by Judy Johnson
I arrived on the island in the dark, and I’m leaving the same way.
I have such a feeling of déjà vu. I remember the night when Carrie and I first landed on the Lizard; the strange thought that came to me when I saw the slug tank squatting over its cold firepit: the Owl and the Pussycat and how they went to sea in their beautiful pea-green boat. Both Carrie and Bob scoffed at me then. But now, as the slug tank bobs in the water on a gentle swell, it all seems so right — inevitable, even.
Night’s fallen softly and the sky above is heavy with the anchor of the Southern Cross. Phosphorescence sparks moss-green under the water. A new moon hangs like a bauble of pale resin in a dark hive. The horseshoe of beach glows as we move away from shore, but already the little limestone house I’ve lived in for sixteen months is just a shadow. I can just make out the smokehouse, with its eerie artwork, an insignificant smudge. Only Cook’s Look still seems real, looming above the island like a single overwhelming idea none of us has quite deciphered.
Hard to make out from here, but I think I see two black men standing at the water’s edge at the northern tip of the beach. Watching.
They make no attempt to follow in their canoes. Which answers the question that tormented me for so many weeks and months. It was never my death that they wanted. They could easily have killed me that last night I climbed Cook’s Look.
All they ever wanted was their island full of lizards.
We reach No. 5 Howick at about midnight. I let Ah Sam and Roberts’s crew arrange the scene by lantern light. Ah Sam, thank goodness, has been helpful. He alone knows the etiquette of how a Chinaman takes himself away to die. The head resting on the small wooden box. The quilt pulled up neatly to the throat. As though the body, he told me, the fear still in his eyes, is just asleep and waiting to be woken in the flowery land.
I stand at the railing of the anchored junk, swatting mosquitos, watching the lights of the bobbing fireflies on shore. I go through the tank’s contents in my mind. The revolver, the baby’s things, an umbrella to keep the sun off through the day, our few tins of remaining food. In a small box: my clothes, jewellery, watch and piddling amount of money Bob left me. Most importantly, a record of our imaginary journey: a diary written in pencil, wrapped in waterproof cloth.
Captain Roberts invites me to come ashore and inspect the handiwork, but I decline. Call me superstitious, but I want to stay safely away from my own death. From Ferrier’s death (he’s tucked up in a crate made into a makeshift cradle below deck). From Ah Sam’s. I feel afraid. Strangely empty and afraid. Those bodies — Ah Leung’s, Laura’s and her baby’s — could have so easily been ours.
I do not want to see our epitaphs made flesh.
In a small time-stopped moment, like a photograph, I visualise Ah Sam lying on a small beach, his head resting on the wooden opium box, his quilt pulled neatly up to his chin. And there I am, in a green-tinged open coffin in the mangroves, the box at my left elbow; and, inside the box, my diary of our last days. I’m not yet lifeless but I’m terribly thirsty. The sun is hot. My baby’s dying of dehydration on my chest.
I make an involuntary noise and come back to the present with a jolt. I tell myself, it didn’t happen that way.
I’m not ungrateful to Laura and Ah Leung. Though both past redemption in their respective ways, they’ve given Ah Sam and me the future. It’s only Wilfred I feel a pang for. So small and innocent. Just like Ferrier. There, but for the grace of God, goes my own baby.
I rub my ring finger, feeling the slight indentation where my wedding ring once circled it. When I handed it to Roberts to put on Laura’s finger, I’d noticed the white worm of skin beneath it and thought to myself, ‘Soon enough it will fade.’ And so will Mary Watson. She’s there in the tank, wearing her brown dress, her belt, her wedding ring. Her much beloved child, asleep forever on her chest.
59
That most final of leavings …
From the secret diary of Mary Watson
3RD OCTOBER 1881
It’s a beautiful morning, the sky a lapis-lazuli blue, like some Renaissance religious painting; not a single blot of sin to mar it. It’s almost as if the universe is co-operating in my plan. The rainless sky matching up with accounts of no rain in the tank-diary entries.
I’ve been standing at the rail almost since dawn, just watching. Ferrier’s snoozing in my arms. Roberts came by twenty minutes ago and pointed out a small dark spot on the horizon, Blackbird, waiting for us. We should reach it by noon. Soon it will be time for me to go below. Push my hair under a sailor’s cap. Dress in the ragged pants and shirt that is uniform for the rest of the crew. Just until we’ve passed the danger of encounter with other boats. Until we reach Sydney, where no one knows me. Where Ferrier and I can disappear into the crowd.
Ferrier wakes and starts squirming. I hold him up to my face in the sunshine, blow gently on his belly where his nightdress has bunched up. I’m letting the sunlight bathe his skin as long as possible. Soon enough he’ll have to stay below deck until the danger of us being recognised has passed. The water cleaves beneath us in a series of smooth, clean swishes. We’re making good time.
Ah Sam approaches and stands next to me, smiling with his eyes. We both look out to sea.
‘After we dock, Ah Sam, will you go back to China?’
He nods and adjusts a grimy sailor’s cap with one of those hardworking hands.
‘I’ll miss you,’ I say. And I will. ‘You’ve been a good friend.’
‘Will you go to Mister Green?’ he asks.
I think of the address in my pocket. The two shells carefully wrapped and packed away. ‘Yes. If he’ll have me.’
Captain Roberts has offered me work. A more sedate job, encoding and decoding messages. He thinks I’ll be good at it. But the work’s in Sydney. That’s not quite where I want to make a new start. And, in any case, I’ve had enough. Ferrier’s growing fast. He’s survived the Lizard, small thanks to his mother. I need to settle somewhere, somehow, where he’ll be safe and happy.
My arms ache from holding him close for so long.
‘Here, will you take him?’ I say to Ah Sam.
Ah Sam holds Ferrier with the ease of long practice. His shoulder doesn’t appear to bother him as he holds the baby out and over the rail. Ferrier squeals with delight at the sparkling water rushing by, the foam flying from the hull. I notice then just how far the baby is from safety. Just one slip. One cramp in Ah Sam’s hand. One stab of pain in his sore shoulder and he might inadvertently let go. Ferrier’s blowing bubbles above the churning water, his chubby legs riding a bicycle of air.
My voice is shrill. ‘Don’t do that, Ah Sam! I’ll die a thousand deaths!’
He’s never laughed before in my presence. There’s an alarming shriek in it, his eyes close tight and his whole face twitches. Then I’m laughing myself, realising what I’ve said.
When he recovers himself, he pulls Ferrier back in and hands him over. The baby squirms in my arms and starts to cry. His little arms are reaching for the Chinaman. He wants to do it all over again.
The last words Roberts said to me as we boarded the junk still linger. ‘You know you’ll be remembered as the brave heroine of Lizard Island. She fought off the blacks and took to sea, indomitable, undefeated. Only to die of thirst. They’ll say it with great solemnity.’
‘A pity I won’t be around to enjoy the celebrity,’ I’d said dryly.
Truth is, I don’t want to be a symbol of the struggle between black and white. I don’t think the natives should be punished for what they haven’t done. But I could think of no other scenario. No other way.
One day, however, I might tell the real story.
Later, when I lie on my small berth staring at the overhead, I realise I may, unwittingly, have begun already to tell the truth. I made a mistake in the tank diary entries: I’ve prefaced them with September dates when it is in fact October. Why? Tiredness perhaps? Not carelessness, surely, after all that I’ve been through? Will any h
arm come of such a small act of self-sabotage?
Perhaps I secretly want someone — fifty years, or a hundred years from now — to look more closely at the evidence and to wonder.
Maybe some part of me wants the truth to be known.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
According to the accepted historical record, Mary Watson, aged twenty-one, had been married less than eighteen months when she died of thirst. Mainland Aboriginals attacked the two Chinese workmen at her absent husband’s bêche-de-mer station on Lizard Island: Ah Leung died in the vegetable garden; Ah Sam suffered spear wounds. With her four-month-old baby, Ferrier, and the injured Ah Sam, Mary put to sea in a smoke-blackened, cut-down ship’s tank used for boiling sea-slugs. They drifted for eight days and forty miles, making landfall in several places without finding water.
Their remains, identified by Mary’s husband, Robert Watson, were found some months later, in January 1882, on No. 5 Island in the Howick Group off the Cape York Peninsula. Still in the iron tank, now resting in the mangroves, their bones were immersed in fresh rain from a recent tropical downpour. The baby’s skull rested on his mother’s breast. The skeleton of a Chinese man lay on a woven mat in the shade of a tree a little way from the tank, his head on a wooden box used as a pillow, a quilt pulled neatly up to his throat.
In the tank, investigators found a small wooden box containing clothing, jewellery, a small amount of money, and a diary in Mary’s hand, carefully preserved in waterproof cloth, describing their last days.
Much of the evidence supporting this version of events is equivocal, reliant on Mary’s diary entries. A copy of the diary found with the bodies in the tank appears at the start of the novel. The original diary is held in the John Oxley Library in Brisbane.
Robert Watson’s deposition after the bodies were discovered is also part of the public record and is also reproduced at the start of the novel.
My version of events is fictional speculation, transforming the real people involved in Mary’s story into characters. In no way do I propose their actions or personalities to be a true and accurate account of their lives. I have attempted, nevertheless, to respect historical accuracy while imposing my own interpretative slant on what is known. This interpretation maintains, as far as possible, consistency with the public record: newspaper reports, official documentation, and preserved sentiment on the events surrounding Mary’s demise.
At the time, what happened to Mary and her baby threw fuel on an already incendiary debate regarding white and black collisions in Far North Queensland. Punitive expeditions against indigenous tribes in the area were carried out regardless of a lack of evidence.
The references made by the characters to cannibalistic practices of the indigenous people around Cooktown and the Palmer River reflect a widely held, though wholly unsubstantiated, belief of the time. These rumours were no doubt a useful psychological lever to justify harsh retaliation against tribal groups in the area.
The references to ‘Myalls’, ‘Merkins’ etc do not reflect true indigenous groups. The nomenclature was merely a convenient way for Europeans to divide different tribes according to locality, appearance and perceived customs.
The patronising attitude of Mary towards the indigenous boys on Lizard Island, and the disrespectful approach of all characters to the Chinese, though totally unacceptable to our contemporary sensibilities, were nevertheless commonplace at the time.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Creating a novel is never a one-person exercise. My deepest debt is to Rob Riel who has offered support, both editorial and emotional, throughout the whole writing process. Huge thanks go to my agent Selwa Anthony for her belief, loyalty and, last but not least, her love of dogs. Thanks to Amanda O’Connell, Jo Butler and the team at Harper Collins for making the editorial process a nurturing experience instead of a fraught one. The John Oxley Library in Brisbane was an invaluable resource in the writing of this novel. The work has also been informed by several books: Lizard Island: The Journey of Mary Watson by Suzanne Falkiner and Alan Oldfield; Lizard Island: A Reconstruction of the Life of Mrs Watson by Jillian Robertson; and River of Gold by Hector Holthouse. And finally, thanks to Mary Watson, whatever her fate, for her undeniable strength and courage.
About the Author
Judy Johnson has a special interest in creating fiction from little-known but compelling aspects of Australian history. Her writing has won many prizes, including the Victorian Premier’s CJ Dennis Award in 2007 for her verse novel, Jack.
Copyright
Fourth Estate
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers
First published in Australia in 2011
This edition published in 2011
by HarperCollinsPublishers Australia Pty Limited
ABN 36 009 913 517
harpercollins.com.au
Copyright © Judy Johnson 2011
The right of Judy Johnson to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her under the Copyright Amendment (Moral Rights) Act 2000.
This work is copyright. Apart from any use as permitted under the Copyright Act 1968, no part may be reproduced, copied, scanned, stored in a retrieval system, recorded, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
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National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry
Johnson, Judy
The Secret Fate of Mary Watson / Judy Johnson.
ISBN: 978-0-7322-9250-8 (pbk.)
ISBN: 978-0-7304-9292-4 (epub)
Watson, Mary (Fictionalised character)
Smuggling–Australia–Fiction.
A823.4
Cover design by Darren Holt, HarperCollins Design Studio
Cover images: Woman © Yolande de Kort/ Trevillion Images; Rocks by Sara Winter/Getty Images; all other images by shutterstock.com
