Blackbird

by David Crookes

  `I would say this western gum symbolizes all the characteristics a man should strive for in this life Mr Luk.'

  `Yes.' Ben said softly. `I've heard that said before, by an English convict-woman on her death-bed in the diggings at One Mile Creek,'

  An hour later, with his business at the bank concluded, Ben walked the short distance to Mrs Llewellyn's store. At first he walked right past by a number of horse-drawn carts without realizing the debris being loaded onto them was all that remained of the drapery store. He turned and walked back in amazement.

  `What has happened here?' he asked the teamster at the reins of the first cart.

  The driver cleared his throat and spat lazily into the gutter. `The old building's been knocked down to make way for a new building on the orders of the landowner, the Stonehouse Shipping Company.'

  `And what of Mrs Llewellyn, the shopkeeper?'

  `I heard Stonehouse's seized her stock in trade and kicked her out on the street with no more than the clothes she stood up in.'

  A carriage drew up as they spoke. A tall thin man stepped out and stood watching the workmen as they swung their sledgehammers. The teamster pointed a grubby finger in his direction. `That man there. He's paying the bills. Perhaps he can tell you more.'

  Ben walked over to the tall man. `Can you tell me where I may find Mrs Llewellyn?' he asked. ﾁ`I have no idea where the woman is, sir,' Silas Moser replied. `But if you are enquiring as to her stock in trade with a view to making an offer, I can direct you to our head clerk in South Brisbane.'

  Ben shook his head. `My interest is in the whereabouts of Mrs Llewellyn and a young Kanaka girl who was staying with her just last week. Can you help me at all in that regard?'

  Moser's grey eyes assessed Ben warily. `I cannot help you young man,' he said abruptly as he climbed back into his carriage. `As I told you, I don't know where Mrs Llewellyn is, nor do I wish to know, and I know nothing of any nigger living with her on the premises.'

  CHAPTER SIX

  Kiri lay awake in her bed, unwilling to open her eyes and come to terms with the emerging new day. As always the early hours at The Gables were the most peaceful. Even the gentlemen who drank far too much from the superb selection of wines and spirits in Madam Jane's private lounge, always had the good sense to leave the steamy beds of her beautiful girls well before the first identifying streaks of dawn's light.

  There were usually around ten girls living at The Gables. All were young and desirable. In order to ensure absolutely no interference from the authorities, Madam Jane made sure at least two or three girls were registered prostitutes, as required by law.

  When recruiting, Madam Jane took her pick of the cream of the so-called, `fallen women.' She selected only the loveliest of unfortunate young women who found themselves pregnant, destitute, and abandoned by lovers who chose to avoid paternal responsibility, under legislation which deemed the age of consent in the colony to be just twelve years old.

  Madam Jane offered them a way out of their predicament, which was usually gratefully accepted as by far the most preferable option available. She would pay the girl's boardinghouse and living expenses until the baby was born. Then she would pay the charges of babyfarmers, unscrupulous matrons who took in, and for a huge fee, cared for the illegitimate children of Madam Jane's girls for as long as their mothers worked at The Gables.

  The girls were allowed to visit the baby farmers once a week to ensure their babies were being well cared for. With an infant mortality rate approaching seventy-five percent among Brisbane's baby-farmers, Madam Jane knew that visits to healthy children, and the paying of a small, but not entirely unreasonable percentage of their earnings back to the girls, was the key to the success of her thriving enterprise.

  Kiri's room was well furnished and tastefully decorated. But she had come to loathe it. For weeks she had been a virtual prisoner inside its four floral-patterned papered walls, while Madam Jane had conducted her rigorous training. A great deal of time had been spent teaching her to speak the Queen's English in Madam Jane's own refined manner; and careful attention had been paid to instruction in lady-like poise and deportment—a quality which came easily and naturally to Kiri.

  A shaft of sunlight streamed through a window directly onto Kiri's face. Reluctantly she opened her eyes and pushed back the bed-covers. She got up and walked over to the window. From where she stood she could see the river, swollen high by a full tide. A blackened old steam barge, with the markings STARK & CO painted in huge yellow letters along the length of her hull, blew a column of thick black smoke high into the air as the vessel forced her way upstream.

  Kiri turned away from the window and looked back toward the bed. The day before, Madam Jane had told her that her training was over and now she must begin to pay her own way in that bed, and to willingly perform any or all of the sexual acts she had been forced to witness in secret between the white girls and their gentlemen callers.

  Kiri closed her eyes, suddenly consumed again by the utter bewilderment, despair and loneliness which tore at her heart and mind every minute of every waking hour. Even the flames of anger and resentment, which had earlier fuelled her resolve to escape from the Faithful had been all but extinguished by the hopelessness and despondency that had descended upon her since she arrived at The Gables.

  Her mind drifted to the Island of Kiriwina, then to the man with the pigtail on the dock, and to the caring shopkeeper with the sing-song voice. Kiri's thoughts of kinder times were soon interrupted by muffled sounds from around the house. The Gables was beginning to awaken.

  * A cloud of jet black smoke rising above the tree line beyond the bend in the river heralded the impending arrival of a steam-barge at Jarrah. When Ben saw it he dropped what he was doing and ran bare-chested down the paddock to the riverbank.

  Ben had spent the first few months at Jarrah settling in and planning for the future. He was keen to establish the brickyard as soon as possible. The arrival of the barge signaled a start to the work which lay ahead. Of top priority was the construction of a jetty to accommodate the loading of river-boats which would transport bricks to Brisbane. Ben watched as the barge veered from mid-stream in toward the shore. Soon he could see workmen sitting on building materials piled high all over the deck.

  The skipper maneuvered the barge as close to the river bank as the vessel's shallow draft would allow. When it was secure he called out to Ben.

  `You... run up to the house and tell the owner I require him to lay out the exact position of his new jetty. And tell him there is other business to be settled before my crew can commence work.'

  `I am the owner of this property,' Ben called back. `I am Ben Luk.'

  A crewmen laid down a gang-plank between the barge and the river-bank. The skipper strode ashore. He was a short stocky man with long prematurely white hair, clear blue eyes, and a friendly face blackened by coal dust.

  `I'm not used to seeing gentlemen in these parts with their shirts stripped off and doing honest labor,' the skipper said with a grin. He held out a calloused hand. 'I'm Jack Stark, I'm in charge of this crew.'

  Ben pointed to two stakes he had driven into the river-bank earlier. `Mr Stark... I want the jetty to extend outward between these two markers and I want the supporting piles driven as deeply as possible into the river-bed. Now, what other business is it you wish to discuss?'

  Jack Stark rubbed his jaw thoughtfully. `I expect my crew will be camped here at least three or four weeks. It is customary on camp jobs on private property for fresh food to be supplied daily to our cook at the owners expense. Either that or your household provides each man with three meals a day, in which case our cook will be available to work on the jetty.'

  `I am new to this property, Mr Stark. I have no household staff as yet, but I have arranged for the local shopkeeper to supply and deliver whatever food your men may require on a daily basis.'

  `Excellent.' The skipper waved a hand and the barge came alive. Soon a ten man camp was set up in the sh
ade of a clump of gums, and close to it, a work area with sawyers benches, a large grindstone, and a blacksmith's hearth and anvil.

  That evening Ben sat in the moonlight on the veranda of the house. From his chair he could see the glow of a fire under the gums beside the river. Some time later he noticed a flickering light emerge from the trees and move up the paddock towards the house. Soon Jack Stark appeared at the veranda with a lantern in his hand.

  `Good evening Mr Luk. I've brought up a list of victuals from the cook.'

  Ben waved to a chair beside his own. `Would you care for a brandy Mr Stark?'

  Jack Stark sat down and Ben went into the house. He returned with brandy and glasses and poured two tots by the light of the lantern. Stark emptied the glass with a single swallow and looked out over the river. It glistened in the moonlight.

  `This has always been one of the prettiest properties upstream of Brisbane', he said, `even after sundown.'

  Ben looked surprised. `You have been on this property before, Mr Stark?'

  `Oh yes, many times. When I was skipper of a supply barge,I used to deliver grog here by the barrel-full to the remittance man.'

  `The remittance man?'ﾁ

  `You haven't heard about him?'ﾁ

  Ben shook his head and poured Stark more brandy.ﾁ

  `Son of an English lord he was, or so the story goes... disgraced his family in some way in the old land and came here and built this place. By all accounts he received a generous allowance on the condition he never return to England.'

  `And he did return I take it,' Ben said.

  `God no, he's buried down in the brickyard. Drank himself to death about a year ago he did. No surprise to anyone.'

  `Did he live here alone?'

  `Yes, well except for Ho Lim—the old Chinaman who lived in the brickyard hut. Some say he made the finest bricks in the colony. He built the fireplaces in this house and a good number of others in the district. The remittance man let him live in the hut down there and make a living off the bricks. In return Ho Lim cooked, drove the carriage, and did whatever was required of him, you know—a sort of gentleman's man-servant.'

  `And where is Ho Lim now?'ﾁ

  `Don't really know Mr Luk. I heard when the remittance man died, no one knew who his next of kin was except the bank that held the mortgage on the property. When they notified his father in England he stopped sending his son's remittance draft to them, so they foreclosed and kicked Ho Lim off the place.'

  Ben took his first sip of brandy. `I am going to produce bricks commercially on this property Mr Stark. I shall need men to assist me. One of them could well be Ho Lim. Were I to try and find him, where would you suggest I start?'

  Stark watched as Ben poured more brandy.

  `Ho Lim was old and had no family and no money. You would know better than most Mr Luk the likely fate of a destitute Chinese on the streets of Brisbane. There would be no offers of work, but plenty of senseless beatings at the hands of the louts and larrikins.' Stark downed his drink in one gulp and stood up to leave. `I would say either Ho Lim is dead, or if he is alive, he would be in the pauper's asylum at Dunwich.'

  The next morning Ben was awoken just after dawn by the loud pounding of the barge's pile-driver sinking the foundation timbers of the jetty into the river bed. He got up quickly and crossed the room to the fireplace, where he ran his hands over the superb brickwork, just as he had done as soon as Jack Stark left the night before.

  After a few minutes he dressed and walked down to the camp at the river. When he boarded the barge he had to shout above the clatter of the pile-driver in order for Stark to hear him. `Where is the Pauper's asylum you spoke of last night, Mr Stark?'

  `At Dunwich, a few miles across Moreton Bay from the mouth of the Brisbane River on North Stradbroke Island,' Stark shouted back.

  `I have decided to look for Ho Lim,' Ben said. `I expect to be away only a few days.' *

  A small steamboat bearing the emblem of the Stonehouse Shipping Company on it's tiny funnel arrived at Dunwich after steering a course well clear of the leper colony on neighboring Peel Island.

  Ben was the only passenger. A crewman told him the vessel would return to the mainland as soon as the provisions it carried were unloaded, and if he wished to avoid being stranded on the island, he should make his visit as brief as possible.

  The Dunwich asylum was within walking distance of the jetty. It was a dismal collection of ramshackle wooden shacks scattered around a large treeless compound. Ben made straight for a building near the entrance of the enclosure where a faded Union Jack flew from a tall pole outside. Inside, an elderly clerk sat penning entries into a journal at a small dusty desk.

  `Good-morning, I am Ben Luk. Have you a Chinese here by the name of Ho Lim?'

  The clerk reached for a thick leather-bound register and opened it. A frail but nimble finger ran down the columns of a number of long pages. On the fifth or sixth page the finger stopped.

  `Yes we do have an inmate by that name,' the clerk said. `Why do you ask?'

  `I wish to speak with him.'

  ﾁ`Please wait.'

  The clerk got up from his desk and disappeared down a dingy corridor. After a few minutes he returned with a younger, more officious looking man wearing a soiled white shirt beneath the threadbare jacket of a dreary black suit.

  `I am the assistant administrator of this institution Mr Luk,' the man said. `I understand you wish to see ...'

  `Ho Lim,' prompted the clerk.

  `Yes, Ho Lim.' The administrator eyed Ben solemnly. `According to the register, this inmate has no living relatives. Now Mr Luk, you are obviously a man of some means. You must be aware that the government has the power to force relatives to provide for their own, thus preventing paupers becoming a burden on the taxpayer.'

  `No I was not aware of that,' Ben said quietly. `But the matter is of little consequence. I am not related toHo Lim.'

  The administrator's expression became dubious. `Oh, please forgive me Mr Luk,' he said patronizingly, `but for what otherreasonwouldyou cometothis place? After all you are Chinese, or half Chinese at least.I just naturally assumed...'

  Ben felt his blood rise. He had seen the look of the man in the threadbare jacket many times before—on thefaces of government inspectors, zealously extracting the Chinese poll tax from coolies on the goldfields. But he remained calm and his voice was steady when he said: `Then you were mistaken, sir. I have never met Ho Lim. I came here to possibly offer him employment. Now may I see him please?'

  `Very well,' the administrator said stiffly. `But I must advise you that you will not be allowed to take the Chinaman off the island without signing an irrevocable deed binding you to financial liability for him in the future.'

  Ben followed a burly warder down a fenced lane which ran between two enclosures separating the male from the female inmates, husband from wife, and mother from son. In these compounds were the forgotten people of the colony, living in loathsome conditions, out of sight and out of mind of the rest of the population on the mainland.

  Ben saw the utter despair in their faces. They wandered about like wretched lost souls: the useless aged, the blind, the crippled, together with the drunkards past salvation, the medically incurable, and the plain unfortunates, reduced to the ultimate in destitution and deprivation, and forced into pauperism.

  The warder opened the door to one of the huts and Ben waited while he went inside. Even from where he stood the stench from inside the hut was overpowering. Soon the warder returned leading a little barefoot Chinaman out behind him by his pigtail. The Chinaman wore a filthy undershirt and ragged baggy trousers, cut off below the knee and held up with a length of string. His smooth skin was drum-tight over a thin bony face and a near-bald head. A clump of sparse grey hair hung from a sharp angular chin. He stood before Ben tight lipped, his eyes lowered, and his hands tightly clasped together in front of him.

  `You are Ho Lim?' Ben asked.

  The Chinaman nodded without raising
his eyes.

  `You made bricks on the river-bank at the home of the remittance man in Graceville?'

  The Chinaman nodded again.

  `I now own that property and wish to make bricks, a great number of bricks to be sold commercially. I have come here to see if you wish to work for me. If you do you may leave this place with me today and return to your hut by the river.'

  Ho Lim lifted his eyes. His tight lips quivered for a moment then parted in a muffled shriek as he fell to the ground and kissed Ben's feet.

  Ben strode briskly back to the administrator's office, anxious to leave the Dunwich asylum and its terrible misery far behind him. Ho Lim trotted along a few paces behind. They were almost at the end of the lane between the compounds when Ben heard a shrill voice call out his name. He turned toward the women's compound. A number of old hags peered out through the pickets. One called out his name again:

  `Mr Luk. For the love of God... Mr Luk.'

  Ben moved toward the woman. She was nothing more than a pile of filthy rags with a thin drawn face and tear drenched cheeks. Her blue eyes stared desperately into his own, imploring recognition. Then her bony hand reached out through the boards and clutched his arm.

  `God Almighty Mr Luk... don't you know me? It's me. It's Mrs Llewellyn.'

  Ben's eyes widened in amazement. `I was told about the store Mrs Llewellyn, but I never dreamed things could be his bad for you. Tell me, is Kiri here with you?'

  Mrs Llewellyn shook her head and her tears began to flow again.

  *

  The well dressed driver of the brand new carriage which reined in at Jarrah barely resembled the little Chinese wretch Ben had found at Dunwich asylum. Despite his age, Ho Lim hopped down smartly and opened the carriage door. Ben stepped out, then turned and offered his arm to his new housekeeper.

  Mrs Llewellyn wore crisp new clothes, and already there was some color back in her kind face. But Ben knew it would take a good deal longer for her to fully regain her dignity, and the weight she had lost since being transported to Dunwich, after being found sleeping, penniless and starving, in the streets of Brisbane.