India Dark

by Kirsty Murray

  ‘She’s a lovely child,’ said the Butcher. ‘And an asset to the company.’

  ‘Can you suggest why clean-minded children should speak against you?’

  Arthur looked straight at Ruse. ‘Some dirty-minded people set them to do it.’

  ‘Who are the dirty-minded people you refer to?’

  ‘I can’t say,’ said Mr Arthur, but he glared at Mr Ruse as if he wanted to set him on fire with the fury of his gaze.

  ‘What reasons do you suggest led these people to act?’

  ‘To get the Lilliputian Company on the cheap. To steal my company and my livelihood from me.’

  I wanted to yawn then. I was so sick of him. I wanted to walk right up to the witness box and yawn in his face. They were going over and over the same old thing. But then they got to the part where Iris was ill and was taken home and the Butcher shot himself in the foot. Mr Browning detailed how the Butcher carried Iris out of the theatre and put her in the gharry. Then he looked up and asked, ‘Do you often carry the girls about?’

  ‘We carry the smaller children home on our shoulders when there is no gharry to take them,’ replied the Butcher.

  ‘Did you ever carry Eliza Finton?’ asked Mr Browning slyly.

  The Butcher jumped up in his seat. ‘How dare you! How dare you make such a suggestion.’

  Mr Browning looked even slyer and foxier. ‘Why do you get so angry?’

  ‘How dare you imply I would carry her in public! She is a grown woman.’

  ‘She has her hair down her back in the style of a girl. Answer the question.’

  ‘No!’ shouted Mr Arthur.

  The judge banged his gavel for the hundredth time that morning and ordered Mr Browning to take a different line of questioning, but Mr Browning said he was finished with the witness and would like to call Mr Ruse to the box.

  When the Butcher slipped past Mr Browning’s table we saw him mutter something, and then Mr Browning jumped to his feet. ‘As the witness passed me he called me a “dirty ruffian”,’ he announced.

  ‘I did not,’ said the Butcher stiffly.

  There was much argument and to-ing and fro-ing and then the judge said he hadn’t heard it either but he cautioned the Butcher anyway. I’d never realised how childish grown-ups could be.

  It was lovely to see Mr Ruse in the witness box. He looked so much more intelligent than the Butcher. He presented his evidence in a calm, well-spoken manner and the judge nodded sagely as Mr Ruse was asked to relate the details of what happened on the night of the strike. Of course, he told the truth. But the Butcher couldn’t bear to hear it. He leapt to his feet and shouted at the top of his voice, ‘You took them away by a show of force!’

  ‘I never laid a finger on you,’ said Mr Ruse.

  ‘As if I’d be fool enough to provoke violence when you had twenty of your cronies to back you up!’

  ‘I am not a kidnapper. I have never heard of a more ridiculous accusation in my life.’

  ‘You’ve stolen those children from me. Poisoned their affections.’

  ‘You poisoned them yourself,’ countered Ruse in disgust.

  The judge banged his gavel for order and the turbaned court officers came bustling to the front to lead the Butcher away.

  I was enjoying myself immensely until I turned to look at Poesy. I should have realised the Butcher’s flattery would unhinge the child. Her eyes were brimming with tears but it wasn’t because of him. She was looking straight at Eliza and Lionel, the lover and the lackey, huddled together on a bench behind the Butcher’s babu vakil.

  We were so close to victory, I couldn’t bear the thought of Poesy spoiling things. For all those interminable weeks, as the weather grew hotter and hotter and Mr Ruse grew more haggard and we waited for the trial to end, we had managed to stick by our stories. If Poesy withdrew her statement now, it could make the trial drag on even longer. The Butcher would never win but we would sweat for weeks to come if she didn’t keep her mouth shut.

  I watched Poesy carefully as Daisy climbed into the witness box. Because Daisy had told her story so many times to so many audiences, Mr Browning had convinced the judge to allow her to give evidence before the whole court, rather than interviewing her ‘in camera’. She looked so small as the little gates swung open and a court officer lifted her into the witness box. She had to stand on a chair to be seen over the railings.

  When Daisy began to speak, Poesy did the most irritating thing. She covered her ears with her hands and shut her eyes, just like a wretched monkey. She couldn’t have drawn more attention to herself if she’d screamed. I grabbed her arm and twisted it hard. I wouldn’t allow her to spoil our triumph.

  58

  THE WAY BACK

  Poesy Swift

  Dirty-minded. Mr Arthur said dirty-minded people had made us lie, but I was the one with the dirty mind. I wanted to forget everything and everyone. I wanted to forget myself.

  I’d fled from the court with no plan, no idea of where I could hide. I ran through the flower bazaar, deeper and deeper into Blacktown.

  I skidded to a stop at the entrance to an old hall that had its doors flung open wide. A dark-skinned coolie carrying a hand of bananas stared at me as he trotted along the street with his load, as if I was something peculiar. An emaciated cow stopped beside me and began feeding from a pile of old flowers. I was out of place and out of time. Inside the hall, there were great crowds of women in brightly coloured saris kneeling together and men in crisp white jackets. A ceremony was in progress and two children sat beneath a canopy while a crowd of grown-ups gathered around them. Then I saw Prem and I knew that he was the one I was looking for. I knew it must be the auspicious day of his sister’s wedding. I knew why I was there. It was kismet – my fate. I could see Prem, standing with his parents and his sister. Or was it his wife? It made my stomach do a strange turn.

  I walked up the steps of the hall and stood in the doorway, casting a white girl’s shadow. A few people turned to see who was the stranger and one was Prem. I think he tried not to see me but I waved frantically. He looked alarmed and excused himself from his parents. He was dressed in a beautifully tailored Indian jacket but he had some strange ritual markings on his forehead.

  ‘Is something wrong, Miss?’ asked Prem.

  ‘Don’t call me, Miss. You know I’m only Poesy.’

  ‘Miss Poesy?’ said Prem. ‘What has happened?’

  ‘I’ve run away.’

  ‘What have you run away from, Miss Poesy?’

  ‘From myself,’ I said lamely.

  Prem glanced over his shoulder and I knew I should let him go back to the ceremony. Growing up was too hard, too full of difficult choices, yet Prem seemed so sure of what he would do with his life. If only he would tell me what to do with mine. ‘I’m sorry, Miss Poesy, I have to go back to my family.’

  I could feel Charlie next to me before I could see him. I could sense his presence.

  ‘Come away now, Poesy,’ he said. ‘You can’t expect Prem to help you.’

  And of course, he was right. We weren’t Lilliputians at all but wayward Gullivers, shipwrecked and dependent on the locals for our livelihood. Very soon, we would have to go home. Back to our own families.

  ‘You’re too impulsive, Poesy,’ said Charlie, as he led me through the twisting lanes, back to the red towers of the High Court. ‘You only make things worse for yourself. You can’t go running around India on your own.’

  I stopped in my tracks and stared at him. ‘But you do.’

  ‘I’m a boy. The rules are different for boys.’

  ‘I wish they weren’t.’

  ‘You can’t wish the world into being with your thoughts, Poesy.’

  I watched the curve of his neck as he stomped off ahead of me. Since our night beneath the banyan tree, everything had changed. Charlie wasn’t comfortable with me any more. We were still friends but something had shifted.

  ‘I can still wish we could go back to being like we used to be,’ I called
after him.

  He came and stood in front of me, his hands in his pockets. ‘We can never go backwards, Poesy.’

  Back at the Castle Hotel, before I even began to climb the stairs, I could hear the girls hooting in the dining room, celebrating the end of the trial. No one was in any doubt as to what the judge’s findings would be. I stood alone in the bedroom and looked at the detritus of our weeks there.

  On the table by the window were some postcards the others had been writing home.

  Dearest Mother,

  A few lines to tell you everything at last. I would have told you before but feared you would fret. The company is broken up. Mr Arthur and Eliza are getting away to America. Percival has been a pig to us and the way he has banged some of us about is awful. His talk was disgusting. He mocked at us and said we couldn’t get away for two years. He behaved like a cur when the men were about and had nothing to say. We all simply danced for joy about it all. Mrs Quedda and Miss Thrupp the matron are now in charge of us and they are good to us. Don’t worry. I shall be with you soon.

  Your loving daughter Tilly Sweetrick

  And that was the sum of it. Everything and nothing on the back of a postcard. I read Tilly’s card again and again and realised she told no lies. The court had already appointed Miss Thrupp as our guardian, though no one would listen to her, and Lo was back with us again too.

  I was just laying the card down when Tilly walked into the room.

  ‘Reading my private letters?’ she said.

  ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean anything.’

  ‘You never seem to “mean” half of what you do, Poesy. But thank goodness you’re back,’ she said tartly. ‘Lionel’s come back too, you know. The Butcher dumped him on the steps of the hotel before speeding off to Pondicherry with Eliza in a new motor. Mr Ruse says he’s going to race after him, but I can’t see the point. It’s not as if Eliza wants to be rescued and that’s the truth!’

  I flung myself down across my bed and picked up my book. I didn’t want to listen to any more of Tilly’s truths. Inside the cover, Yada had written a note to me and I traced her handwriting with my fingertips. To my darling Poesy, in the hope that after travelling the world, she will discover the beauty of her old familiar home.

  I hadn’t looked at those lines for months but suddenly I understood them. I flicked through to the final pages of Gulliver’s Travels, searching for the bit where Dr Gulliver wrote about the end of his journey: ‘Every traveller, before he were permitted to publish his voyages, should be obliged to make oath before the Lord High Chancellor, that all he intended to print was absolutely true to the best of his knowledge.’

  To the best of my knowledge, the truth was twisted and tangled into knots that I could never unravel. There was only one thing of which I was certain: I was ready to go home.

  59

  ESCAPING LILLIPUT

  Poesy Swift

  I didn’t fit inside my skin any more. On the outside, I looked no different to the girl who had sailed away from Port Melbourne nearly a full year earlier. Inside, I was someone else.

  We spent ten days in Colombo, singing the same old songs over and over again. We’d scraped together half the fare but we were running out of audiences. Finally, a steamer company offered to let us travel with them at a discount.

  When the ship passed through the heads of Port Phillip Bay, orange and blue light shimmered on the surface of the water. We all crowded onto the deck and watched the city light up as darkness fell. The great ships in the dock at Port Melbourne shone like palaces as we steamed past them. We hung over the rails, each of us anxious to be the first to see a familiar face. On the pier, a crowd of dark figures massed. Some of them sat on bollards, their bodies dim outlines, hunched with the weariness of waiting.

  Above the noise of escaping steam, I heard Freddie and Max shouting triumphantly from the bow, ‘We’re home!’ Then from the stern came the cries of Daisy and Flora and the other girls. It was as though they all cried out in one voice. ‘Oh, my darling mummy!’

  The people on the pier jumped up and down, clapped their hands, waved handkerchiefs, brandished umbrellas and called out all at once so you couldn’t know whose family they were from.

  Our little black French steamer was only a shadow against the lights of the Orvieto, but the mothers reached out as if they could recognise their lost children in the darkness.

  The girls at the stern broke into a chant, ‘Oh my mummy, my mummy, my mummy, my mummy,’ even though Daisy and Flora barely knew their mothers, Rosie and May were orphans, and Myrtle’s mother beat her at the drop of a hat. Their voices wove in and out of each other, like birds swooping across the black water.

  As we drew closer, we could see policemen running along the edge of the pier to prevent the mothers from falling over the side into the murky water. The women rushed along the edge as if they couldn’t endure waiting any longer.

  We were close enough to make out their faces now. It was easy to pick the Kreutzes standing in a family group, their broad, blonde faces staring up at the approaching steamer. The biggest Kreutz brother put his fist in the air and yelled out ‘Oi!’ and then the whole family started shouting at the boys at once and I could make out not a word of it.

  ‘They only charged us half third class,’ yelled back Max and Freddie. ‘And yes, we’ve got all our clothes.’

  Flora let out a squeal of excitement when she recognised her mother, who had come with a crowd of people.

  ‘Mummy, Mummy, this is a French steamer. I can talk French now. Passez-moi du pain.’

  ‘Where’s my mummy? Oh where’s my mummy?’ cried Daisy in a tearful voice.

  ‘She’s coming; she’ll be here soon,’ shouted a voice from the pier. Suddenly, a figure pushed to the very edge of the dock, nearly tumbling into the water. A policeman held the crazy woman back and Daisy, crying and laughing called, ‘I thought you wasn’t come. Oh, my mummy. Keep near the gangplank, or I might lose you.’

  I’d written to Mumma and Yada telling them not to come to meet the ship and saying that one of the adults would see me home. I didn’t want my family to see me with the Lilliputians, to see what I’d become. Once, there was nothing more that I wanted to be. Now I thought of my bed in Willow Lane, of lying down to rest alone in my own room and the familiar smell of the old horsehair mattress. I imagined my old button-up boots under the bed. I would never fit into them again but I was determined to fit back into my family.

  For an hour as the steamer berthed, conversations rippled up and down the pier, even when only snatches of each sentence could be heard above the noise of the port.

  I found Charlie standing with Lionel on the far side, staring out to sea.

  ‘Is there no one waiting to meet you?’ I asked.

  ‘Our Ma’s probably down there somewhere, but Lionel doesn’t want to bump into any of them reporters,’ said Charlie.

  ‘I think I’ll wait in our cabin,’ said Lionel, slipping away from us and into the darkness.

  Charlie and I stood in silence, our arms on the rail, listening to the cries of the other children and their mothers. Slowly, he reached out and hooked his little finger through mine.

  ‘Will we see each other again?’ I asked.

  ‘Maybe. Maybe not. Me and Leo will sign up with another touring company. We won’t stay in Melbourne. What about you? Williamson’s juvenile company, the pantomimes, any of that lot would have you, Poesy. You’re good. You know that, don’t you?’

  ‘I’m never sure. The only thing I’m sure of is that I don’t want to be an actress. I want to help people, Charlie, really help them, not just entertain them.’

  Charlie laughed. ‘I don’t want to entertain the punters either. I want to fox them and astonish them and bamboozle them. That’s what I want.’

  It was good to part with a smile, rather than tears.

  As we all gathered to disembark, Tilly sidled up to me. ‘No one’s come for you, have they, Poesy? Don’t worry. I’ll sort you o
ut. You can ride with me and Ma back to Richmond.’

  But the last thing I wanted was for Tilly to take charge of me. I could see Mrs Sweeney, talking to a reporter and pointing at Tilly as if she was the evening star, newly risen. As Tilly waved, I slipped under her arm and made my way to the edge of the Lilliputians.

  Then I saw her – a little old lady crushed at the back of the press of people had tied her handkerchief to the point of her umbrella and was running along the outskirts of the crowd, flourishing a signal of welcome. It was Yada. My wonderful, crazy Yada with her love for truth and all the right thoughts.

  The regular gangway was too steep for many of the mothers so a safe passageway had to be constructed while the women cried out and shouted at the steamer. As soon as the way was clear, the families charged, pushing past the policemen and reporters.

  Mrs Sweeney led Tilly and some of the other girls to talk to the men from the press but I pushed through the crowd in search of Yada. I didn’t want to hear what stories Tilly would tell. Nothing anyone said would ever be the whole truth.

  Between the facts of the trial, there were so many things that could have been said, so many other truths. There was a baby buried in Allahabad and two little girls dancing naked on a balcony in Bombay. Lionel with his broken puppet in Surabaya, Ruby mesmerised in Calcutta and Tilly sleeping beneath a soldier’s greatcoat in Meerut. Eliza weeping in her kimono on the beach at Pondicherry and Charlie and me kissing in the darkness beneath a banyan tree in Adyar. There was more than any one of us could ever tell.

  EPILOGUE

  Poesy Swift

  There are many lives I might have lived and things that might have been. I have loved and lost friends and family but my life is not unhappy.

  On a bright, clear Melbourne morning in the spring of 1926, I opened my letterbox to find a small pale pink envelope. Inside was a studio portrait of two strangers, a beautiful dark-haired woman in a simple wedding dress and a plump, weary middle-aged man with a flower in his buttonhole. At least, I thought they were strangers, until I read the card that accompanied the image.