A Tattooed Heart

by Deborah Challinor

  ‘Don’t worry,’ Sarah said, her voice a shade more gentle, ‘I doubt we’ll even lose sight of land. And anyway, if you’re sick, I will be, too. We can keep each other company spewing our guts out over the rail.’

  ‘Do you get seasick?’ Friday asked Aria.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Neither does Harrie. Guts like cast iron.’ Friday turned back to Sarah. ‘And I did want to come. ’Course I did.’

  ‘I know,’ Sarah said. ‘I know you did.’

  There was a clang as Pierre slammed something shut in the galley. He poked his head into the mess room. ‘Scones in ten minutes. The butter or the cream?’ He made a vigorous twirling action with his hand. ‘Only the cream, she must be whipped.’

  ‘Oh God,’ Friday muttered at the thought of either.

  ‘Butter,’ Aria ordered imperiously.

  They sat in silence, the ship rocking smoothly from side to side as if she were taking long, regular steps.

  Finally, Harrie asked, ‘What are we going to do when we get there? I mean, where do we even start looking?’

  ‘Leo says not many folk actually live in Newcastle,’ Sarah said. ‘He reckons they all live on farms and in little settlements up the Hunter Valley.’

  ‘How does he know?’ Friday asked.

  ‘He went there once.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘I don’t know, do I? After the penal colony shut down, I think.’

  ‘When was that?’

  Harrie said, ‘James said in 1822.’

  Friday snorted. ‘Ten years ago? It could have changed completely since then.’

  ‘Doesn’t mean Leo went there ten years ago, though, does it?’

  Aria banged her hand sharply on the table. ‘You three are being very boring. Newcastle will be what it is. We will have to wait and see. In any event, we need a plan.’

  ‘Well, go on then, think one up,’ Sarah said sweetly.

  ‘I already have. We will start by going into all of the drinking houses in the town and asking if anyone has seen or heard of this Jonah Leary.’

  ‘What, all of us traipsing into every single pub and asking after him? You don’t think that’ll attract a bit of attention?’

  Aria stabbed Sarah with a rapier-like stare. ‘We will split up. Take a handful of hotels each. Venture out individually. Go on our own. Am I being clear enough for you?’

  Friday liked the sound of that. In a pub you’d definitely have to have a few gins to blend in.

  ‘I don’t want to go into a hotel on my own,’ Harrie said. ‘Especially not in a strange town.’

  ‘Not even for Charlotte?’ Friday asked.

  Sarah said, ‘That’s mean.’

  Friday felt awful. ‘Sorry, love, really, I didn’t mean it to come out like that.’ About to suggest that she and Harrie go round the pubs together, she realised with a jolt of alarm that she wouldn’t be able to get on the jar if Harrie was with her. ‘Look, why don’t you and Sarah go together? That’ll be all right, won’t it?’ she asked the others.

  ‘Why can’t she go with you?’ Sarah said. ‘Or don’t you want her getting in the way of your drinking?’

  Friday glared at her. ‘I won’t be drinking.’

  ‘Yes, you will.’

  ‘No, I won’t.’

  ‘She will not,’ Aria said. ‘She has promised.’

  ‘Really? Then what was clanking in her bag when we came aboard? Ginger beer?’

  ‘Bottles of lemonade. Ivy prepared it for her.’

  The smell of something nice wafted out of the galley.

  ‘She will drink,’ Sarah insisted. ‘She always drinks.’

  Friday couldn’t believe what she was hearing. ‘That’s right, talk about me like I’m not even here.’

  Sarah did. ‘Aria, she’ll drink, get swattled, and end up doing something stupid or not being somewhere she should, and ruin everything. It’s what she always does. You should know that by now.’

  Adamant, Aria shook her head. ‘No, she promised. This is important. This is the life of the little girl. She would not put the little girl at risk just for gin.’ She turned to Friday. ‘Would you?’

  Friday had a sudden stark and very ugly image of herself — like one of those satirist’s drawings you saw in the papers — guzzling piggishly from a bottle while, only feet away, Leary throttled the last, dying breaths out of Charlotte. It was horrible.

  ‘Of course I wouldn’t! Christ almighty! What do you think I am!’ She felt insulted, wounded and . . . woefully full of shit.

  ‘See?’ Aria said. ‘She has promised.’

  ‘Oh, for God’s sake,’ Sarah said wearily. ‘She always bloody well promises. Always.’

  Silence fell around the table. After a few moments no one would look at Friday, not even Aria. It was the last straw. She thought, fuck this, I need a drink, and she got up and went to the tiny berth behind the curtain where she and Aria had dumped their bags, and sat on the narrow bunk, head in her hands.

  Why are they all being so horrible? she grizzled to herself. It isn’t my fault if I need a sip of gin now and then. Who’s it hurting? Their trouble — all of them, Aria, Sarah, Harrie, Mrs H, Leo, the whole bloody lot of them — is that they don’t understand what it’s like to be me. If they’d all just leave me alone, I’d be all right. It’s only because they interfere that things go wrong.

  She reached into her bag and pulled out a bottle, wincing when it banged against another and made a noise loud enough to rival the bells of Bow. She gripped the cork between her teeth, then paused.

  What if she did get drunk?

  She was bloody useless when she was mashed, and she knew it. She started fights or passed out, or made stupid mistakes, or turned up late or not at all, or was too sick to be useful. What if she did just one of those things and they couldn’t get Charlotte back because of it? Or Charlotte was hurt, or — God forbid — killed? Aria wouldn’t want anything to do with her ever again, and Harrie and Sarah certainly bloody well wouldn’t. And what about Rachel — if she was still around? They’d all hate her and she’d be alone for the rest of her life.

  Nearly as bad, she’d hate herself.

  She wasn’t exactly fond of herself now.

  She couldn’t understand it; if everyone else was ruining her life, why was it herself she loathed the most? She should hate the others, but she didn’t. She missed them desperately.

  Opening the porthole above the bunk, she threw the bottle out, sent the other two after it, then burst into tears.

  She sat for a short while, crying for her lovely gin and lemonade now lying on the ocean floor, but mostly for herself. Then she wiped her face on her skirt and went back out into the mess room, her hand clamped firmly against the cabin’s ceiling as the ship rolled unpleasantly.

  ‘Enjoy your tipple?’ Sarah asked.

  Friday sat down. ‘Sarah?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Why don’t you just shut up for a change?’

  Sarah said, ‘You’ve got a cheek. We all know what you’ve just done.’

  ‘You don’t.’

  ‘We do. You’ve just had a drink.’

  ‘I have not.’

  Sarah leant across the table, grabbed Friday’s hair, pulled her close and sniffed her breath. ‘Saving it for later, are you?’

  Harrie said, ‘Don’t be such a cow, Sarah.’

  ‘I’m not. You know what she’s like.’

  Fed up with Sarah and her continual harping, already very much regretting her rash dumping of the gin, and feeling sicker by the minute, Friday shouted, ‘Will you shut the fuck up! I threw it out the window.’

  Sarah marched off into the little room behind the curtain, barrelling into the doorway as the ship rolled. Aria, Harrie and Friday stared at one another, Friday automatically turning red. After a minute Sarah reappeared, sat down, and grinned hugely. ‘Good girl.’

  Aria said, ‘What did I tell you? My woman does not lie. Not when it matters.’

  ‘You said
she only had lemonade,’ Sarah shot back.

  Aria opened her mouth to respond but, fortunately, was interrupted by Pierre appearing with a platter piled high with scones. Setting them on the table he declared, ‘For the mademoiselles, immediately from the galley fire. I will bring the butter and the tea.’

  Keen to divert a clash between Aria and Sarah, Friday said, ‘They look as good as yours, Harrie.’

  ‘I bet they aren’t,’ Harrie replied.

  The tea came on a tray with a crock of fresh butter, then Pierre took a plate of scones up on deck, presumably for the crew.

  ‘I feel guilty,’ Harrie said. ‘We’re sitting at their table while they have to eat their food up there in the wind.’

  Sarah snorted. ‘You always feel guilty, but don’t. I’m sure Mrs H is paying the captain plenty for the privilege of us using their table.’

  ‘I know she is,’ Friday said, reaching for a scone. Perhaps food would help her bilious guts.

  Harrie patted her hand. ‘I’m proud of you. I really am. Thank you. I know you’re doing your best for Charlotte.’

  Friday felt her face growing warm again. Hardly anyone complimented her any more, except Aria, and even her praise had tapered off lately. She dug a knife into the butter and spread a slab of it across half a scone, where it sat for a moment before melting and running in oily rivulets onto the tin plate. Suddenly feeling quite violently sick, she pushed it away and bit into the unbuttered half instead. It was delicious (and actually better than Harrie’s), but as she watched the lantern hanging from the ceiling swing from side to side, she couldn’t get the mouthful to go down her throat.

  She spat it onto her plate just as Pierre trotted down the steps.

  ‘She is no good, the scone?’

  ‘It’s very nice, ta,’ Friday replied. ‘Just feeling a bit . . .’ She blew out her cheeks and made a vomiting face.

  ‘La mal de mer? Already? Pierre will give you special potion. Secret Cajun herbs steeped in brandy. Never fail.’

  ‘No!’ Sarah, Harrie and Aria shouted in unison.

  ‘Friday isn’t having drink. Can you make it without the brandy?’ Harrie asked. ‘Will it still work?’

  ‘Mmm.’ Pierre cupped an elbow in a hand and tapped his top lip with his fingers. ‘Perhaps with just the petit ale? Let me see.’ He scuttled off.

  ‘Try and eat your scone,’ Harrie suggested to Friday. ‘Then if you are sick, you’ll have something to bring up.’

  ‘Other than my arsehole?’ Friday said gloomily.

  Sarah grinned, but Aria absolutely let rip with her dirty laugh. ‘That is a good one! I have not heard that before!’

  ‘It’s not funny, you know,’ Friday muttered. ‘I get really sick at sea.’

  ‘She does,’ Harrie confirmed. ‘We thought she was going to die on the convict ship.’

  ‘You should go up on deck,’ Aria suggested. ‘The fresh air will make you feel better.’

  ‘No, it won’t.’ Friday shuddered. ‘The sight of the horizon going up and down all the time . . .’

  Aria said, ‘I do not think we are even out of the harbour yet, are we? I will go and look.’

  She disappeared up the cabin steps, a buttered scone in one hand, her skirts bunched in the other. A minute or so later there was a lot of rather aggressive-sounding shouting in Maori. Aria reappeared, looking highly annoyed.

  ‘That Te Kanene needs to be taught a lesson. What a shit.’

  Alarmed, Friday asked, ‘Why?’

  ‘He told me to get below as though I am some sort of . . . commoner! Does he not know who I am? He will be sorry. Rude bloody Ngati Kahungunu.’

  ‘Where’s your scone?’ Sarah asked.

  ‘Stuck to the back of Te Kanene’s ugly head.’

  ‘Are we out of the harbour?’

  ‘We have just crossed the Heads and we are heading north.’

  ‘Oh God,’ Friday groaned, setting her arms on the table and laying down her head.

  ‘Do not despair!’ Pierre implored, placing a tumbler of dark, viscous liquid before her. ‘Drink this, you will see.’

  Friday sat up and sniffed it. The drink looked, and smelt, like shit. ‘God almighty!’

  Pierre shrugged. ‘That is why the brandy. Hold the nose.’

  With her thumb and forefinger clamping her beak shut, Friday took a gulp, gagged, retched and coughed the mouthful back up all over the table. ‘For fuck’s sake, it’s disgusting.’

  Pierre tutted. ‘Such flowery language. Try again. For Pierre. She will work, I promise. On the count of three: un, deux, trois.’

  Friday drank almost all of it, gagged again, clapped a hand over her mouth, sat very still for about thirty seconds while her eyes watered, then let out a gargantuan burp.

  Patting her on the back, Pierre said, ‘Très bon!’

  Friday said, ‘It had better bloody work. That was like swallowing someone else’s spew.’

  ‘Charming,’ Sarah said.

  ‘You bloody well try it.’ Friday pushed the tumbler across.

  ‘No, thanks.’

  Friday looked at Pierre. ‘How long will it take?’

  ‘To work? Oh, the potion she works quickly.’

  The potion did work quickly. Friday felt better in about half an hour. She stopped feeling sick and, to her absolute shock, even realised at one point that she’d also stopped fretting about the bottles left behind on the seabed. It was a pity that Pierre’s disgusting drink couldn’t combat boredom, however, because that set in with a vengeance. They ate his admittedly very tasty food, played cards, dominoes and cribbage, made unnecessary trips to the head, and talked about what they would do to Jonah Leary when they caught up with him, but after five hours of being stuck below, they’d had enough. It was like being on the Isla again. Nowhere near as unpleasant, of course, but the restrictions on their freedom were the same. And, frankly — and ironically, as Friday, Harrie and Sarah were still all bonded convicts — they’d become very accustomed to their freedom.

  At half past five, Sarah went above deck and told Captain Farrell she thought it unreasonable that she and her colleagues were being forced to stay below, and that they would all be coming up for a while for fresh air. Captain Farrell informed Sarah that the Katipo was his ship, that they would abide by his rules, and if they chose not to, he would sail to shore, lower a rowboat and leave them on a beach.

  ‘What a tosser,’ Friday said when Sarah went below again.

  Sarah said, ‘We could mutiny.’

  ‘Shush,’ Harrie urged, wincing. ‘Pierre’s in the galley again.’

  ‘We are not the crew,’ Aria pointed out. ‘Only a crew can mutiny.’

  ‘No,’ Sarah said. ‘I think anyone can.’

  ‘Is that so?’ Aria looked thoughtful.

  Friday made a face. ‘Don’t fancy our chances. Did you see the size of that black cove?’ Not to mention the Red Indian and the New Zealander. She didn’t like the look of the English tar, either. Bloody nasty piece of work.

  ‘Speak for yourself,’ Aria said. ‘Brawn does not always win the battle.’

  ‘Oh, stop it, all of you. We’re not going to mutiny.’

  They all turned to stare at Harrie. She looked close to tears.

  ‘We’ll be there in three or so hours. Just grow up and behave. Do you want to ruin everything? Well, do you?’

  ‘Mademoiselles!’ Pierre called from the galley. ‘I have the job for you!’ He appeared a moment later with a platter containing about three dozen smooth white cakes the size of small, upside-down tea cups. At least, Friday thought they were cakes. ‘I will teach you the decorating!’

  Scowling, she said, ‘What?’

  ‘I am le chef and le patissier. I will show you how to make the flowers.’

  Friday glanced at the others, then back at Pierre. ‘I don’t want to decorate bloody cakes.’

  ‘You are bored, oui?’

  Sarah said, ‘Christ, yes.’

  ‘Then shut up and listen to Pi
erre.’ He disappeared back into the galley, returning with several bowls filled with coloured paste. ‘On the cakes already I have put the marzipan and then the fondant. Now we make the pastillage flowers, or people, or horses, or whatever is desired.’

  ‘Horses?’

  ‘Oui, I like horses. But we must work fast, the pastillage she will dry out very quick.’

  He showed them what to do, then left them alone to work while he prepared the evening meal. After some strange initial efforts, everyone made something to go on the cakes, though Friday ate most of her pastillage, a mixture of powdered sugar, gelatine and cornstarch — despite warnings from Pierre that she might not shit for a week. Harrie crafted some very beautiful flowers and a couple of little bats, Sarah made miniature jewellery, and Aria, with unexpected skill, fashioned tiny sets of weapons — taiaha, mere and patu. Friday’s effort was six or seven half-moons. She’d never been any good at crafts.

  Pierre came to look, and said he’d never seen finer sugar craft anywhere.

  ‘Will it last, at sea?’ Harrie asked.

  ‘Non, but neither will the cakes. The crew they will eat them up.’

  He trotted up the steps and Friday looked at her watch. ‘Bloody hell! It’s after eight!’

  They all rushed into the little berths and peered out the portholes. Nothing. It was almost totally dark outside, just a faint flicker of moonlight peeping out from heavy cloud cover.

  Harrie said, ‘Are we looking the wrong way?’

  ‘Dunno,’ Friday replied. ‘Try the other side.’

  Halfway across the mess room, Captain Farrell ordered, ‘Stop thumping about like that. You’ll capsize my ship.’ He stood on the steps, his head ducked, scowling down at them. ‘Sit down, please. I want to talk to you.’

  They sat. He joined them, perching on the end of a bench and taking off his hat.

  ‘Are we there yet?’ Friday asked.

  ‘We’re standing off just out from the mouth of the Hunter River and about to weigh anchor. The channel in is narrow and shallow, and I’d prefer to do it in daylight.’

  ‘But we need to get there tonight,’ Harrie protested.

  ‘How far can you swim?’

  Harrie looked at him. ‘You’re not a very nice man, are you?’