‘Right then, the lion and the peony, on my upper right arm? Would that be appropriate, do you think?’
‘It’s your arm, lad,’ Leo said. ‘But, aye, it’s a good choice. We’ll start on the outline today. I’m warning you, though, it can get painful.’
Matthew nodded, having expected it would. ‘What colours do you have?’
‘A good range. I use pigment, mixed with oil.’
Removing his coat and draping it across the end of the bench, Matthew asked, ‘Where shall I sit? Or should I recline?’
Leo pointed to the chair. ‘You need to sit for an arm.’ He glanced at the small clock on the cabinet. ‘And I’ll probably only do the kara shishi outline today. We’re running out of time.’
Matthew sat and reached for the book of illustrations again. ‘They are ferocious-looking, the lions, aren’t they?’
They were, too, with their heavy brows, glaring eyes and wide, wide mouths filled with sharp, curved fangs. He flicked through several more pages until he came to a drawing of a man tattooed from knees to neck, including all over his apparently semi-erect penis. Hastily Matthew closed the book and put it down.
‘You’ll need to take your shirt off,’ Leo said, amused.
‘What? Oh yes, of course.’
Matthew removed his waistcoat and shirt and laid them on top of his coat. Half naked and feeling decidedly vulnerable, he sat down again. Good God, the door was still open; anyone could walk in. He crossed his legs, then uncrossed them and planted the soles of his boots firmly on the flagged floor in as manly a fashion as possible.
‘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?’
<
br /> 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.
Chapter Eight
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.’
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