by Meg Keneally
‘Of course,’ said the governor. ‘Of course. I look forward to getting to know all there is about all of you.’
Jenny didn’t know whether they were watched. But she often ran into the governor or waved to him in the streets of Coepang.
Otherwise Jenny seemed free to explore on her own. She enjoyed walking through the markets, where people would bring a potatoes for sale, or a few strips of turtle meat, and after making their transactions would sit in the market square chewing betel, which blackened their teeth. They were friendly and relaxed, and as Charlotte grew in strength she would drop little curtsies to them as she walked, holding her mother’s hand, through the square.
Within the week Dan had begun working at the docks, as had Carney, Bruton and Langham, and employment would be found for Harrigan when he was well enough.
For the first time since leaving England, Dan was being paid for his labour, and it suited him. If he did spend a considerable amount of time in the tavern, at least he now returned with fruit that had caught his eye in the market, or a bright flower that he would, kneeling, present to Charlotte.
‘I will miss those flowers,’ Jenny said as she watched on.
‘You don’t need to miss them,’ he said. ‘I found that one on the road from the market.’
‘Dan, we can’t stay. Not for long. There will be word, eventually, of escaped convicts in a stolen boat.’
He sighed. ‘I know. But we have time, still. We can’t steal another boat and sail to England. I need time to earn the coins to pay for passage.’
‘Perhaps you should stop giving them to the tavern keeper.’
He scowled. She reached out for his hand and kissed his ruined palm.
For the first week, Jenny stayed as far as she could from the ocean, trying to pretend it wasn’t there. But it was incessantly whispering, rasping against the rocks, sending its scent to her on the wind. Eventually she found that she no longer wanted to stay away. She was ready to resume a tentative acquaintance.
She would take Charlotte down to the shore or the docks, with Emanuel supported in a sling on her front, made of a matted plant fibre. He was slowly filling out but still lacked the sense of barely restrained outrage that Charlotte had specialised in at his age.
Jenny’s daughter was becoming more her own person with each passing day. She resisted bedtime, and washing, and all of those natural enemies of children.
Jenny had bought a few fishhooks and strung them to poles, using thread from the tattered clothes in which she had made the journey here. She and Charlotte would sit on the dock, dangling their lines in the water. Occasionally they would catch something. Most of the time, they talked about what they wanted to catch. If they hooked a sea dragon, he might be so outraged that he’d consume the entire dock.
One day a shadow, terminating in well-used but polished boots, fell over them.
Jenny stood and smoothed the simple gown which she wore at the sufferance of this man, who had given orders that everything they needed should be provided without cost. ‘Your Excellency,’ she said.
Charlotte, perhaps sensing unaccustomed deference in her mother, dipped in a curtsy that made Van Dalen smile.
‘You come to this dock a lot, I think,’ he said. ‘It has been – what? – a fortnight since you joined us, and I’m told that you have been a daily presence here for the past week.’
‘I hope I am not in anyone’s way,’ she said.
‘Not a bit of it. I presume you are watching for your captain.’
‘Watching . . . Yes, I am. It would be a blessing were he to suddenly arrive. And his crew, of course. The chances, though . . . Given the weather we had on our voyage, I would say they are not good.’
‘Perhaps not. Still, it is good to know you will be here, should I need to find you. I will leave you to your vigil, and please do not lose heart. It would be foolish to try to predict where the sea will bring any of us.’
Jenny turned a little as he walked away, then she and Charlotte sat back down, dangling their legs over the edge of the wooden tongue that pierced the ocean’s flank.
‘Yes,’ she said, ‘it would.’
PART THREE
CHAPTER 28
Afterwards, Jenny tried to pinpoint the moment when things changed. The look or word that beckoned something dark to slither out and wrap itself around Dan’s mind, to blot out everything except his need to stand in front of her and intercept her unsought glory. It probably, though, wasn’t a look or a word. Perhaps it was the cheers, the congratulatory hoots.
Two months, they had been here. Two months, during which Jenny had watched the boats come in, bringing unimaginable spices, and fabrics in colours that she had never known. Boats had carried her through her childhood, but she felt no urge now to climb aboard them. And she would be surprised if Charlotte could ever be coaxed onto one again.
Two months of sunshine and fresh fruit and fussing from Gert, the Dutch woman who had helped them ashore that first day, had seen Charlotte’s face round out. The plumpness that belonged by right to every child had returned to her arms and legs. The same two months had made Emanuel the kind of baby who cried and gurgled and laughed, rather than lying in his mother’s arms, staring at nothing.
This, surely, must be their life from now on. They had earned it by surviving the sea.
But the caution of a forest dweller had never left Jenny. She had never been given a reason to set it aside. She still kept the clothes she had travelled in, rough as they were. She had added a lock of Emanuel’s hair to the knife and tea leaves sewn into the hem, along with a ribbon that Charlotte had pulled out of her hair in a temper. Mrs Trelawney did not want to put Jenny Gwyn’s clothes on again, but she would at least have some treasures if she had to.
And every time she saw a boat being unloaded, she wondered if a ship with a cargo of soldiers was just on the other side of the horizon.
She would do anything to avoid those soldiers. Including buying a chicken.
Usually they ate fish for dinner, at the scrubbed, wooden table in the house given to them by the governor. It was the same house they had been taken to when they arrived, with its courtyard tree sprouting impossibly vibrant flowers. It had a comfortable sitting room with cushioned chairs positioned to catch the breeze when the door to the courtyard was open. But they always ended up eating in the large, simple kitchen, with bare wooden benches lining each side of the table.
Dan would go to a small beach, dangle a line in, and usually have reasonable luck. And often, all of the men who’d been crowded together in the cutter would crowd around the Gwyns’ table and assume a right to anything on it, one they felt had been conferred on them by months of forced intimacy.
They were all used to fish, so Jenny thought a chicken might have better luck opening their ears as they stuffed their mouths.
She had bought the bird in the marketplace and wrung its neck herself after dropping some small silver discs into the hand of the smiling, elderly man who sold it to her. He had a languidness to him and, had she shared his language, she suspected he might have told her that he didn’t particularly mind whether he sold the chicken or not. He was deferential to her, though – an odd mix of friendliness and shyness, common to most of those she had met here. She was surely strange to the islanders, a woman who shouldn’t have survived, one who might have one foot in the world beyond all waves, who was known to be a favourite of the governor, of course. Such a creature was to be smiled on from a distance, not embraced like a friend.
The chicken had taken her the better part of an hour to pluck, with Charlotte’s help. The little girl couldn’t resist reaching out an increasingly pudgy arm to grip a feather and pull ineffectually, then take the ones her mother was withdrawing from the bird’s skin and weave them through her hair.
Langham arrived with Bruton, who had found work on the docks with Dan and Carney. His shoulders and back were valuable commodities; he now used them in the service of getting paid, rather than to avoid a fl
ogging for idleness. He had not become any less taciturn, but he had been keeping the worst of his latent violence in check. Until, apparently, last night.
‘Sweet Jesus,’ Jenny said, ‘what happened to your eye?’
‘They tried to swindle me,’ Bruton said, sitting down uninvited. ‘At the tavern. Think that because I don’t speak like them, I’m stupid.’ He looked at the table with disappointment as nothing had, as yet, been placed on it.
‘He’s not allowed back,’ said Langham cheerfully. ‘The tavern keeper’s son has a broken nose. And you don’t need language to know what he was about when he threw Bruton onto the street. Quite a nasty sword hanging there above the bar. He keeps it sharp.’
‘Will you ever, just once, look to your own survival, never mind ours?’ asked Jenny. This, after all, was the man who had sat staring at her, a pail between his knees, refusing to use it to empty out a boat that was filling with water. ‘If we get a reputation for lawbreaking – well, we do not want to give anyone here any reason to question our character.’
‘And if we give them reason to question our wits, we will wind up with a knife through the shoulderblades one dark night,’ said Bruton.
Dan and John Carney came in then, Dan cradling some potatoes. He had traded a fish for them, an act for which he could no longer be flogged. He took in Bruton’s mashed face with an approving grin.
‘You’re all as stupid as each other,’ said Jenny.
Dan frowned, turning towards her. ‘I do beg your pardon. We are, of course, in the presence of the heroine of the seas.’
It was a phrase the governor had applied to Jenny several times in public, so that anyone able to understand English repeated it in her hearing – and often in Dan’s.
‘I did not ask for that title,’ she said.
‘Yet it rests around your shoulders like a shawl,’ said Dan. He handed her the potatoes then reached for a jug on the shelf, sloppily pouring sharp-smelling liquor into earthenware cups.
By the time the chicken bones had been picked clean, the men seemed calmer. Dan had smiled at her, thanked her. That was as good an invitation as she was going to get.
‘This place,’ she said, ‘it has been good to us.’
‘Aye,’ said Harrigan. On occasion he was unable to resist scratching at the flakes of skin on his cheeks, condemned by his red-headed complexion to a more fierce beating from the sun than the rest of them. But he had been restored to life by exposure to the earth. He was fascinated by the farming practices of both the natives and the Dutch, shooting broken questions about crops and rain at anyone willing to entertain them.
‘And its people have been good to us, particularly the governor,’ said Jenny.
‘Particularly to you,’ said Bruton, grinning until he caught a glare from Dan.
‘And how would they treat us, do you think, if they knew?’ she asked.
‘Well, I imagine they’d lock us up,’ said Carney. ‘But they don’t know, Jenny. Nor will they.’
‘Working on the docks, you lads have all seen the ships that come here. More foreigners than we ever saw in Penmor. I think enough time has passed that they might bring word. And you’ve all earned enough to pay for our passage out.’
‘Where would we go, though?’ asked Langham. ‘I’ve seen the charts – not much of note between here and Batavia, and that place . . .’ He shivered involuntarily. ‘People die in Batavia. The air itself is poison.’
‘Not Batavia, nor any other big port,’ said Jenny. ‘Somewhere quiet. Even inland, maybe, where word of escaped convicts is less likely to reach.’
‘And we would stand out there like balls on a bull,’ said Dan. ‘We’re safe enough here.’
‘We are not safe,’ Jenny insisted. ‘They’ll be keeping an ear out for us, if they’re not searching. Lockhart and the rest – we’ve embarrassed them. Worse, in their eyes, than any amount of theft from the stores. We can’t stay.’
‘Well, we’re not going!’ Dan said. ‘We’ve food, money. More than we thought we’d ever have again. You want to trade it for . . . what? An uncertain fate in the jungle? Another bout with the ocean? No, Jenny. No, this time you will not sway me.’
He rose unsteadily, looked at the lads and jerked his head towards the door.
Carney raised his eyebrows at Jenny. Langham and Harrigan pressed her hand and thanked her for the meal. Bruton said nothing. Then all of them stood and went out, leaving her alone with the chicken carcass on the table.
It would be the most appalling cruelty for them to be discovered, to be dragged back down into the darkness. Cruelty, though, was one of the few commodities Jenny had seen in any significant quantity.
The danger, she thought, lay in the mouths of sailors. Dreadful gossips, most of them. And this news would fly: the woman who had offered herself and her children up to the ocean. If a sailor from Batavia brought, with weevil-ridden wheat and sour butter, news of a bedraggled group washing up at Coepang, that snippet of information could be fatal.
But the men’s faith that all would be well was seductive. The torpor brought by a full belly, the joy of Emanuel’s wails and Charlotte’s laughs, made Jenny want to believe that this could be their home forever, that Charlotte and Emanuel would grow up knowing nothing of their birthplaces.
Disconcertingly, though, Jenny found herself at the centre of a growing fascination.
She would walk to the market, enjoying the movement of clean, salt-free fabric against her thighs, letting Charlotte run a little ahead in pursuit of a chicken or another child. When the jungle pathway that led from their house gave way to the broader streets, feeding into the market square, she could feel the scrutiny. The looks were not unkind, but nor were they restrained. Her story was the property of anyone who cared to pass the afternoon discussing it. And surely a great many did.
The men, she imagined them saying, to be sure they did well to survive. But, well, surviving is what men do. The woman, though! And the children! And people say the whole party would have died without her.
Jenny took to exploring the jungle, carrying Emanuel in his sling, Charlotte by her side. She didn’t know if there were snakes. If there were, would their fangs carry sufficient venom to be a danger? But Charlotte’s thick leather shoes, one of many gifts from the governor, would protect her. And the girl knew not to pick up anything from the forest floor, even if it looked like a branch – the ground snakes of Sydney Cove had taught her that.
She would have stayed in the jungle if she could, where there was no one to gawk, point, whisper. Whenever she was in a public space with Dan and became aware she was attracting curious stares or smiles, she would drop behind him, and he would smile and nod and take all the glory for both of them.
From time to time, Van Dalen would appear at the cottage unannounced, often when Dan was at his work. The governor would offer Jenny a stroll along the edge of the jungle or through the market. ‘To let everyone know you’re under my protection,’ he’d said the first time. ‘So that they don’t charge you for three potatoes and give you one.’ It had occurred to Jenny that Van Dalen might have more interest in her than Dan would like. If that was true, though, he made no move to act on it, save for frequently seeking her company.
Until the night of the governor’s party.
One afternoon Jenny opened the door to Detmer, the governor’s secretary. A thin man, he always wore meticulous woollen clothing far more suited to Holland than Coepang. Constantly mopping his brow, but not made irascible by the heat, Detmer would wave to Charlotte whenever he saw her, just as he did to the native children.
This afternoon he did not wave, but bowed deeply in Jenny’s doorway, as though she was a visiting princess. ‘I have the honour to invite you – all of you – to a dinner at the castle,’ he said.
‘Oh . . . thank you,’ said Jenny, trying to effect the air of one who was used to such invitations. ‘What time would His Excellency like us to arrive?’
‘Oh, not tonight. No, no, you must n
ot think this is one of the normal dinners. Tuesday next. Seven o’clock. Gert will sit with the children, I have already asked her.’
‘Tuesday next. Very well.’
‘There will be a new gown for you as well,’ he said. ‘It’s the governor’s birthday, you see. And he does like things to be just . . . just so, is that the expression? So your muslin, lovely as it is, will be replaced by silk!’ He clapped his hands and looked at her expectantly.
She had never worn silk, and did not know whether it was worth such excitement. But Detmer clearly expected a response to mirror his own, so she dragged her mouth into a wide smile. ‘Very generous of His Excellency,’ she said.
‘Exactly so, yes,’ said Detmer. ‘And make sure those men of yours present themselves neatly, no? We don’t want them bringing the smell of the docks with them.’
On Tuesday next, it took her at least half an hour to convince Dan to shave.
‘Don’t insult the governor, for God’s sake,’ said Jenny. ‘We will have to look our best.’
‘Had I the money for the clothes Detmer wears, I might be able to look presentable,’ grumbled Dan. But eventually he took a blade to his cheeks until they were red, nicked in places but clear of all growth.
The birthday guests dined at a long table especially set up in the entrance hall of the governor’s residence. His staff were there, along with prominent merchants, leaders of the local tribes. Jenny, in her yellow silk dress, her scalp still stinging from Gert’s brush, was seated opposite the man himself.
It amazed her that all speeches were the same. She had heard Governor Lockhart often enough, at Christmas or on the King’s birthday, or his own, talking about how humbled he was, how they were all part of the one endeavour. She hadn’t believed him then – hard to feel part of an endeavour that emptied your belly and refused to refill it – and she had trouble believing the sentiments now. If humility was part of Van Dalen’s thinking, he surely would not have invited the rich traders whom he normally preferred to avoid.