by Roxane Dhand
‘You one rude fella, Duc,’ Marjorie said.
He grinned at her and turned his attention to swirling the contents of a pot on the stove like a sorcerer concocting a potion. ‘Most popular card game is fan-tan, Mem. Very ancient. Go back mebbe two thousand years. Next more popular is chiffa.’
Chiffa, Duc explained, was a type of Chinese lottery run in the Bay by Mr Kyougoku, who also owned the town’s department store. It was drawn twice a day: at noon and again in the evening. Bets were placed on solving riddles. The clues were given after each draw had been made, to give the participants plenty of time to consider their answers before the next one. During lay-up season, with so many people in town, more bets were laid, so the pot was correspondingly larger. The twice-daily draw was a big occasion. Anyone could go to witness it. Anyone could place a one-shilling bet. Anyone, that was, unless you were white.
‘Really?’ Maisie sat down and took a sip of tea.
Marjorie nodded. ‘Many us mobs need gaming house in Asia Place for food. We wins bit, we eats bit. Whites no needa money like dat.’
She explained that the police turned a blind eye to gambling in the Bay, as long as an Asian ran the game and there were no fights. The Aborigines were permitted to bet, but they couldn’t run their own games in public. Of course games were run in some ‘known’ houses, though, and were the sole source of income for a lot of families.
Rations were only available outside the Native Affairs office one day a week. There was nowhere else for desperate non-white people to turn other than the chiffa draw. Desperate whites remained desperate, or sponged off their white neighbours.
Marjorie drained her cup with a noisy slurp, as if she were siphoning mud up a straw. Maisie cringed and pulled a face, but the maid took no notice.
‘Is logic, Missus. You gamble, you mebbe win. You lose so, you don’t eat anyways.’ Marjorie threw her hands up towards the ceiling. ‘You no take part, might as well stay in bed till gubberment office opens.’
‘So, you want me to gamble. Is that what you’re saying?’
‘No, Missus, you no listen. You give us betting quids and work out them riddles, then we go gamblin’. White folk ain’t allowed.’
‘And if we win?’
‘Then we divides up pot. There’s big pots in the Wet with all them crew fellas in town. You makes your money work for a livin’. More better than leavin’ it festerin’ with them ridiclus things you try wear in this heat.’
Maisie scratched her head. These two were priceless. They had discovered her stash, cooked up a scheme that would involve no risk or money on their part, and would take two-thirds of the winnings if they were successful. Duc spread his face wide, anticipation bright in his eyes.
‘All right.’ She nodded. ‘I’ll provide the stake money but I’m going to make some rules. I keep half and you both may take a quarter. It’s my money, I’m taking the risk, so it’s only fair I take more profit. But I want to know why suddenly you two are in need of ready cash. Are you planning to run away?’
Duc shook his head. ‘Me big plan comin’. Jap yeller fella him dummyin’. But we needs quids and white person as part of plan.’
Maisie turned to Marjorie. ‘What’s dummying?’
Marjorie explained that only white men were allowed to own pearling boats, but some of the master pearlers were selling on their old-fashioned or near-defunct boats – they called them ‘cockroaches’ – to indentured divers, or anyone mad enough to take them on. The stumbling block was the pearling licence, which had to be held by the original white owner.
‘We’ll talk about that another time. Find out the next riddle when you see about your eye appointment. Riddles are not obvious. That’s the point. The obvious is too obvious and people could fall into that trap.’ She pushed back her chair and stood up. ‘I also have a little money-making idea of my own. Where do you get our fruit and vegetables from, Duc?’
Duc looked put out. ‘Why you want know? You no like my food all of sudden?’
‘Quite the opposite. I’m thinking of selling fruit and vegetables to the divers when I see them once a week, but I don’t know where to buy them in the Bay.’
Marjorie shook her head. ‘Dat not gonna work.’
‘Why not? The divers don’t have fresh food. Everything they eat comes out of a tin.’
Marjorie planted her elbows on the table. ‘How you keep stuff good? You buy vegetables, you go out on dat boat fella and find divers. Dat take three days my reckonin’. Them divers can’t keep fresh tucker on lugger boats. No, Missus. Don’t reckon dat would work. Dummyin’ much better idea.’
Maisie stared into her teacup. ‘I’m going to give it a try. If it doesn’t work, then I’ll think of something else. So, tell me please where to buy the fresh vegetables.’
Marjorie reached for a biscuit. ‘Chinky garden fella. He’s a big garden near church.’
‘Which church? Anglican or Catholic?’
Duc looked suspiciously at the contents of his saucepan and gave the pot another stir. ‘Half far church as Japanese hospital.’
So, the Anglican church, Maisie nodded. ‘What are you cooking up in that saucepan, Duc?’ she asked.
His laugh was deep and infectious, inviting complicity. ‘Bit of a storm, Mem. That okey-dokey?’
Maitland tapped the barometer on the packing-shed wall. It had dropped to 28.85 inches, a sure sign that a blow was on its way. The willy-willy, nor’wester, or cyclone – as it was variously called – was the deadliest of natural phenomena in the north-west. A freak of geography had turned Buccaneer Bay into a virulent storm-breeding ground with a vast expanse of warm shallow sea and hot sun.
Pearling bosses would confine their luggers to the bay, but Maitland rubbed his hands together, a secret smile on his lips. It was what he had been waiting for.
Holding the bowl in his left hand, he puffed on his pipe and yelled, ‘The English diver wants a training run with his tender. I’m putting you out to sea for a few days on the Sharky.’
A shout rang out from the shed and Squinty appeared in the doorway. ‘That lugger no refit, Tuan. Still in Mangrove Creek. Him no good even in good weather. Weather look bad now.’
‘You don’t want to go, Squinty? Shall I get someone else?’ Maitland knew the Malay needed the money and didn’t have the choice.
Squinty’s eyes did a circuit. ‘No, Tuan, is good. I just say. In case you no know ’bout boat.’
‘Of course I know. D’you think I’m a total twerp? Here’s what you’re going to do: get down to the foreshore camp and make sure the other luggers are pulled up high and staked down.’
Squinty wedged himself against the doorjamb.
‘I normally wouldn’t put a boat out to sea if it wasn’t fit, but the Chinese chandlers have been laying odds on when they’ll get their refit money, and …’ Maitland rapped his pipe on the desk and fractured the stem. He swore loudly. ‘Get over to Asia Place and rout out Daike. He’ll be number-one diver. You go tomorrow with the tide.’
Squinty slid his foot back and forth in an arc on the floor. Having Daike on board would calm him down, Maitland thought. Daike was indisputably the best, and the Japanese diver wouldn’t share local knowledge with the new recruit. The tally of shell brought up by individual divers was of keen interest both to the diving community and to the master pearlers. The top diver for the season would attract celebrity attention. But Daike was an opinionated, argumentative, arrogant know-it-all. He was not popular with the crews and, frankly, Maitland was tired of dealing with the flak. Fear was not in the diver’s vocabulary and he despised it in others. Maitland knew he would push his team to the limits of their endurance, no matter what the weather was doing. He was counting on it.
Squinty looked less wary. ‘Okay, Tuan, so I get Daike. Then who more?’
‘Small crew, Squints. Cook, two deckies. That’s enough.’
‘Opener?’
‘No. If the boys bring up shell, you bring it back here. Only three days. O
kay?’
Squinty frowned. ‘You want tell me what happening, Tuan?’
Maitland smacked his right hand on the desk. ‘What is happening is that you will have no job soon, Squinty, if you don’t bloody move quick smart. The Sharky goes out tomorrow morning from the Mangrove camp. You got that?’
Squinty took a step back.
‘Those English boys are going too, but I’ll deal with them. Can’t risk a cock-up. Just round up the others. Now move it!’
The Malay shot off like a bullet.
The captain slid the box of cigarettes across the desk. ‘Smoke?’
Coop helped himself. He’d have liked a handful. Money was perilously tight and he couldn’t stretch to ready-mades.
‘Squinty’s getting a crew together, Cooper. The weather doesn’t look too bad for the next few days, so I’m sending you out with that tender of yours on the training run we talked about. Don’t brag about it, though. The other English blokes aren’t going to have the same opportunity. They’ll be expected to jump right in and spot shell from the word go.’
Coop forced himself not to grin. At last, they were getting on with the job they’d come out to do. And he’d landed a decent pearler who wanted to give him a chance. He nodded. ‘Who’s going to be number-one diver?’
‘Daike. He’s my top Jap diver. Very experienced. He knows the crews, the shell beds and all about responsible diving. You’ll be in safe hands.’
‘It’s not the diving that concerns me, Captain Sinclair. It’s finding the shell. Is he happy to help me with that if it’s going to affect his own shell tally in the long run?’
Maitland studied the Englishman. ‘He’s a show-off, Cooper. It’s a certainty Daike will take you to a prolific shell bed and show you how he can spot the shell and haul up a fortune. Don’t let him piss you off. Just watch him and learn. You’ll pick it up in no time.’
Coop nodded.
Maitland pulled a fat white ledger from a desk drawer. ‘And, Cooper, I take the well-being of my crews very seriously. I undertake personally to make sure you are insured and there are adequate safety measures in place while you are working for me. I must ask you to sign your contract.’ Maitland unscrewed the top of a bottle of ink and reached into an inner jacket pocket. He unclipped a gold fountain pen and dipped the nib in the black fluid. ‘I’ve marked with a cross the place for you to sign.’
Cooper had travelled thousands of miles to prove that he was an accomplished diver, that he was better than the best. Fame and fortune were now within a few days’ grasp. He looked up, smiled and took the pen. He signed his name against the pencil cross without letting on that, at age twenty-two, he still couldn’t read the small print.
Captain Sinclair screwed the top back on his pen, staring intently at the paperwork. He didn’t look up to meet Coop’s eyes. ‘Excellent, Cooper. You are now good to go. Fully signed up and ready to dive. You will sail out on the tide from Mangrove Creek, tomorrow I hope.’
Cooper sprang up from his seat and grabbed his hat off the desk.
‘One more thing, Cooper. Could you trot up to the bungalow and tell my wife she’s needed in the shed?’
With a surge of excitement he was finding difficult to conceal, Coop gave a slight shrug and swung towards the door.
CHAPTER 11
MAISIE WAS BACK IN her bed, watching the sun play hide-and-seek with the lattice. Now you see me, now you – She winced as a bullet of pain shot through her abdomen. I measure my life in blocks of four weeks, she thought. Mrs Wallace had said it would be easy to lose track of time, left to her own devices with long days rolling into one another and not enough to keep her occupied. For once, Maisie disagreed. This monthly thing will never let me forget. She swung her legs over the side of the mattress and stumbled along the verandah corridor to the bathroom. The rust drips under the taps made her cringe. She crossed her arms over her chest and caught the fine cotton of her nightdress in her fingers, raised her arms like a ballerina, and pulled it over her head.
Standing on a towel, she rummaged in her trunk. Duc had dragged it into the bathroom where she now stored her personal items. The maximum dose of Mrs Barker’s Soothing Syrup was, she read, two spoons. Bother that! She gulped down half the bottle.
A pounding on the front door made her start. ‘Is anyone there?’
She shrank back against the wall and flung on her nightdress.
‘Duc!’ She leaned towards the back of the house. ‘There’s someone outside. Can you go and see who it is?’
‘I go, Mem. Chop, chop. No worries.’
She wobbled back to her bedroom, feeling decidedly unstable.
Duc appeared in the doorway. ‘Is mister diver white fella. He needs speak you.’
Maisie tensed, but she couldn’t say why. ‘Can you tell him I’m not here?’
‘Oh, too late. I told him you come out soon.’
‘Did he say what he wants?’
Duc stood on one leg, the inside of one foot pressed against the other ankle, like a yogi. ‘I no know.’
‘Did you ask him?’
Duc shook his head, then brightened. ‘But I have made cake you learn me. Just in case.’
Maisie rubbed her forehead and tried to keep her voice level. ‘Thank you. That was thoughtful. Could you make some tea and put him on the east verandah while I get dressed?’
‘Yes, yes. I do now.’
She felt light-headed, nervous. Excited?
Throwing her loosest-fitting housedress over her head, she twisted her heavy hair into a pale roll and secured it at the back of her head in a spiral. Already it was escaping and stuck to her neck in limp whorls as she went out to meet him. It was the first time she had entertained a man on her own and her heart thrummed so aggressively that she thought it might rise up into her throat. Must be the syrup, she thought. Giving me the jitters.
He was standing, hands thrust deep into his pockets, hat tipped jauntily off his forehead. He scratched under the rim and stretched out his hand. She took a step towards him but caught her shoe heel on the rug. Flinging a hand out behind her, she flopped down on an upholstered seat, windmilling her arms at the chair opposite. Her face seared with embarrassment. She pulled the cushion out from behind her back and pressed it to her stomach. The pain seemed to be easing, but her tongue felt lazy. She waggled it against her lips but couldn’t seem to wake it up. She took a deep breath and spread out her arms, the words locked inside.
They sat for several seconds, isolated from each other but curiously connected by their mutual unease. Coop inspected the weave in the upholstery and Maisie did not trust herself to speak. She could feel her chest moving with each breath, too fast in and out. She hadn’t seen him since the Welcome Dance, and he seemed thinner, sunburned and sitting far too close. She leaned sideways to gain some distance from him and almost unseated herself.
‘Mrs Sinclair. I hope you are in good health.’
Her head lolled back and smacked the headrest. Mrs Barker’s Syrup had also affected her eyesight. The Englishman seemed out of focus, dancing in front of her eyes like a heat haze. She blinked a few times, narrowed her eyes and straightened her neck.
He was concentrating on his fingers, pushing at the cuticles, his dark eyebrows slightly raised, and then he looked up. When their eyes met, she saw a glimmer of puzzlement cross his face. She sucked her cheeks in and out a couple of times and tapped her face with her fingers. ‘Some form of refreshment, Mr Cooper?’ she tried. ‘I’m having tea.’
‘Tea is fine. I prefer to wait till the end of the day for the hard liquor. A little tipple could easily escalate in a town where alcohol is safer than the water to drink. Do you not think?’
‘Yes. Me too. Drinking is not one of my particular vices. Though …’ She tried to angle her head and managed to lurch towards him instead. ‘I have taken up smoking Egyptian cigarettes. I steal them from Maitland when he’s not looking. He never notices me.’ She slapped her hand over her mouth but the words had become slippery an
d escaped from the corners.
Duc appeared with the morning-tea tray. He had aligned biscuits in a neat row, like soldiers on parade. Again he stood on one leg and scratched at the other with the toe of his slappy shoe.
‘Were you not bringing cake?’ she said.
‘No, Mem. I no bring cake. Is all splat-splat on floor.’
‘Oh dear, never mind. The biscuits look very … straight. You can go now and …’ She raised her teacup as if proposing a toast. But even though her tongue had loosened up, her brain couldn’t remember what to say.
Coop spoke for her. ‘Would you like me to pour?’
‘Too kind. My hand is a bit shaky.’ She waggled the teacup to demonstrate, set the cup on the tray and collapsed back again, two patches of pink colouring her cheekbones. The room was like a furnace.
‘Do you need a doctor, Mrs Sinclair?’
He caught her off guard, and she felt herself spinning, unable to produce an appropriate response. ‘Did you tell me the purpose of your visit?’
He took a sip of tea, watching her over the rim of his china cup, then tilted his head towards the sea. ‘Captain Sinclair sent me to fetch you. He says he needs you in the packing shed.’
‘Can’t get up.’ She threw her hands in the air and let them flop down in her lap, and then she slowly slid off her seat until she lay flat on the floorboards. She closed her eyes.
There was silence for a while but it felt a lot cooler, stretched out on the hard naked wood. Hot air rises, Maisie. Any fool knows that.
‘Go away,’ she muttered. She wanted to be free of her mother.
A warm hand shook her arm. ‘Excuse me, Mrs Sinclair. I didn’t hear what you said. What should I tell Captain Sinclair?’
She opened her eyes and stared into his, her voice low and firm. ‘Tell him I’m busy.’
The day was pale grey at the start, already an oven and buzzing with insects. It was business as usual in Buccaneer Bay.