The Coves

by Whish-Wilson, David;

  His mother wasn’t among them, and his regret was manifold beyond the purpose of his trek, extending into the unfortunateness of his fear of communicating with the Spanish-speakers and learning something of their ways.

  It was a great comfort to Sam that he now regarded Clement as his kindly grandfather. He had lately told the old man as much, and he was equally grateful to consider that he and Sarah Proctor were like brother and sister. But among the rest of the Coves, Sam was barely tolerated, and expected to be a listener and observer. San Francisco was beginning to feel like a home, but that home was just a few buildings and a few streets, and none of them contained his mother.

  The only way to escape his despair at this fact was to look upon the vista with a deliberateness that was trained in him. Clement had told him about the thinkers of China, who sought the truth about the nature of things within the fathomless depths of themselves, and Sam’s response had been to imagine how such a notion would be received among the Swan River blacks, and one man in particular. This man was tall and scarified like all the men of his generation. His grey hair and beard spoke of a life before the coming of the whites in 1829, although he demanded that Sam call him Clive, which was a name given to him by the explorer Grey on their journey north of the colony, and which had some phonetic resemblance to his proper name. The blackfellow Clive was a leader of sorts, and always encouraged Sam within their camp as a speaker of English beyond the regular pidgin. All of the camp boys looked up to this man, and followed him silently down to the river in particular to watch his spearplay and listen to his song.

  But it was amid the campfire smoke that Clive occasionally grabbed Sam’s chin, and pointed him toward something in the trees: a breeze whose whispering was like children’s laughter, or a koolbardi magpie whose sentinel position in the dark canopy bespoke a watching back at them; or sometimes nothing but a recognition of the tree itself, whose stateliness and presence became magnified the more Sam stared until it seemed ready to climb out of the ground.

  Unlike the pious in church, the blackfellows kept their eyes open when they prayed, the better to keenly observe the world around them, and Clive was no different when he chanted his couplets and clapped his sticks. This was no reflection upon an inner space, but a meditation upon the world itself, and the same manner of looking had become ingrained in Sam, because whether among black or white, that territory on the Swan River was the most absorbing place that Sam had ever known.

  He opened his eyes. The visitation that greeted him seemed a reward for his reflections, and he smiled in recognition. Upon the rock beside him was a lizard whose sleekness described an ability to burrow through sand. The lizard blinked, twitched its head and bobbed its feet as though dancing, or performing for him. Beyond the perspective of Sam’s own crossed feet, a family of birds he couldn’t name, but from their plumage and size guessed to be honey-feeders, were gathered in the nearest tree, hopping from branch to branch and scraping their beaks on the dry bark like a barber stropping a razor. Sam adjusted his focus, and there in the blue waves was a single dolphin, whose slow-spoked roll seemed a language for the mood of the ocean itself. Behind the dolphin was another peninsula, and he understood that he was facing north and that the strait before him was the famed Golden Gate and entrance to the bay.

  Sam sat upright, and wiped his eyes, and the lizard scampered off the rock and the birds ceased their chirruping. In looking for the hound, Sam turned to find a great wave of fog bearing down upon the strait from out of the distance, a vision that in its scope was akin to the rolling storm-fronts whose pulsing grey faces moved over the Swan River and resembled a floodwater reaching to the sky. Advance tendrils of the fog floated spectrally over the waves, calling behind to the great grey follower that had no ceiling and no border that could be measured by eye. The Golden Gate opened up to her, and for a moment the sunlit colours of the peninsula became soft and vivid, and the dog appeared at his side, and together they watched the fog cover the sun and soundlessly enter the bay, and it was like they had been raised into the clouds and looked now upon some mythical landscape of the gods, from where the scurrying of humankind might be observed and mocked.

  Sam whistled, and the dog joined him on the rock and accepted his embrace. For the vision of the clouds come to earth had brought tears to Sam’s eyes, and he didn’t want to be alone. It was moments like this that he often thought of his dead father and his brothers, or his mother, as someone to share his apprehensions of the mystery, but on this occasion his thoughts ran directly to the Chinese girl, Ai, and the memory of their meeting yesterday. In particular, it was the sight of the fogbound ocean and the tender way the air settled upon the bright green leaves of the branches that returned him to the image of her shucking off the softwood yoke those months ago in the bright green alley, with the soft light and the damp air shrouding her shoulders, and the barest glimpse of her pale neck and face turning to him, her angry eyes. He’d returned to this image often, and in every recollection Sam focussed upon those eyes, and on every occasion the eyes became less angry, sharing his own longing for company. What he had witnessed in her eyes yesterday was confirmation of his first impressions: a sorrow that was a kind of understanding of him.

  He laughed at himself then, and the dog cocked its head, and when he kept laughing the dog nuzzled his ribs in search of his hand. For Sam understood what was happening to him, and it was not the first time. It was his own secret, how easily he loved, first with a little blonde girl called Adelaide when he was five or six, whose smile kept him awake at night, and later a black girl two or three years older than he, whose large brown eyes and pink tongue and wheezy chuckle occupied his mind for close to a year when he was ten years old, and who expressed her own affection by wrestling him to the ground. His childhood infatuations, expressed in pining fantasies of kissing and holding hands, could only be relieved by his being in the company of the beloved, just like in the poems the Magistrate taught him to recite. The thought of visiting Ai was a similar pleasure but also a kind of burden, principally because he hadn’t seen her since their meeting yesterday. He had waited this morning on the porch across from the Chinaman’s shop, but the side door onto the alley was closed, and the Chinaman glared at him through the windows and shook his head.

  In mockery of himself and his foolishness, Sam wrestled the dog’s head into an armlock, and chuckled, and began to put on his boots. He hadn’t been able to habituate himself to the wearing of socks, and so the boots smelt of his rough feet, but the dog didn’t seem to mind, and could often be found asleep with its nose buried inside. The dog watched him tie the laces, and followed Sam down the rock. There was a footpad along the crest of the bluff that meant avoiding the Chilenos’ camp. Sam nodded his head, and the dog took off in advance of the fog toward Sydney-town where the bald skull of Goat Hill could be seen in the distance.

  15

  In this way Sam entered his thirteenth year. In truth he hadn’t noticed any changes in himself. He still lacked hair on his privates and his voice hadn’t thickened. More noticeable was the changes in the dog, which had grown to the height of his knees, and as Yankee Sullivan had suggested, with its reddish fur and great head bore some relation to the native dog of Australia. For it rarely barked and mostly sang, especially when Clement played his harmonica, which all the men thought a great entertainment. The dog followed Sam through the port streets and waited in the thoroughfare while he delivered his messages, and collected Keane’s tithes. It growled when people tried to move it along or leant down to stroke its ears, baring its teeth and raising its hackles.

  One morning Sam was asked to restrain the dog on a leash tied to a bench in the Stuck Pig, due to the arrival of a clipper chartered by Keane and paid for by his own coin. It was a cloudy morning but they knew that the boat had arrived because of the Goat Hill semaphore operator who was himself a Cove, but also because of the cartwheeling seagulls who followed every ship through the Gate until they berthed and began emptying out the
hold. The gulls hovered and scrapped and the smell of the docks was always sour with stale fish and the tubs of boiling pine pitch used to caulk the ships against the return journey. Half of Sydney-town was down the docks upon hearing news of the ship’s arrival, and many of the men were Australian miners who had come from the hinterland. Sam could tell which miners had struck gold because of the number who’d taken on the American fashion for wearing red sashes around their waists, and gold jewellery on their wrists and in their ears and around their necks. These men looked like pirates with their long hair and old rifles and polished boots, and Sam looked among them for the reason of their gathering, and as soon as he saw the ship’s cargo he understood the order requiring the dog’s quarantine. Above deck were dozens of horses that sniffed the cold air, and looked out at the miners with calm disinterest as they were liberated from their wooden cages and led down into the throng.

  Ponies and horses were hard to get in the colony, and prices upwards of five hundred dollars for a good Californio pony wasn’t unusual, and also the reason why the Coves’ stable was always under an armed guard. Sam recognised the Timor ponies and walers from Australia, calm and dignified even among the dozens of hands reaching to pat the beasts and welcome them ashore after the sickening journey.

  There was a festive air on the docks, and many men were singing. Sam looked among the miners and heard the tinkling of silver dollars. Some had already opened their bags of gold and were proffering these to whoever would listen as they began making a case for a particular horse.

  Most of the men in the red sashes, Sam knew, were rich for the first time in their lives, and those who could never afford a horse back at home thought themselves raised up in the world. There was only so much gold jewellery that a man could wear; only so many rings and bracelets and necklaces placed on fingers and wrists and neck before a man looked ridiculous, and the new suits that they bought were no real measure of status because all were equally muddy.

  The men leading the horses through the crowd ignored the offered money and the shouts of frustration, but all of them fell silent when the hold was emptied and a space was made among them. It was Keane himself who rode the block-and-tackle hoisted crate where inside a giant black beast glowered. The gantry crane inched lower. When the crate settled, and the door was prised open, Keane stood before the horse, singing to it quietly. He laid a harness over its noble head, and fed it a carrot and guided it onto terra firma.

  It was a fine thoroughbred, the first in that territory, and the men stood silent in their appreciation, for they knew it to be a nervous creature and worth more than their lives were it to spook and harm itself. Keane took off his slouch hat and bowed to them all, then raised his hat and proclaimed that the name of the Australian mare was Black Swan, and Sam looked around and witnessed tears in many homesick eyes. An armed escort of four men cordoned off the mare, and made a passage through the streets, and thereafter the hundreds of men followed with the reverential expressions of pilgrims.

  Sam retrieved the dog from the groghouse, where he learned that the horse was destined not for Keane’s own use, but for the town of Los Angeles, where a wealthy American had made a bet with a wealthy Californio that a good Irish thoroughbred could outpace the best Spanish pony. Clement chuckled at that, commending his own foresight in suggesting to Keane that he import the horse for one of the richest and most powerful men in the territory, despite the cost to himself and the risk of the long sea voyage. He demanded that Sam keep his dog away from the stables, at least until the mare was gone.

  The dog now followed Sam into the Chinese Quarter, sniffing at the air and the footings of buildings. Wood smoke mingled with the heavy fog that drifted off the ocean, moving like a sinuous thing among the streets and alleys, pressing against the shingled roofing and pine-boards and leaving a silvery dew over every surface. Sam had the bag of gold dust for the town clerk in his waistcoat pocket, and his knife sheathed upon the buttons of his suspenders.

  The gate down the side-alley next to the Chinaman’s shop was opened, and that meant that Ai had tied up the pig and it was alright for Sam to visit. When the gate was shut, she’d told him, the old man was working in the back room and Sam had better keep away. She didn’t appear afraid of her father, but the matter-of-factness in her voice suggested that she trusted Sam to use his common sense and listen to her advice.

  He peered around the edge of the gate and checked that the pig was tied. The dog peered around the gate beneath Sam’s legs too, and he imagined how they looked a funny couple, trying to appear natural and yet so furtive in their movements. The pig snorted as it always did when it saw the dog, and Sam tossed it the piece of bacon rind that he took from Missus Hogan’s kitchen. So that the dog wouldn’t feel jealous, Sam passed it some venison jerky and called it to heel while he gathered up some pebbles, although this morning like most mornings he didn’t need to toss them upon the window. Ai’s face appeared beside the curtains, and the door cracked open.

  He took his seat beside her on the back steps. It was a position that she favoured, for what reason he didn’t know, except that when he remained standing Ai would pat the seat beside until he joined her. It was probably because of her labours and having to stand all day, although he didn’t know if this was true. Often they didn’t talk much, and Ai seemed happiest during those times, stroking the dog’s face and Sam just happy anyway.

  But today she was silent in a different kind of manner, and he knew that it was because she had something to say, and likely because she’d rehearsed an answer to an earlier question of his. He’d learned that Ai was from a village near Canton, but as a child had been sent to the city. Sam had looked on the globe in Thomas Keane’s office at the map of China and there was Canton, right down on the southern edge of the empire, wedged in among other kingdoms that he’d never heard of. Ai’s silence deepened until she sighed.

  ‘We didn’t bring any books with us, and I tried to paint you a picture, but it wasn’t very good. So I’ll just tell you about it…’

  Sam didn’t know what Ai was talking about but he wasn’t about to interrupt her. He glanced sideways and saw that her brow was notched in concentration, and when she looked at him she laughed, and that was because whatever it was that she was planning to describe had made her shy.

  ‘It’s alright Ai,’ he said. ‘We don’t have to talk if you don’t want. I’m just glad for your company. I’d like to hold your hand if you’re willing, but we don’t have to do that either.’

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘You asked me about Canton. I don’t know the history of the city, but I lived with the English, on a small island that was surrounded by a fort. There was a … war before I lived there, between the English and the Canton people, but I don’t know why, except that whenever Chinese people talk about it they are angry.’

  ‘Did you live in a big house, with the English?’

  ‘Yes, it was a big house. With many servants. The master was a merchant. I don’t want to talk about him.’

  ‘We don’t have to. We can just sit here.’

  ‘He had three daughters, who were my friends.’

  ‘And you learnt English from them?’

  ‘Yes, the mother taught us. She was Mrs Casboult. She let me and my sister and some other children attend their lessons, although we weren’t allowed to talk, just listen. But we would practise among ourselves when we were working. We were spoken to in English and were allowed to speak in English.’

  ‘I didn’t know you had a sister.’

  He was a fool sometimes. As soon as Sam shut his mouth, he knew that it was a stupid thing to say. Ai’s sister was likely dead or missing, just like his Ma. Ai leaned forward and placed her face alongside the dog’s face, her eyes hidden from him.

  The streets by the plaza were busy as any other day, crowded with dray-carts delivering timber and bricks, and the frontier birdsong of hammers hitting nails and saws biting at planks of wood. But now as Sam approached the plaza square he found himsel
f part of a stream of people flowing there in such numbers that he had to shorten his steps, to avoid treading on the heels of the men in front. As they got closer to the plaza he heard the sound of an Australian voice that was full of rancour. Sam cut sideways along the nearby porches and climbed over bannisters until he made the front porch of the saloon owned by Keane. Like all the other porches, it was crowded with onlookers, although in this case men and women clutching mugs of beer and glasses of soda water. Sam nodded to the American saloonkeeper who looked over Sam’s attire, and the demeanour of the dog, and nodded his permission to join them.

  It was the Australian merchant, Mitchell Walker, on a dray-cart, shouting through his hands over the raised faces. Beside him were five or six other men with fine suits and watch-chains in their waistcoats, and pistols in their hands. Each wore a species of top hat, and moustaches and mutton-chop beards.

  Sam stood among the gentry on the saloon balcony and made his own space, although his head was still occupied with the memory of Ai, and her silence after he’d raised the matter of her sister. She was never able to sit with Sam for more than ten minutes at a time, and half of that time today was spent with Sam trying to think of something to cheer her up. He’d finally got up the courage to stand before her and dance the haymaker’s jig, tapping his right foot twice and his left foot once and speeding it up and slowing it down while he whistled the tune. That broke Ai’s sadness, and her smile and the curiosity in her eyes told him that the dance was a novelty to her. With his heart beating faster and blood in his face he’d put out a hand for her to take, and to his surprise, she’d taken it and he gently lifted her so that she stood opposite to him. He didn’t let her hand go but changed his grip and bowed to her. This too was clearly a novelty and she smiled and nodded her head in mimicry. He put her hand on his hip and he began to whistle a tune in three-quarter time whose name he didn’t know but which he’d learned from the Magistrate whistling in his garden. Sam demonstrated the first three movements of the waltz and that was when Ai began laughing with pleasure.