The Secret Fate of Mary Watson (28 page)

Winter, 1881

15TH JULY 1881

Screams ricochet off the limestone walls. Ferrier’s face is the colour of boiled beetroot. I’ve fed him and changed him. What else is there to do? I’m rocking the cradle with just a little more force than necessary when Ah Sam slips into the house.

‘What, what, baby?’

He lifts Ferrier in his nightdress. Hangs him over one shoulder like a small sack of slugs, rubs his lower back while simultaneously jigging him up and down. It looks like punishment, but Ferrier’s howling subsides to a few hiccoughs. Two minutes later, he’s asleep, his head tucked into the Chinaman’s grimy neck.

My ears are finally, blissfully, empty.

Ah Sam puts a stained finger vertically over his lips and lowers the baby back into the cradle.

Wretch. His eyes are closed. The dark lashes on his now-pale skin twitch slightly. His mouth’s a plump bud, drawing in teaspoonfuls of air, and pushing them out again. He’s angelic … when he’s asleep. Daily I marvel at how I could have delivered such a beautiful child. He looks nothing like Percy. Neither does he look like Bob. Which didn’t stop Bob converting him to a perfect little Pope-loving son. Heathen that I am, I was forced to wait outside the Catholic Church in Cooktown while the christening ceremony proceeded. I wasn’t allowed within snuffing distance of the candles.

But none of that is Ferrier’s fault. I look down at his tiny, sleeping face. He doesn’t care for Latin and holy water. Already he’s devoted to two gods: one on the right, one on the left. And both inside my blouse.

I motion Ah Sam outside and we stand on the gravel in the cool morning breeze off the water.

‘You said you might have something for wind?’

He pulls a small bottle from the waistband of his pyjamas. ‘Two drop under tongue.’

‘What is it?’ I open the lid and sniff suspiciously. A sweet, syrupy undertone. ‘Does it have opium in it?’ He gives me such a look of cultivated innocence that I laugh. ‘Well, we’ll see how desperate I get.’

Whatever is in the mix, I know Ah Sam wouldn’t hurt the baby. Ferrier loves him, gurgles and waves his arms around, trying to swim towards that bland moon-face every time it rises over his cradle. Ah Sam is endlessly patient with him. Tickling his belly to keep him happy while I’m peeling the vegetables. Singing to him, sometimes, in his peculiar, jerky intonations.

I put the bottle into the pocket of my apron and look down towards the water. The Kanakas and the Aboriginal boys have managed to drag
Isabella
pretty much out of the water and onto the beach. The lugger looks like a crusty whale propped up on port side by a few heavy logs. Small waves lick at the stern. The Kanakas, two to a side, wield long, wooden-handled iron scrapers on the hull. Barnacles, weed and black muck fly off with each heavy push. Gulls crowd around the growing ring of dark detritus on the sand. It’s hard work: a chiselled wooden screech, followed by the deep-throated language of big men, then another screech. They’ve been at it since yesterday noon, and don’t look likely to finish before late tomorrow.

‘Where’s Bob?’ I ask.

Ah Sam shrugs. If he knows, he’s not saying. Bob’s mood has been black for a month. Until Ferrier was born, he was as close to happy as I’ve ever seen him. He stared at my belly in the evenings with a paternal gleam in his eye, even smiled occasionally, and his foul temper was largely reserved for
Isabella
’s crew. He still treats his son as one would any valuable possession. But it’s as though I’ve served my purpose now that I’ve produced his heir. Beyond the convenience of a live-in babysitter, my position seems largely irrelevant.

‘Well, where’s Percy then?’

Another shrug. A half-apologetic smile.

Bob and Percy have hardly been out fishing since the baby was born, and their partnership has been more strained than ever since Percy came back from Melbourne. When they do make the effort to harvest slugs, the catch is disappointing. I’ve been so focused on Ferrier that I haven’t troubled to find out what the problem is. But maybe it’s time I got to the bottom of it.

‘
Isabella
’s hull should be clean by tomorrow. Do you think the men will put out soon?’

Ah Sam shakes his head.

‘Why not? The weather’s fine.’

‘No slug, missy.’

‘But it’s the dry season. Shouldn’t there be plenty of slugs now?’

‘Fishing bad … Slugs go.’

I look down to Ah Sam’s bare feet, knobbly in the dirt. He mutters something else under his breath. But when I ask what it was he said, he just grabs the basket near the door and trots away to check for eggs.

I step inside to make sure Ferrier is still sleeping, then shuffle out to the cookhouse to light the fire. The bread dough that I’ve rested in a warm corner has risen. I punch it down, then reach up to the shelf for my baking pans. My hand touches the second shell, a spider, that Porter gave me just before he left six months ago. I lift it down. Finger each of its seven calcified tentacles. I hold the striped pattern up so that it catches the light: stewed apricots streaked with cream.

‘The animal inside this one doesn’t feel the need to hide,’ he told me, ‘even though it’s vulnerable. You often see them in the shallows.’

He was looking at my hair when he said it. The one thing pregnancy had done for my looks was to make my hair both softer and more curly. He pulled a piece of paper from the shell’s cavity and handed it to me. It was an address, nothing more.

‘For my sister and brother-in-law, in Umina,’ he said. ‘If you need me, contact them. They’ll know where to find me.’

‘Can’t you stay?’

We were in the house, saying our goodbyes. Sadness welling up in me. Bob’s voice booming up from the beach. It was time for Porter to go.

‘My contract’s finished,’ he said simply, then picked up his swag and turned to face me at the door. ‘I don’t care what you’ve done, Mary. Or what you intend to do. Remember, if you need me …’

And then the doorway gaped without him.

I caution myself to stop daydreaming, and put the shell back, but not before I rub the surface so that it might pick up some warmth from my hand. I put it up to my ear. Porter’s still gone. The shell’s still ice-box cold. But I can hear the sea calling.

And the address he gave me is tucked away safely in my locked box under the bed.

15TH AUGUST 1881

After dinner, in the rocking chair, the rhythm of my fingers orchestrating needles and wool soothes me. The gentle push of my foot on the base of the cradle keeps time. Like a slower, smoother version of working the piano pedals at Charley’s.

Bob’s sitting on a box, re-sewing the frame onto a landing net with twine and a large needle. He misses and jabs his finger. ‘Feck it to hell!’ He throws the net in his temper. It lands in a puddle in the middle of the floor.

‘You’ll wake the baby.’

‘I’ll wake the bairn if I’ve a mind to. Ye would forget who gave him to ye?’

Oh, I’m not forgetting, Bob. Not for an instant.

‘Well, carry on then. You can put him to sleep again, after he wakes.’ I finish the row I’m working on. ‘What will you do now the slugs have dried up. Will you try some other ground?”

He runs a splayed hand through his thinning hair. ‘Aye.’

He stands, wanders over to the shelf and looks straight through it. His hand finds his pocket. The clinking doesn’t seem to bother Ferrier. He’s asleep on his back, a white wrap tucked in tightly around him, under the mosquito net. A bird shrieks outside. I can hear palm fronds tickle the darkening sky.

‘We must start a new station.’ He turns around with a pepper shaker in hand. ‘Night Island’s about two hundred miles north. We have to sail up and see if it’s suitable.’

My mind is jarred into action. If Bob is far away at the time of the drop next month, well and good. But if Percy is going with him …

‘Who is we?’ I ask.

‘I can’t work both boats. I’ll take all the men.’

‘When are you going?’

‘Fuller thinks the end of August, start of September.’

He doesn’t normally listen to Percy.

‘Why September?’ I keep my voice light, concentrate on my knitting.

‘We will have taken all the slugs we can get by then. Ye and the wee bairn will come with us. Or ye could go to Cooktown till we get back.’

My palms feel sweaty on the wool. Oh, how careless I’ve been, even negligent these last months. I should have seen this coming but I was distracted by the baby. I can’t go to Cooktown in September and I can’t go north with the men. I won’t allow Percy even the hint of an excuse to use Ah Leung to signal the next drop. This is unexpected, and it shouldn’t be. The signs were there and I ignored them.

I bite my bottom lip, juggling possibilities. If there’s one thing I’ve learned about Bob’s stubbornness, it’s that I must
sound deferential or else I won’t have the faintest hope of getting my way.

‘It’s your decision of course,’ I say. ‘And you know best. But don’t you think it would be better if Ferrier and I stayed here on the Lizard? It’s only an exploratory trip. How awkward would it be caring for an infant on
Isabella
? In all weathers? And you know how seasick I get.’

He looks scornful. ‘Ye’d be alone for six weeks, maybe eight.’

‘If we have enough supplies, and you leave the Chinamen, we should be all right. In fact, why don’t you take Ah Leung with you? Ah Sam and I can manage quite well. You know how good he is with the baby.’

I cross my mental fingers, hoping he will agree to take the malevolent nuisance away. But he’s shaking his head.

‘John Pigtail on a lugger’s as useless as tits on a boar.’ He thinks a bit longer, rubs his chin. ‘All right, ye’ll not come with us. But ye have to go to Cooktown.’

I count to five before I speak.

‘It’s an idea. But, Bob, those last papers you brought back … there’s an influenza epidemic. And diggers returning from New Guinea with suspected typhoid. He’s so small, your son. So vulnerable to illness. I’ll defer to your judgement, but we’re safer here, I’m sure. Perhaps you can leave us some kind of rowboat, just in case there’s trouble with the blacks?’

‘What would ye do? Paddle to the mainland? Ye wouldn’t make it past the first sharp edge of reef. Ye know almost nothing of shoal and deep, tide and counter-current. Ye can’t even swim!’

‘True.’ I hesitate. ‘It’s a problem, isn’t it? We don’t have to make the decision right away.’

There’s no point continuing. That antagonistic edge will just
creep into his voice. It’s enough to plant a thought in his head. Hope it germinates. I go quietly back to my knitting and rocking. Let his medicinal balls think it over.

Five days later at three o’clock. High clouds skitter like furtive thoughts inside the hard blue skull of the sky, though there’s no wind on the ground. Not yet. Now, finally, it’s
Petrel
’s turn to be scrubbed clean and repainted. The men have been busy doing repairs on board her, these last few weeks. Percy’s bent under the stern with a brush and a small tin of tar, applying it in long, slow strokes.

It’s cold in the lugger’s shade. The sour reek makes me think I’ve stepped under a bridge to visit an ogre. Which is not too far from the truth.

He doesn’t see me approaching, and startles when he notices me only a few yards away. He wears a dark smear on his left cheek. His light hair is dirty in the shadows. Only the green eyes stir in acknowledgement.

‘Where’s your husband, Mrs Watson? I wouldn’t want him to think anything’s going on between us.’

‘Bob’s fixing a hole in the fowlhouse fence. I haven’t time to play games with you. You must convince him to leave me and Ferrier here when you sail for Night Island.’

‘Yes. I’ll get around him. I always do.’

I wasn’t expecting him to agree so easily. I’m paying very close attention now. And I won’t let his quick acquiescence soften my formal tone.

‘How will you receive the signal if you’re two hundred miles away?’

He straightens, shakes his wrist back and forth as though it’s seized up in the painting position. ‘I’ll think up some excuse.
Tell Watson I want to investigate a good patch of slugs a bit further south. Get here in time to take the signal, then hightail it north again before he smells a rat. I’ll be in position, don’t you worry.’

This is going way too smoothly. I’m not sure what he’s up to, but I charge on.

‘Before you return to Night Island, I want you to ferry the baby, Ah Sam and me down the coast. I’ll pay for the trip out of my share from the drop.’

‘And exactly how do you think I’ll explain so long an absence to your old man?’

I feel my mouth twist. ‘You’ll think up some excuse. Bob’s used to your walkabout ways. He’ll be angry. But I doubt you’ll worry about
that
after Roberts has paid us out.’

He turns to gaze over the water. The wind’s picking up. It tinks one piece of metal against another somewhere on
Petrel
’s deck tilting above us. Blows his words back to me.

‘People will see you. They’ll know you’ve done a runner. Watson will come after you. He’ll accuse you of stealing his darling baby boy. And what makes you think you can trust Ah Sam not to blab?’

My voice is firm. ‘Obviously, I won’t be travelling as Mary Watson. And if I don’t keep Ah Sam quiet, we’ll both face the consequences. Taking him with me is better than leaving him on the Lizard to tell Bob what’s happened when he gets back. As for Ah Leung, he’s your pet, not mine. If he doesn’t keep his mouth shut, you’ll have more explaining to do than just my disappearance. I wouldn’t leave him at a loose end if I were you. But I tell you one thing, he’s not coming with me.’

There’s a far-off look in Percy’s eyes. ‘Oh … he won’t be idle.’

Something tightens in my chest then lets go. I stare at him. He widens his own eyes then covers his tracks.

‘I presume you’ll have to eat while we’re gone. Ah Leung will tend the farm, as usual. That should keep him out of trouble.’

‘Never at a loss, are you, Percy?’ I shake my head in amazement.

‘Not knowingly, Mrs Watson.’

I can’t think about what he’s hiding now. I have to finish what I set out to say.

‘I’m not fussy about where you set us down. We’ll find passage on a bullock train south. I thought you might know somewhere appropriate to make landfall for that purpose.’

‘I know plenty of places,’ he answers noncommittally. ‘And so do the blacks.’

But his tone suggests the idea’s not untenable. He must have made his own plans for afterwards. Roberts will want us all to evaporate when his business concludes, and Percy would have already considered how that might be achieved.

‘I’ll have to think on it,’ he says, dismissing the debate, and me. It’s as though he’s bored — or more worryingly — that the whole conversation about my escape from the island has run the limit of an only mildly entertaining supposition.

As I turn to walk away, he adds, ‘Speaking of the blacks — they’ve been spotted over at South Direction. On the move again, evidently. They’ll see us leave, you know. It’ll be the perfect time for them to attack. You’d better make sure that
your
pet Chow knows how to shoot.’

‘Thanks for the caring advice.’

He puts a sticky hand on my shoulder. ‘I did warn you not to get so far into this.’

I brace myself to feel something, anything. But there’s just annoyance at the tar he’s leaving on my dress. I turn my head; look at his grimy hand until he removes it. Whatever half-baked childish infatuation I may once have had for him is dead. Stone dead.