A Tattooed Heart

by Deborah Challinor

  ‘Any advance on eighty pounds?’ Nothing. Mr Dickson let the silence stretch out, then said, ‘I’ll take two-fifty.’

  A hand went up.

  You bastard! Matthew tried not to glare at the bidder.

  ‘Eighty-two pounds and fifty! Do I hear eighty-five?’

  ‘Ninety!’ Matthew shouted. ‘Ninety pounds!’

  Everyone turned to stare at him.

  James said, ‘Er . . .’

  ‘Ninety. Any advance on ninety?’ Mr Dickson called. Nothing. ‘Do I hear ninety-two fifty?’ Still nothing. ‘Ninety-one?’

  Will you shut the fuck up? Matthew thought desperately.

  Still nothing.

  Mr Dickson lifted his gavel so slowly it seemed barely to move. It hung suspended in the air. ‘Going once. Going . . . twice. Ninety-one, anyone? No? Going . . . three times.’ Bang went the gavel. ‘Sold! Congratulations, young sir. A fine investment.’

  Matthew felt like he might faint but didn’t actually have time or the space to do it because suddenly he was surrounded: James clapping him on the back, Harrie kissing his cheek, Charlotte squealing with excitement, Friday hanging around his neck, whooping and breathing gin in his face, and Aria shaking his hand. His first home — he’d just bought his first home. His mother would be pleased when he wrote and told her, and he knew exactly what she’d say: ‘Now all you need is a nice wife to put in it, dear.’ And she would be right.

  He couldn’t wait to show the cottage to Lucy.

  While Matthew was buying his house, Robbie was sitting on the low stone wall outside his own new home on Hunter Street throwing stones at a pair of crows and wondering if he’d made the biggest mistake of his life coming to New South Wales, though it was pretty bloody good seeing Harrie again. Being a convict was obviously working out well for her. If he’d known life was this easy here, he might have got the girls transported ages ago.

  Sophie and Anna liked it here, but he didn’t. Not really. He missed his mates, and his job on the barrows at Covent Garden, and all the rackets he’d had going there. He just missed, well, London. It was so big and noisy and busy, whereas Sydney was a poxy little town. He’d been someone in London. Here, he was forever hanging about, doing bugger all because nothing ever happened.

  Walter was a decent cove, and so was Jimmy Johnson, but even though Walter’d come out of hiding — and why he’d had his head down at Matthew’s crib in the first place, who the bloody hell knew? — he was spending all his time with that old bastard Leo, and Jimmy was always shovelling horse shit, so neither was free to lark about. As for Lucy, she was all right, but he didn’t want to learn to read and write. He didn’t need to. He was already smart without having to know what was inside books, or how to write a letter. He’d made nearly all the money that had kept them going in London. He’d done the deals that had kept a roof over their heads and got Sophie that sewing job, and he’d looked out for her and Anna so neither of them’d had to go on the streets. What good would books be to him?

  He threw another stone and hit one of the crows right on the head. It squawked and they both flapped off in a huff.

  What Harrie saw in James Downey, though, he didn’t have the faintest. Yes, he had pots of money, but Harrie wasn’t like that. She didn’t care about money and fancy houses and carriages — she never had. Downey was old and a stick in the mud, with endless stupid rules. No swearing, no smoking in the house, no drinking, do your lessons, go to bed by eleven. Anyone would think he was a child! Well, he wasn’t. He was bloody well twelve years old, pretty well a man, and he’d been doing a man’s job keeping his family together ever since Harrie had gone and his mother had died. No one was going to tell him what to do, especially not some cove he didn’t even know, just because his sister had married him. Bugger that.

  And what really got up his nose was Downey pretending he actually gave a toss about him, because obviously he didn’t. Why would he? Sometimes when he, Robbie, was out on the verandah with his pipe, Downey would sit down next to him — but not too close — and talk to him. He’d ask him how he was getting on, and what things he was interested in (spreading the broads, playing shove ha’penny, making money — especially making money — and doing the odd bit of burglary, but he definitely wasn’t admitting to any of that) and how was he finding Sydney, and he never knew how to answer.

  And then Downey would always say something like, ‘You know, Robbie, you don’t have to worry about Sophie and Anna any more. Harrie and I can take care of them now,’ and it annoyed the shit out of him. He wanted to worry about Sophie and Anna. It was his job.

  The crows were back, scuffling away at something in a pile of leaf litter under a bush. He selected a few more stones. They made good marks, crows, because they were cunning enough to dodge occasionally. Not like pigeons; they just stood there, then fell over if you got them a really good one.

  ‘Morning, son.’

  Squinting into the sun, he looked up. A man leant on the gate, his hands in his pockets, battered hat pulled down low.

  ‘Who the hell are you?’ Robbie asked.

  ‘Acquaintance of your sister’s. She home?’

  ‘Harrie?’

  The man nodded.

  ‘Gone out.’

  ‘Just you in, then? Robbie, isn’t it?’

  Robbie still couldn’t see the man’s face, so he stood up and moved back, so he wasn’t looking directly into the sun. He wondered if the cove had stood there on purpose. And how did he know his name?

  ‘Why?’ he said, to give the man’s black silhouette time to fade from his vision.

  ‘Just wondering. D’you know when she’ll be back?’

  ‘No.’

  The man sat on the stone wall and took out his pipe fixings. ‘Have a seat, son. Take the weight off.’

  Cheeky bastard, Robbie thought, this is my wall. I’ll do the inviting, not you.

  But he sat down anyway.

  ‘I know your stepfather, too.’

  Robbie stared at him. ‘I haven’t got a stepfather.’

  ‘James Downey.’

  ‘He’s not me stepfather. He’s me brother-in-law.’

  The man stared back. He was a hard-looking cove. Dark narrowed eyes, a nose you could sharpen a blade on, and a couple of days’ worth of stubble. Not someone he thought either Harrie or James Downey would particularly want to know.

  The man laughed. ‘I suppose you’re right, if Harrie’s your sister. Anyway,’ he said, tamping tobacco into his pipe, ‘it were you I wanted to talk to.’ Raising the pipe to his mouth, lighting the tobacco and drawing hard, he regarded Robbie thoughtfully. ‘You don’t like him, do you, James Downey?’

  ‘I’m not saying another bloody word till you tell me your name.’

  ‘Me name?’ The cove waved his pipe hand dismissively. ‘Names don’t matter.’

  ‘They do. What is it?’ Robbie demanded, trying to sound braver than he felt. He didn’t like this man and his shifty manner, and Christ knew he was used to dealing with shifty types.

  The cove leant forwards. ‘Look, if we can come to an agreement, and I think we can, then I’ll tell you. How’s that?’

  ‘An agreement about what?’

  ‘Me daughter.’

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘That kiddie your sister’s toting about night and day’s me daughter, and I want her back.’

  ‘Charlotte?’ Robbie was shocked.

  The cove nodded. ‘The love of me life, that little girl is.’

  ‘No, that’s not right.’ Robbie was adamant: Harrie didn’t tell lies. ‘Harrie knew her mother but she died so Harrie adopted her from the orphanage. She hasn’t got a mother or a father.’

  ‘That’s as may be, son, but you know how these things work. Every kiddie has a father, and I’m Charlotte’s. I were never consulted, and every time I’ve tried to get her back James Downey’s denied me. Easy for him, with all his money and influence.’

  Even more shocked, Robbie couldn’t remember Harrie saying anythi
ng about any of that.

  ‘I’ve spent two years trying to reclaim me own flesh and blood,’ the cove went on. ‘This is me last chance.’

  ‘What is?’

  ‘You are, son. You’re me last chance. All I’m asking you to do is bring the little girl out here by the gate on Sunday at, shall we say, five o’clock in the afternoon? I’ll be here to collect her and then we’ll be gone.’

  ‘Why Sunday? And why five o’clock?’

  ‘Because that’s when it suits me. You do that and we’ll all come out on top. I’ll have me daughter back, she’ll be with her natural and rightful father, and you’ll have twenty quid in your pocket. Think of that, son.’

  Twenty quid! Shit! For a moment Robbie gawped at the man, then, disconcerted by the cove’s steady gaze — it was as though he could see right into Robbie’s head — he turned away and looked instead at the crows still pecking industriously away in the dirt. Twenty pounds was a hell of a lot of money.

  Harrie swept into the kitchen, Charlotte in her arms, grinning her head off.

  ‘House!’ Charlotte crowed. ‘Maffew got a house!’

  ‘He did?’ Daisy glanced up from the fire. ‘Oh, I’m so pleased.’

  ‘Not exactly at a bargain price,’ Harrie said, ‘but not too bad. He’s very pleased with himself. Where are the girls?’

  ‘Sophie’s upstairs practising her writing and Anna and Angus are helping Elsa hang out the washing.’

  Elsa was the new housemaid. A seventeen-year-old convict transported for stealing a fish from a pond, she was pleasant-natured and pathetically grateful to have been bonded into a decent household, so therefore more than happy to take orders from Daisy, two years younger than her.

  ‘And Mr Mopey-Britches?’

  Daisy giggled. ‘I don’t know. Outside, I think.’

  Harrie put Charlotte down and she shot outside to look for Anna just as Mr Mopey-Britches himself appeared.

  ‘There you are,’ Harrie said. ‘What have you been up to?’

  ‘Mucking about.’

  ‘Well, you can muck about giving madam something to eat. She’s just galloped outside. Can you fetch her, please? And a big glass of lemonade. It was very warm standing around in the sun at that auction.’

  ‘Did Mr Cutler get the house?’

  ‘He did.’

  As Robbie went to find Charlotte, Harrie took the butter from the cool safe and cut a slice of bread, spooned some cold rice pudding into a bowl, and quartered a plum. She sampled a piece and made a face — not exactly sweet. It was a bit early for good plums, but Charlotte might eat it.

  She carried the highchair through from the dining room and Robbie wedged Charlotte into it, with considerable difficulty as she’d decided, at the age of two and a half, that she was too grown up to sit in a highchair.

  ‘Harrie?’

  ‘Mmm?’

  ‘Who’s Charlotte’s father?’

  For a hideous few seconds Harrie thought she might faint. Her head down, she rested her palms on the kitchen table until the dizziness passed. When it had she glanced pointedly at Daisy, who lifted the pot of soup she was stirring off the flame and said, ‘I think I’ll just go and make sure Elsa’s hanging those smalls up right.’

  When she’d gone, Harrie asked, ‘Why?’

  ‘Just wondered.’

  Silence for several seconds, broken only by the juicy splat of Charlotte’s spoon hitting her rice pudding with some force.

  ‘Robbie? What’s this about?’

  He sat on a chair, slouching so that his bum was barely on the seat. ‘I was just wondering why you, you know, adopted her.’

  Sitting down herself, Harrie took the spoon off Charlotte, scooped up a little rice pudding and aimed it at her mouth.

  ‘No! Feed myself!’

  ‘Oh, suit yourself.’ Harrie returned the spoon to Charlotte. Splat! ‘When we started off in Newgate there were four of us: me, Friday, Sarah and Charlotte’s mother, Rachel. She was only fifteen when we first met her, and so very pretty. Really lovely. She was a funny mix of cunning and gulpy and, I think when I look back, maybe a little bit mad. And I should know.’ She smiled. ‘You should have seen her play the broads, Robbie. She was so good at it. And all she wanted out of life was nice things, and to see her, er, lover again.’

  ‘You’re going red.’

  ‘Yes, well, you are only twelve.’

  Robbie made a rude noise. ‘I do know about fucking and that! Did she steal something?’

  ‘No, she didn’t. Well, she did,’ Harrie said, remembering the landlady’s ring, ‘but she wasn’t transported for that. According to her, she was falsely accused of pawning bed linen from a boarding house after her lover abandoned her. Well, that’s what she told us. We’ve always wondered if there ever really was a lover. Anyway, we grew very close, the four of us. We made a . . . pact, really, to always look out for one another.’ She picked up a cloth and wiped rice pudding off Charlotte’s chin. ‘On the ship out, something terrible happened. Rachel was attacked, and the result of that was . . .’ Harrie stopped, a hard, burning lump closing her throat.

  ‘She got knapped?’

  Swallowing, Harrie nodded. ‘She got knapped, and badly hurt.’

  ‘A sailor?’

  ‘No, a passenger. A swell.’

  Robbie spat. ‘What an arsehole.’

  ‘Don’t do that! You’re not in Covent Garden now!’

  ‘Sorry.’ Then Robbie frowned. ‘A swell?’

  ‘Yes. She had Charlotte in the Female Factory, but she died giving birth.’ Harrie hesitated, then added, ‘She had a disease in her brain that had been there a long time. The strain was too much for her.’

  A piece of plum flew across the table. Robbie collected it and put it back on Charlotte’s plate.

  ‘I think I might have met him, though it sounds like he’s changed a bit.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Charlotte’s father.’

  ‘What?’ Harrie was shocked rigid.

  ‘Charlotte’s father. I met him.’

  ‘You can’t have. He’s dead.’

  ‘No, he isn’t.’

  ‘He is. He was murdered a good two years ago.’ I should bloody well know, Harrie thought, her hands starting to shake. ‘Why do you think this man was Charlotte’s father?’

  ‘He said he was.’

  ‘Did he say his name? Where did you see him?’ Harrie could hear her voice rising but couldn’t stop it.

  ‘He didn’t tell me his name. He just said he was Charlotte’s father and he wants her back. He said he’s been trying to get her back for two years but Down— Mr James —’

  Suddenly overwhelmed with dread now because she thought she knew who Robbie had been talking to, Harrie snapped, ‘Will you stop calling him Mr James! He’s your brother-in-law, Robbie, and a very, very decent man. Stop being such a surly, ungrateful little shite!’

  Charlotte started to cry.

  Startled, Robbie corrected himself. ‘He said James had been doing everything to stop him and —’

  ‘What did he look like?’

  ‘I dunno. A bit above average height, thinnish but fit, dark hair, bit of a nose on him, could’ve done with a shave.’

  ‘Oh, no!’ Harrie’s hands crept up towards her ears but she forced them down and clasped them on the table, the knuckles looking like they might burst through the skin.

  ‘What? What’s the matter?’

  Lifting Charlotte out of the highchair and settling her on her knee, Harrie said, ‘His name’s Jonah Leary. He isn’t Charlotte’s father. He thinks I have some information he wants, but I don’t. I don’t. I’ve had trouble with him before.’

  ‘What information?’

  ‘He thinks I know where his brother is, but really, I haven’t got a clue. He’s already threatened Charlotte. I’m terrified he’ll take her and hold her for ransom.’

  Robbie’s face blanched the colour of the abandoned rice pudding. ‘He offered me twenty quid to hand her ove
r.’

  ‘Oh my God. Today?’

  ‘He made the offer today, while you were out at the auction. He said he’ll collect her on Sunday at five o’clock. I’m to leave her at the gate.’

  ‘You won’t though, will you?’

  Robbie shoved his chair back from the table and stood up. ‘Jesus, Harrie.’

  She looked up at his angry, pinched face. ‘Well, I’m not even sure I know you any more, you’ve turned into such a bloody difficult article. And you don’t know Charlotte at all. What do you care about her?’

  ‘You can be a real bloody cow sometimes, Harrie. She’s family, isn’t she? You know what I think about family. Anyway, you love her, that’s plain to see.’ Robbie suddenly couldn’t meet her eye. ‘And I love you. You’re my big sister. If she’s precious to you, she’s precious to me. That’s all there is to it. And she is kind of sweet.’

  ‘I’d die if anything happened to her,’ Harrie said almost to herself, stroking Charlotte’s silver-blonde hair. ‘I’d just die. And so would James. And Friday and Sarah. We promised Rachel we’d look after her. She’ll be so angry.’

  ‘Rachel? The one who’s dead?’

  ‘Yes.’ Harrie caught Robbie looking at her strangely. ‘What?’

  ‘Nothing. Will you go to the police?’

  ‘No. I don’t want them involved.’

  ‘Good. I hate the bastards.’ Robbie went to spit again but stopped himself just in time.

  ‘But I do need to talk to Friday and Sarah.’

  Charlotte, happy again, clapped and said, ‘Friday an’ Sarah! Hooray!’

  ‘Can you run over to Sarah’s and tell her I need to see her tonight? I’ll come to her place at eight. Then go down to the brothel and tell Friday to meet me at Sarah’s. I don’t think she’s working tonight. You’d better check. Oh, and talk to Leo, too. I want him there as well.’

  ‘I don’t think he likes me.’

  ‘It’s not that. He’s just looking out for Walter.’

  Robbie nodded. ‘What about Mr, er, James?’

  ‘What about him?’

  ‘Will he go to Sarah’s too? Does he know about this Leary cove?’

  ‘Of course he knows.’

  ‘And he didn’t have a big conniption about Charlotte being threatened, and want to get the police in and all that?’