Skins

by Sarah Hay

  ‘Tammar stew.’ It was hard to read his expression. ‘I taught them to make it. They use the wallaby on the island. They call them tammar.’

  Dorothea looked at Mary and then back at him and asked: ‘What are their names?’

  He stared at her and she wished she hadn’t spoken.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Their names.’ She nodded towards the fire. ‘The women,’ she added almost under her breath.

  He walked over to the tallest of the three and grasped her short matted hair. He turned her to face them.

  ‘Dinah. Say hello to the fine English ladies.’ His tone was sarcastic.

  She glanced up briefly and mumbled something.

  ‘She can speak like you if she wants to.’ He gestured with his other arm. ‘This one’s Sal and that’s Mooney.’

  Sal giggled, revealing a wide white grin. Mooney looked at the floor. Dinah continued to stare ahead at some point on the wall behind them. At that moment Matthew, Mary’s husband, appeared at the doorway. He looked around and then went to stand behind Mary. He placed his hand at the nape of her neck, his eyes on the other man. Mary looked down at her hands, which were clasped tightly on the table. No one moved. Dorothea watched an ant as it crawled along the edge of the table. Matthew straightened.

  ‘I’ll be outside,’ he said.

  The light in the room had dimmed. The sealer appeared as a shape in the other doorway. He had put on a shirt with sleeves torn from the shoulders. It hung over the animal skin wrapped around his hips. He reached for a lamp that was hanging from a hook on the wall. He placed it in the middle of the table and filled it with oil. Lit, it illuminated his broad forehead, shadowing his eyes and deepening the lines that ran down the side of his nose to his mouth. He had shaved with his sealing knife, leaving behind a few shiny dots of congealed blood on his neck and at the back of his skull.

  The black women left and they ate their meal undisturbed. Pushing her plate away, Dorothea reached across the table for her sister’s hand. Her eyes glittered in the light of the lamp as she looked back at Dorothea.

  ‘How do you feel?’

  Mary shrugged in a way that suggested even that was an effort.

  ‘Jem said there is a tent in the trees near the beach.’

  They stood in the shadow of the verandah, looking out to the clearing. Three men sat against the trunk of the eucalypt, legs stretched out in front of them. Some were lying in the dirt having unrolled their bedding. The sealer was talking to a man they hadn’t seen before. His beard was long and thick, an animal-skin cloak around his shoulders. He was sitting with legs bent, arms resting on his knees. One hand clasped a clay pipe, which he used now and then to stab the air. He used the other hand to tug at his beard. They were both talking in low voices, heads close together. The man with the beard glanced over at Jansen and stood up. He walked to the edge of the clearing where another small fire burnt healthily. The Aboriginal women were squatted before it. Mooney poked a stick into the coals. The man leant down and took her arm. He pulled her upright and led her towards a bundle of skins beside the wall.

  Their brother left the fire and walked towards them.

  ‘Jem,’ Dorothea called out softly. ‘Jem.’

  ‘Bleedin’ Jesus, Sis, you give us a fright.’

  ‘Can you take us to the tent?’

  ‘It’s through there.’

  ‘Please Jem.’

  They disappeared quietly through the trees. Dorothea looked back. The thin pale trunks of the paperbark trees glowed in the moonlight. They half circled the camp and looked like silver bars. She hurried to keep up. Through a gap in the bush she could see the beach. The wind had dropped and the silky sea unfolded towards the mainland where a path was lit by the moon. Near the island it rippled silver and dispersed into flashing bits of light that caught the top of the waves as they swelled and tumbled onto the sand.

  Jem said something to Mary that Dorothea couldn’t hear.

  ‘I said I’m going out tomorrow with Anderson.’

  ‘With who?’

  ‘The sealer.’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘Sealing, what do you think?’

  ‘Are they all going?’

  ‘Don’t know … that James Manning told him I wanted to work. He says he’ll pay me when he takes a load to the Sound.’

  Jem left them in front of the tent. It had been erected beneath wattle trees that were bent over by the wind. From the entrance they could see the edge of the rock that led out towards the headland and to the beach. She could see that they would be sheltered from most weather and they were fortunate tonight for it was warm. Wattle leaves covered their floor and smelt musty. They would sweep them out tomorrow but for now they used the loose canvas from one side for a mat. Taking off their shoes they lay down, covering their bodies with their shawls and lying close together for comfort.

  Dorothea woke with the hand of her sister grabbing her arm tightly. It was night and there were voices. Drunken voices of men. She recognised Matthew’s voice.

  ‘She’s my wife.’

  There was scuffling and branches were broken. Someone fell heavily and grunted.

  ‘There … now get off.’

  Matthew crawled on his hands and knees into the tent, breathing heavily. The air saturated with the cloying smell of alcohol. His hand grabbed Mary’s thigh. He leant on it and pushed himself up. She gasped and wriggled to shift the pressure.

  ‘Mary,’ he said hoarsely.

  He reached over her stomach to the other side of her waist and pulled her towards him. There was no resistance and he lay heavily across her, grunting as he did so. He fumbled about with her skirts, tugging them up under his legs, and opened his trousers. Mary made a small sound. His breathing quickened.

  Someone was outside. Dorothea’s breath caught at the back of her throat. Matthew froze and then knelt between his wife’s legs. He leapt up and crashed through the entrance of the tent and then there was a slapping sound, the sound of skin on skin and silence. Matthew returned and lay beside his wife. Mary let go of her sister’s arm. Dorothea had been comfortable before but now she noticed that underneath her right shoulder there was a lump in the ground and a place in the small of her back ached. She turned on her side, away from her sister, and listened to the shoosh of the waves.

  January 1886

  George has not come into my bedroom for days. He is waiting for me to die. I can hear it in his footsteps that tread the wide wooden stairs. I want to call out but my mouth is too dry. From my bed, which lies in the corner of the room, I see the violet twilight framed in the small squares of the window.

  I remember when you married Matthew at the magistrate’s Strawberry Hill Farm. How pretty you looked in the light linen gown he had bought you. The sun was high in the sky and the bush was loud with the sound of insects.

  Middle Island 1835, James Manning

  A man left the hut and walked towards them. Manning and Jem were on the edge of the clearing, their backs against the paperbark thicket, with a view of the others. The man sat on a tree stump close by. His features were indistinguishable in the twilight but Manning decided that he looked as though he was in his twenties. He had dark hair and eyes set close together. Jem told Manning that his name was Matthew and that he was his sister’s husband.

  Anderson moved like a shadow out of the house and around the back.

  ‘Who is he?’ asked Matthew.

  ‘Black Jack Anderson,’ replied Manning. ‘You ain’t heard of him?’

  Matthew and Jem shook their heads.

  ‘Came from Kangaroo Island. Deserter they reckon from a Yankee whaler.’

  Manning paused and looked at one then the other.

  ‘No one knows anything about him. It’s how he wants it. They reckon he’s been around these parts before. There was a fellow who worked for him once …’ Manning’s feet were getting cramp and he stretched them out in front of him.

  ‘What happened?’ asked Jem.

 
; ‘He cut him ear to ear. They say he’s under a waterfall at Doubtful Island Bay near the Sound. The water washing over him keeps him from going rotten.’ Manning narrowed his eyes for effect.

  Matthew stared thoughtfully ahead, picking at the skin on his lip.

  ‘There was another fellow called Anderson who was a sealer, last year in the pub at the Sound. He was from Kangaroo Island. But he was white.’

  Manning raised his eyebrows but he was no longer interested in what was being said for the food was coming out. Dinah and Mooney brought out the pot and placed it on the table under the porch. Manning watched but he didn’t get up. Experience had taught him to wait. Men pushed themselves up off the dirt and milled around. The sound of the spoon clattering on tin plates interrupted their words. By the time it was Manning’s turn there was just a layer left at the bottom. There was only Jem who hadn’t eaten. He spooned most of it onto his plate and took a piece of bread, returning to his position in the shadows. Jem followed, stepping over the fellow Manning had noticed earlier, the one who looked like a rat.

  ‘Do you know him?’ asked Manning.

  Jem shrugged. ‘I think his name is Owens.’

  Manning sat down. He shook his head slightly in disbelief. But he had known all along that what he suspected was true. He turned to Jem, barely able to speak.

  ‘What’s he doing on the Mountaineer ?’ he stuttered.

  ‘Don’t know.’

  Jem looked at him strangely.

  Manning rubbed his sparse beard with his forefinger. He swallowed the meat that suddenly seemed foul in his mouth.

  ‘Who are the others?’ he asked more clearly.

  Jem had finished the small amount on his plate and looked over at Manning’s plate and the others who were still eating.

  ‘Don’t know,’ he shrugged. ‘Him over there … I know him. He’s the swell they call William Church.’

  Firelight flickered over a man in a dark suit and a hat, a plate balanced on his knees. Manning picked up the bone which was buried in sticky gravy and placed it between his teeth, sucking the marrow and watching Jem from the corner of his eyes. He knew that Jem was trying not to look at the food on his plate. Matthew left to relieve himself in the bush.

  ‘You can have it for the baccy.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Me plate.’ Manning had eaten about half the contents of it.

  ‘That ain’t no deal.’

  Manning brought his knife up to his mouth.

  ‘I’m not givin’ it away. If Jansen knew,’ said Jem, looking over his shoulder.

  Manning shrugged and then said quietly. ‘Please yourself but I can look after you.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘You know what I mean.’

  He nodded at the men who surrounded them. One of them was cleaning his knife. Manning carefully poked his teeth with a twig. He spat in the dirt. Jem put his hand in his pocket and handed Manning the rest of the tobacco.

  Manning saw Jem’s brother-in-law return from the bush and into the firelight, buttoning his trousers and carefully stepping between the huddles of men. But in the half-light he stood on a plate that belonged to one of Anderson’s men. Manning knew what was coming and he was glad it wasn’t him. Johno leapt up as though on a spring and pushed Matthew so that he stumbled. Matthew recovered his balance and swung around into the glinting blade of a knife.

  ‘Hey Johno. Twas an accident.’

  Mead, another of Anderson’s men, stood up between them. His cheeks glowed in the light as he turned towards Matthew.

  ‘He’s real touchy. Anderson found him on a rock. He’d been living on penguins for a year. Could’ve been longer. He can’t remember. Some sealer was supposed to come back for him. Never did, did they Johno?’

  Matthew glanced sideways at Johno who still held his knife out in front of him. Johno’s arm dropped and he bent down and picked up his plate and returned to his place in the dirt.

  ‘Francis Mead,’ said the man, facing Matthew.

  ‘Matthew Gill.’

  They nodded at each other.

  Manning looked over at Johno who silently shovelled sandy food with his knife. His cold furious eyes darted about like a gull’s. Manning moved along the log so that Matthew could sit down. He could see that he was shaken.

  ‘Fellows are always like that,’ said Manning. ‘Except for Mead. He’s alright as long as you don’t give him a reason.’

  The fire had dwindled to a few coals. Men snored and talked softly. Manning spat the remains of his tobacco. He squatted, looking into the fading light, and then straightened and headed into the bush. Small animals rustled the undergrowth. He turned and buttoned himself up. A twig snapped. He stood still and felt for his knife. A pulse boomed in his ear and his breath came hard and fast.

  A voice to the side hissed: ‘So ’tis James Manning.’

  Manning turned slowly towards it.

  ‘Owens.’

  Even though the man’s face was in shadow, Manning recognised the sharp-nosed profile.

  ‘So you know me.’

  ‘Couldn’t forget.’

  Owens chuckled without humour. Manning wondered how he came to be in the West. They had both been on the Defiance. When it was wrecked off New South Wales, Owens had gone in the longboat back to Sydney. Briefly Manning wondered what had happened to the others, but he didn’t care so he didn’t ask. He turned to leave.

  ‘Where are you going?’

  Manning stopped and looked back. He couldn’t see Owens’s little eyes but he knew they were on him.

  ‘I was enjoying our little get-together.’

  Moonlight caught a glint of his tooth. The rest of his face was partly obscured by the spidery shadows of branches. Manning tried to control the shudder that gripped his shoulders. He trod heavily on the path back to the clearing.

  He stared without focusing at the embers, wrestling with a green stick until it snapped in half. The crack brought him back and he threw the two pieces into the fire. He looked up as Jem reappeared from the darkness. Manning unrolled his bedding and gave Jem one of his kangaroo skins since the night was warm enough without it.

  Grey, early morning light. Treetops, dark shapes against an insipid sky. Manning rolled over onto his stomach and lifted his head, resting his chin on his palm. Bodies covered in furs were like giant caterpillars stretched out under the verandah and across the clearing. Standing over one of them was Isaac. Slowly Manning lowered his head so that his chin was resting on the ground. He didn’t like the fact that Isaac had a knife in his hand.

  Isaac kicked the body beneath him. He kicked again, bringing his foot up higher. A head lifted slowly. Manning realised it was Jansen. He seemed unable to speak. The captain of the Mountaineer hauled himself up, one side of his face pockmarked with the imprint of sticks and seeds. He was shaking. Manning wondered if Isaac would cut him.

  ‘We want your whaleboat.’

  Jansen nodded like a cork bobbing in the swell. Manning could see that Isaac was grinning. Although he wasn’t tall like Anderson, he looked big because there was so much hair on his head and face. Manning thought that Isaac looked like the keeper of Davy Jones’s Locker.

  ‘You be needing men. To take oars,’ spluttered Jansen.

  Manning could see that Jansen thought he was dead. That Isaac was going to kill him for his whaleboat.

  But Isaac just nodded and said with a savage grin: ‘Aye, we’ll be needing you and your men.’

  He waved the blade across the bundles of men. Manning could see they weren’t asleep either. Just lying low like he was. Then he noticed Anderson leaning against a timber post that held up the verandah. He had been watching.

  ‘That’s enough. Get these men up.’

  He turned his back and disappeared into the hut. Isaac continued to stand over Jansen with the knife pointed at his neck but he looked around.

  ‘Get down to the beach … all of you. If you want to eat that is. You too.’

  He pressed the tip of
the knife against Jansen’s skin, chuckling.

  ‘That’ll teach you. Thinking you could haul up here and eat your way through our supplies. We work for our food.’

  Then he withdrew and followed Anderson into the hut. Manning heard Jem let out his breath. He hadn’t noticed he was awake. They got up with everyone else and stowed their bedding under the shelter. The black women passed through the clearing on their way to the beach. They were naked except for amulets of shells and bone around their necks.

  The beach looked bleak in the cold light. Pale cloud arched overhead. There was a strip of yellow and brown cloud over the mainland where there had been a fire. The breeze, although light, seemed to have moved into the northwest. Their footsteps squeaked on the sand and before them an oily sea rippled, colourless except for the occasional white flash of foam marking the place where the swell broke over a rock. A black and white gull circled. Its mate appeared and they both glided and flapped overhead, calling to one another: Caw, caw.

  Manning noticed William Church walking beside him. He was tying his stock in the way that people who wear stocks do. He reached into the top pocket of his coat for a piece of cloth and wiped his face. When he put it back, it fell out. He bent down to pick it up but a fellow who Manning recognised as one of the crew from the Mountaineer thrust his pelvis into his arse and knocked him off balance. He fell on his hands and knees. Manning laughed. Serve the toffy bugger right. Church stood up and wiped the sand from his hands. Jem looked at Manning and grinned. The crewman began to circle Church with one hand on the top of his knife. Manning turned away. Then the fellow saw Anderson watching him and he stopped, but not before he had hissed something under his breath to Church.

  The Mountaineer’s whaleboat had been lifted to the water’s edge. Men surrounded it, looking up at Anderson who stood on the sloping rock. He told them what he wanted and then looked over at Church and asked if he had pulled an oar before. Church shook his head, clasping his pale hands in front of his frockcoat which hung loosely from his thin frame. He told him to get firewood.