Catching the Current

by Jenny Pattrick

  Anahuia runs into the street without her hat or coat to find the Danish woman who works in the post office. The lady reads the letter carefully. Sadly she confirms that what Anahuia has slowly spelled out for herself is indeed the truth of the letter. Too sick at heart even to nod a thank you, Anahuia leaves the busy hall and walks home. All day she sews in a daze. What now? Where is he? What far ocean is he sailing, thinking I am dead?

  Gradually the steady movement of her fingers in and out of the lovely material calms her mind. But a change is taking place; a different purpose is growing. If Conrad is at sea, he is more likely to arrive at a large port than this far colony. Perhaps she, too, might sail to a different land. Where she carries no labels. Not slave or half-caste or native-convert-who-sets-a-fine-example, but just Anahuia Rasmussen. A seamstress. The idea begins to excite her.

  In the evening, when the boys are asleep, she goes downstairs to ask if one of the O’Halloran girls could keep watch while she goes out for a while. It is an unusual request: not quite proper for a single woman to go out alone. But Lucy O’Halloran, who loves to collect brightly coloured scraps of cloth for her dolls, runs upstairs gladly, while Anahuia, beautifully dressed and bonneted in green and blue satin, walks out onto Jervois Quay.

  Across the harbour the hills glow purple and red in the setting sun. All week the wind has blown up whitecaps on the sea but tonight the air is calm; the lamps, glowing for’ard and astern the docked ships, are deeply reflected in the darkening water. Most of the wharf drays have disappeared now; an occasional dog-cart or cab wheels past, the horses’ hooves skittering stones; a bowler-hatted man strides along, his cane tapping a counterpoint to the hooves. But the clerks and the businessmen have long gone. Anahuia walks steadily, enjoying the tang of tar and rope. I could leave this, she thinks — there is nothing to hold me. It is dreadful to think that Conrad believes she and the boys dead, but also there is this other feeling: I am a free woman!

  Further along the quay, at Barrett’s Bar and Saloon, she can hear distant sounds of music and singing. The hotel is lit brightly and from inside come the stamps and shouts of whalers. Anahuia recognises the flavour of the voices from her childhood and smiles to hear them. The season must be over and the whalers come from Tory Channel to spend their lays. Well-bred settlers frown at this time of year, and avoid the public houses down near the wharves. It brings the colony a bad name, they say, these rough fellows, stinking to high heaven and drinking themselves to death. The whalers, on the other hand, jeer at the sober-sided ‘jimmy-grants’. What’s the point, they roar, in travelling half around the world to make a town just like the one you’ve left? We work hard to earn our money and we drink hard to spend it. Live your life while it’s under your nose; no point bottling it for later! Anahuia has heard it all the past two seasons and enjoys their free-wheeling ways.

  She stands in the dark listening. Someone roars out a song her father used to sing; another sings him down with one Conrad knew, though the song has different words; several beat the rhythm with pairs of spoons. She steps a little closer to hear, but will not risk going inside alone in her fine clothes: an entirely wrong message would be sent to these rough and jovial whalers, who will drink the night dry — and the next day or two — and assume any female in sight is on offer.

  Then a fiddler starts up and the men pause a little to listen. Some ship’s boy, perhaps, adds his piping voice to the fiddle and soon everyone is stamping.

  Weigh Hey, my fair lady!

  Oh, you New York gals

  Can’t you dance the polka?

  The fiddle takes off then, faster than any foot could dance, and the men roar their approval. Anahuia has to see. The music is so gay, so wild. She can’t imagine any whaler’s fingers being delicate enough to manage the intricacies. She stands in the shadow of the verandah and presses her face to a small pane in the corner of the building. It is dark inside. Oil-lamps swing from the rafters and pipe smoke hangs like a curtain over the scene. Some are sitting on benches but most stand, their wind-burnt faces even ruddier with the drink and the heat of the crowded room. Dirty caps are jammed over unwashed, unkempt hair. Through the closed window she can still smell the oily, fishy stink she remembers so well.

  In the centre of the crowd the fiddler is whirling and playing like some madman. He is a tall young man, beanpole thin, his shirt-sleeves torn off above the elbows and his once-splendid waistcoat bright with embroidered patterns. Anahuia can’t see his face in the dark of the room. She moves to another pane. Now she can see that it is the man who is dark. His long, skinny arms are the smudged colour of wood-ash, his black hair short and tightly curled. He laughs as he plays and the teeth show white in the shadowy face. Anahuia is fascinated. Forgetting propriety, she moves into the doorway. Surely this thin and breakable man cannot be a whaler?

  A black-coated gent, better dressed than the whalers, who has been leaning in the shadows against the back wall, now steps forward and taps his cane smartly on the floor. Abruptly the fiddler stops his playing and bends to pick up the cap at his feet. This, too, is embroidered in gold and red. Now Anahuia recognises the fancy waistcoat and cap as imitations of a performing monkey’s uniform. The fiddler hands the cap around and the whalers toss in coins. One drunken fellow tries to land a smacking kiss on the lad’s cheek, but quick as a flash the black-coated man brings his cane down between the two.

  ‘Back off!’ he growls. ‘Any suchlike is extra. And paid for in advance.’

  The whaler laughs and turns to his mates, clutching at his trousers to suggest an agony of need.

  Anahuia frowns and is about to leave this sordid scene when she hears the fiddler speak.

  ‘Tak skal han ha’, mange tak. Det var venligt af herren,’ he says in response to a generous payment. Reaching to secure his tip, he looks up, meets her frowning stare and shrugs as if to say, what else can I do? The gesture is both smiling and shamed — more the look of a naughty child caught out than a grown man selling himself.

  That child’s look and the Danish words of thanks make the improbable connection for Anahuia.

  ‘Er du Mikkel Waag?’ she whispers. ‘Var du ven med den høje mand som hed Køne?’

  The lad stops as if shot.

  ‘Er du Mikkel Waag?’

  For a heartbeat or two he is utterly still, then slowly he arches his head back, bares his teeth and screams at the smoky ceiling. The pain in that howl is terrifying. Even the whalers are silenced. The black-coated man is over in two strides. He lays one firm hand on the boy’s shoulder and cuffs him about the head with the other.

  ‘Calm down, calm down. Good boy. Good Ali. Good Ali.’

  Mikkel shakes his head from side to side and screams — a wholly animal sound. The man knocks him to the ground, stands over his prone body and speaks to Anahuia.

  ‘This is no place for you, madam. My Ali can be dangerous, and these whalers are not much better. Unless you are in the business of …’

  Mikkel heaves himself to a sitting position, silent and crouching, like the monkey his master has made him. Anahuia is more angry than she can remember being. For a moment she stands looking directly at the black-coated man. She is taller than him and in her own way formidable. The whalers murmur and crowd around, ready for a confrontation, but the woman speaks in a level voice.

  ‘I have taken a fancy to your musician. How much do you charge?’

  The man turns to the whalers with a bark of derision. ‘This native pigeon is not so fancy as her clothes, eh? She wants a piece of my pretty boy!’ He names a sum. Anahuia produces it from her purse.

  ‘I will take him away for an hour.’

  ‘He stays here.’

  ‘He comes with me. And his fiddle. I fancy his music.’

  The black-coated man jeers. ‘Mary and Joseph, madam, I am no fool. If I keep the fiddle he comes back, eh, Ali?’

  Anahuia nods. ‘Well, keep the fiddle. I will take the man.’ She holds out her hand to the cowering Mikkel, who rises slowly, st
ill watching his master’s face.

  The black-hearted man pats Mikkel gently on the cheek. ‘Remember the sweet dreams I will give you on your return, eh? No monkey-business now!’ And roars at his own joke.

  The look she sends him would silence the dead. At the door she turns to the whalers, who are ready now for other sport. ‘Make your own music, friends,’ she says, ‘and leave me to mine.’

  They cheer her spirit and leave her free to go.

  Outside, Anahuia turns sharply down a narrow alley between buildings and stops there. She speaks quietly, in Danish, to the lad, who stands waiting where he has been stood, against the wall.

  ‘Stay exactly here. I am your friend and the friend of your Tall Køne. I am going back for your fiddle.’

  At the back entrance of the saloon she collars young Jimmy Smart, the wash-boy, and gives him a penny. ‘Get your dad and quick about it. Not a word else.’

  The publican comes out, grumbling, peering into the dark to see what has excited his son. Anahuia comes to the point quickly.

  ‘I aim to winkle this man’s boy away, Frank. We have a history of a sort. Now listen: first, I want his fiddle; second, I want every whaler’s son in there to keep his trap shut about where I live. I’d pay you for the fiddle but have no money till next week.’

  Frank grunts. ‘Keep your money. The fiddle belongs to the boy; he shall have it. I’d be glad anyway to see the back end of that Josiah and his performing freaks. Last year he brought a mangy cur could stand on his hind legs and bark messages. Half starved. That was bad enough. This is worse — that poor boy with his talent, brought so low. Tell you what, though — the whalers won’t remember any moment of it by tomorrow and I’ll not remind them.’

  Anahuia smiles her thanks. ‘I’ll send for the fiddle tomorrow. Just make it disappear somehow.’

  From inside comes a roar of laughter and a new round of songs. Frank turns with a brief wave and Anahuia moves back into the shadowed lane.

  LATER that night a quiet and shivering Mikkel Waag sits wrapped in a blanket while Anahuia mends his torn shirt. He will not tell his story: is ashamed of it, he says. All Anahuia can discover is that he is ‘about twenty-two years of age’ and has sailed many oceans in search of Køne. Anahuia speaks to him slowly (for her tongue is rusty in the Danish language) of Conrad and the stories he has told: of the escape from the Danish navy, and Conrad’s hope he would meet Mikkel again. At first Mikkel listens avidly, his quick grin lighting his face. Once he laughs — a rich gurgling, like a tickled baby, and Anahuia laughs with him. A new bond. But then his eyes begin to wander; he listens with only half his mind. From time to time he glances at the door, at the windows. He pulls the blanket tighter. Once he stands as if to go, shuffles his long bony feet, then sits again. He moans softly like a dog in pain.

  ‘You are safe, Mikkel,’ says Anahuia. ‘He won’t come here.’

  Mikkel shakes his head and moans again. He reaches one long dark arm out to hold her hand. ‘It is the sweet dreams,’ he whispers. ‘He gives me the sweet dreams every night. Do you have some?’

  Anahuia doesn’t like to think what he can mean. She shakes her head. After a while he whispers, ‘Just three drops in water. That’s what he gives me. I need it.’

  Anahuia understands then. He is speaking of laudanum. Some of the women she sews for are addicted — would do anything for a few drops of the dreamy stuff.

  ‘There is none here,’ she says, ‘and will be none. You must give it up.’

  Mikkel moans.

  ‘Act like a man!’ says Anahuia sharply. ‘You are not the silly monkey he has made you.’

  Mikkel sighs and looks at the floor. His lanky body seems to shrink and fold. Anahuia wonders if she has been a fool to rescue him. What will happen when her boys wake up? You can’t keep those two mouths shut, not at any price.

  ‘Do you want to go back, then?’ she asks. ‘You are no prisoner here.’

  Mikkel scrabbles along the floor to lay his black curly head in her lap. ‘I want to stay. I want to see Køne again.’ He adds sadly, ‘I need my fiddle.’

  She strokes his back gently. ‘Your fiddle will come. Be strong. Stay.’

  ‘Yes.’ But his big dark eyes are doubtful.

  She makes a bed on the floor for him and leaves him to his restless movements. In the middle of the night she hears the door to her bedroom open. Soft as a cat, Mikkel slips in beside her. He is shivering. She holds him like a child and slowly he relaxes, warms against her. She thinks he is sleeping, and perhaps he is; perhaps he moves in his sleep to pull down her nightdress and take her breast in his mouth. For minutes he lies there, tongue and lips gentle on her, sucking like a baby. One arm is tucked under his own curled body; the fingers of the other hand play a soft tune against her arm. Up and down they run. Up and down, soft as mice.

  Now it is Anahuia who moans. This is all too much. The flickering and swelling in her lower parts is part maternal but also something quite other. In time her own need becomes too great to withstand; her warm hands begin to play their own counter-tune up his bony back. Mikkel sighs, moves in closer. His narrow fingers steal up under her gown to caress her back and behind. She feels him stiffen and begin to move against her, slowly as if in an underwater world. They make love in silence, both so deeply absorbed they could be dreaming.

  I will regret this, thinks Anahuia. But as sleep comes she is smiling.

  4.

  ANAHUIA LOVED SYDNEY. From the moment she stepped ashore with Mikkel and the boys everything about the bustling, raw, noisy city delighted her. She loved the crowds; the way the houses crawled up and over the hills, joined side by side, row after row. No one turned a hair if she walked right into one of the grand buildings — the town hall, St Andrew’s Cathedral with its tall spire — on no particular business except to stare.

  ‘Look!’ she would say to her gawking boys. ‘Look at the statues, the archways — see how the carved staircase curves around!’

  The busy wharves, crammed with ships from all parts of the world, gave her hope that Conrad would one day sail into this sprawling harbour. Especially she loved the elegant carriages and longed to ride in one. Perhaps one day she would. Everything seemed possible in this wonderful city. Any day of the week she could pay her penny and ride a ferry to the other side of the harbour, or take a horse-bus out to the beach, or sit quietly in Hyde Park listening to the screech of the strange Australian birds.

  She talked easily with smiling, friendly women who asked no questions but gossiped in the streets in front of their crowded houses. A strange accent or a different shade of skin caused no comment here. A few eyebrows were raised when Mikkel staggered into the wrong doorway one night, out of his mind with the laudanum, but when he took his fiddle down to Hyde Park next Saturday and played to the promenading families he was forgiven. Mikkel became known and loved as a musical genius who shared his talent freely; he was therefore allowed to be different.

  Anahuia painted a sign: Madame Ana, Latest Ladies’ Fashions. Finest materials and workmanship. She placed it, along with a beautiful gown, in the window of her rented rooms. Soon she had more work than she could manage on her own. Her satisfied customers spread her reputation until ‘Madame Ana’ could boast a large clientele of smart society women who swore her fashions were the most up to date in the colony. Her business flourished.

  Anahuia rented and then bought a larger house in Surry Hills, where all the fashionable clothing establishments were concentrated. She hired well-bred seamstresses, paid them good wages and made sure orders were filled on time. Soon she was supplying fashionable garments to David Jones Emporium down on George Street. When Madame Ana walked up the Surry Hills streets in search of the best fabrics or the latest ribbons she was greeted with respect. Her imposing bosom would be resplendent with tucks and ruches, her skirts draped just so, her smile radiant. Tall as a man and beautiful, she turned many a fellow’s head, but never looked for favours. Sometimes dark Mikkel Waag drifted in and staye
d the night. More often he frequented the dark opium dens in the winding streets down at the Rocks. Anahuia’s two daughters, born a year apart, were clearly his. She never took his name, though.

  In the first years, on fine Saturdays Anahuia would take a horse-bus from the rail terminus down to Circular Quay or to Darling Harbour and then walk about with the boys, asking after their father. Once or twice there was word of a blond giant who could be Conrad; one ship’s master laughed at some memory and vowed he had definitely employed her Conrad on the long haul to England.

  ‘I was sorry to lose him,’ he said. ‘A useful pair of hands. Kept us all in good spirits with his songs and antics. I reckon he took off east — Singapore or Ceylon, maybe. It would be a full-rigged ship: he couldn’t abide steam. But listen, sweetheart, it would be needles in haystacks finding that adventurer, if you get my drift.’

  Anahuia was hungry for further details: was he happy? Healthy? Did he have a wife? But the master was suddenly called away to some emergency and she had to make do with those few words. By afternoon the ship, all sails set, had moved majestically away, out towards the heads.

  One night, five years after they had come to Sydney, Anahuia woke, overcome with dread. It was Conrad, she was certain of it, in danger. It felt like a storm. She felt Conrad fighting for breath. An hour she sat, alone and sweating in her comfortable bed, but fighting, breath for shuddering breath, with him. At last the breaths came more easily. She sat quietly then, until morning, keeping watch, feeling for his presence, and finally knew him to be alive.

  Then there was no news at all year after year. Anahuia began to visit the wharves less often, favouring rather a Saturday walk in Hyde Park or Victoria Gardens, where her two dark and beautiful daughters, flounced and beribboned, would be admired, and the boys, Noki and Johan, fooled around with the other lads, kicking balls in and out of the promenading families. Sometimes Mikkel came with them. He would find a good spot under a tree, take out his fiddle and play. His little daughters would caper around him, waving their arms and singing wordless songs. No one thought it strange: on Saturdays the park was full of entertainers. Once a man lit a fire under a huge balloon and sailed away out of sight. Noki declared he would become a balloonist or a trapeze artist — he hadn’t decided yet.