The Pearler's Wife

by Roxane Dhand

  Pammie pulled the letter from her pocket and held it out. ‘It doesn’t say.’

  She stared at the sheet paper and for a second was mute. An image of her father – respected upholder of the laws of England – burned like a judgement in her mind. ‘What did Paul do with the baby? Where did he take him?’ she said.

  Pammie looked up at her face. ‘He was too frightened to write it down, but he says he told Maitland.’

  It was not hard to imagine the rest. ‘So, Maitland demanded money from my father to not expose him?’

  ‘Yes, I think that must be about it,’ Pammie said.

  Maisie’s mind chattered on, joining up the desperate dots, completing the monstrous picture. ‘And Maitland said he would tell my mother where her son was if she handed me over with a nice fat dowry, a regular monthly income and enough china to sink a ship.’

  She thought back to her conversation with her father before she boarded the SS Oceanic to Australia.

  Why am I being sent away, Father?

  It’s your mother’s wish. And my own.

  Paul’s letter fluttered from her fingers. ‘My parents agreed to Maitland’s demands and I was the trade-off. I see now that being their daughter for nineteen years counted for absolutely nothing. My position in their affections was never secure. The truth is, Pammie, I was sacrificed by them both; by my father to keep his secret and by my mother to find her son.’

  CHAPTER 27

  COOP HAD BEEN DITHERING for days, wondering how long to wait before he called on her. The crew was badgering him. Delay cost money, they said. The cyclone had blown through and they had to know what was happening with their jobs now the boss was dead. Given the circumstances, though, he couldn’t just barge in and demand answers. The cable office was picking up news that the Atticus had gone missing, somewhere this side of Port Fremantle. It gave him the excuse he’d been looking for.

  He pulled open the screen door and knocked on the lintel. Maisie was sitting on the verandah, silhouetted against the wall like a paper doll. She raised her blue eyes and, as always when she saw him, swatted at her hair. The familiar gesture twisted his heart so tight his chest hurt.

  ‘Coop, the very person! I was just thinking about you and the crew.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Do you know about dummying?’

  ‘Of course. Why?’

  ‘How quickly could you fix up the Clancy?’ she said. ‘It’s the only way I can get you all out to sea and diving again. I can lay my hands on the money to do her up, but the bank says I can’t trade until Maitland’s affairs are settled. The indentured crew’s permits are attached to the lugger and only whites can hold the permits, so …’ She paused. ‘If you take on the boat, you can continue to dive, with me as the silent backer.’

  ‘You’ve been busy.’

  ‘You said you came to make money. I’m trying to at least make that work for you. Maitland owed you that.’

  He felt a frisson of foreboding. ‘What are your plans now?’

  ‘I don’t know what I’m going to do. I have personal business in England to attend to – business that I don’t believe can be dealt with through letter or cable. I’m thinking about going home.’

  ‘Can you delay?’

  She shook her head. ‘Let’s walk along the cliff. I fancy taking a look at the ocean.’

  He guided her through the storm-ravaged garden, his left hand a gentle rudder at her back. From the coastal path, they saw that the water was high, still angry after the blow. The jetty stuck out to sea, an undulating wooden carpet on its rickety stilts, and Coop marvelled at how it was still standing.

  There was a bench halfway along the path; no-one knew why it was there. They sat on it and gazed out to sea.

  ‘There’s talk in town that the Atticus has gone missing, Maisie. That’s what I came to tell you. I didn’t know if you’d heard.’

  She twisted to look at him. ‘That’s not possible. It’s supposed to be unsinkable!’ Tears welled in her eyes. ‘The mayor and Dorothea were on board. The silly thing told her father that you two were engaged. He was planning to take her to Europe, to get her away from here.’ She slumped forward, head cradled in her hands, and sobbed. ‘My dear friend Jane was on board too. On a meaningless errand. If she is dead, it will be my fault. I may as well have made her walk the plank.’

  Coop put his arm around her shoulders and handed her his handkerchief. ‘Missing doesn’t necessarily mean she’s dead.’

  She shook her head and blew her nose. ‘They said that about Captain Oates and that was proven to be a lie.’ She turned and looked him in the eye. ‘I have to get away from here, Coop. Buccaneer Bay is not my home and now Maitland has gone I have no need to be here. I need distance and time away so I can think about what I’m going to do.’

  Coop saw the look in her bloodshot eyes, and the certainty that she would leave him made him frantic. His heart was battering so hard he could barely get out the words. ‘There’s always hope, Maisie. Your friend could have got off the ship.’

  ‘It’s a consoling notion, but not very likely.’

  They remained on the bench for a long time, sitting close and watching the sea. A pair of sea eagles hung in the air, circling, diving, their claws stretched out to land.

  Her silence made him uneasy. He moved a little closer to her and regretted that he hadn’t changed his clothes. He’d been wearing the same things for days.

  She was looking where one of the buttons on his shirt was missing and he realised that his skin was visible where the fabric gaped open. She put her fingers against the cloth, pressing down, closing the space. ‘You’re not very good with buttons, are you? You almost lost one at the Welcome Dance. I wanted to sew it tight, so it would be safe.’

  He covered her hand with his own. It felt warm and soft, as fragile as a small bird in his palm.

  ‘What’s really wrong?’ he said, gently.

  ‘Secrets I can’t tell. Things that are not mine to share.’

  ‘We all have things we keep hidden, Maisie.’

  She disentangled her fingers. ‘Like you not being able to read?’

  He pulled back sharply, waiting for the shaking in his chest to subside. ‘How long have you known?’

  ‘Since the time on the Hornet when I asked you to hand out the crew’s mail. A letter on the top of the pile was for JB. You didn’t recognise his name.’

  ‘I should have told you but I was scared … scared you would think less of me.’

  She put a hand on his arm and gave it a squeeze. ‘I would never think less of you, Coop. You are one of the most noble and generous-hearted people I know, but I have to go home.’

  He saw the tightening of her fingers. ‘What is it that you’re not telling me?’

  ‘I can’t say, I’m sorry. You would despise me if I did, and I couldn’t bear that from you.’

  He raked his hands through his hair, sudden tears burning his eyes. ‘Whatever it is, I could never hate you, Maisie. I can’t imagine anyone ever hating you. I’d love you forever if you would only let me.’

  She shut her eyes and hung her head. ‘The water’s too rough.’

  He was floundering, battling with the sides of his mouth, forcing himself not to cry. His voice felt scratchy in his throat. ‘When you’re at sea, you can’t change the way the wind blows. You have to adjust the sails.’

  She hesitated a little, her voice distant. ‘I have to make a future for myself, but right at the moment I can’t see what that might be. It’s as though my sails are flapping and I’m not sure which way the wind will blow me.’

  He clasped her to him, wishing the tide would turn and take them both with it, but her hands were on his chest, pushing him away.

  ‘You’ve lost interest in the sinking ship, haven’t you?’

  ‘No, Coop, I haven’t, but with Maitland gone and his business mortgaged to the hilt and now Jane missing, I can’t think how I’m going to manage on my own.’

  He took her face bet
ween his hands and pressed it gently, kissing a different part of it as he spoke each word. ‘You don’t have to, Maisie.’

  CHAPTER 28

  COOP’S NEWS ABOUT THE Atticus brought Maisie into town.

  She stood on the jetty where the vast ship had berthed. The cyclone had blown through but the sea was as wild as she had ever seen it. White-topped waves blurred with the low grey clouds, and the horizon had disappeared. The storm had blown along the mangrove-lined shores and twisted its way through the jumble of buildings in Asia Place, felling the least robust like skittles and relieving the courthouse of its roof.

  She’d seen the ship from the post office over a week ago, as tall as a mountain. How could it be that it had gone missing? It was as ridiculous as saying Big Ben had been lost.

  It was the Chinese who began the whispers. They had intuition in these matters, Duc said. They could sense the truth as accurately as sniff the air for rain.

  The Atticus was safe and sheltering at Gantry Creek, riding out the storm till the weather had cleared. Or, she had met with a mishap to her propeller or suffered minor disablement. Either way, it was good news. They’d hear from her soon enough. A few days here or there was nothing on the north-west coast.

  As Blair Montague was on board, the resident magistrate appointed himself stand-in mayor. The Atticus had suffered minor disablement, he said, as a result of the vessel pitching about in high seas. That was the reason they’d not heard.

  It was seized upon as the perfect explanation and kept spirits high throughout the morning. Mrs Brightlight, he said, would post up any news, as soon as there was anything to tell.

  Mrs Brightlight’s post office was crowded out. Noon-time came and went.

  By mid-afternoon, the waiting crowd turned fractious as anxiety gained momentum. Didn’t the Atticus have Marconi wireless apparatus? If so, why had no message been received to put everyone’s mind at rest? It was days since she’d sailed. Arguments broke out. Somebody must know something.

  Mrs Brightlight shooed the residents outside to wait. As soon as she had news, she said, she would let them know. In the meantime, why not trot over to the cable station? They might know something more.

  At the cable station, Wayne Ramsey explained that the wires were down. That was why there was no news. It might take a day, he said, now they knew where the problem lay, before the men they’d sent out could rejoin the wire. He jiggled the key to prove his point. There was nothing there. But he would keep trying the Atticus call sign and as soon as he heard the merest crackle he would let Mrs Brightlight know. Early days, though. No need to panic.

  Late in the afternoon Mrs Brightlight laid bare the grim news, writing the words in capital letters on a black-bordered page she kept for divers’ death notices. She hung it on the board outside.

  THE ATTICUS. MISSING FOR A DAY AND STILL NO NEWS.

  In the Seafarer’s bar that night, the harbour master had his say. ‘I told the captain about the falling barometer and the heavy seas, and he said it had been dropping for three days but not sharply enough to cause any concern and he was going straight out to sea. He’d already missed the morning tide, he said, and wasn’t prepared to delay a full day. He wasn’t going to wait for the evening tide or see what the weather was doing. Wind is wind, he said, and the Attitcus was powerful enough to sail through the squalliest of squalls.

  ‘I told him that wind needs respecting but he repeated the ship could sail through anything. Out-manoeuvre it, I think he said, and there were watertight doors between every section of the ship. Even if it took on water, it simply could not sink. I said he was talking like a man who knew nothing of the north-west, and he said he knew better than me.

  ‘He wasn’t even the regular captain and didn’t know the waters round here. He was standing in for Captain Stovell, who’s on leave down south.’

  Sometime the next morning, a wire came through from Gantry Creek. The Atticus was not sheltering there but a steamer had been reported heading towards Port Fremantle. It was most likely that the Atticus radio antenna was damaged in the cyclone, but all was well. The vessel was unsinkable. The Steamship Company said so.

  Mrs Brightlight wrote out a new notice and hung it on her board.

  DAY TWO. THE ATTICUS. EN ROUTE TO PORT FREMANTLE?

  Coop was not so certain. She had not been heavily laden, he said, and was riding too high on the water. It was more likely that the Atticus had been overwhelmed by the cyclone and capsized. He wanted Maisie to be prepared.

  Maisie shut herself in the house and stared through the lattice, willing the Atticus back to shore.

  The resident magistrate sent a cable to the Premier in Perth, demanding a full-scale search. There were prominent Bay citizens on board. What was he proposing to do to help? Every steamer within five hundred miles should be drafted in.

  The search went on for days.

  By the morning of the tenth day, optimism began to fade. The first artefact of disaster – a cabin door painted white on one side and polished on the other, still hinged to its broken stile – had washed up on shore. No-one doubted its provenance or that it spoke of a violent separation from the ship. The word Atticus was stencilled above the lock. After the door, other items were found: a leather cushion from the first-class lounge, a billiard cue and the seat of a wicker chair; a lifebelt found its way back to land.

  The finality of their discovery – reported by message at Mrs Brightlight’s hand – left doubt in no-one’s mind.

  DAY TEN: ATTICUS OVERWHELMED AT SEA. LOST WITH ALL HANDS.

  The knitting circle cancelled its weekly meeting ‘out of respect’.

  Doctor Shin lit a candle at the Buddhist temple and drank sake to the lives of those who had perished at sea.

  Bishop MacMahon scheduled a Special Seafarer’s Service and Mrs MacMahon, clad in her funereal black-watch tartan, pumped out ‘Abide with Me’ on the organ.

  Maisie sat in her house and sobbed.

  Jane’s death left a heavy mark on Maisie.

  Whatever secrets Jane had been hoping to discover – the truth about Blair and Maitland – had cost her her life. Both men were dead. Their secrets buried with them. It had all been a pointless waste.

  Day after day Maisie sat motionless on a cane recliner and watched the poinciana leaves flitter across the verandah and settle in fluffy piles at her feet.

  Marjorie leaned on the handle of her broom. ‘You better lift you feet if you want I sweepum up, Missus.’

  Maisie shook her head. ‘What’s the point? More will blow in and then more and then more. What’s the point of anything?’

  ‘Time you snapped out of wotever it is you’s botherin’ ’bout. Bin weeks since dat boat went down. Wot’s done’s done. Ain’t nothin’ you can do to fix it. You’s got commitments.’

  ‘Doctor Shin says I’ve had a nervous collapse.’

  ‘You done bin tol’ me dat before, Missus. Seems like a handy excuse if you don’t mind me sayin’.’ Marjorie pulled a letter from the sagging pocket of her apron and slapped it on the table. ‘Right enuff you’s collapsed on a chair but you ain’t the nervous type. Best cure for you is get yourself washed and brushed. Mrs Wallace is payin’ you a visit.’

  Maisie sat up. ‘Have you been reading my letters?’

  ‘I bin readin’ my own letters, actually. You bin mopin’ ’bout with a face like a fifty-shillin’ racehorse so long Duc and me decided to get our own medcin to fix you up. Mrs Brightlight gived me da address of dat woman you used to write to every week ’fore you gave up your letter-writing habit. Duc’s gone to fetch her in da sulky and I’ve bin put her in da mosquito room where boss fella used to sleep. So, you better get yourself tidy quick smart ’cause she’ll be here ’fore you know it.’

  Maisie listened to Marjorie’s heavy tread on the floorboards and heard a door bang somewhere in the house.

  She made herself get up. Marjorie was right. Since the Atticus went down, her life had become so shapeless, the routine that had o
nce driven her on was now barely familiar.

  When she reached her room, she saw that Marjorie had chosen a clean dress for her to put on and had laid it out on the back of a chair. Her shoes had been newly polished and placed side by side, underneath the cane seat upon which she’d placed a folded handkerchief. She felt her chin begin to wobble. Lost and miserable, she sat down on the bed and for the first time in weeks, allowed the tears to fall.

  On the verandah an hour or so later, Maisie held out a shawl.

  ‘Are you warm enough, Mrs Wallace? It’s been cool here in the evenings for a couple of months. Since the beginning of July, in fact.’

  Mrs Wallace – that comforting, solid presence – had arrived in a whirl of turquoise gingham, and was as forthright in her views as ever.

  She swivelled round in her chair and raised her eyes above the steel rims of her spectacles. ‘This isn’t a scene from a Jane Austen novel, dear, where we talk about the weather and pussyfoot around what’s really wrong with you because you have an over-delicate disposition. So let’s be clear. When exactly did your backbone collapse? Marjorie tells me that you have fallen into a slump and are letting things slip.’

  Maisie saw that the sky was getting dark through the lattice, and her temples had begun to thump. She let the shawl slither to the floor. ‘Since events bent me out of shape.’

  Mrs Wallace scrabbled in her handbag and extracted a hanky. ‘That sounds like self-pitying twaddle to me.’

  ‘It’s too hard here. Everything’s too hard. I’ve had enough of the heat and the flies and Maitland’s debts and deceit. I can’t forgive myself for the fact that I killed the first real friend I’ve ever had and that secrets eventually come out however much you think they are buried. I’m going to sell up when Maitland’s affairs are settled and go back to England. I feel like a trapped bird, Mrs Wallace. The bars of my cage are red desert and sea. The only way in and out is the fortnightly steamer. It’s suffocating me.’