by Roxane Dhand
She leaned across the table. ‘After you have had breakfast, the diving begins?’
JB chattered on, explaining the safety checks and the diving gear.
‘And then the diving begins?’ she repeated.
‘And then the diving begins,’ JB said.
‘I know it might seem a lot of work just to get one man underwater, but JB’s job is about keeping me alive,’ Coop said. ‘He’s on the end of a lifeline that is my only communication with the surface. He interprets my tugs on the rope that I send from the bottom of the ocean. I am really sailing the lugger from the seabed, if that makes sense. He has to stay alert – my life depends on him instantly reacting to my every move.’
‘I also have to time his dives,’ JB continued. ‘You know about the diver’s paralysis, I assume, Mrs Sinclair?’
She nodded, and explained that she had seen some of the afflicted in the Japanese hospital.
‘Divers are generally pretty cautious, but a tempting patch of shell can be distracting,’ JB said. ‘Working at twenty fathoms is safe enough, and I only let Coop stay down for half an hour, but it takes a little bit longer to come up, in timed stages. He usually manages about six descents during a working day.’
She turned to Coop. ‘Is it not very tiring walking against the current on the seabed?’
‘We tend to work in slack water, Mrs Sinclair, but a Japanese diver showed me how to ride the anchor if we are prospecting rather than collecting the shell. We drop the anchor to about five feet off the bottom and sit astride it as the lugger drifts over the beds. When I see shell, I signal to JB, who lets out the anchor and I drop to the bottom and pick it up.’
She nodded, dabbed at her mouth with her napkin and cast it aside. ‘You both must be keen to turn in. Please forgive me for detaining you so long.’
JB scoured his lips with the cloth. He smoothed the pleats with his fist and rolled it into a tight cylinder. He scanned the table uncertainly before poking his linen cigar through the handle of his coffee cup.
‘We’ve had a really good feed, Mrs Sinclair. But you’re right, we’ve an early start tomorrow, so we should get back to the cockroaches and rats.’
Coop closed his eyes and wondered how he would ever ford the chasm of social discordance between them. He balled up his napkin as she had done and pushed back his chair.
‘Thank you, Mrs Sinclair, for a most agreeable evening. It has been very pleasant to dine well, and off china rather than a tin plate.’
JB opened and shut his mouth.
She escorted them to the ladder on deck. ‘It has been a pleasure, gentlemen. Perhaps you would care to repeat the evening next Sunday after the slop chest is closed? Hopefully our numbers will be greater if we can hunt down the rest of your English colleagues.’
With no warning, she leaned forward and kissed both men on the cheek. Right. Left. Peck. Peck. A gesture that seemed to cause all three of them equal astonishment.
Coop had moved a fraction too soon; her lips missed his cheek and bruised the edge of his mouth. Soft, smooth, firm skin, often dreamed of. The muscles round his eyes contracted as physical desire flared through his body. It took every inch of his willpower to step back from her, to push away thoughts of pulling her mouth onto his and kissing her deeply. Cheeks inflamed once more, he turned away, his hands darting in and out of his breast and trouser pockets in search of tobacco. The distraction, the salvation from his distress, was a sharp-edged rectangle prodding his ribcage.
Mrs Sinclair had already stepped back from the physical muddle and was staring out to sea.
‘Forgive me, Mrs Sinclair, I almost forgot. This was among the bundle of letters you asked us to hand out.’
He held out the cream envelope and watched the smile slip from her face as she took in the rigid, scratchy script.
CHAPTER 15
MAISIE STARED AFRESH AT the disciplined handwriting on the cream parchment envelope. She knew it well – even the inky alphabet itself was forbidden to slouch.
In the days since William Cooper had given it to her, her mother’s letter had stayed hidden in her dressing-table drawer, where she had put it under a pile of clothes. It lay there like a rebuke. It was not her name on the envelope, and it had never been meant for her eyes. She took it out and fingered the narrow rectangle, nails picking at the corners, her pulse jumping. What was in there that could not have been addressed to her? The floorboards creaked and Marjorie appeared in the doorway.
‘You want anything, Missus?’
Maisie clutched the letter to her chest. ‘No, thank you, Marjorie. I’m going to have a lie-down in a moment.’
The maid eyed the envelope and tapped her nose with one finger, dislodging her new spectacles to the side. ‘I’m allonga washing room if you want find me.’ She resettled the frame on the bridge of her nose and closed the door.
Maisie found the woman’s timing quite unnerving at times.
She worked her finger under the edges. The heat had dried out the glue, and the triangular seal gave up without a struggle. She pushed her hand into the tissue-lined envelope and pulled out the writing paper. Smoothing back the central fold, trying not to visualise her mother’s blazing countenance, she lay back against the pillows and began to read.
Cousin Maitland,
I trust this letter finds you and my daughter in good health. We are assuming she arrived safely, although a letter from her might have been polite.
I will be brief.
Maisie’s uncle, my brother Marcus, passed away shortly after she left for Australia. It was sudden and unexpected.
Marcus was fond of Maisie – although their paths rarely crossed – and he has marked that affection in his Will.
She knows nothing of the rest of it.
My brother has left her a considerable amount of money and laid down his terms for inheritance very clearly.
He has stipulated that authentic proof of your marriage to his niece Maisie be provided in the form of the original certificate of your marriage, duly signed and dated by both parties and your witnesses. This was always in place – irrespective of whom she married. However, as the named executor of his Will, I add two conditions of my own:
* You are to provide a legally binding document stating that you will no longer pursue Maisie’s father and threaten his political career.
* You will inform me of what happened to my son sixteen years ago, with the details corroborated by a third party.
Yours,
Audrey Porter
P.S. We recently received an extraordinary telegraph from our daughter. Are we to understand that she is now complicit in your dealings?
A breeze slipped through the netting like a gasp and almost blew the letter from her hand. It was nearly dark outside and the mosquitos had started to whine. She had been in her room a long time, the glow from the lighthouse beam tracing an arc across the floor. Maisie pressed the cream writing paper to her face and closed her eyes. Her head was full of words.
Uncle Marcus was dead, and now there appeared to be some mystery about her brother. She tried to remember what she’d heard about him. He had died when she was a baby. Once, when she was of school age, she had tried to ask about him, but her father had cut off her questions and implored her not to talk about it. It makes your mother sad, he’d said. Certainly there had never been any mention of strange circumstances. Why on earth then, years later – in a letter to her husband she was never intended to see – would her mother refer to her son as if his death was never explained? And how and why was Maitland threatening her father’s career when he knew nothing of English law? Confusion and despair pressed upon her.
What childish hope had she clutched at, that there might have been a hopeful message for her in that letter? Her parents hadn’t received a single one of her letters even though Maitland took them from the house each week. Ne cede malis. Yield not to misfortunes. She felt she was standing at the cusp of a cliff side and the only way was down. Hand pressed hard to her mouth,
she stifled the cry.
That Sunday, just after sunset, the sky was a mass of brilliant stars, and the ocean as black as polish. Maisie found herself a place on deck to wait for her dinner guest, and was cooling herself with a small silk fan when William Cooper came up the ladder. She had been watching the long rhythmic strokes that brought the dinghy nearer to the schooner. The week after the mistimed kiss had been an agony, the bungalow even more of a claustrophobic cage and Maitland more of a self-important power-seeking boor. Why had she decided to kiss William Cooper’s cheek when a handshake would have been enough? Everything had screamed at her that it was wrong but she had gone ahead anyway. What on earth must he have thought? And tonight? She had changed her clothes twice and redone her hair until she was satisfied she looked her best, and now she was so nervous her hands had started to shake.
Maisie stood up and went over to greet him. ‘No Mr Butcher this evening?’ Her question was rhetorical. She knew he was alone.
‘JB sends his apologies, Mrs Sinclair.’
She waited for him to go on. ‘Is he unwell?’
Coop chewed his lip. ‘Something he ate, I think.’
‘That’s a great shame. I do hope he is better soon and that it does not compromise your diving for tomorrow.’ You sound stilted, she chided herself, like an inadequate actor in a play.
Coop nodded, his face blank. There was silence as they considered the fact that they would spend an evening alone together.
Below deck, he sat facing her, so close that if he would just stretch out his arm he could touch her. She pushed a dish towards him. ‘Speaking of eating, Mr Cooper, last week you mentioned that you were longing for fresh food, so I have brought you some mangoes from my garden. It’s not much, but it’s the best I could manage.’
He picked up a green-tinged red fruit and rolled it between his palms, his long fingers cradling it like a wounded bird.
‘Thank you. Although I’m not sure what to do with it.’
Why did his voice make her leg muscles feel suddenly weak? She stared at his mouth. His front teeth were crooked. She hadn’t noticed that before, nor that he had a small dimple on his chin. He had reappeared in her life after the long sea voyage, thousands of miles from home, like a mirage in a sandy waste, and she was now terrified that he was not real. What was it about him that tempted her? Other than the fact he was so completely out of bounds? And she was not free.
She leaned across, blue eyes locked on black. ‘You peel it and eat the fruit, Mr Cooper, and then suck the flesh off the flat stone. At least, that’s what I do.’
He ran his knife down the length of the leathery skin, all rubbery like a polished lily pad. ‘I wonder if I might ask a favour, Mrs Sinclair?’ he said, mango juice slithering down his hand.
Maisie reached for a napkin and pushed the square of cloth towards him. Her fingers grazed his, but he did not pull away.
She felt a strange excitement she didn’t understand. ‘What favour might that be, Mr Cooper?’
He ran his tongue over his sun-cracked lips and kept his voice casual. ‘If we are to continue to meet each week for Sunday dinner, might I persuade you to call me Coop?’
She nodded and felt slightly giddy, knowing that what she was about to suggest would unite them in some way. ‘If I might persuade you to call me Maisie.’
‘Maisie,’ he repeated, saying her name out loud for the first time. ‘Now we are on first-name terms, there is a second favour I must ask you.’
‘Yes?’
He looked at her and then looked away and for the briefest second she felt his hesitation. ‘Are you certain? This is fairly significant.’
‘I’m intrigued. I’ll be happy to help if I can.’ She took a breath and when he didn’t immediately continue, she added, ‘Coop.’
‘Do you think you could look through Captain Sinclair’s papers and find out what I signed?’
Over coffee, they talked about their early impressions of life in Australia. Maisie asked him if it was all he expected it to be. He fell quiet for a little while then bent to light his cigarette. He kept his eyes hidden from view.
‘Not yet. But I hope it will be. And you?’
Maisie lifted the hair off the back of her collar and wiped her neck with her hand. She’d started to wear it higher up on her head in a tight knot, yet still it slipped from its pins. She gave them a short-tempered squeeze.
‘I despise the climate.’
He looked at her plainly. ‘You’ve only just got here, Maisie. Getting all hot and bothered about something you can’t alter will just make matters worse. Give it time. It’s bound to get easier.’
They went on deck after that, and he did his best to lift her mood. He flicked his cigarette overboard. ‘Tell me something you remember from England? That you can really hold on to.’
Maisie gazed out towards the sea. ‘My father used to play a game with me when I was little. He used to make me try to catch my shadow.’
‘And you never could.’
‘No. It’s an impossible game but it kept me entertained for hours.’
Coop leaned towards her and she could smell the sea. ‘Do you miss him very much?’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘He’s a fine, upstanding man.’
When he rowed back to his lugger, she lay awake in her bunk, her thoughts ebbing and flowing between her husband and his tall English diver.
On the point of leaving her for another week, he had kissed her cheek; there had been no clumsy mistake on this occasion. It was proper, chaste, but the touch of his mouth on her skin, his dry lips rasping her flesh, had awoken a longing in her she couldn’t deny.
What went on in her head she could generally control, push down, so she could hide from what she was really thinking, but that night she couldn’t fight the tide. To do what Coop requested would put a large question mark against her loyalty. If she were discovered, the repercussions would be unimaginable. Ultimately, however, she knew she wanted to help him. She, too, had her reasons for going through Maitland’s papers.
Maitland stood with arms folded, his weight straining against the lattice of the verandah railing. He was late leaving the bungalow for his lunch in town and was running through his day with Duc, speaking slowly as if dealing with the mentally impaired. Maisie watched them from behind a large oleander tree, a basket of mangoes on her hip. She wished he’d hurry up and leave.
‘There’s another debate at the Pearlers’ Association. I’ll be back at tea time.’
‘Yes, Boss.’
‘How many clean suits are there in my wardrobe?’
‘You gettin’ low, Boss. Mebbe five, ten?’
‘Which?’
‘Mebbe six?’ he stammered.
‘Not good enough!’ He lashed out with the back of his hand, spinning Duc around to face him. ‘It’s time you learned to bloody well count! When’s the steamer due from Singapore?’
Duc’s eyes were bright with fear. ‘Steamer in later today, Boss.’
Maitland stamped his foot. ‘When today?’
Duc held up four trembly fingers. Maisie peered at her husband’s face. He looked excited, like a schoolboy winning a fight. She turned away, sickened.
‘All right. I’ll be back about drinks time. I’ll fetch the stuff off the jetty myself.’
She heard him slam the front door and watched him lumber out of the house, flicking irritably at the shell path with his cane. When she was sure the coast was clear, Maisie went round the back of the house, set down her basket in the kitchen and tiptoed to the room next door. She sat down on Maitland’s sweat-streaked chair. The home office felt different, peaceful, as if he had not yet polluted the air with his poisonous gas.
‘Wot you up to, Missus?’
Maisie shot out of the chair.
‘Marjorie! I almost had a heart attack.’
‘You lookin’ for somethin’ partiklar? Probly I knows where it is.’
‘Marjorie! Have you been spying on Captain Sinclair?’
&
nbsp; ‘I sees stuff,’ she said, and turned her back.
Search discarded, Maisie followed her onto the verandah. Marjorie picked up the conversation, her spectacles magnifying eyes that saw more than they should.
‘When I does the dustin’ sometimes I does practise my readin’ of documents and correspondence for my English advancement.’
Maisie almost laughed. ‘Why haven’t you admitted this before?’
‘Didn’t know it was a crime, readin’.’
‘No, it isn’t, but going through someone’s personal papers most definitely is. That’s why you made me jump. But since you asked, I am particularly looking for Captain Sinclair’s ledgers.’
Marjorie said, ‘Seems like dat might be one rule for me and one rule for you, Missus. Reading wot ain’t meant to be read by some. There’s loads of them fella files. Wot you lookin’ for?’
‘You are right, I am being a hypocrite. I’m looking for paper work about the English diver.’
‘Dat paper’s not here.’
‘Are you sure?’
Marjorie gave her a long look over the new spectacles.
‘I’ll go and search the packing-shed office then. And while I think of it, have you come across my marriage certificate when you have been practising your English advancement?’
‘No, Missus. I never seen dat document; not in dis house.’
Maisie leaned round the packing-shed door. There was no-one there, no faithful employee making careful entries into a ledger, double-checking the shell tallies, or supervising shipments. The shed was silent, yellow bright, clean. The floor was swept bare; brushstrokes stretched long and deep, curved inwards like a lobster’s claw. It was out of character, and made her uneasy.
She drummed her fingers on the battered desktop, the central leg space flanked left and right by twin stacks of drawers. An inexplicable intuition sent her hand to the left, sliding the desk drawers back, one by one. She knew what she was searching for would be here.