Authors: Deborah Challinor
‘Comfy?’ Leo asked.
‘Yes, thank you.’
Leo worked very quickly drawing the outline onto Matthew’s skin, and a few minutes later sat back and said, ‘Go and have a look in the glass. Tell me if you’re happy with it.’
Matthew was, and returned to his seat.
‘Ready to start, then?’ Leo asked.
‘I think so.’
Leo chose from his tray a small brush, which he held between the smallest and ring fingers of his left hand and loaded with pigment — a viscous black ink smelling sharply and incongruously of fish. With his right hand he selected a tool consisting of several fine steel needles bound to a wooden handle with silk thread. He turned to Matthew, touched the needles to the ink-loaded brush, and made the first rapid but vigorous insertions.
They felt, to Matthew, like mild bee stings, the sensation not as uncomfortable as he’d expected.
‘All right?’ Leo asked after a few minutes.
‘Yes, thank you. It’s not as bad as I’d thought it might be.’
‘Not yet, it isn’t.’
As the minutes became a half hour and then an hour, and then ninety minutes, during which Leo seemed barely to pause to reload his brush and occasionally stretch, the sensation blossomed from mild discomfort to a throbbing, burning pain that spread down to Matthew’s elbow and as far up as his shoulder joint. His neck, too, was becoming stiff and sore from bracing himself against the needles’ onslaught. Glancing down, he saw that the flesh around the new black lines was red and raised, and that the gauze cloth on Leo’s tray was heavily spotted with blood. It wasn’t the worst
pain he’d ever endured but he was certainly looking forward to one o’clock when Leo’s next customer arrived. Finally, just as he was contemplating confessing he’d had enough for one day, Leo gave his arm a final wipe and sat back.
‘I think that’ll do for today, lad. Go and have another look.’
Matthew pushed himself creakily out of the chair and stood before the long glass, his torso at an angle to better admire the startling addition to his pale skin. He flexed his arms for effect, thinking it was fortunate he already had reasonably good muscle definition, otherwise he really would look ridiculous with an oriental lion on his upper arm.
‘Bravo!’ someone called from the doorway, and applauded energetically.
Mortified, Matthew whirled and made a dash for his shirt.
‘Hang on a minute, lad,’ Leo said, a broad smirk accentuating the creases in his face. ‘You’ll be needing a bit of salve on that.’
‘Good afternoon, Miss Woolfe,’ Matthew said stiffly, and sidled towards Leo, his shirt clamped against his chest.
Friday said, ‘I’m impressed, Mr Cutler. I had no idea you were hiding all that under your sensibly tailored clothes.’
Matthew’s face positively scorched as he accepted the little pot of salve Leo offered him. In an attempt to keep a grip on his shirt and open the pot at the same time he dropped the lid, which rolled at a leisurely pace all the way across the floor past Friday until it came to rest at the base of Leo’s cabinet. Friday limped over, retrieved it, picked a bit of fluff off it, and returned it to Matthew.
‘Here you are, Mr Cutler. Would you like me to rub your salve on for you?’
‘No thank you,’ Matthew said in a rush, ‘that won’t be necessary.’
Awkwardly draping his shirt across his chest and tucking it beneath his arms, he poked a finger into the salve, smeared some
onto his new tattoo, then turned his back and put the shirt on before grabbing his waistcoat and coat from the bench.
‘Thank you, Mr Dundas. I shall make another appointment. Good day to you both.’
Friday and Leo listened to the sound of his boots rapping away up the alleyway.
Leo said conversationally, ‘Do you often have that effect on gentlemen?’
‘No, usually they’re getting their clobber off, not putting it on.’
‘I don’t believe he paid me.’
Friday removed her hat and dumped both it and her reticule on the bench. ‘He will. I doubt there’s a dishonest bone in that one’s body.’
‘Decent sort, is he?’ Leo asked, wiping down his needles.
‘Seems to be. Don’t know him that well. Have I got the whole afternoon?’
‘If you’re up for it. Is he courting Harrie?’
‘He’d like to. He’s escorted her to afternoon tea once, at her invitation. At the moment she’s using him to get back at someone, another cove who’s made her
really
angry.’
Leo was startled. ‘Harrie? I’d never have picked that.’
‘Then you don’t know Harrie very well, do you?’
‘I know she’s been good with Walter.’ Leo’s wily old eyes narrowed. ‘How do I know you’re not just jealous of her? You say you and Harrie and this girl Sarah are the best of mates, but I don’t know you very well either, do I?’
‘No, you don’t,’ Friday said, her voice deceptively light. She began to undo the buttons on her bodice. ‘And it’s up to you what you believe. I don’t actually give a shit. Harrie and Sarah, and Rachel before she died, are the best friends I’ve ever had, and I know Harrie far better than you ever will. And I love her. And I know she’s not happy right now. If you can be a friend to her as well, that’s good, but you have to be loyal. You can’t let her down.
She’s had enough of that already. And that’s a warning, Mr Tattoo Man, not a piece of advice.’ She shrugged out of her bodice revealing a sleeveless shift underneath. ‘And don’t go thinking you know something about her, or
us
, when you don’t.’
Leo, four inches taller than Friday, and standing only two or three feet away now, stared at the dark nipples pressing against the white cotton of her shift. He sighed wearily and lifted his gaze to her face. ‘I’m not interested in interfering, lass. I like Harrie, and so does Walter. She’s a kind, trusting soul.’
‘Yes, she is. It’s been a worry.’
‘Unlike yourself,’ Leo added.
‘You should meet Sarah.’
‘I hope I do.’
Friday sat on the chair. Leo took hold of her left wrist and turned her arm, studying it closely.
‘That’s healing nicely. What have you done to your leg?’
‘Dog bite,’ Friday said flatly.
‘I hope you saw a doctor. Dog bites can be very nasty. Do you want the shading finished on the roses today, or will I start on the name?’
Friday was starting with the unevenly inked word
MARIA
on her left forearm, the name of the child she’d borne five years before, when she herself had only been fourteen, and who had died at the age of three months. That was being disguised with three red rosebuds, the darkest aspect of their shading covering the old ink, above a banner featuring a much more elegantly rendered version of her daughter’s name. After that Leo would tackle the very amateur dagger plunging through a heart above a set of initials on the outer aspect of her upper left arm. Friday had chosen a peacock to cover those, which would extend in all its gaudy magnificence from the top of her shoulder all the way down to her elbow. As for the anchor and initials on her upper right arm, she hadn’t decided. Perhaps a spiky-looking dragon, as depicted in the flash on Leo’s wall, or
maybe a phoenix bird to represent her and Harrie and Sarah rising from the ashes of their time as convicts. Secretly, she harboured an ambition to have an enormous version of a phoenix tattooed across her entire back, though she hadn’t mentioned that to Leo yet.
There were also the three outlined stars on her right hand between the thumb and forefinger — her first tattoos, executed when she was thirteen. She still rather liked them, as lately she’d come to think of them as representing herself, Sarah and Harrie; she planned to have Leo simply colour them green and add another in purple to symbolise Rachel.
Most folk assumed the initials on her arms were those of past lovers but they weren’t; they belonged to the tattooists who had inked the heart and dagger, and the anchor — fairly incompetent artists who had operated out of verminous little corners in pubs down near the docks in London’s East End. She couldn’t even remember getting the tattoos, she’d been that drunk. The word
MARIA
she’d scratched into herself with a shard of glass, over and over until the blood had run freely, giving her some — but not much — relief from her monstrous grief and gut-wrenching guilt. Then she’d rubbed lampblack into the raw wounds so she could never forget the terrible thing she’d done.
But Leo’s tattoos were very different. Not only was his work extremely beautiful, she’d discovered that the process of getting tattooed by a master was … mesmerising; there was no other word for it. Yes, it hurt, and yes, her arm was sore afterwards and some clumsy cully always knocked it while he was grinding away on top of her, but the sensation of Leo’s needles jabbing into her skin so rapidly and rhythmically seemed to send her into a delicious sort of trance. The feeling was very close to sexual, but not quite. Her mind almost disconnected from her body, the only thing holding the two together the bright thread of pain generated by Leo’s needles, and when that happened she was free to go wherever she pleased. Being in the place where Leo’s needles took her was as good as being
blind drunk, only better, because there were no horrors the next day, and she got a lovely new tattoo out of it as well. It took Leo many hours to complete a good-sized tattoo, though he was a very quick worker, so there was plenty of time in the good place, but it also meant she had to wait to see the finished work, and she didn’t like to wait. For anything.
‘We’ve got all afternoon. Can’t you do both?’
‘Probably not. Let’s see how we go with the shading.’ Leo sat on his stool and pulled his tea trolley closer.
Friday didn’t actually dislike Leo, regardless of what she’d just said to him concerning Harrie, though she was a little jealous of the fact that she seemed to have taken such an instant shine to him. As usual, Harrie had made a decision to trust someone without taking the time to assess his character, a habit of hers which in the past had not stood her in good stead. Friday didn’t
think
she was making a mistake befriending Leo Dundas — he did seem a decent, reasonable sort of cove — but she did wish Harrie would occasionally follow her head more than she did her heart.
She asked, ‘Has Harrie told you anything about Matthew Cutler?’
‘Don’t know her
that
well yet,’ Leo said as he dipped his brush into a pot of dark red pigment.
‘Do you want to know?’
‘Is it any of my business?’
‘Not really. But you did ask about him before.’
‘That’s true.’
Friday recounted the basic details about Harrie and James Downey falling out after Rachel’s death, James’s acquisition of Rowie Harris as a servant, and Harrie’s retaliatory afternoon-tea invitation to Matthew. She told Leo as a way of explaining that Harrie was currently not her usual calm, sensible, rational self. Then it occurred to her that Harrie might sound like nothing more than a girl who’d been spurned. She certainly hadn’t said anything
about Bella or Keegan, so Leo didn’t know how terribly frightened and worried and guilty Harrie was feeling because of that. How bloody worried they were
all
feeling. But then, Harrie
was
jealous of Rowie, that was plain.
‘Like I said, none of my business,’ Leo remarked. Though he thought it did sound like this James Downey could do with a good box around the ears. Uppity bloody ex-navy doctors, accustomed to ruling the roost and too arrogant to adjust when their boots touched dry land. And clearly
this
one didn’t know an honest, generous, clever, pretty lass when he saw her.
Like a number of Sydney’s streets, York was long and reasonably straight, and home to close to a dozen licensed hotels. By the time Friday arrived at James’s cottage to visit Rowie Harris, she’d been into the Green Man, the Flower Pot and the Warwick, and was pleasantly muzzy. So was Jack Wilton, who was driving Elizabeth’s gig, and at present dozing on the seat with the hood raised.
‘You don’t have anything stronger?’ Friday asked as Rowie served tea. A drop more wouldn’t hurt.
‘Oh. Well, I’ve a bit of gin in my room, and James has some good brandy. But we shouldn’t really drink that.’
‘“James”? That sounds cosy. Gin, thanks. Getting along well then, the two of you?’
‘Not in the way you think,’ Rowie replied.
‘Do you call him James to his face? Wouldn’t have thought he’d stand for that. Too proper.’
‘Do I hell,’ Rowie said, grinning.
While she was fetching the gin, Friday had a good look around. The parlour, with its big open hearth — where Rowie obviously did the cooking — was clean, comfortable and welcoming. The windows sparkled, not a speck of dirt besmirched the patterned oilcloth or the rugs on the floor, a pile of precisely folded linen
waited on a chair to be put away, and a vase of flowers sat exactly in the centre of the recently polished dining table.
Rowie returned and poured Friday a decent-sized gin. ‘He said you might visit.’ She sat and helped herself to tea. ‘So what were you doing when the dog bit you?’
‘Walking down the street, minding my own business,’ Friday said. ‘It was one of those bloody feral dogs.’
‘Really? My God,’ Rowie said. ‘That’s shocking. You really have to keep an eye out, don’t you?’
‘So it’s working out here all right?’ Friday was quick to change the subject.
‘It’s been good. I’ve been so lucky. He’s a nice man, James. Decent.’
‘Yes, well, just remember he’s spoken for.’
Rolling her eyes, Rowie said, ‘How could I forget? He’s always mentioning one or other of them. “Emily always did that”, or “Harrie says this”. Especially Harrie. I don’t think he knows he’s doing it, half the time. I think he must be quite lonely.’
‘Very likely, but it’s not your job to keep him company. Not in bed, anyway,’ Friday warned.
‘Half the chance,’ Rowie grumbled. ‘I’m still having trouble down below. James has given me some draughts, and plasters to use at night, and they’re helping. But, well, it’s just lucky I’m doing this now, and not still on the town.’
‘You’ll be missing the extra chink.’
‘I am, but James pays well enough. There’ll be enough to send a bit home, but I won’t be able to put money aside the way you do. You must have a fortune saved by now, with all your regular cullies. You’ll be able to retire soon!’
‘I wouldn’t call it a fortune,’ Friday said, but couldn’t resist adding, ‘but we are talking a good few hundred. It’s earmarked, but, and not for me.’
‘Is it? Who’s it for, then?’
Friday shook her head. ‘Any chance of another drink?’
Rowie poured. ‘I keep expecting Harrie to turn up here, but she hasn’t. Mind you, I wouldn’t know her if she did. You should bring her. I know James would love to see her.’
‘She’s not that thrilled you’re here doing for him.’ Loyalty stopped Friday from saying any more.
‘Well, what does she look like, in case she does turn up? Or will she be the one with the axe in her hand?’ Rowie laughed.
Friday didn’t. ‘She won’t have an axe. She’s far more mature than that.’
‘Sorry. I didn’t really mean that.’ Rowie sipped her cooling tea.
‘She has beautiful, thick nutmeggy hair, a very pretty face with lovely rosebud lips, and a gorgeous curvy figure with fantastic tits.’
‘Really? Well, it’s obvious why James fancies her, then.’
‘No, he admires her for her brains and her bubbly character,’ Friday corrected.
They paused, then shared a snort of laughter.
‘And she fancies him?’ Rowie asked.
‘She does.’
‘Then why aren’t they together?’
Friday sighed. ‘Oh, it’s a bloody long story, Rowie. He pissed her off and she won’t forgive him.’
‘Is that it?’
‘That’s it.’
‘Some people,’ Rowie said.
‘I know.’
‘Well, he can’t have Emily back, can he?’ Rowie said. ‘She’s rotting in her grave back home. Shall I see what I can do about Harrie? Drop hints about, oh, I don’t know, the joy of raising a family or something.’
‘No. He’ll think you mean you and him.’
Rowie winced. ‘God, he will, too. Well, I don’t know. Any ideas?’
‘I’ll think about it.’ Friday gulped the last of her gin and used her crutch to push herself to her feet. ‘Christ, this bloody leg is driving me insane.’
Rowie accompanied her outside and they woke up Jack, who, for a moment, didn’t know where he was. He helped Friday up into the gig, where they sat crunching liquorice-flavoured cachous to disguise the alcohol on their breaths before they headed for home.
On the eastern side of George Street down near the waterfront crouched the Black Rat Hotel, one of the roughest and least salubrious pubs on the Rocks. It was a favourite with sailors on shore leave looking for a wild time, and with those who had brought to Sydney the culture of England’s underworld, which was a significant number of the town’s inhabitants, no matter that they might now have earned tickets of leave, been granted pardons or otherwise served their sentences. While many ex-convicts were content to put down roots and build new, law-abiding lives in the colony, others were just as happy to carry on as they had in the old world, living off their wits and criminal endeavour, and for them the Black Rat was the place to go.
The night was warm and Friday hadn’t bothered with a jacket or a shawl. Her left foot had healed enough now for her to wear both boots and, even hobbling on a crutch, the Black Rat was only a few minutes’ walk from the Siren’s Arms. She’d asked Jack to come with her but wouldn’t tell him the full story, and he was sulking because of it, which only made her filthy mood even filthier. All she could tell him was she owed someone money and had to pay it back, and she wanted him with her in case she was robbed on the way to the Black Rat, which was true.
At five to midnight she made him promise to stay outside and wait for her, then went in. The pub was noisy, choked with smoke, badly lit, and crowded with the usual assortment of shady characters, low-rent whores, drunken tars and misfits, and she
spied Bella’s ‘man’ slouched in a dark nook not far from the door. As expected, it was Amos Furniss.
‘Very wise, girlie,’ he said as she hop-skipped up to him on her crutch.
He slid a bag off his shoulder and held it open; gritting her teeth, Friday took a small leather pouch containing one hundred and fifty pounds in notes from her own reticule and jammed it in.
‘I hope someone murders you for that on the way home,’ she said so viciously she spat on him.
Furniss cackled. ‘Better start saving for the next lot.’
‘Fuck you.’ Friday swung around and hobbled away.
‘Unless,’ Furniss called after her, ‘she decides to tell the pigs, that is.’
Friday ignored him, but his words sent an icy spear of fear into her belly — as, of course, he’d intended them to.
Outside the Black Rat, in the sharp sea air and the glimmering moonlight, she raised her crutch, whacked it against the ground so hard it broke, and screamed, ‘
Fuck, fuck, fuck!
’
‘Hey, hey,’ Jack said, grabbing her arm. ‘Settle down!’
‘
You
fucking settle down!’ Friday said, aiming a slap at him.
‘
I’m
not upset. Come on, calm down. Come on, that’s it.’
Friday couldn’t stop the tears of rage spilling down her cheeks.
Jack took her hand. ‘Come on, let’s go home and open the gin and you can tell me about it.’
‘I
can’t
tell you, Jack. I just can’t.’
‘Well, let’s open the gin anyway.’
Adam had been away for eleven days, and Sarah was running out of things to do to frighten Esther. She’d heated the milk very early one morning so it curdled, and replaced all the fresh produce in Esther’s pantry with rotten fruit and vegetables bought for a penny from a costermonger very happy to offload it; she’d laboriously and very quietly moved all the furniture she could around in the
parlour, which had taken half the night; she’d left one of Esther’s own turds in a dish tucked overnight into a recess above a beam in Esther’s bedroom so that the smell permeated the whole chamber; and she’d spent several hours another night walking ponderously up and down the stairs, making sure every tread creaked as she trod on it. It was all having the desired effect, however, as Esther was beside herself. The bags beneath her eyes were enormous and a dreadful purple colour, and her skin had gone pasty and spotty.
Fortunately, Sarah was up so often and so late at night perpetrating the ‘haunting’ that she looked just as awful, and was able to commiserate regarding their shared fatigue without lying, though her fear of the ‘ghost’ was of course pure fabrication. It clearly pained Esther to have to discuss even her fear with her, but Adam had gone and there was no one else. She would not talk to Bernard about it, sensing perhaps, Sarah thought, that he didn’t like her, though he was eager every morning to hear from Sarah about the ghost’s latest escapade.
‘Have you consulted a clergyman?’ he’d suggested on the fifth day of Adam’s absence. ‘The missus and I did. Came and said a few prayers and sprinkled some holy water around. Didn’t work, mind you.’
But this morning he didn’t have any useful suggestions, or even a smile. He’d been in the dining room with Esther, having his morning tea, but now he’d come into the workroom where Sarah was putting the finishing touches to a gold chain-link bracelet.
‘Sarah, lass. I’ve some bad news.’
Sarah glanced up, her heart beating just a little bit faster.
‘I’m sorry, love, there’s no easy way for me to say this.’ He indicated a document in his hand. ‘These are papers to return you to the Factory.’
Sarah dropped the bracelet; it slithered into the middle of the pigskin apron. ‘What? But she can’t! Only Adam can sign that!’
Bernard’s voice was very gentle. ‘Love, he has signed it.’
Sarah’s heart hammered violently, she couldn’t catch her breath and a wave of dizziness washed over her. ‘But …’
Bernard stepped forwards, a hand out as though to placate her, but she leapt up from the stool and backed away from him.
‘Often an assignment doesn’t work out, Sarah. Who you end up working for is a very arbitrary thing. It’s a lottery. I was assigned twice before I settled somewhere.’
‘But I’ve been here for over a year! We work well together! I thought …’
But clearly it didn’t matter what the fuck
she
thought, did it? Adam didn’t want her working with him any more, and that was that. He’d signed the papers and left it to Bernard to tell her while he was away. Gutless
bastard
.
‘Did you know about this?’ she demanded.
Bernard’s head jerked back. ‘Me? I had no idea. Esther only just gave me the papers.’
‘Give me a look at that,’ Sarah said, snatching it out of his hand.
But there it was, Adam’s distinctive signature at the bottom of the page. She marched over to the cabinet where the records of all the materials that came into the workshop were kept, yanked out a drawer and pulled out a receipt she knew he’d signed only a fortnight ago. The signatures were exactly the same.
She waved the Factory papers at Bernard. ‘She’s a screever, you know. That’s why she was transported, for forgery.’
Bernard nodded. ‘That has occurred to me. But to all intents and purposes what she’s given me are papers signed by Adam to return you to the Factory. And she insists he wants you gone by the time he gets back. She wants you to leave today, in fact.’
‘I’ll bet she bloody does.’
‘Between you and me,’ Bernard said, lowering his voice, ‘I think she thinks that if you leave, so will our supernatural visitor.’
Or had Esther realised
she
was behind Rachel’s ghost? Sarah wondered. ‘No, Bernard,’ she said, her initial shock subsumed
now by a rapidly escalating sense of outrage. ‘There’s a lot more to it than that. She’s
jealous
. She’s jealous because Adam spends so much of his time with
me. That’s
why she wants me gone.’
Bernard’s brows went up. ‘And does she have reason to be jealous?’
‘I’m not sharing his bed, if that’s what you’re asking.’
Sighing, Bernard said, ‘Well, I’ll put in a good word for you at the Factory. I’ll tell Ann Gordon I’ve been supervising you and I’ve been very happy with your behaviour. And I’ll talk to Ruthie. Perhaps we could manage another servant ourselves.’
‘Thank you,’ Sarah mumbled, trying to sound grateful.
Although she strongly suspected Esther had forged Adam’s signature on the papers, she couldn’t banish the baneful thought that Adam might have signed them himself, and the idea made her feel horrible — humiliated and sick.
Was her work not up to standard? Was she not clever or amusing enough? Or was he just bored with looking at her plain, scarred face and thin little body? Then it suddenly occurred to her that he might finally have realised she’d been stealing from him all these months, and that the warning he’d given her before he’d left was not to assist her in any way, but to tell her off. Her stomach clenched as unaccustomed shame surged through her. And if he was aware of that, then perhaps he knew she was also responsible for the ‘ghost’.
‘What is it?’ Bernard asked.
‘Nothing.’ Sarah strode around the workshop gathering up her personal possessions. Bugger Adam Green; if he didn’t want her here, then she was happy to leave. He was spineless anyway — spineless, hen-pecked and a milksop. ‘How am I supposed to get out to Parramatta?’
‘I’m to deliver you.’
Sarah thought quickly. ‘Will you take me to my friend’s house first? Please? I need to give her some things I can’t take to the Factory.’
Bernard nodded.
‘No,’ Esther said from the doorway. ‘Mr Cole, I want you to take her straight to the Female Factory.’