath them.
Bob points east to where sunlight glasses the water, tells me the story of Captain Cook climbing this very summit to try to plan a safe passage through the reef. His words are too harsh for the moment’s solemnity. I just want the whistle of the wind to pass through me. His breath is hot and unpleasant in my ear.
‘See green out there? That is middling deep. Light green, shallow. Yellow-green, more shallow still. Straw is sandbanks. Jet-black patches, reefs.’
‘So he puzzled it out by colour?’
He steers me by my shoulders to where he wants me to look. ‘Aye. He followed that dark blue line.’
And there it is. A royal snake twisting through the ocean; a velvet-deep passageway to safety. Beyond it, something white leaps into the sky.
Bob notices where my gaze is hooked. ‘Foam and spray. From rollers striking the reef. At night, if ye listen, ye’ll hear God grinding his teeth under the sea. Or maybe the Devil.’
I take a deep breath of that sapphire air.
‘There’s the house, look.’ He’s twisted me around to face the west again.
I give a perfunctory glance to my new home, snug as a key in the palm of the lowland. There, a moving speck that might be Carrie heading for the door. From up here, it’s clear just how dry and bristly the Lizard is. Patches of grey. Bald earth. The creek, a urine trickle heading for the sea. But the magnificent restlessness of the ocean is something else again. All the land’s mediocrity is forgiven.
‘What do ye think, then?’ Bob asks. There’s a proprietary pride in his voice that annoys me.
‘It’s beautiful,’ I say. ‘Stupendous even.’ A white cloud, like the steam from a kettle, pauses above our heads before drifting on.
My next words don’t really seem my own.
‘Who could blame the blacks for wanting it back?’
28
