The Potato Factory

by Bryce Courtenay

  'Tommo and Hawk?' Mary exclaimed in surprise.

  'Yes! If that be their names, you must be rid of them!'

  Mary had never before heard such a harsh, uncompromising tone in Mr Emmett's voice. 'But why, sir?' she pleaded. 'They just be orphans, there be hundreds like them.'

  'They will destroy you! We cannot have it!'

  'Destroy me? But I loves them like me own!' Mary cried.

  Mr Emmett shook his head impatiently. 'Mary, I will not lie to you, they be of an inferior species and the Lord God would not have us to mix with them. You have seen how the aboriginal people of this island are. There can be no place for them in this society. I beg you to see reason. This child will destroy you and the other, though thought to be white, is, I am told, a twin and therefore of the same stock!'

  'Mr Emmett, you must help me please. These are my children and I wish them to be given my name!'

  Mr Emmett shook his head. 'You were always of a most stubborn nature, Mary Abacus, but this time I am right! You cannot keep them. Besides, in the matter of a name, it can only be that of their father.' Mr Emmett was not a cruel man, but now he paused and raised one eyebrow. 'And God alone knows who he might be! The children of a whore and a nigger are not to be given a decent English name.'

  'If I adopt them they shall have mine, it be decent enough!' Mary said defiantly.

  'Should you be married, yes, that might be possible, but you are a spinster woman and the law will not allow you to adopt them.' The chief clerk paused and looked at Mary, whom he could see was deeply distressed. 'Do not try, Mary, it will be to no avail and I would personally interfere in the matter!'

  Mary stood up and moved to where Mr Emmett sat behind his desk. She knelt beside him and held him by the sleeve with both her hands. 'Please, Mr Emmett, they be my children. I loves them as though they were my very own flesh and blood. You must help me, I begs you!'

  'Mary, do not distress yourself so! And please be seated,' Mr Emmett said sternly. 'We are not in my garden now or in the woods at Strickland Falls.' He pulled his arm away, forcing Mary to rise and return to her chair. 'I have consulted the attorney general on this matter. You simply must give up these children, Mary. You have technically conspired in their abduction and, while God knows it is as much a technical crime as real on this island with the mother dead and the father unknown, it is a crime nonetheless. The children are wards of the State and must be given over to the foundling home.'

  Mary half rose in her chair. 'But… but, they will die! I have seen what happens!'

  'It is for the best, my dear. You will soon enough forget them.'

  'And if I should find someone willing to adopt them?' Mary asked, a heartfelt sob escaping from her.

  'What do you mean? Someone to adopt them, then give them over into your care?'

  Mary nodded and sniffed. 'I loves them more than my life, sir.'

  'Mary my dear, listen to me. They are scum! They will grow to be idiots! You have seen the vile offspring of harlots for yourself, the urchins in the streets in dirty rags, who grunt and snort like pigs, their minds not able to fully comprehend. These two of yours will be the same, even worse. They do not have the advantage of a full measure of English blood, but carry in their veins the instincts of the African savage, and God knows what else!'

  'Sir, I were meself born o' the poorest class, the hopeless, the scum, as you calls it! I were myself a harlot! You have seen how in the orphanage we have brought children to learn, children what you said was hopeless, was scum, found bright and keen as any other. You said yourself you was wrong!'

  'I am not wrong in this, Mary!' Mr Emmett said tersely. 'They were not black! Listen to me, please! There is more to this matter. The coroner thought not to make public his report of the results of the death of the prostitute known as Sperm Whale Sally, but it was his positive opinion that she died in childbirth. These are the two infants, the twins, born to her, are they not?'

  Mary opened her mouth to reply and Mr Emmett lifted his index finger. 'Please do not lie to me, Mary. You and I have always spoken the truth.'

  Mary sighed and looked directly at Mr Emmett, tears streaming down her cheeks. 'Ikey brought them home,' she said in a faltering voice.

  'The morning the corpse was discovered?'

  Mary nodded, biting her lower lip. Then she looked down at her hands, which were folded in her lap. Her shoulders shook as she sobbed.

  'He stole them, Mary,' Mr Emmett said quietly. 'That is abduction. You helped in the kidnapping of two children and will be charged with complicity. If convicted you will both receive fourteen years!' He leaned back. 'For God's sake, woman, give them up now and nothing further will come of it!'

  Mary felt the anger rising deep within her. On the streets of Hobart Town there were gangs of urchins in rags who were treated no better than stray dogs. It was so common to hear of street urchins of three and four years old found murdered having been brutally buggered, that the Colonial Times did not even make mention of it. These were the lost children of the island, so low in human reckoning that they barely existed in the minds of the general population. If they survived to the age of eight or nine they became hardened prostitutes, both male and female. Beyond the age of eleven, if they hadn't died of syphilis or some other infectious disease, most became drooling idiots or desperate criminals. Many were hanged before they reached fifteen years of age.

  Newborn children, left by their destitute mothers on the steps of the foundling home, died more often than not and this was quietly condoned by the authorities. The King's orphanage could accommodate only a certain number, and was already thought to be a most onerous drain on the government coffers. Now the person Mary trusted more than any other in the world had turned against her, and was threatening her with prison for having saved two such children from certain death.

  Mary knew that she was on her own again, that nothing had really changed. Her hand went to the Waterloo medal about her neck, and she held it tightly before looking up at Mr Emmett.

  'You are wrong, sir! Ikey Solomon be their father!' Mary heard herself saying.

  Mr Emmett's mouth fell open in astonishment. It was such a ludicrous assertion that he could not believe his ears. Several moments passed before he was able to speak. He shook his head in bewilderment.

  'Mary Abacus, that is outrageous!' he cried. 'Ikey Solomon is a Jew!'

  Mary looked directly into Mr Emmett's eyes. 'Hawk be a throwback, sir, on the maternal side.'

  Mr Emmett remained quiet for a few moments and then he threw back his head and began to chuckle. Before long this had turned into genuine laughter. Eventually he stopped, removed his glasses and dabbed at his eyes with his handkerchief. 'And Ikey is the willing and happy father, is he?'

  Mary could no longer restrain herself. 'I don't know, sir. I ain't told him yet!'

  With this they both commenced to howl with laughter. Mr Emmett was now quite beside himself with mirth, and it took several minutes to regain his composure.

  'Mary, I shall speak to the attorney general.' He looked most fondly at her. 'I fear you will suffer greatly in the choice you have made. The respectable class will not forgive you for this great indiscretion, my dear.'

  'And you, sir?' Mary asked. 'Will you?'

  Mr Emmett looked suddenly most awkward and picked up his quill and twirled it in his fingers. Without looking at Mary he declared, 'Me? Oh I am simply an old fool who is too easily led by the nose by a pretty young woman.'

  Mary smiled, though her eyes filled again with tears. 'And if they be proved idjits, Mr Emmett, sir, they will be as equally loved as if they were the brightest o' brats!'

  • • •

  There is not much that can be said about the first few years of a child's life. They all seem to grow alarmingly quickly, and if they are loved and healthy they are usually of a pleasant enough disposition. They are a source of great pleasure as well as of moments of great anxiety when they suffer from the multitudinous childhood complaints every paren
t must of necessity endure. But the pleasure of infants is only known to those who are with them daily; to others, children only become interesting when they can think and ask questions.

  Mary was a dedicated mother to Tommo and Hawk, and the two little boys returned her love with affection and trust. Sometimes, when she was busy at other tasks, the mere thought of them would overwhelm her and she would burst into tears of sheer joy for the love she felt for them. Mary was sure that life could bring her no greater moments of happiness than when the little boys were tugging at her skirts and demanding affection. Had she given birth to them she felt she could not have loved them any more deeply.

  From the outset it became apparent that they would be quite differently sized. Tommo, considering his gigantic parents, was small boned and delicate in appearance, though not in the least sickly, and Hawk was large and seemed to grow bigger each day. As a baby Tommo seemed content with the single breast of his wet nurse, while Hawk would take all he could extract from his own and then greedily feed on the remaining breast of the woman who suckled his brother.

  Jessamy Hawkins had grown into a pretty young lady, much sought after by young men. But she was of a sensible and independent mind, quick witted and with a laconic humour, and she doted on the two infants. She called Hawk 'Dark Thought', and Tommo 'After Thought'.

  Tommo seemed the more adventurous of the twins. He was always into some sort of mischief and, more often than not, Hawk would be the one caught with his fingers deep in the jam pot after being led there by Tommo. But Hawk questioned everything and, even as a small child, would not be put off by an incomplete answer.

  Throughout their childhood they refused to be separated and Hawk sensed the need to protect the smaller Tommo against all-comers, dogs or other children who might want to harm him. Even if Mary grew angry with Tommo for some mischief and he fled from her, Hawk would stand in her way until, impatient and frustrated, she would slap him. The moment she did so, Hawk would stand firm and grin up at her. 'That's for Tommo, Mama!' he'd declare. 'He be punished now!'

  Ikey, to his great surprise, confessed to being most fond of Mary's brats, but had nonetheless made Mary pay him ten pounds for each before he agreed to perjure himself by swearing he was their father. He protested that, as the world had never before heard of a black Jew, but with Hawk and Tommo given the name of Solomon, it was not appropriate that they be gentiles. Nevertheless, his conscience would be assuaged, he assured Mary, if she gave a donation of fifteen pounds to a fund created by Mr Louis Nathan to establish a synagogue for the four hundred and fifty Jews known to live in the colony. Ikey was getting older and increasingly he gave thought to his immortal soul. He thought it worthwhile to be in good standing within his faith. The remaining five pounds he wanted for an addition to Sperm Whale Sally's headstone.

  Mary had paid for the burial of Marybelle Firkin, alias Sperm Whale Sally, who now rested among the respectable dead in St David's burial ground with both her names on her marble headstone, but she soon enough recouped the money.

  Michael O'Flaherty, the proprietor of the Whale Fishery, had opened a fund for this purpose, and every whaleman who entered the port of Hobart in the year that followed had willingly given something towards Sperm Whale Sally's funeral expenses.

  Sufficient money was raised to repay Mary and also to erect a handsome headstone made from expensive pure white marble imported from England. In fact, so grand was the headstone that it caused a furore among the church elders and the congregation, who felt it unbefitting that a whore should have a more impressive tombstone than the respectable and pious merchant John Rutkin who had been buried on the very same day.

  There were even some who tried to insist that Sperm Whale Sally's grave be moved from consecrated ground, and there was talk of a petition to Governor Franklin, who had replaced Colonel Arthur.

  But in the end the vicar, in a stirring sermon, pointed out that within his churchyard lay villains far greater than the giant whore, and that Mary Magdalene had herself been a scarlet women and had received the love and compassion of Jesus Christ. This had silenced the hotheads and, at the same time, caused a better quality of headstone to appear in the churchyard, the respectable classes not able to bear the shame of sealing their dead beneath a less imposing stone.

  But despite the grandness of the memorial to Sperm Whale Sally, Ikey, in a rare display of sentiment, expressed his displeasure. He persuaded the stone mason who created the tombstone to procure a slab of rare bluestone and to carve from it the shape of a great sperm whale, and to inlay this onto the face of the existing white marble. Beneath this he caused to be engraved the words: So take up your doxy and drink your own ale And dance a fine jig to a fine fishy tale We'll fly the Blue Sally wherever we sail And drink to the health o' the great sperm whale!

  It pleased Ikey greatly to know that the Blue Sally would forever fly above Sperm Whale Sally's grave and Mary was happy enough to meet the bill. Apart from Ikey's renewed religious scruples, she understood his sentimental desire to perpetuate in stone the spirit of the great sperm whale so that it might guard the grave of the mother of her two adopted sons.

  And so yet another myth was born. At the beginning of the winter whaling season, for as long as men hunted the whale in the South Seas and came into port at Hobart Town, the captains and men of the great fully rigged brigantines and barques and the smaller local bay whalers would gather together at St David's church for a blessing of the whale fleet. After the blessing the ships' masters would pay for a barrel of rum to be consumed at the grave of Sperm Whale Sally. Each whaleman present would take a glass of rum and drink what became known as 'A Sally Salute', a tribute to the spirit of the great sperm whale. Then they would link arms, the Yankees and the British, Swedes, French, Portuguese and the islanders, and form a circle around the grave of sperm Whale Sally and sing the Blue Sally shanty. This they sang with a great deal more gusto than the dreary rendition of The Sailor's Hymn they had earlier been required to render within the church. It was claimed that there were whalemen who spoke no English but who could sing this elegy to the whale perfectly, having learned it by rote from some old tar during the lonely nights at sea.

  Mary nurtured only one great anxiety during the first two years of raising Tommo and Hawk, which sprang from the damning words of Mr Emmett. 'Mary my dear, listen to me. They be scum! They will grow to be idiots!' She watched them intently in the cradle to see if their eyes followed her or whether they might be made to grab for some object she held or respond to some loving nonsensical sound she made to show a growing awareness. Her fears proved groundless. Tommo and Hawk cried and laughed, slept and ate and fell and walked and played like any other happy, healthy infants.

  Mary left nothing to chance, though, and as soon as they could comprehend in the slightest she began reading to them. At four years old they could recite a host of nursery rhymes, the one closest to Mary's heart being Little Jack Horner, for it contained the two things she was most determined to give her children, good food and an education.

  Little Jack Horner,

  Sat in the corner,

  Eating a Christmas pie;

  He put in his thumb,

  And pulled out a plum,

  And said, 'What a good boy am I!'

  He was feasting away,

  And 'twas late in the day;

  When his mother, who made it a rule

  Her children should ever

  Be learned and clever,

  Came in to prepare him for school.

  Mary was also determined that their morals should be of the strictest rectitude and they would be most severely punished should they not tell the truth. She had sent to England for a book with the rather long title, The Good Child's Delight; or, the road to knowledge. In short, entertaining lessons of one or two syllables; Nursery morals; chiefly in monosyllables. This she read to them so many times that Hawk, at the age of five, could recite the entire book. Others she bought from the Hobart Town Circulating Library, where she
drove the stern-faced Mrs Deane quite mad with her requests for children's books. One of the boys' favourites, for they cried at each reading, was The Happy Courtship, Merry Marriage, and Pic Nic Dinner, of Cock Robin, and Jenny Wren. To which is added, alas! the doleful death of the bridegroom.

  On their cots Mary constructed strings of wooden beads in the same configuration as an abacus, so that their earliest memories would be of the rattle and touch of the red and black beads in their tiny hands.

  At five both children were well acquainted with the alphabet and could read well and write simple words upon their slates. Tommo was clever enough but would quickly become impatient, while Hawk seemed much more interested. At the age of seven, when Mary took them to Mrs Tibbett's primary school, an establishment which took the young children of the tradesmen rank, both Tommo and Hawk proved well in advance of other children in their class. Hawk was not only the largest child among his age group, he also stood out as the most intelligent.

  Though children are not concerned with colour, their parents soon enough perceived the presence of Hawk and it did not take them long to complain about the black child. Mary was asked by Mrs Tibbett to remove Hawk and Tommo from the school.

  It was a fight Mary knew she could not win, and she saw no point in venting her spleen on the hapless Mrs Tibbett, who seemed genuinely distressed that she was forced to make the demand. Besides, Mary felt that the school was holding back her children for the benefit of other children less well prepared.

  So she determined that she would continue as she had begun and personally attend to the education of her two children. In this she had elicited Ikey's most reluctant assistance, particularly as she required that he teach them nothing in the way of dishonest practices. Ikey protested that he knew of no other way to teach an urchin, and that if he should be forbidden to teach Tommo and Hawk the gentle art of picking a pocket, or show them how to palm a card or otherwise cheat at cribbage, pick a simple lock, short change a customer, successfully enter a house though it be securely locked, or doctor a stolen watch, there was nothing contained in his lexicon of knowledge which he believed could be useful to them.