The Pearler's Wife

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The Pearler's Wife Page 10

by Roxane Dhand


  ‘The responsibility for this must be laid at my door, Doctor Shin,’ she said finally. ‘Charlie told me that he was not supposed to use the artesian water on the grass but I wouldn’t listen because I wanted him out of the garden.’ She stabbed at her chest. ‘I am the cause of this – every bit as much as Maitland.’

  Doctor Shin positioned himself at Charlie’s head. ‘You cannot share the blame in this, Mrs Sinclair. Look closely at what your husband has done. Some of the cuts are an inch wide and twelve inches long. You can see that there are bits of fabric cut into his flesh – half-an-inch deep in some places. This is not a mere whipping. It is a murderous assault. A man would not beat a dog so severely. We must wash his back and his arms and shoulders and everywhere that terrible thing has cut him. Do you think you could assist me?’

  Maisie first shook her head, then nodded. She always nodded. It was less painful to agree even if sentiment told her not to. The doctor watched her scrub her hands in the sink then select a pair of forceps from a kidney dish. She began to pick strands of cloth from the weals.

  ‘Do you have medical training, Mrs Sinclair?’

  For a second, Maisie’s face froze. She had wanted to be a nurse like Florence Nightingale and had tried hard to persuade her mother. Don’t be ridiculous, Maisie. You haven’t the mental tenacity for study.

  She swallowed hard. ‘No. I did some voluntary work in a hospital in England but that’s all forgotten now.’

  ‘There are no trained nurses in Buccaneer Bay. I had a nurse coming to join me from Perth, but she changed her mind when she stepped off the steamer, and went straight back. The nuns at the Mission have been helping to nurse my patients.’

  ‘Does that work?’

  ‘Sister O’Reagan came at the start and has taken charge of the hospital. But she is not a trained nurse. She is very kind, but not a professional.’

  ‘Is Charlie in great danger?’

  ‘Is there any other kind?’ he said in a tone that offered little hope. ‘I am very worried, Mrs Sinclair. His clothes weren’t clean, and dirt is the unseen enemy of torn flesh.’

  ‘I know that, Doctor. Miss Nightingale founded the nursing school where I volunteered. She preaches the importance of hygiene.’

  ‘I’m going to try a dry antiseptic in these cuts. Ointment is no good in this humidity, as wounds fester. Can you help me puff this white powder onto the welts?’

  Maisie nodded and did the best she could.

  The light was fading by the time they finished. They were packing up, washing hands, preparing to leave when she noticed an object on a small table next to the treatment couch.

  ‘What is that?’ She motioned with her chin.

  ‘It’s Charlie’s dilly-bag.’

  She scratched her cheek, puzzled.

  ‘It is made of kangaroo hide, which the natives soften with grease. The strap is made of plaited human hair. His own, probably.’

  She stroked the soft pouch, her fingers tracing the outline of its contents. ‘What would he keep inside, do you think?’

  ‘Take a look.’

  ‘Oh no, I couldn’t. It would be like looking inside someone’s handbag, or reading his private journal.’

  ‘Consider it in the interests of anthropological understanding.’

  Maisie hesitated. It felt wrong.

  ‘Go on,’ the doctor encouraged.

  She slid her hand into the dilly-bag and drew out four stones, the beak of a small bird, a pointed length of bone and a plug of chewing tobacco. She separated them with her finger.

  ‘Charlie’s a medicine man,’ he said.

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘Miss Locke is conducting a study of Aborigines. Have you met her?’

  ‘Yes, a few times.’

  ‘If you work in a mixed-race community, Mrs Sinclair, it is one’s duty – particularly as a physician – to try to understand the customs and beliefs of the patients in one’s care. It would be most disagreeable to offend. Miss Locke advised me that the stones are for healing and the bird’s beak is a charm.’

  ‘And the piece of bone? It looks like a long needle.’

  ‘His killing bone. For curses.’

  She blinked. ‘Go on.’

  ‘I would guess he is a Kurdaitcha man. What you might call a ritual executioner.’

  Maisie carefully replaced his belongings in the kangaroo pouch. ‘The raw patches on his face. I saw them there before this beating. They are not new.’ She pushed a strand of hair off Charlie’s cheek and ran the back of her hand over his skin, his bones sharp against her fingers. The doctor watched her face.

  ‘Did you expect black skin to feel different?’

  ‘Um. I …’ Heat stained her cheeks.

  ‘He also has two badly blackened eyes and bruises on his face. Not so obvious on darker skin. But they’re there all the same.’

  ‘Do you think that my husband –’

  The doctor cut her short. ‘I’ll ask Sister O’Reagan to sit with him overnight. She will need to re-apply the powder at intervals. It might numb the pain, though I doubt it will help a great deal.’

  A tear leaked out of the corner of the Aboriginal man’s eye and trickled down his cheek. Maisie pulled her handkerchief from her pocket and gently dabbed his face.

  ‘We know who did this to Charlie and maybe the other, older injuries too.’

  She swallowed hard. Her mouth had gone dry and she tried to moisten her lips with her tongue. She watched his thin back lift and fall and wished with all she held dear she could give him some relief. She looked up at the doctor and something in his expression – acceptance, understanding or sorrow – made her heart quicken. ‘Are you going to report my husband to the authorities?’

  ‘What would be the point, Mrs Sinclair? The white man rules this town. Your husband is in cahoots with the mayor. He is an important white fish, as you say. We have police constables and a resident magistrate, but laws that are passed in cities thousands of miles away are not enforced here in Buccaneer Bay, certainly not when it is a case of native versus a white man. Government officials seldom visit this little town. If a law is inconvenient, it is ignored. The financial and physical abuse of the indentured workforce will continue and the Aborigines will forever be viewed as malingerers out to cheat the white man. No-one will be called to account, and I can’t see that this will change any time soon. So, I will continue to repair the physical damage that comes with diving too deep, poor nutrition, or working for a violent boss. It is what I trained to do as a doctor. But, Mrs Sinclair, if this is your husband’s handiwork …’ He nodded at the patient on the treatment couch. ‘It is you, dear madam, who must take the utmost care.’

  CHAPTER 8

  MAISIE WAS IN A flap. Her one formal dress, not counting her unworn wedding gown, was covered in black mould. There was no point in regretting Mrs Wallace’s advice about stocking up on dinner wear; she hadn’t believed she would need it. She fought to keep the panic out of her voice. ‘Marjorie. Could you come and help me, please?’

  Marjorie was mopping the wide jarrah floorboards on the verandah. The wine-bottle corks were now plugged in her nostrils. The greasy floor polish was a potent cocktail of tobacco, wax and kerosene, and she was not impressed with the smell.

  ‘Missus. Why’s your face look like a bruised banana?’ She removed the corks from her nose and put them in her apron pocket.

  ‘Look.’ Maisie pointed at her dress.

  ‘It’s the mouldy. Should’ve sewn it into one of them calico bags.’

  ‘Well, I didn’t, as you can see. I didn’t realise I needed to insulate my clothes against this hideous climate. I’ve barely been here a few weeks. I have the party tonight and now I have nothing to wear. I’ll not be able to go.’

  ‘You told me you’re top guest. You have to go, or the ladies will talk and boss fella go crazy mad. So’s unless you’s stone-cold dead in a coffin box, you’s goin’ to dat party.’

  ‘Can you do anything?’


  ‘Can’t wash it, Missus. Could mebbe try sponge with baking soda.’

  ‘Will that work?’

  ‘Mebbe. We sponge and put in the sunshine. Maybe mister sun will bleach the black spots.’

  ‘All right. Shall I help you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Shall I finish the polishing?’

  Marjorie stared at her. ‘I told you before you ain’t to go cleaning.’

  ‘I want to help you, Marjorie. I can’t just sit here when I see you working and I have nothing to do all day.’

  ‘Okay. You go ask Duc for the baking soda and put him in a cup. Use the inside water and stir it ’bout. Don’t use bore water. Him’ll go brown. Then we do spongin’ and prayin’.’

  ‘Praying?’

  ‘I was raised a good Catholic by the nuns. Of course I do prayin’.’

  Maisie studied the serious face and laughed out loud. ‘And I, Marjorie, thank the Lord every day for sending you to me.’

  Marjorie was unmoved. ‘Mebbe we should look at your gloves and shoes in case mouldy have attacked him too.’

  Maisie was relieved. Maitland was in a good mood. Tonight was easy. He had taken his whisky into his dressing room and had been ages getting ready. She knew he liked parties. He loved the attention, the banter with his friends and the endless drinking. She, though, was not so comfortable. Marjorie had rescued her dress – if one didn’t look too closely – but she was dreading the event. She patted her disobedient hair, which had become as dry as old paper in the heat, and wished, not for the first time that day, that she could stay at home and soak for a very long time in a cool bath.

  Dressed with time to spare, Maisie now sat on the verandah, sipping a glass of lemonade. Maitland was at the drinks table, an elaborate floral arrangement in his buttonhole, mixing things with a stick. He put down his glass and manoeuvred his leather purse into a tight trouser pocket then patted the bulge. He laughed and sloshed another fingerful of whisky into his tumbler. She supposed he was anticipating some gaming later on and was feeling lucky. It didn’t bother her one jot as long as it sustained his mood.

  The Sinclairs jog-trotted in the sulky to the mayoral party, Maitland flapping the reins irritably at the long-suffering horse. They left the elderly grey-muzzled beast tied up outside the hall with a skinny Aboriginal child who was paid a penny to watch it. From time to time its sweaty flanks quivered while the little boy swatted listlessly at the cloud of mosquitos.

  William Cooper had no desire to go to the party, but John Butcher wasn’t going to let him turn down a free meal. Coop wore his only suit, the same double-breasted wool two-piece that had parboiled him in Port Fremantle. It smelled of tobacco and stale sweat. Set off by a fancy white waistcoat, with ritzy socks peeking out above his patent-leather shoes, it was the best he could manage towards evening dress. He was uncomfortable in every respect. The event would showcase the haves and have-nots and deliberately emphasise the difference between them. He was not at ease in Buccaneer Bay, and longed to get on with the job he had come to do. The people here were unlike any he’d known in England, a hybrid population of different races, all vying for social position. He respected few, liked even fewer, but there was one who quickened his pulse. The second time he’d seen her on the steamer he’d been playing cards on deck and stared at her until his eyes burned. He’d longed to kiss her full lips. He shut his eyes and tried to block the memory; she had married his boss right in front of him, and Maisie Sinclair could never be anything to him but a beautiful dream. He would tell no-one. He was well used to keeping his feelings to himself. A born oyster, his father called him. If that were the case, then Maisie Sinclair was his pearl. The beautiful, lustrous secret that he would forever keep to himself.

  He did not appreciate the white chalk line across the dance floor to mark off the dinner-suited colonists from the hoi polloi. It was a crude reminder to keep the masses away from their betters, and did nothing to improve his opinion of the upper stratum of white Buccaneer Bay society, such as the mayor and his cronies.

  He had been watching Mrs Sinclair. Standing next to the stocky, bald captain with his brick-red complexion, she was wearing a pale pink dress and long white gloves, her fair hair caught up at the nape of her neck. He saw the faint colour in her ivory cheeks and guessed she was nervous. She had turned her head towards him and he thought the pickings of a smile lifted the corners of her mouth.

  The insistent drill of his pulse reminded him that she could never know that he wanted more. He dipped his head in acknowledgement and then turned his back. He was a tradesman’s son and she was class, but nature cared nothing for prejudice or social divide. He joined JB at the bar and set about getting comprehensively drunk.

  With the exception of Maisie and the recent white imports, none of the party guests had set foot in England. It was all the more laughable, therefore, that this tiny white population, outnumbered ten to one by its coloured workforce, was trying to replicate something it could only imagine.

  Dorothea Montague had copied the décor for the mayoral function from the society pages of an out-of-date English newspaper. It was exquisite in its cringing inappropriateness.

  The long supper tables were covered in heavy gold cloth, bedecked with all manner of crystal and elaborate chafing dishes, laden with food more suited to a winter’s evening in a chilly English dining room than a suffocating community building where the temperature rarely dropped below a hundred degrees. The serving staff were costumed in baggy white pantaloons, their brown, working hands covered with clumsy white gloves. The silver cutlery twinkled maliciously in the glare.

  The evening ground on and Maisie longed for release. She was horrified to discover that Dorothea Montague was wearing a spotless version of Maisie’s own dress, in a far more attractive shade. Maisie had only worn it once before in Buccaneer Bay, and the thought that her dress had been so carefully observed and copied did not trouble her as much as who had managed to do so.

  The dark-haired English diver, she saw, was drinking at the bar. Had he noticed her? She smoothed the skirt of her dress and tucked up a wisp of hair. He made her feel self-conscious in a way she couldn’t explain. She looked away and found herself abandoned in a large room where she hardly knew a soul.

  Maitland had disappeared.

  A waiter dressed in a ridiculous pantaloon suit like a character from the Arabian Nights walked past with an empty tray.

  ‘Could I have a gin martini?’ she said brightly. ‘With ice.’

  ‘What brand, madam?’

  ‘Square Face.’ It was her first rebellious step towards her new life, or a step away from her old. She didn’t much care which.

  When she’d received her drink, she slipped out onto the verandah and took a large gulp. ‘Delicious!’ she said to no-one in particular. The cold liquid was bitter perfection, and she began to relax a notch.

  Someone else was on the verandah, further down, on the ‘wrong’ side of the chalk line. He had his back to her, but she saw the tip of a cigarette glowing in the dark and could smell tobacco. She pushed back into the shadows and watched the light, a spectator at a show.

  He stood on the gas-lit verandah and wiped the sweat from his forehead with his shirt cuff. He was chain-smoking, flicking the tiny butt-ends towards the sea and drinking something with ice. She could hear the ting ting of crystals against the glass.

  There were heels approaching, a purposeful tread clicking on the wooden floorboards. Maisie took another swig of gin, tucked herself behind a wooden post and sucked on the crunchy shards of ice. Miss Montague marched past her, face set, a huntress with her sights on her prey.

  ‘Good evening, Mr Cooper. I hope you are enjoying the party.’

  He spun round, an odd look on his face, Maisie thought. As if she was the last person he was expecting to see.

  ‘Do you like my dress, Mr Cooper? I had it made here in town. It is copied from the very latest London design.’

  ‘It’s a pretty dress,’ he acknowl
edged.

  ‘I was wondering, Mr Cooper, if you would do me the very great honour of dancing with me? They are about to play the twelve-step and I adore taking a spin across the lovely polished floor. It is such fun. Would you, please?’

  He took a step backwards. ‘I’m not sure that it is fitting for you to be seen with me, Miss Montague. I am only permitted to stay on my side of the chalk line. I think it might restrict your enjoyment.’

  The sarcasm was lost on Miss Montague. With the persistent audacity of naïve youth, she chattered on. ‘Oh no! It would be completely acceptable if you were dancing with me. No-one would dare to say anything. My father’s the mayor, you know.’

  ‘Then I dare not refuse, do I?’ he said, with determined pleasantness.

  Maisie watched the pair head towards the spacious supper room, her thoughts swimming. Had Mrs Wallace not said that William Cooper was an inveterate ladies’ man? And yet he had just tried gently to turn Miss Montague down. Dorothea clip-clipped along the floorboards and kept touching Cooper’s arm as if to reassure herself he was still there. Moonlight bathed her profile and Maisie saw she was giggling to herself as if enjoying some enormous private joke.

  I am becoming a slave to the King of Gin, Maisie thought as she drained the last of her drink, and I don’t care. She pushed away from her hiding place, intent on fetching another – and found herself face to face with William Cooper.

  He stepped to the side to allow her past. He had slackened off his collar, and a button had come loose on his waistcoat where it was hanging by a thread. I could sew that on tight, she thought. If you asked me.

  ‘May I congratulate you on your recent marriage, Mrs Sinclair. I’m William Cooper, your husband’s new diver.’

  ‘Yes, I heard you speak on the steamship at Port Fremantle, and then you came to my assistance on deck when I knocked over my handbag.’

  ‘I do remember that,’ he said. ‘Is there anything I can help you with just now?’

  Maisie glanced towards the bar. ‘Thank you, Mr Cooper. I was about to hunt out a drink.’

 

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