'I'm sure you'll find something to entertain you. My father, perhaps.'
'With all due respect to your father, it's not quite the same thing.'
Flynn grunted, impatiently. Privately he blamed George for his failure to secure a blood tie with Niland and company. If he was half a man he would stop pussy-footing around and make the girl see sense. He was too much the gentleman by half.
'Shall we get on board?' he said. 'It's damned hot out here.' He turned to Kate. 'Don't get yourself into any trouble while I'm away.'
'I don't have much choice, do I now?' She looked at Sister Aileen, who waited at a respectable distance with an expression of irritating piety.
'I'll thank you not to talk like that,' Flynn snapped. He had made arrangements for Kate to lodge at the Convent while he was away. 'It's a man's town,' he had told her, when he had finally accepted there was no dissuading her. 'I'll not have you stay at the house on your own, not without me there to look out for you,' and he wondered what the hell she was smiling at.
She kissed him fondly on the cheek. 'Have a pleasant trip, papa. Take care of yourself and don't drink too much.'
He was abashed by this sudden display of affection. For all her contrary ways, Patrick Flynn did not know what he would do without her. 'Goodbye, darlin',' he said and embraced her awkwardly. Such a pretty young thing. If only she would do as she was told, she would be perfect.
***
George Niland and Patrick Flynn stood side by side on the Koolinda as she slipped her moorings, watching Kate waving to them from the jetty.
'A fine girl,' Flynn murmured.
'Yes,' George said. 'Yes, she is.' And she's going to be mine one day, he promised himself. I'll bring her haughty spirit to heel, see if I don't.
She went back down the jetty and climbed into the sulky with Sister Aileen. He experienced a moment's unease when he saw a familiar figure approach and speak with her briefly before the sulky headed back into town.
Is that McKenzie? George said.
'What's he doing out here? Flynn said.
'I think he has designs on Kate.'
Flynn gaped at him. 'That bastard! Over my dead body!'
'Watch out for him, Flynn. A shark can take you just as easy close to shore as it can ten miles out in the deeps.'
'What's that supposed to mean?'
'I've known him a long time. Hired him to work for me in Fremantle in one of our fishing boats. Good skipper and his crews loved him. But not a man to forgive. I'll never forget losing one of my skippers a day before sailing. He crossed him in a card game and McKenzie righted the matter with his fists. He ended up in hospital.'
'He doesn't scare me.'
'He should.'
'He's not getting within coo-ee of my daughter. That's the end of it.'
George shrugged his misgivings aside. Flynn had given him his word. The girl was as good as his. He would just have to be patient, that's all.
***
Cameron looked up at her and grinned. 'So he's sent you to the nunnery.'
'For my own protection.'
'Of course.'
Sister Aileen glared at him as if he was the Devil himself. She told the sulky driver to ride on, but Cameron held the traces.
Kate leaned towards him and whispered: 'There'll be no more rendezvous at the bungalow for a while.'
'Never mind, lass. Love will find a way.' He grinned at her, then gave the pony a slap and the sulky clattered off through the red mud along Dampier Terrace.
Chapter 12
March, 1914
The alley smelled of fish and urine and mildew and oilcloth. You can find all Asia down here, packed into the few streets between Bitter Moon Street and John Chi Lane. Old Chinese women in short black pyjamas squatted on doorsteps, Manilamen in khaki trousers lounged in the doorways; bare-chested Malays in scarlet sarongs rubbed shoulders with stocky little Japanese in snow-white singlets while chickens fussed and pecked under the verandas. A galah heckled passers-by with a salty selection of Anglo-Saxon abuse from its cage outside a pool hall.
Cameron made his way to Sam Wong's boarding house. He found Tanaka sitting on the wooden steps outside eating a breakfast of watery noodles.
Tanaka put his bowl on the step and jumped up. 'Camran-san,' he said, bowing.
'Mister Tanaka.'
'You look for diver, boss?'
'Aye, I am. But not you, Mister Tanaka. You've used up all your luck. If you take my advice you'll nae step on a pearl lugger again.'
'I know, boss. I not dive for anyone else. Tanaka finish.'
Cameron was pleased to hear it. Still, he would be sorry to lose him. He was the best diver he had ever had. 'What will you do now?'
'I still have dive money. Maybe I open store, or maybe fan tan parlour. I still make money from pearl - but do it here in Chinatown where I not die so quick!'
Cameron watched a surly group of Malays pass, their kris knives glinting in their sarongs. 'You can die here as easy as you can under the sea.'
'I doan think so, boss.'
'Maybe not. Well, I'm glad you've taken my advice.' He held out his hand. 'Good luck.'
'Thank you Camran-san,' Tanaka said. 'I never forget I owe you my life. Perhaps one day I pay you back.'
Cameron headed on to the Canton boarding house. There was a ready supply of new divers there, eager for their chance, even though many ended up crippled with the diver's disease and returned home to live out the rest of their lives as beggars on the street. Tanaka was one of the lucky ones.
Cameron remembered the advertisement he had seen in the programme of a travelling vaudeville show a month ago:
PUBLIC NOTICE TO DIVERS
Why live when you can die and be buried for œ7.10s
No waiting, no delay. First come, first served
10% reduction for a quantity.
THE HURRY MOTOR UNDERTAKING COMPANY
PORT DARWIN
He wondered if he would know when he had tried his luck too far himself. Would he know when it was his day to die?
***
It was March, the end of the Wet season. The fleets were getting ready to sail. The China Cloud had been refitted and had taken on fresh stores and water, enough for six weeks at sea. It would be Cameron's second full season as a pearler; this year he promised himself he would find his fortune. There would be no more Flynns.
Two of his Koepangers rowed him out to his ship. When they reached the China Cloud, Wes was waiting on deck to meet him.
'We got a visitor, skip,' he whispered.
'Who is it?'
Wes rolled his eyes in the direction of the cabin. 'It's a lady.'
She was sitting on the edge of his bunk, head down, hair falling across her face in a cascade of flaming curls.
'Kate?'
She looked up. Her face was pale as chalk, her eyes red from crying.
'What's wrong, lass?'
'Hello, Cam.'
'What is it? What are you doing here?' He sat down beside her and put his arm around her. 'Tell me, lass. What is it?'
'I'm going to have a baby.'
'You're sure?'
'What kind of question is that? Of course I'm sure! What are we going to do?'
'When's your father due back?'
'Tomorrow. On the Koolinda.'
'It's all right. Everything is going to be all right. I promise you.'
'What do you want to do?'
'We'll get married, lass.'
'You mean it?'
'If you'll have me.'
She searched his face. 'I've trapped you, haven't I?'
'Why would you think that?'
'This isn't what you want.'
'It isn't what I planned. Well, not the way I planned it anyway.'
'What about my father?'
'He'll just have to get used to the idea, won't he? You want me to talk to him?'
'That's the last thing I want. Let me do it. Give me a few days to pick the right moment.'
He
grinned. 'Will there ever be such a time? He hates me and with good reason. A man will never forgive anyone he's cheated.'
'Do you think you two could ever ... let this go?'
Cameron didn't answer her, and she supposed that was answer enough. 'He'd best hear it from me,' she murmured. 'Promise you won't tell anyone?'
'I promise,' he said.
She clung to him. Cameron kept his smile fixed in place. I'm not ready for this, he thought. But then, I suppose most men never are.
After she'd gone he put on his Panama and strode down to the Bosun's Regret on Spring Moon Street to fortify himself with a drink. For the next twenty five years he wished he had stayed on the China Cloud and drunk the square-face from his stores. He didn't know that the Koolinda had docked a day early and that Flynn would be in the front bar, blousy drunk and spoiling for a fight.
Tanaka would have called it karma, perhaps; or else it was just bad luck. Words were said, punches were thrown outside in the street. By the end of the day the result of the altercation was all over town and life for Cameron and Kate would never be the same.
***
Patrick Flynn was drunk. He surveyed the bar of the Bosun's Regret as it spun around him. Either I haven't found my land legs yet or I'm drunker than I thought.
He was sunk in self recrimination. On the trip down to Perth he had passed the time playing poker with George Niland and had lost heavily, then lost another two hundred pounds at a two up school in Fremantle. Another hundred had done on a whore he found by the docks; she wasn't worth more than half a crown but when he woke in the morning both the girl and his wallet were gone.
And George was still playing shy on the partnership. 'You keep your end of the bargain, old boy,' he had told him, 'and I'll keep mine.'
Kathleen! Now how in the name of all that was holy could he persuade the damned girl that was good for him was good for her, too? If she did not want to marry the son of the richest, most powerful man in all of Broome, who would she marry?
'Christ, if the Prince of Wales himself walked in and asked for her hand, she'd ask for time to think about it,' he muttered to himself, and dropped some more coins in the barmaid's jar to get her attention.
He ordered another gin.
Flynn looked up as Cameron walked into the bar. Jesus Christ and all the Blesséd Saints. More trouble.
'Well, Patrick Flynn. Look what the cat dragged in.'
Flynn straightened. 'What can I do for you now, Mister McKenzie?'
'I see your nose has mended. Not too well, I'd say. It's about as crooked as you are.'
It had fallen silent and everyone in the bar was watching.
'Well what if I did take your damned pearl,' he said.
'You admit it then?'
Flynn swayed on his feet. Damn him, the whole world was rotten, it was dog eat dog and devil take the hindmost. That was just the way things were. He leaned in close. 'You'll never see the like again. I'll buy ten China Clouds for that one pearl, you miserable Scottish bastard!'
Well that ought to do it, he thought. His hand curled around a bottle of square face on the bar. Come on, take a swing, he thought. Let's see how you go with this across your nose.
To his surprise Cameron turned and walked out of the bar.
Flynn came barrelling out of the door after him and threw himself at Cameron. They rolled over and over in the dirt, Flynn clawing and spitting like a feral cat. But drink had made him clumsy and slow and the younger man pushed him away and rolled easily back onto his feet. As Flynn charged again Cameron caught him on the point of his chin with a savage uppercut and Flynn hit the ground as if pole-axed.
The crowd followed them out of the Regret and stood on the veranda watching as the two men fought it out on Spring Moon Lane. Flynn raised his head form the dirt and jeered at Cameron as he went to walk away a second time. 'You're dirt, McKenzie, and you'll always be dirt. A grocer's son from a Scottish slum!'
'Well aye, maybe, but good enough to be the father of your grandson!'
Flynn stumbled back on his feet. Holy Mary, Mother of God, surely not. He was seized with panic. Christ, the whole town was there outside the Regret watching.
'Have you nae heard the happy news?'
'Not here,' Flynn said, desperately. 'For God's sake!'
'She's going to have a baby! My baby!'
Flynn reeled back as if someone had swung a sledgehammer into his chest. 'For God's sake, McKenzie, shut your damned mouth!'
'My baby,' Cameron went on. 'Ye have my pearl, and now ye have my blood as well. It seems too much bounty for any one man, doesn't it? Do you nae feel lucky, Mister Flynn?'
'You ... scum.' '
'Aye maybe.,' Cameron said, his breath sawing in his chest. 'But damn you, Flynn. Damn you for stealing my future!' He turned and walked away down the street.
Chapter 13
The blue and red flag with its huge white stars fluttered in the breeze at the Residency masthead as the first fleets raced each other for the honour of being first past Entrance Point. The gulls followed the luggers, screeching and swooping for any scraps for the taking.
Cameron was still on the beach, about to climb into his rowboat and head out to the China Cloud, still riding at anchor in the sparkling blue calm of Roebuck Bay.
A sulky pulled up on the road above the foreshore and a woman climbed out and waited by the running board. He recognised the familiar red hair under the bonnet.
He trudged back up the beach to the road.
'Kate,' he said.
'I heard what happened last night,' she said. 'I imagine by now the whole town has heard.'
'Let me explain ...'
Her face was perfectly composed. She came towards him with the dignity of a queen and slapped him once, very hard, across the face.
'Well, you've had your revenge on my father. Is that what this whole thing was about?'
'I did not mean what I said.'
'But you said it. In front of everyone. You disgraced me in front of everyone.'
'I'd had too much to drink. I didn't know any others were watching.'
'And what difference does that make?' She took a step towards him. 'I feel sorry for you, Cameron. I do not believe that you truly understand what you have done.'
'Did he tell you? About the pearl?'
'The pearl? No, he did not. Perhaps you were right, perhaps he did steal it.'
'He stole it all right. He admitted it to my face.'
There was a look in her eyes, sadness and pity rather than anger. 'Oh Cam, I would have loved you until my last breath and followed you to the very ends of the earth just to be with you. I would have given you my very last drop of blood. Was any pearl worth as much?'
She turned and allowed her Chinese servant to help her up into the sulky. She did not look back. a few moments later she was gone.
Chapter 14
The China Cloud beat back for another drift under jib and mainsail. They were on good shell, in less than ten fathoms of water. The afternoon passed to the monotonous click-clack of the air pump. Wes fed out the lifeline, while Assan, the Malay, tended the air hose. Curry-Curry was bent over the firepot next to the air pump, where two other Malays toiled under the canvas awning.
The new diver sent up another bag of shell from below, big grey oysters covered with green and brown seaweeds and ferns. The Koepangers set to work with their tomahawks, chipping away the coral and plants and tossing the shells into a pile in the middle of the deck.
Cameron took out his knife and began to cut open the shells. But after a while he threw his knife, point down, into the decking. He got up and went to the scuttle.
'You hokkay, skip?'
'I've nae mind to do the shell right now.'
'Mebbe only an hour to sunset, skip.'
'Aye, well, maybe tomorrow then. I'm away to my bed. I dinnae feel well.'
Wes frowned as Cameron disappeared down the scuttle to his cabin. The skip never left unopened shell on board overnight, too much
of a temptation for the crew. But Cameron had not been himself since they left Broome.
It was that woman. Wes knew all about women. The big Jamaican had never had any trouble getting them; it was getting rid of them that was hard. During lay-up time Wes fell in love at least once a week.
But the skip had it bad. They had been at sea nearly three weeks and he had hardly spoken except to give orders to the crew. They were on good shell and had brought up nearly show three tonnes, but if he was pleased, he had not let his face or demeanour know about it. He had even gone off his food. Jay-sus!
Wes went back to his work. He would talk to him later.
They worked until the sun dipped below the horizon and Wes began to stage the diver. He didn't understand quite how it worked but the experience with Tanaka had show him that the skip's strange ritual must have some magic in it.
Cameron did not appear on deck for dinner, so Wes took two plates of curry and went down the scuttle to his cabin. Cameron was lying on his bunk, staring at nothing.
'I bring you some chow, skip.'
'I'm nae hungry.'
'Got to eat, skip. You is gettin' to look like a shadow, mebbe someone put ju-ju on you.'
'No, ju-ju, Wes. I'm my own bad luck.'
Wes put down the plates of stew and sat himself down on the end of the bunk. 'What is it, skip? That one white woman, I reckon.'
Cameron did not answer. He sat up, took a tin of cigarettes from his shirt and lit one. 'We're sailing back tae Broome, Wes. First light.'
'But skip, we got a month's stores in the hold. We on good shell hyar. Why we go back to port now?'
'I cannae sleep no more, Wes, I cannae think. I've unfinished business to attend in Broome and I'll nae rest until it's done.'
'I doan understand, skip.'
'I'm a bloody fool, Wes. I never thought of myself as a very good man, but I nae saw myself as a bad one, either. But I cannae stop thinking about what I've done.'
'What really happened that day between you and Flynn outside the Regret, skip?'
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